Wang Daxia had received a surveillance assignment today and hadn’t closed his eyes for a day and night. By evening, he had finally mapped out the residences of all fifty-four people from the Ten Thousand Goods Trading House. Wang Daxia was at the covert outpost on West Gulou Diagonal Street, marking fifty-four locations on a map and arranging manpower. He had finally spread out a net, and the mission was making progress.
Today was Beginning of Autumn—time to build up winter reserves. Wang Daxia was exhausted and wanted to eat something good to nourish himself. But Ding Wu wasn’t cooking now, and going home to eat meant listening to his father Wang Qianhu’s endless nagging while his younger brother Wang Daqiu cried and fussed all day looking for their mother Wu Shi. It was impossible to have a quiet meal, so he found a nearby restaurant to make do.
As a result, he saw a familiar silhouette. Blue clothes and a mourning hair ornament, with a medicine bag slung over her shoulder. The white mourning ornament was especially conspicuous, and since this was the restaurant closest to Sweet Water Alley, he immediately thought it was Wei Caiwei.
Wei Caiwei’s behavior was strange—she was facing away from the door, retreating step by step, looking very alert.
Heavy rain was pouring down, and Wang Daxia couldn’t hear the commotion inside the restaurant, but he instinctively felt Wei Caiwei was in trouble.
To run faster, Wang Daxia immediately threw down his umbrella and charged toward the restaurant entrance. The heavy rain poured down like splashed water, instantly soaking through his clothes. When Wang Daxia reached the doorway, he just saw a chair flying toward Wei Caiwei. He leaped, embraced Wei Caiwei from behind, and spun around on the spot, using his back to shield her.
He felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder as the chair scraped across his shoulder and flew into the heavy rain.
Only then did Wang Daxia see that Wei Caiwei was actually gripping a long, thin triangular awl in her hand!
The awl’s handle was the umbrella grip.
What exactly had she just experienced?
Wang Daxia protected Wei Caiwei behind him and asked her: “Did they bully you?”
Wei Caiwei pointed at the man in pink襕衫, the man with glasses, and the short man, saying: “These three men can’t spit ivory from their dog mouths. Right in front of me, they called me a wanton woman. This shorty even tried to stick his leg out to trip me, so I stabbed his foot with my umbrella. He threw a chair at me in revenge.”
Hearing this, Wang Daxia’s expression changed completely, immediately becoming murderous.
As one of the Four Scourges of North City, Wang Daxia had been “famous for a long time”—a figure who strutted through North City, not to be trifled with.
The man in pink襕衫 holding up a chair for protection was immediately frightened into loosening his grip. The chair happened to fall on his own foot, making him hop in pain.
Wang Daxia kicked out with his foot, first sending the man with glasses flying. The man with glasses crashed into a wine table, his glasses flew off and shattered on the ground, Western glass lens fragments scattered everywhere.
Wang Daxia then grabbed the collar of the man in pink襕衫, lifting him so his feet left the ground, then swung his arm in a circle and hurled him at the short man who was trying to escape.
“Ouch!”
The two men crashed together and immediately rolled on the ground groaning with the man with glasses, unable to get up for quite a while.
Slut-shaming and bullying the weak while fearing the strong were instincts of North City’s keyboard warriors. With the screams echoing from the ground, the watching diners feared being caught in the crossfire and fled in all directions, some not even having time to grab their umbrellas.
The restaurant counter manager hurried over to chase after people: “Hey! You haven’t paid yet!”
“Put it on the tab—we’ll pay tomorrow!”
Regular customers could be remembered, but the manager couldn’t recall unfamiliar faces, so the manager and waiters all chased after them to collect money, trying to minimize losses.
The previously bustling restaurant was almost empty in an instant.
Wei Caiwei had been tensely dealing with the situation and was still hungry. Now exhausted, she found a chair to sit down, her right hand still gripping the awl handle, refusing to let go.
Seeing Wei Caiwei’s wary appearance, he knew what grievances she had suffered and what unbearable foul language had been used to insult her.
Three men publicly bullying one woman in such a large restaurant, with no one speaking up for her, forcing her to draw the hidden weapon from her umbrella for protection.
Wang Daxia burned with rage and immediately dragged the three men rolling on the ground outside. He first forced them to reveal their names and backgrounds—it turned out all three were scholars, students of the Shuntian Prefecture Academy, and the man with glasses even held the title of xiucai.
Wang Daxia said coldly: “What fine scholars. I’ve memorized your names. You three remember well too—from today on, you’ll have no good days left. Everything is your own doing.”
Having said this, Wang Daxia drew his knife and shredded their clothes into pieces. Cloth fragments were washed into the drainage ditches by the heavy rain, leaving them completely naked without even a scrap of cloth to cover their shame!
Wang Daxia tied the three men’s hands together with rope in a dead knot, drove them into the heavy rain, and bought a large bronze gong from the neighboring musical instrument shop. He banged it while shouting loudly:
“Neighbors and folks, come and see! Come see what these beasts in human clothing look like without their clothing to hide their true forms—how filthy and wretched they are! Free viewing, no charge—look while you can!”
The three lecherous men had publicly humiliated Wei Caiwei, and Wang Daxia vowed to make them pay back a thousand-fold, ten thousand-fold.
Wang Daxia knew well that if he let these three men who bullied Wei Caiwei off lightly this time without severe punishment to make everyone remember, then in the future Wei Caiwei would be bullied and humiliated by even more people.
Because among similarly vulnerable groups, bullying the elderly and children would bring moral and public condemnation, but if a woman was labeled a “wanton woman,” it was different—anyone could justifiably step on such a woman, despise her, insult her, even physically assault her.
Moreover, most of these people were ordinary folks like the restaurant diners—they weren’t great villains and might even be good people in daily life, but when it came to slut-shaming, such ordinary people actually caused the greatest damage because there were so many of them. If each person cursed just once, it would pierce Wei Caiwei’s heart with ten thousand arrows, leaving her riddled with wounds.
Wang Daxia wouldn’t let Wei Caiwei fall into such danger.
The three naked men strung together were driven by Wang Daxia to the center of West Gulou Diagonal Street. Overcome with shame and rage, they tried to run to the street-side shops to hide their embarrassment.
Wang Daxia wielded the gong mallet, hammering it against their flesh, driving them to the middle of the road for a parade of public humiliation.
To prevent them from running under the eaves of street shops again, Wang Daxia simply tied the other end of the rope around his waist, pulling the string of people behind him as he walked down the street center.
Today was Beginning of Autumn with heavy rain, and it was dinner time—people were at home eating to build up winter reserves. With such commotion on West Gulou Diagonal Street, residents came out with their bowls to squat under the eaves, eating while watching the rare spectacle of three naked men parading through the streets.
Wang Daxia, one of the Four Scourges of North City, provided at least half of all the entertainment for North City residents, shocking North City every few days.
The womenfolk didn’t dare openly watch the naked men parade, but bold women secretly opened their windows just a crack.
Blushing while watching, they even compared sizes.
Of course, some people disapproved of Wang Daxia forcing the three men to parade naked and ran out to criticize him: “Corrupting public morals and disgracing scholarship!”
Wang Daxia didn’t argue with these people and continued banging the gong and parading through the streets for more people to see: “The four most wicked deeds: digging graves of families with no heirs! Eating milk meant for newborns! Cursing mute people! Kicking down widows’ doors! These three scholars publicly bullied a little widow!
They’ve committed one of the four most wicked deeds, so this account must be properly settled. Is humiliating widows fun? Let you taste what it’s like to be humiliated yourselves!”
Everyone knew that after Commander Lu—the illegitimate son of Lu Bing—broke up with the female physician widow, Wang Yanei immediately fell under the widow’s spell. The onlookers squatting under eaves with their rice bowls immediately understood what was happening: these three naked men had bullied Wang Yanei’s widow lover!
They were truly blind! This wasn’t just any widow—even when beating a dog, one must consider the owner. Was Wang Yanei, one of Capital City’s Four Scourges, someone to provoke?
Having provoked Wang Yanei, these three deserved their bad luck.
Last time when Embroidered Uniform Guard Chen Qianhu’s men surrounded Wang Daxia alone on West Gulou Diagonal Street, the North City Military Commission and Embroidered Uniform Guard fought in the streets. Wang Daxia fled all the way to the Shuntian Prefecture yamen, beat the drum to cry injustice, and confronted Chen Qianhu in court.
What was the final result?
Chen Qianhu died suddenly the very night of the confrontation!
This showed that Wang Yanei wasn’t just a wastrel—he was a jinx. Whoever got involved with him died. Even an Embroidered Uniform Guard Qianhu was jinxed to death by him, let alone these three scholars.
As Wang Daxia paraded them through the streets, banging the gong and announcing these three men’s backgrounds: “Come and see! Prefecture Academy students bullying a widow! Dignified men who don’t change their names when walking or sitting—the one in front is Wu Lianchi! The one in the middle is called Bu Yaolian! The last one, Lu Renjia, just passed the xiucai examination this year! Such things that bully widows are truly the shame of our dynasty’s imperial examinations!”
Wu Lianchi, Bu Yaolian, and Lu Renjia became famous throughout North City in one fell swoop.
Onlookers discussed among themselves: “Tsk tsk, Lu Renjia walks swaying his waist and buttocks—clearly not a proper xiucai.”
“Bu Yaolian is short and stocky, and that part is also short—practically non-existent. I think he should stop studying and become a eunuch in the palace instead—he wouldn’t even need to suffer the pain of castration.”
“This Wu Lianchi with his pale flesh looks human but acts like a beast. For someone like this to enter the Prefecture Academy, he probably got in by selling his body…”
The three men suffered terribly in the rain, forced to parade while enduring mocking gazes shooting from under eaves and through windows, along with insults about their bodies and souls and unspeakable suspicions—exactly the same as how they had humiliated and mocked Wei Caiwei. They were reaping what they sowed.
The North City Military Commission, responsible for North City security, was alerted and immediately rushed over through the rain, led by Mu Baihu.
Seeing Wang Daxia banging the gong while leading a string of naked men behind him, Mu Baihu—who had watched him since he was born, learned to speak, took his first steps, and grew up—had experienced many “vicissitudes” and witnessed Wang Daxia do all sorts of outrageous things, but was still shocked speechless.
Wang Daxia truly never “disappointed” anyone—he always brought “surprises.”
If it were anyone else, they’d arrest him immediately to avoid affecting North City’s “appearance,” but since Wang Yanei was the one taking action, his subordinates didn’t dare act. They asked Mu Baihu: “What do we do now?”
Mu Baihu closed his eyes, thought for a moment, then said: “Are you just going to watch our Wang Qianhu’s eldest son get soaked in the rain? Hurry over and hold an umbrella for him. Today is Beginning of Autumn—the weather’s getting cold. If he keeps getting drenched like this, he’ll catch a chill.”
“What about those three men?” The subordinate pointed at the string of people shivering behind Wang Daxia.
Mu Baihu said: “Since we’re already here, let’s finish walking West Gulou Diagonal Street. One should see things through to completion.”
Mu Baihu thought to himself: Wang Qianhu would be dismissed from office anyway after the autumn evaluation results came out, so he might as well use his authority one last time to provide an umbrella of protection for this little ancestor—there wouldn’t be another chance in the future.
Author’s Note: Mu Baihu: I’ve broken my heart worrying about this family. The comment section from the last chapter had so many golden quotes—many insights were more profound than mine. I’ve copied some into my documents to save them.