Chapter 430: Return
Chapter 430: Chapter 385: Return
Late at night, deep within Thunder Shock Marsh.
A Tower Ship was moored silently at the edge of a vast reed marsh.
The ship had two decks and a compact design, resembling a pleasure boat more than a cargo transport.
At this moment, the lights in most of the ship’s cabins were out. Only one room on the second deck, by a window, glowed brightly.
The cabin, about twenty feet square, was sparsely furnished.
A table, a chair, and a low couch for sitting cross-legged were its only furniture.
On the walls and pillars around the room, a surprising sixteen brass oil lamps were hung at varying heights. Their wicks were all turned to their brightest, illuminating every minute detail of the interior.
Li Sanli sat alone behind the desk.
The bamboo hat he usually wore to hide his face now rested casually on a corner of the desk.
His face, covered with a crisscrossing network of hideous scars, was fully exposed in the lamplight.
Two short blades, each about a foot long, lay side by side on the left of his desk, within easy reach.
Near the cabin door, a simple, unsheathed long saber with a wide blade stood propped against the wall.
At this moment, Li Sanli’s gaze was fixed on several slips of paper spread out on the desk before him.
Suddenly, a soft but distinct, rhythmic knock broke the silence of the room.
“Enter,” Li Sanli said hoarsely, without raising his head.
The cabin door was pushed open gently, and a young man in his early thirties slipped inside.
He was the master of River Hall, one of the Tuo Long Bang’s four ‘Rivers and Streams’ halls.
“What is it?” Li Sanli’s eyelids lifted slightly.
The River Hall Master strode forward, stopping three paces from the desk. His voice was hushed, filled with disbelief. “Gang Leader, the men below just sent word. Those two who sell Opium… they’re back on our Netherworld Ship.”
“Hmm?” Li Sanli paused, then raised his head, his brow furrowing slightly. “They dare to come back?”
News of the encirclement at Nanjiang had long since reached him through various channels.
‘In my opinion,’ he thought, ‘even if Gossip and Peng Anming were lucky enough to escape, they should be like spooked birds by now, hiding in some unknown corner. How could they possibly dare to return to the Netherworld Ship?’
“At first, I also thought my subordinates had made a mistake,” the River Hall Master said. “But I went to investigate myself, and there’s no doubt it’s them. However, they didn’t come alone this time. Two others are with them. Judging by their behavior, they seem to be together.”
“Two others?” The suspicion in Li Sanli’s eyes deepened. “Could it be… Feng Suiyun and Hua Wuxin?”
But then, his gaze swept over another slip of paper on the desk.
The note mentioned that Grandmasters from two major houses were headed south in pursuit of Feng and Hua.
Logically, the pair would have their hands full just staying alive and were unlikely to appear in Thunder Shock Marsh.
“I don’t think so,” the River Hall Master said in a low voice. “Of the four, one has an obscure aura; I can’t gauge his depth. It’s hard to say. But the other one’s aura is exposed, clearly only at the Spirit Realm First Level. I’m certain of it. If it were Feng Suiyun and Hua Wuxin, their auras wouldn’t be like that.”
“‘One I can’t see through, and one at the Spirit Realm First Level…'” Li Sanli repeated softly, his scarred face flickering between light and shadow in the wavering lamplight.
‘What a strange combination.’
‘Who gave them the nerve?’
Doubts swirled in Li Sanli’s mind. He looked at the River Hall Master. “What have they been doing since they boarded?”
“They seem to be just… browsing,” the River Hall Master said, a look of confusion on his face. “They started on the first deck and are working their way up, lingering at the various stalls and shops, stopping to ask prices from time to time. They’ve even… bought quite a few things. It looks more like they came here specifically to shop.”
“Shop?” A sharp glint flashed in Li Sanli’s eyes. He fell silent for a moment, his fingertips gently rubbing the hilt of one of his short blades as if weighing his options.
After a moment, he spoke. “Keep a close eye on them. Don’t relax for a second. If they don’t do anything else out of the ordinary… when they’re about to leave the ship, we’ll follow the usual procedure. Invite them over for a ‘visit’. Remember, keep it clean. Don’t alarm the other guests.”
“Yes, sir.” The River Hall Master accepted the order, slipped out of the cabin, and carefully closed the door behind him.
…
In the 26th year of Yuan Jia, after the Tuo Long Bang’s Gang Leader, Jiang Hengzhou, and Vice Gang Leader, Shi Zhenshan, were slain by Chen Li, Li Sanli abandoned their less portable valuables. Taking several hundred of his gang brothers and all the gold and silver they could carry, he fled Jiangzhou by boat under the cover of night.
The group of several hundred traveled west, intending to head for Shazhou or Bazhou in the hopes of starting a new life there.
However, the harshness of reality far exceeded their expectations.
The strength of the Tuo Long Bang’s lower and middle ranks was intact, making them seem powerful, but without their two Divine Hall Grandmasters, Jiang Hengzhou and Shi Zhenshan, the lack of top-tier fighters meant they were at best a second-rate gang—and a bottom-tier one at that.
On unfamiliar territory, they tried to integrate and seize some marginal businesses, but they were quickly and brutally beaten back.
The local gangs had deep, intricate roots and were extremely wary and hostile toward outsiders. The moment their interests were threatened, their retaliation was swift and vicious.
After several clashes, not only had they failed to gain a foothold, but they had also lost many men and made even more enemies.
The gold and silver they had brought with them was spent like water, with little to show for it.
Out of desperation, to support the livelihoods of several hundred people, they were forced to resort to banditry, horse thievery, and even tomb raiding.
These trades brought in little money but carried extremely high risks. They often had to fight for their lives against government constables and even other criminal groups, and they were constantly in danger of becoming wanted men.
Most of the gang brothers were used to the respectable life in Jiangzhou—collecting protection money on the waterways, running gambling dens and brothels, and controlling dockside shipping. Now, they had to sleep in the open, live by the sword, and engage in these low-class, precarious trades. Naturally, complaints were rampant.
The group was held together only by the remaining gold and silver from Jiangzhou and by Li Sanli, who used his past prestige and sufficiently ruthless methods to suppress dissent.
Just as they were caught in this difficult predicament, a piece of news arrived from the east, exploding in Li Sanli’s ears like a clap of thunder.
The Governor of Jiangzhou, He Mingyun, was dead!
The cause of death was widely debated, but Li Sanli almost instantly connected the incident to one name.
Chen Li!
He couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, but an almost primal instinct told him that this matter was definitely connected to that baleful star.
In his shock, a thought he had never dared to entertain before began to sprout and spread wildly in his mind.
‘Return to Jiangzhou!’
Once the idea surfaced, it could no longer be suppressed.
He and his brothers were natives of Jiangzhou. They knew every waterway, every dock, and the secrets and grudges of every power faction there like the back of their hands.
‘So what if our former businesses have already been carved up and devoured by other factions?’
‘We’ll just take them back!’
In Jiangzhou, they knew who to rob, how to rob them, and how to deal with the aftermath.
This was far easier and more comforting than facing unknown enemies and rules in a completely foreign place.
However, Li Sanli was no fool.
He Mingyun’s death was still a variable. He knew nothing of the Court’s attitude, the subsequent developments in Jiangzhou, and especially Chen Li’s situation and intentions.
Appearing rashly might just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
He chose the safest approach: to return first, moving in secret.
He didn’t return with a grand display, but rather had his men infiltrate in small, silent groups, disguised as merchants or refugees.
They didn’t try to reclaim any of their former businesses and even avoided the bustling towns, heading straight back to the place where the Tuo Long Bang first rose to power.
Thunder Shock Marsh.
This vast marsh, with its complex terrain and unpredictable weather, was the place where the destinies of Jiang Hengzhou, Shi Zhenshan, and he, Li Sanli, had turned.
Years ago, in Tuo Dragon Gully, deep in the southwestern part of the marsh, the three of them had chanced upon the Tuo Dragon Pearl. They used it to break through to the Spirit Realm, laying the foundation for their future enterprise.
They knew this terrain like the back of their hand—where the hidden waterways were, which islets offered cover, and where to find food.
More importantly, many of their gang brothers came from fishing families. Hiding here made it easy to stay concealed and obtain basic supplies.
The initial days were extremely harsh. With little money left, they could barely scrape by—a far cry from their former glory in Jiangzhou.
But compared to their tense, fugitive lives out west, this retreat to their old lair gave the beleaguered gang members a sense of stability, and morale began to stabilize.
As they lay low, an unexpected opportunity quietly presented itself.
One day, while patrolling the marsh, his men rescued several wounded people who were fleeing in a panic.
Upon careful questioning, they turned out to be some of the leading merchants from the original Netherworld Ship Black Market.
They had been hit by another surprise attack from the Celestial Sword Sect and suffered heavy losses. Many had been nearly wiped out. The three of them had narrowly escaped, but not before being wounded by their pursuers. They had been adrift in the marsh, on the verge of becoming fish food.
Li Sanli met with the three terrified Black Market merchants and questioned them in detail about what had happened, the Netherworld Ship Black Market’s previous operational model, and the root cause of its repeated failures.
As he listened to their story, the eyes beneath Li Sanli’s scars gradually lit up.
In his view, the Celestial Sword Sect’s repeated successes were due to the Black Market’s rigid operational model: “fixed docks, roughly scheduled times, and public pickups.” It was far too easy to infiltrate and ambush.
The Netherworld Ship’s own advantage—its unpredictability—had not been fully utilized.
If he were running the operation, there would be no need for a direct confrontation with the Celestial Sword Sect. He would simply need to change the pickup methods from overt to covert, from fixed to random, and from public to secret appointments. With a few other measures, he could render the Celestial Sword Sect’s tracking methods almost useless.
For him, this was not a difficult task.
Back in its heyday, the Tuo Long Bang controlled numerous docks, large and small, along the waterways of Jiangzhou. Even though their power was gone, many of the stewards, laborers, and even the minor bosses who ran security at the docks were still their old contacts. This network of connections and intelligence was still usable.
Retaking control of a few key but inconspicuous docks to serve as secret pickup points was entirely feasible.
As for any docks that didn’t cooperate or were already under someone else’s control, they could simply take them by force—that was their specialty, after all.
Meanwhile, the three Black Market merchants were being pushed into a corner by the Celestial Sword Sect. They were afraid of being hunted down, yet they couldn’t bear to give up the Black Market, a money-making machine that brought in a fortune daily.
At this critical moment, Li Sanli’s operational concept, combined with the prestige the Tuo Long Bang had built up over the years, proved immensely useful.
The two sides hit it off immediately. Li Sanli would provide the men, muscle, and channels for security and pickups. The Black Market merchants would provide the goods, customers, and some of the capital to keep the market running. They would split the profits.