Chapter 20 - Threats and bluffs
Jiang Zhen knew very well that Jiang Chengxiang returned with a yamen official to threaten him into being obedient.
But if he didn’t listen; it was not just a threat. They did not hold the slightest affection for him. They did not regard him as a son or brother at all. They just wanted him to work for the Jiang family house. If he refused to work for them, as he did before, they would really go to the yamen to sue him.
It was useless for him to give in first and then find fault with them. If he was not careful, this family might kill him, so he will start first.
Thinking this way, Jiang Zhen continued to beat Yang Jiang up. He had a proper hand and would not seriously hurt Yang Jiang, but he would definitely make it painful for him.
“Spare my life! Spare me. It was Jiang Chengxiang who asked me to scare you. I didn’t mean to arrest you!” Yang Jiang soon began to call for help.
He Cheng County had always been peaceful. When he worked as a yamen officer in He Cheng County town, he rarely needed to use a knife, so his skill was naturally very common. At this time, he could not beat Jiang Zhen at all, so he had to keep begging for mercy.
Jiang Zhen really stopped, not because he begged for mercy, but because old lady Jiang got up again.
Soon the bamboo pole swung again. Jiang Zhen directly swept old lady Jiang to the ground again and glared at Jiang Chengxiang, who wanted to get up and save Yang Jing.
Jiang Chengxiang trembled after meeting Jiang Zhen’s cold stare and became too afraid to move. He lay obediently in the mud, surprised and frightened. His older brother, who would not move even when others slapped him on the face, how did he suddenly become so scary? He seemed to have a murderous aura . . .
With a sneer, Jiang Zhen picked up Yang Jiang’s knife, stepped on Yang Jing’s chest, and put the sharp knife to Yang Jing’s neck. “You want to arrest me? Charge me with disobedience and unfilial piety?”
“No no! I’m definitely not going to arrest you!” Yang Jing said and repeatedly begged for mercy, but his heart was full of hatred. He had never suffered such a humiliation since he was a child. When he returned to the county town, he would not allow the Jiang family to look good!
Yes, Yang Jing not only hated Jiang Zhen but also the other members of the Jiang family. The leader of the Jiang family was clearly a madman. Jiang Chengxiang also asked him to scare him. What was his intention?
Jiang Zhen stepped hard with his foot and sneered, “You’d better not try to catch me. Otherwise . . . as long as you don’t kill me and let me escape, I’ll find you and tear you apart!” It’s hard to beat a group of yamen officers, but at the same time, it was easy to escape from a group of yamen officers. All you had to do was run faster than them, so Jiang Zhen was not worried at all.
Yang Jing, whose chest was trampled on, felt that he couldn’t breathe. Hearing Jiang Zhen say so, his mind became even more surprised.
This Jiang Zhen was quite capable. If he caught him, and he ran away . . .
“No, it’s too easy to chop a person in eight pieces. I always prefer to watch people cry and beg. If I put bamboo sticks under your fingernails, your expression would look so beautiful.” Jiang Zhen deliberately showed a cold smile to Yang Jiang’s face and bluffed, “Of course, it would not be enough. Skinning is interesting. I will tie you up and start peeling from the back of your neck to your ass, then slowly peel the remaining skin off with a knife . . . Don’t worry. Although you’re a little fat, making you difficult to peel, I am quite skillful. I will skin you cleanly.”
With that, Jiang Zhen’s eyes wandered around Yang Jiang’s body, as if weighing where to start peeling.
Yang Jing, who had always thought about getting revenge afterwards, suddenly, before Jiang Zhen’s gaze, wouldn’t dare to think about anything anymore. “You . . .” He shivered, and at last, he only made one shaky sound. After seeing the sharp knife for killing pigs that was at Jiang Zhen’s waist, he was even more shaken, so he was incontinent.
Jiang Zhen didn’t think it was enough. “Rest assured, after dealing with you, I won’t let go of your family . . . I have this iron hook. It is used to hook up the pig upside down after killing it. It’s convenient to open the stomach to take out the intestines. Tell me, if I hook up your parents with this iron hook . . . will it be fun?”
When Jiang Zhen went on a mission in the past, he met some abnormal people and learned some of their expressions. He added some details of the ancient punishment he had seen with his comrades in arms, even describing it in detail. If he had really done such a thing, it would be really shocking and scary.
Just saying it with his own mouth, he felt disgusted, easily making people scared of him . . .
Yang Jing has been so frightened that he was about to faint. Butcher Jiang, his wife, and Jiang Chengxiang lay motionless on the ground.
How could they not have known before that Eldest Jiang was so terrible? If they had known this, they would have never offended him.
“At your age, you should have children, right? In fact, there are many ways to deal with them . . .” Jiang Zhen continued to recall all kinds of ancient punishments to frighten them. At the same time, he made a shallow cut on Yang Jiang’s face with his knife.
It didn’t matter if it was Yang Jing’s parents, wife or children. Although he liked gambling and playing around and was usually not good to his family, they were still his family after all. Hearing Jiang Zhen’s words, he fainted directly after thinking about his wife and his pale and plump son.
Jiang Zhen didn’t care about him anymore and went directly to Jiang Chengxiang. “Third brother, I have always remembered that every time you got into trouble when you were a child, you said it was my fault. Making problems for me. Do you remember? Once Aunt Huang gave me a qingming dumpling. I thought it would be delicious, but you snatched it, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it several times. Later, you told our parents that I robbed your dumpling. In the end, father slapped me twice, making me dizzy for half a month . . .”
Jiang Zhen said a lot of things and smiled softly at Jiang Chengxiang. “Those things, I originally intended to let them go, but you wanted to kill me . . . Don’t you think I should teach you a lesson? How about cutting off the thing down there and serving it to you to eat?”
With that, Jiang Zhen’s knife scratched Jiang Chengxiang’s lower abdomen.
Jiang Chengxiang almost fainted as well. Jiang Zhen smiled gently, but the more he smiled, the more frightened he felt.
Old lady Jiang never treated eldest Jiang as her own son, but she was very fond of Jiang Chengwen and Jiang Chengxiang. Seeing and hearing this, she became even more afraid. She wanted to save her youngest son. She suddenly stood up and rushed towards Jiang Zhen.
Jiang Zhen had been paying close attention to them. Before she got close, he kicked her and grabbed her bun, cutting it off with his knife. “If you are so restless, I’ll cut off your head next time!”
When Jiang Zhen cut her hair bun off, old Lady Jiang thought she was going to have her head cut off. She was so scared that her whole body turned soft, making her unable to move for a while.
“I didn’t want to do anything to you. Why did you have to fight me?” Jiang Zhen looked at the people around him who have fallen to the ground and sighed.
When the Jiang family heard this, they all thought that he was lying to make himself feel good, but Jiang Zhen knew that he was telling the truth.
He used the knife to scare the Jiang family, which was all a bluff. From the beginning to the end, he didn’t plan to do anything to the Jiang family.
Even though he had been thinking about splitting up, he didn’t intend to take anything from the Jiang family.
He was not eldest Jiang, but Jiang Zhen. He was a foreign soul, and he himself felt he was not qualified to get money from the Jiang family.
According to Jiang Zhen’s original plan, he wanted to make some trouble at the Jiang family house, eat and drink well for a period of time, and let eldest Jiang rest peacefully after appeasing him, then separate from the Jiang family, and leave the Jiang family house to find Zhao Jinge.
He didn’t want the fields of the Jiang family; he didn’t want anything from the Jiang family. In his own future, he would leave on his own.
It’s just that the Jiang family insisted on giving him such a gift.
Covering his chest, Jiang Zhen felt the tumultuous anger of eldest Jiang. Jiang Zhen felt really disgusted with these Jiang family members.
He slapped Yang Jing face with the back of his knife to wake him up. Jiang Zhen said to the people in the room, “I have food and drink now, and I live a comfortable life, so I didn’t kill you to make trouble for myself, but you are even trying to kill me . . . Since I don’t have a good life, I’m not afraid of you. We can die together!”
“All the people in this family will be buried with me. No one can escape! Third, I know where your father-in-law Zhu Xiucai and his family live. When I kill the Jiang family, I will kill them too.”
Jiang Chengxiang looked at Jiang Zhen in horror, but Jiang Zhen ignored him and stepped on Yang Jing again. “And you just want someone to arrest me. Let’s see who will die then!”
At the beginning, Yang Jing really wanted to find someone to catch Jiang Zhen after he got away from here. But at this time, he no longer dared to have this idea.
He could not 100 percent guarantee that he would catch Jiang Zhen and kill him. If this man had a chance to escape, his family . . .
Damn, Jiang Chengxiang! He even let him deal with such an evil star. This is clearly trying to kill me!
Yang Jing did not dare to hate Jiang Zhen anymore. Now, he hated Jiang Chengxiang, who dragged him into this mess. Without Jiang Chengxiang, he would be eating and drinking in the county town at this moment!
All the people in this room were afraid of what Jiang Zhen would do. They were relieved when they heard Jiang Zhen say he would not kill them. Just then, outside the Jiang family house came the voice of the village head, Jiang Ping, “Eldest Jiang, what are you trying to do? Stop it!”
Jiang Chengwen, the second son of the Jiang family, was not only lazy but also timid. When Jiang Chengxiang and Butcher Jiang agreed to frighten Jiang Zhen, he didn’t want to participate. Instead, he kept watching while hiding.
Then he saw Jiang Zhen knock everyone down.
He was so scared and frightened. He didn’t dare to go in and try to save them. So he ran to the village and called over many strong men and the village head, Jiang Ping.
Jiang Zhen had been very calm these days. Although he had threatened some members of the Jiang family before, he didn’t really hurt anyone. People in the village were not particularly afraid of him. After Jiang Chengwen went out to call people over, there came a large number of people carrying bolts, poles, or other things.
The door of the Jiang house was opened, and the scene inside became clear at a glance. When Jiang Ping saw it, he immediately became startled.
Old lady Jiang’s hair was all over the ground. Butcher Jiang and Chengxiang were wounded on their legs. A man dressed as a yamen officer was trampled under Jiang Zhen’s feet. This . . .
“Eldest Jiang, you are crazy. You even fought against an official!” Jiang Ping was frightened. If he offended a yamen officer, this meant offending the government. When people start to have that opinion about Hexi Village, their whole village would be miserable!
“So what if I just did it?” Jiang Zhen pulled up Yang Jing from the ground, not afraid of the large group of villagers outside. “What are you doing around me? Don’t try to catch me, or I’ll slit his throat with a knife and kill him.”
Jiang Zhen took Yang Jing as a hostage, which proved to be very useful. Jiang Ping and the villagers surrounding the Jiang family did not dare to do anything at all.
“I’m telling you, I, Jiang Zhen, am a madman. You’d better not provoke me, or I’ll kill you!” Jiang Zhen said. “Of course, it is troublesome to kill you one by one. What if I took the knife to the county yamen and cut down people with the knife and told the town lord that all the people in our village took part in it?”
In ancient times, if one person committed a crime, it would bring bad luck to the whole family and even to the whole village.