Chapter 150: Returning the Courtesy

Watching Tang Wei take the lead and walk toward the inner courtyard, Wanwan tilted her head in thought, hurried after her, and asked, "Tang Wei, shouldn't we keep watch out here? Wouldn't it be bad if someone came by and saw us?"

Tang Wei paused for a moment, then replied with absolute confidence, "No need, I'll keep an eye on things! Let's hurry inside!" Tang Wei hadn't been stumped by Wanwan's question; rather, she had suddenly realized that in this situation, it hadn't even crossed her mind to use her spiritual perception to scan the surrounding environment. She had truly been too careless! She hadn't even checked the situation inside the courtyard first. If someone happened to be busy doing intimate things and three young women just barged right in like that, it would be a miracle if they didn't get styes in their eyes!

Fortunately, the man surnamed Wei was not a lecherous sort. Even at this hour, he was still sparring with someone in the martial training ground. No wonder that with his low-ranking noble status, he had managed to reach the level of a senior martial artist himself. It seemed he was not a fool and understood that in this world, personal strength was the most powerful weapon. It was just that his methods were a bit too ruthless; the people of Mulberry Village had never provoked him in any way, yet he had uprooted them completely. Otherwise, Tang Wei would not have acquiesced so easily to Wanwan exacting a brutal revenge.

As soon as Wanwan stepped into the inner courtyard, before Tang Wei could ask anything, she slipped straight toward the bedchamber of the man surnamed Wei. She even poked a hole through the window paper and peeked inside for a long time, but found nothing at all. There wasn't even a maidservant in the inner chamber. Wanwan thought to herself: Since it's so late, if he's not in his own room, where could he be? Could he be visiting one of his concubines? As an unmarried young woman, however, Wanwan found it difficult to voice such words aloud, so she simply raised her chin and said to Tang Wei, "Tang Wei, that man surnamed Wei isn't in his chamber! What should we do next?"

"He's over at the martial training ground, you guys follow me!" Tang Wei looked amused at Wanwan's conflicted expression, shook her head, and took the lead as she walked toward the training ground.

Among the three women, Sang Ye hadn't said a single word from the beginning to the end. Here, she was only in a position to follow; it was not her place to say anything more. She also possessed self-awareness, knowing that with the few sloppy moves she had only recently started practicing, it would be enough if she didn't drag Tang Wei and Wanwan down—she had no business pointing fingers here. She was already deeply grateful that these people were willing to help her exact revenge.

From far away, the sounds of shouting and sparring drifted from the training ground, accompanied by the occasional thud of bodies hitting the ground. There were neither guards nor maids anywhere around. The three women walked openly into the training ground. Inside, two middle-aged men with bare torsos were engaged in fierce combat, their focus clearly on close-quarters grappling. Both men possessed powerful physiques, and their movements flowed like moving clouds and running water, making for a rather pleasing sight. The one whose attacks were both ruthless and lightning-fast could be guessed as the town mayor surnamed Wei even with one's toes! After all, the other man, though clearly an expert, still held back slightly in his attacks, unable to unleash his full strength—it was glaringly obvious that he was afraid of injuring the mayor surnamed Wei. As for the spectator, Tang Wei had met him once before: it was the young Wei fellow she had encountered in the deep mountains when she first arrived on Green Radish Planet. He was watching the two men exchange blows with rapt attention and had not noticed the shadows of three women flashing past the entrance.

The women watched the interaction openly, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. Encountering a situation like this was at least far better than the scene Tang Wei had imagined; although the men were not wearing shirts, all sensitive areas were fully covered, with no accidental exposure whatsoever—this was the maximum threshold of acceptability for everyone. Hehe! After all, there were still plenty of people working with bare torsos outside anyway. Besides, they were here to kill someone, not to find a husband. There was no need to blush or get hot under the collar over a dead man!

Once the town mayor surnamed Wei had worked up a sweat and finished his session, he took a towel handed to him by young master Wei, wiped his face, and instructed, "Son, this Master Chen has great martial arts skills. You should follow him closely and learn from him in the future. In this world today, everything else is empty talk; your own personal strength is what matters most. As long as your own martial arts are formidable, you will be able to get by no matter where you go. That is far more useful than letting you inherit this tiny mayor's position of mine. If you can become a martial artist, you will never suffer losses." The town mayor was still earnestly instructing his son, unaware that anyone was eavesdropping.

"Yes, Father. I will study martial arts diligently under Master Chen, so you can rest easy!" After speaking, young master Wei respectfully handed another towel to Master Chen.

Mayor Wei nodded with a smile and said, "You brat, I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. In the past, no matter what I said, you refused to practice martial arts. Now that you want to learn, study hard and don't give up halfway!"

"Father, I won't. I will definitely study hard and I won't let you down!" For some unknown reason, young master Wei seemed to have received quite a shock. Even at his age, he had suddenly decided to learn martial arts—truly a strange occurrence.

"Father and son have such a good relationship! It's almost enough to make me shed tears of emotion," Wanwan said suddenly, following Tang Wei's cue.

"Who's there? Who is it?" Hearing the voice, the mayor's face instantly shifted from clear to stormy as he barked angrily in the direction of Wanwan's voice.

"Oh, does the town mayor have the memory of a goldfish? What, have you forgotten me?" Wanwan made a gesture covering her face as she spoke, apparently intending to remind him where the two of them had met.

The mayor narrowed his eyes and stared at Wanwan for a moment. Those large eyes were indeed very familiar, as if he had seen them somewhere before! Yet, seeing them so suddenly, he couldn't recall where. When he saw Wanwan's gesture of covering her face, he remembered immediately: this was the woman who had broken into his inner courtyard that night, exchanged a few blows with him, and then escaped unscathed!

Since he remembered, things were easier to handle. Mayor Wei gave a cold, arrogant smile and said, "Since you've come today, it won't be so easy to leave. You can choose whether you want to stay as my woman or my son's woman—don't say I didn't give you a choice, you can pick either of these two paths!" It was a known fact that Wanwan was beautiful. The old bastard dared to harbor such intentions: not only would he get Wanwan, but the Wei estate would also gain a senior martial artist. It was indeed a brilliant plan of killing two birds with one stone, but for this very reason, Wanwan was not going to spare him.

"You certainly talk big, but the question is whether you can actually keep me here?" Wanwan laughed exaggeratedly, treating the man surnamed Wei completely as a dead man. After witnessing Tang Wei's display earlier, she no longer took the mayor seriously at all. Following Tang Wei's guidance over this period, she was confident that defeating him would be effortless.

"Humph! As the lord of a town, do I need to dirty my hands myself? Master Chen, I'll have to trouble you with this one!" Mayor Wei finished speaking and hurried toward the alarm bell. It was only when he noticed that Master Chen had not reacted at all for a long time that he snapped out of it and turned back to look. He saw that Master Chen and young master Wei were frozen in place, unable to move a muscle. Young master Wei's mouth was opening and closing as if he wanted to report something to him, but no sound came out at all—he had no idea what kind of spell they had fallen under. Glancing to the side, he saw two additional young women standing near them; although their looks were not quite as striking as the first woman's, they could not be ignored. Anyone who could subdue a senior martial artist with a single move was beyond his ability to handle.

"Who are you people?" Mayor Wei finally felt a twinge of lingering fear. Though he asked the question, he slowly edged toward the alarm bell, hoping to summon help quickly so he could escape.

"People here to kill you!" Tang Wei said out of the blue, acting uncharacteristically playful. She found that she was utterly fascinated by this kind of atmosphere; no wonder those assassins liked to exchange a few mocking words before a kill. Watching the look of panic on someone's face felt surprisingly good! It even helped alleviate her own fear of taking lives. She decided this practice was worth advocating and she should try it more often.

Sensing Mayor Wei's intention, Wanwan chimed in with a threat: "I advise you not to make any rash moves. The martial artists outside have already been subdued by us. If you want to die even faster, go ahead and pull that thing. I believe that before any other guards can rush over, my friend has more than enough time to finish you off."

Seeing that his intentions had been exposed, there was no longer any need to keep up the act. Mayor Wei took a bold step forward and tentatively asked, "If the three esteemed experts have any demands, just name them. As long as it is within Wei's power, I will surely assist you with all my might." True to being a seasoned veteran of the jianghu, even in a position of obvious weakness, he was able to maintain such confidence and offer his services to Tang Wei and her companions.

"I think your mind is in the wrong place. With our skills, is there anything we couldn't do ourselves? We wouldn't come all the way here just to coerce you into helping us," Wanwan scoffed.

"Then are you ladies short on silver?" Mayor Wei was struggling desperately. As long as he could find a weakness in the three women, perhaps he could save his own life. Of course, he was also trying to buy time, hoping that some unruly servant in his estate would happen to wander into the inner courtyard, discover that he was being held hostage, and fetch help.

Tang Wei couldn't be bothered to trade idle banter with him anymore and cut straight to the point: "You can save the breath. I'll just spell it out for you! Her name is Sang Ye. Doesn't that surname sound familiar?"

"Sang... Sang!" Mayor Wei muttered the name twice, suddenly recalling something. His eyes widened in sheer horror, and he barked harshly, "Are you people from Mulberry Village?"

Tang Wei retorted with sarcastic mockery, "It took you this long to remember? It seems the dirty deeds you've done aren't limited to just Mulberry Village, are they? Hasn't anyone else ever come looking for trouble with you? Oh, I get it now—with so many senior martial artists added to your estate, what do you have to be afraid of? One comes, you wipe them out; two come, you wipe out the pair. Let's see who else dares to come making trouble, right?"

"You're Tang Wei? Didn't you leave Mulberry Village?" Mayor Wei asked, completely ignoring her question.

"I'm truly sorry to disappoint you, but we only went to live in the mountains for a month. Who would have thought that the moment we came back out, you'd present us with such a huge gift? Courtesy demands reciprocity, and we can't be too impolite ourselves, so we came over today to return the favor!" Wanwan followed Tang Wei's lead, mocking and deriding the mayor without missing a beat.