Chapter 363: Rat Catching

Chapter 363: Rat Catching

A rare, gentle winter sun cast its warm rays over Inuyama Castle, which was slowly regaining its vitality.

In the western suburbs depot, the building that had been battered into a hazardous structure was undergoing intense and frantic reconstruction.

The charred, blackened walls stood in ugly, stark contrast against the patches of remnant snow surrounding them.

Beneath the sole surviving withered tree in the courtyard, a little girl no larger than a palm, with twin ox-horn braids, skipped back and forth through the fractured light and shadow sliced by the branches.

"Slow down, child."

Ma Wangye crouched beneath the tree wrapped in a black robe, cupping a pair of trench knives with floral engravings along the edges in his upturned palms.

Though he knew perfectly well that what stood before him was merely a ghost of a projection devoid of physical substance, he still could not help but shout out in worry.

"I know!"

Li Hua answered in a crisp, lively voice, swinging back and forth with her hands gripping a tree branch, her face filled with curiosity as she sized up this snow-covered world before her.

The Sichuan-Chongqing region never saw snow; even on the rare occasion it did, it amounted to nothing more than a thin layer of hoarfrost.

In her brief, earthly life, she had never seen a world so dazzlingly white.

Li Hua widened her large eyes and cried out, "Old Ma, this is way prettier than the meadows in the Buddhist Realm!"

"Yes, it is, it is. When the heavy snow falls, Old Ma will take you to see the ocean. That's even prettier than this."

"Really?"

"Of course it's true!"

The red light in his helmet's single eye dimmed, and Ma Wangye turned his helmet inch by inch, sending a beam of light like a physical blade stabbing viciously toward Zou Sijiu, who stood at a distance with his hands bound and head bowed.

"Zou Sijiu, you wretched fortune-teller..."

The murderous voice pierced his ears like a blast of biting, freezing wind, making Zou Sijiu shudder violently all over.

He instinctively touched the lingering bruises on his face and said with a miserable expression, "Old Ma, you really can't blame me for this."

"You still dare to make excuses? What did Li Hua look like when I handed her to you, and what does she look like now? A perfectly good girl turned into a pair of ugly trench knives. She's still small now and doesn't know beauty from ugliness, but what happens when she grows up? How is she supposed to hold her head up proud among the Mohist Mecha? She doesn't know any better, but don't you?"

Ma Wangye's furious interrogation boomed from the red eye, making the expressions of everyone present turn rather peculiar.

Only Li Hua, who had been excluded from the audio feed, continued to swing her tiny body among the branches, laughing without a care in the world.

"How was I supposed to know you Mohist Mecha actually have an aesthetic sense?" Zou Sijiu mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say?"

Ma Wangye's crouching frame suddenly snapped upright, the mechanical plates beneath his robe clacking loudly as they expanded and contracted.

"I didn't say a thing."

Having been beaten an unknown number of times over the past few days, Zou Sijiu instinctively crouched down, crossing his hands over his sleek, greased-back hair, and said in a tragic tone, "I already prepared a human-like body for little Hua, but after her consciousness was dredged up, she refused to accept anything other than becoming a pure offensive Mohist Mecha weapon. She simply didn't want anything else!"

"The girl's state was incredibly unstable at the time. If we hadn't downloaded her as quickly as possible, she could have been swallowed back into the Huangliang Dreamscape at any moment."

Zou Sijiu said with a trembling voice, "I had no other choice!"

Thud.

Ma Wangye's raised left foot came down heavily, stomping up a splash of mud.

In truth, he knew everything Zou Sijiu said was a fact. Moreover, as a fellow Mohist Bright Ghost, he understood exactly how much effort it took to dredge Li Hua back out from the vast digital sea of Huangliang.

This matter could not be blamed on Zou Sijiu, yet a suffocating grievance remained jammed in his chest, impossible to spit out and impossible to swallow down.

"Sigh."

Ma Wangye let out a heavy sigh as a few thin rays of light suddenly swept past his eyes, and a tiny head poked out from the tiger-head pauldron on his shoulder.

"Old Ma, what's wrong with you?"

Ma Wangye quickly raised the trench knives to make Li Hua's projected body appear clearer. "Nothing, Old Ma is just joking around with your Uncle Zou."

"Oh..."

The innocent, childish voice trailed off with a cheerful note, and in the next moment, the projection reappeared right on top of the head of Huapi, who was standing nearby.

"Sister, you have so much hair."

Huapi said with a smile, "When you grow up in the future, you'll have this much hair too."

"Can Bright Ghosts still grow up?" Li Hua asked with pure innocence.

The corners of Huapi's mouth turned downward, her teeth biting firmly on her lower lip. Only after taking a slow, deep breath did she speak softly, "Of course you can. When our little Hua grows up, she'll definitely be a beautiful girl!"

"I don't want to be a beautiful girl, I want to be the most powerful girl!"

Li Hua tilted her head back, her hands planted firmly on her hips.

Hearing this, everyone averted their eyes one after another, falling into a speechless silence.

"Brother Jun, the compensation for the brothers who died in the line of duty has already been distributed, and their bodies will be shipped back to their ancestral homes over the next few days."

Xie Bi'an was the first to break the silence, turning his head toward a dark corner where the sunlight could not reach.

Li Jun nodded. "Is the remaining money in the depot enough?"

"It's enough, but after repairing the building, there won't be much left."

Xie Bi'an showed a look of anxiety; the Western Suburbs Depot had only enjoyed a few days of prosperity, and now they were destitute once again.

"This is money that ought to be spent, do not skimp on it. As for the problem of funds, you don't need to worry. We have no guns, no cannons, but someone will naturally deliver them right to our doorstep."

Li Jun held a box of white-labeled special-issue cigarettes in his hand, flicked his wrist, and caught a cigarette between his lips.

As he lowered his head to light it, his growing hair draped over his eyes.

"What is the situation like outside right now?"

After the battle with Matsuyama, having maintained the 'Dragon-Tiger Devouring' state for an extended duration had drained a massive amount of his liver and lung essence, causing him to fall into a dead sleep for a full two days before finally recovering.

"After launching raids and harassments across various cities, Honghu has fallen silent once again. With an operation of such a massive scale, their losses are bound to be severe. For the foreseeable future, they should be behaving themselves, hiding away to lick their wounds."

"According to several issues of the banditry intelligence briefings issued by the Thousand-Household Office, the hardest hit in this attack was our Inuyama Castle. All five major urban districts suffered varying degrees of fire damage, and the death toll in the battle of the Confucius Temple reached nearly five hundred people, all of whom were students of hair-binding age."

At this point, Xie Bi'an glanced out of the corner of his eye at Fan Wujiu, who was acting as if nothing was wrong, tugging at Yacha's clothes while looking at God knows what.

"However, the one that suffered the worst impact wasn't us, but Qiongqi's Kanazawa Castle. Although they rushed to reinforce us, their merits cannot offset their faults. According to Thousand-Household Su's intent, if the mastermind behind the case cannot be captured within a two-month deadline, Qiongqi might lose his position as Hundred-Household."

"Two months?"

Li Jun said, "Then Old Qiong and his men are going to have a rough time ahead."

Xie Bi'an shrugged. "There's no helping it. After all, the Pacification Commission Yamen of their city was completely blown to pieces, and the officials responsible for implementing the New Policy were wiped out in one fell swoop by Honghu. Right now, the aristocratic clan that placed their bets on that official is so furious their smoke is practically rising from their heads, and they can't wait to demand Qiongqi's life in forfeit. If Thousand-Household Su hadn't been shielding him, he would probably have been dragged away by the Northern Zhenfu Bureau by now."

"A bunch of gamblers who want to go mad just because they lost a hand."

Li Jun gave a cold snort. "What is the attitude of the Thousand-Household Office then? Are we just supposed to take the beating without striking back, leaving everyone to go home and cry with their kids?"

"Of course not. I've already received word that the Thousand-Household Office will organize a purging operation next to thoroughly liquidate the Honghu personnel hidden within each city."

Xie Bi'an said in a deep voice, "And this time, clear target quotas have been issued. Each city must eliminate at least two hundred people or more, including a leader who has reached the level of a Sequence Five Aqua Regia. They will also rank everyone based on the number of kills, offering a separate, standalone reward outside the regular evaluation, which is said to be of unprecedented generosity."

"The more you kill, the more you get. Kill too few, and pack your bags to get the hell out of the Yamato District Jinyiwei. Those were the Thousand-Household's exact words."

Li Jun smiled coldly. "It seems Old Su has really been driven to desperation this time."

“After all, the new policy has just begun to be implemented, and Hongao has already dealt such a severe blow. If we don’t make Hongao suffer a painful defeat at once, these people will keep causing trouble endlessly.”

“It’s about time we did this!”

Fan Wujiu’s eyes lit up, his fists clenched, a fierce smile on his face. “Dig out those sneaky turtles who hide and reveal themselves, and bleed them one by one!”