Chapter 9 Platform (IX)
Facing the unreasonable and unruly behavior , Huo Chong knew that he could not indulge them, so he responded with a loud rebuke. However, although the other party looked a little afraid, they still pestered him.
Jiangnan hooligans do have this habit, they prefer to talk but not to fight. Huo Chong knew something, but he just thought that these guys were too Jiangnan-style. Suddenly, footsteps were heard, and Huo Chong's third apprentice brother Li Tieniu ran into the yard and shouted, "Brother, there are a lot of people outside, coming for us."
Huo Chong was startled, but he saw that all the Cao Gang members had happy expressions on their faces. Huo Chong stood up and walked out. The Cao Gang members standing at the door reached out to pull Huo Chong. Huo Chong elbowed the guy in the ribs, and he curled up like a shrimp, holding his ribs in pain.
Rushing out the door, I saw a group of guys. They looked like southerners, so they should be the follow-up team of the Cao Gang. It seemed that these six were just the vanguard, and the Cao Gang had no intention of giving up this time.
Seeing that only Huo Chong and Li Tieniu had left the house, the Cao Gang members did not immediately move forward to attack, but just stood still. The leader was of medium to tall build, about 165cm tall. However, he had a hooked nose, which was rare in the south, and his eyes were quite narrow, which made him look very sinister.
Huo Chong was born in the 1990s. Although he was at the age where people jokingly called him "uncle", his height was also in line with the average height of those born in the 1990s, about 185cm. Facing this group of Cao Gang members, he had to look down on them.
The Cao Gang leader looked up at Huo Chong for a moment, then shouted, "Let Li Xiu read it out!"
Before Huo Chong could say anything, the slightly injured members of the Cao Gang rushed out from the courtyard. The Cao Gang members were shocked at first, and then they saw that the faces of these people were covered with scars and bandages. A man on the left was already roaring and rushing towards Huo Chong.
This was Huo Chong's second fight with an ancient man, and he was a little nervous. But he saw that the man was not fat, and although his movements and expression looked fierce, his feet were really weak. He rushed forward and punched him at the junction of his chest and abdomen. Unfortunately, this man was just like Zhu Youquan before, taking advantage of inertia to rush forward two steps, and then he crawled on the ground and fell to the ground.
Seeing their own people being beaten, the other members of the Cao Gang rushed over in a rush. Huo Chong was confident at this time. After all, he had spent two or three hundred thousand to practice his kung fu over the past three years. As the saying goes, the poor are good at literature, but the rich are good at martial arts. Huo Chong was very confident about his investment amount.
Huo Chong did not get stuck in the crowd. He quickly moved his position to ensure that he only faced one member of the Cao Gang at a time. He used his fists and feet to quickly strike at the non-lethal positions of the Cao Gang members. Like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, he knocked down seven or eight of them in a short time.
The number of enemies in front of him suddenly decreased, and Huo Chong had enough energy to observe his surroundings. He saw someone going around behind Huo Chong from the corner of his eye, and Huo Chong immediately turned around and rushed towards him. When they fought head-on, it turned out that the person who wanted to outflank him was actually the leader of the Cao Gang.
He heard the third apprentice brother behind him shouting, and then the shouting turned into a cry of pain. Huo Chong wanted to fight with the leader of the Cao Gang, but now he knew that the third apprentice brother Tie Niu could not hold on, and the Cao Gang leader punched him. Huo Chong suddenly rushed forward, trying to shorten the opponent's punching space. He took a hard punch, but he also grabbed the opponent's shoulder and restrained him with a grab.
The opponent resisted with all his might, but Huo Chong grabbed the opponent's neck with his left arm and, using his height advantage, strangled the guy's feet off the ground. Just as he was about to ask the Cao Gang to stop, he felt a sharp pain in his leg. It turned out that the Cao Gang leader was able to take out a dagger and stab back at this time.
However, he was also strangled to the point of being dizzy, and his hands were completely powerless. Grabbing the dagger, Huo Chong shouted, "Stop! If you hit my junior brother again, I will stab him to death!"
When the Cao Gang members saw their leader being hung in the air like a chicken by Huo Chongle, with a dagger at his throat, they immediately stopped beating Li Tieniu, who had been knocked to the ground. The Cao Gang members lifted Li Tieniu up and shouted, "Let our people go!"
Huo Chong didn't really feel sorry for Li Tieniu, so he loosened his left arm. The Cao Gang leader landed on his feet, but couldn't stand and fell down. But this guy was also a wandering man, and while panting, he tried his best to shout: "Let him go!"
The Cao Gang members didn't expect their leader to let them go, so they stood there in shock, not daring to do so. The Cao Gang leader took another breath and continued to shout, "Let them go!"
Two obviously brave Cao Gang members escorted Li Tieniu over and pushed him towards Huo Chong. While Huo Chong held Tieniu with his hands, the two men had already carried their leader back to their camp. The two sides, with a huge disparity in numbers, entered into a standoff again.
Huo Chong patted Tie Niu on the shoulder, stepped forward and stood in front of Tie Niu, loudly asking the other side in Jiangzhe dialect whether they were here to fight or to discuss business. If it was a fight, then they should have said it earlier, and Huo Chong didn't need to be timid. Everyone could just decide the winner directly.
Listening to the fluent Jiangzhe dialect, the Cao Gang leader showed a surprised look. However, his narrow eyes and hooked nose made his face look even more unbelievable.
After hesitating for a while, the leader of the Cao Gang asked, "Why did you hurt our people?"
"Humph ! If you care about the first few, you should thank me! As for why they are like this, ask them yourself!" Huo Chong said this with pride, but he was actually worried. What if the first six people were lying? The Cao Gang would definitely not believe him. If they started fighting again, would he kill them or just let them bleed?
The leader called the vanguard members who had escaped from Huo Chong's house to ask questions, but Huo Chong didn't hear clearly. He probably heard from the vanguard members that they had walked in the dark in order to get here, and ended up sliding down the hillside. It was all because of Huo Chong that caused the trouble.
Hearing this kind of excuse, Huo Chong just wanted to beat the guy up.
Afterwards, several members of the Cao Gang's vanguard team, whose faces were covered with wounds, said that they met Huo Chong in the mountains and Huo Chong saved them. However, they later encountered wild boars, and those who were not injured were also injured.
Anyway, these words were all excuses for himself to cover up his incompetence, and there was no intention to thank Huo Chong. Huo Chong felt that things would not end well, so he clenched the dagger and whispered to Li Tieniu: "Third Junior Brother, if there is another fight, you go to the house and take the junior brothers out. I will deal with these guys."
The third junior brother's voice trembled, "No! Senior brother, I will fight them together with you."
Fuck. Third Junior Brother is quite loyal. Huo Chong was just about to order Third Junior Brother to save other Junior Brothers first, when he heard the leader of Cao Gang say loudly: "Thank you for your help, my good man. Tell Li Xiunian to come out, everyone is responsible for their own actions!"
"Li Xiunian is dead." Several people from the Cao Gang's vanguard quickly added.
"Dead?" The leader of Cao Gang was very surprised.
Huo Chong shouted, "My senior brother is dead. I think you guys injured him and he died on the way back. I ask you, are you here to fight or to reason? If it's a fight, my master has already handed over the position to me and he has abdicated. Now this place is under my control. I will take care of whatever you want to do."
After saying that, Huo Chong saw that the Cao Gang members no longer had the urge to rush over and fight, so he continued to shout: "If you want to reason, my house is right next to you, go in and talk if you have anything to say. Two of you are seriously injured and are still lying in my house. You can just take your people away!"
The leader thought for a moment and replied, "We are here to talk about reason, so let's go in and talk."
Huo Chong, holding a dagger, led Tie Niu through the Cao Gang. Looking at their bald heads and the rat tails, Huo Chong was ready to attack at any time. However, he didn't expect that the Cao Gang didn't take action.
Huo Chong led his third apprentice brother Li Tieniu into the house, asked his apprentice brother to step back, and then stepped out again. He bowed to the Cao Gang members outside and said, "I am honored that all the Cao Gang brothers have come to my humble home. Please let the leading brother in."
Hearing this, several members of the Cao Gang wanted to go in. Huo Chong raised his right hand holding the dagger, and several people were so scared that they dared not move forward.
"There are only three other brothers in my humble abode, and the house is small, so it can't accommodate so many brothers. Please ask the leader to bring the four brothers from the Cao Gang in."
Hearing what Huo Chong said, the leader of the Cao Gang was actually a bachelor. He called four people and went straight into Huo Chong's courtyard... Huo Chong told Tie Niu, "Brother, watch the door and don't let others come in to disturb him." After that, he led the Cao Gang members into the house.
This house has two courtyards, shaped like the Chinese character "日". The main courtyard is a quadrangle, and the front door is not in the middle, but on the right. After entering the door, there is a screen wall, and after turning left and walking a few steps, you will reach the door to the main courtyard. You have to go through two doors to enter the main courtyard, which is the so-called two-courtyard house.
The main entrance was located in the middle of the house. After entering the door and turning left, Huo Chong led the Cao Gang to the left wing. The leader saw that the people who had not come out were lying on the straw mat. Although they were injured, they were not dead. The leader was not hypocritical and asked carefully what happened.
While Huo Chong was standing nearby and listening, he called over the other three fellow apprentices who were hiding and asked them to quickly wipe the tables and chairs and boil water.
The two who couldn't get up said the same thing as the ones who ran away, full of excuses. Huo Chong was a little used to it, so he didn't have the urge to beat them up.
After the leader asked, he left two of his gang members to accompany the injured two, and took two of his gang members with him and followed Huo Chong into the main house. After they sat down, before the water was boiled, the leader said in Beijing dialect: "Excuse me, brother, what is your name?"
Huo Chong replied, "My name is Huo Chong. May I know your name, brother?"
"My name is Xu Youlin. I am the head of the Gaizi Hall of the Cao Gang."
"Master Xu, I wonder why you came this time?"
"Brother Huo, I came here for your senior brother Li Xiunian. But since Li Xiunian is dead, and Brother Huo said that you took over your master's position, there are some things I have to talk to Brother Huo about."
"Haha. I'm afraid it may be difficult to understand if you speak in Beijing dialect. Master Xu, why don't we speak in Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialect?" Huo Chong said with a smile.
It was obvious that Xu Youlin, the head of the Gaizi Hall of the Caobang, had a hard time speaking in Beijing dialect. After hearing what Huo Chong said, he started speaking directly in Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects.
The Jiangzhe dialect is spoken at a fast speed, and the words used are completely different from the Shandong dialect. The fellow apprentices standing behind Huo Chong looked confused. Huo Chong calmly asked them to help in the kitchen.
Seeing Huo Chong's fellow apprentices leave, Huo Chong was the only one left in the room facing the three people from Cao Gang. Xu Youlin unconsciously relaxed a lot.
Huo Chong also felt much more relaxed after the junior brothers left. If these junior brothers, who were completely unfamiliar to Huo Chong, understood what Xu Youlin had said, Huo Chong could not guarantee how they would react.
Judging from the performance of the fellow apprentices, it is obvious that they don’t know that the master is unable to cope with the current situation and has abandoned his disciples and run away.
According to Xu Youlin, Huo Chong's senior brother Li Xiunian swindled a sum of money together with others from the Cao Gang, but they also said that it was the Cao Gang and the middleman who swindled people together and swindled a sum of money from the senior brother Li Xiunian.
Huo Chong felt that both sides had been cheated by the swindler who was the middleman, but the Cao Gang wanted to push the responsibility onto Huo Chong, so they said that it was Senior Brother Li Xiunian who cheated the Cao Gang together with the middleman.
If Senior Brother Li Xiunian was a liar, why would he take the initiative to come to the Cao Gang? Even if Senior Brother Li Xiunian was a brilliant liar and wanted to turn the tables, there was no need to get angry and fight with the Cao Gang. Senior Brother Li Xiunian's kung fu was obviously not as good as Huo Chong's. He fought against the enemy with a small number of people and went deep into the enemy's territory. Isn't this boring?
Huo Chong did not play it safe. He waited for Xu Youlin to finish speaking and then told him everything he had thought of.
Xu Youlin and the two Cao Gang members beside him listened to Huo Chong's direct and sarcastic remarks in the Jiangzhe dialect, and their faces turned a little ugly. After Huo Chong finished speaking, Xu Youlin suddenly laughed, "Brother Huo is really good at talking. Now Li Xiunian is dead, there is no evidence. But the money is still owed. Brother Huo, Liu Xiunian cheated us of three hundred taels of silver. Return the silver to us, and we will part ways. What do you think?"
"Ha! Haha!" Huo Chong laughed loudly. "Since there is no evidence, if you said three hundred taels, then it's three hundred taels. I also said that you owed my senior brother five hundred taels. You have to pay me back!"
Xu Youlin immediately frowned, "If that's what Brother Huo said, then don't you want to make peace?"
"We want to settle it, but it's a public or private matter. If it's a public matter, we can go to the government to file a complaint. Before my master handed over the position to me, he at least took me to meet the local magistrate. I think if I go to see the magistrate, he will immediately come to court."
Huo Chong had never seen the local county magistrate and didn't even know his name. But at this moment, he threatened Xu Youlin without hesitation.
Xu Youlin sneered, "What a coincidence! The local County Magistrate Xu is my relative. I think County Magistrate Xu will handle the case impartially."
Huo Chong was shocked. But after all, he had received so much platform training, so in order to hide his uneasiness, he narrowed his eyes and sneered. "Haha! Haha! Master Xu, if you want to make up a lie, you should find out who the county magistrate is before you tell it. You can't even call me by the right name, but you still want to scare me! Haha!"
Xu Youlin stared at Huo Chong with a stern face. Huo Chong also tilted his head and looked back. After staring at each other for a while, Xu Youlin suddenly laughed out loud. Huo Chong felt unhappy. Xu Youlin had a hooked nose and narrow eyes, and when he had a stern face, he looked like a pure hungry wolf. With this smile, he looked like a weasel with bad intentions. It would be better not to smile.
After laughing for a while, Xu Youlin put away his smile and said, "We'll talk about suing the authorities later. Brother Huo said we want to settle it privately. How do we do that?"
"There are two ways to settle the matter privately. Either we all go out and fight to the death. If we die, it means that the King of Hell has written the book of life and death for us. If we don't die, it means that it is not the time for God to take us away yet. This is one way."
After hearing Huo Chong's threat of force, Xu Youlin was fine, but the two Cao Gang members behind him changed their expressions.
Xu Youlin did not discuss the solution of force at all, and continued to ask: "What about the other way?"
