Who in the world does not know you?

Chapter 60 Interesting

Li Zigui reached out and wrapped his arm around Leng Honglou's soft waist from behind.

However, the soft touch he had imagined did not appear. Li Zigui looked down at the soft sword that Leng Honglou always had wrapped around his waist, and couldn't help but pout. Then he moved his arm up a little and finally rested his chin on Leng Honglou's shoulder with satisfaction.

Now that the vegetables are chopped, the next step is to cook them.

The rice wasn't cooked yet, so there was no rush to stir-fry the vegetables. Leng Honglou was used to Li Zigui's clingy manner, so she let him stick to her like that.

The kitchen became quiet, and through the window, one could see the magnificent sunset on the horizon.

The myriad aspects of life and the tranquility of time must be experienced firsthand through one's own actions.

Li Zigui inhaled Leng Honglou's faint hair fragrance, a smile playing on his lips, and suddenly spoke softly.

"My wife."

"Um?"

"Something's not right with the manager and staff at the Sihai Casino."

"Because they don't recognize you? Or is it because that gambling den doesn't even have any hired thugs, and its interior looks rather simple and rudimentary?"

"They might not recognize me because they're from out of town, the lack of thugs might be because the manager is kind-hearted, and the simple interior furnishings might be because they spent a lot of money buying the property and preparing to open a security escort agency, leaving them with little money for decoration. These are all plausible, but there's one thing that just doesn't make sense."

"What is it?"

"hand."

Li Zigui loosened his arms from around Leng Honglou's waist, walked to the window, leaned against the table, and spread his palms out towards Leng Honglou.

"hand?"

"I noticed it when we were gambling this afternoon. The ring and middle fingers on that waiter's hands were the same length. If it were just him, I could say he was born different from others, which would be somewhat understandable. But later, when you and I went together, I noticed the fingers of the manager named Yan Hui. His hands were the same as that young waiter's, with his ring and middle fingers being the same length."

Leng Honglou glanced at Li Zigui's hand, then looked down at her own hand, her delicate brows furrowing slightly.

"Could they be father and son? But they don't seem like it..."

"I heard Hu Youxuan say that he had left Dahui territory to do some petty theft when he had nothing to do, and he discovered that many people in Nanwan territory had middle and ring fingers that were the same length. He mentioned this to me because he lamented that if his ring finger were the same length as his middle finger, it would be easier to crack some very special tomb mechanisms."

Li Zigui gazed out the window into the distance, his expression calm, just as he had been countless times in the past when chatting casually with his beloved wife who was always by his side.

"My lord, do you mean these two people might be from the Southern Kingdom?"

"Well, I can't guarantee that either."

"But the Southern Kingdom is located south of Dahui, and its borders are thousands of miles away from Xichuan Prefecture. If they are really from the Southern Kingdom, why would they travel so far to Xichuan Prefecture to open a gambling den?"

"Yes, that's what makes it interesting. If they really did commit a crime in Nanwan Kingdom and came to Dahui to escape disaster, then they should have kept a low profile. Opening a gambling den and attracting all sorts of people is already very high-profile, and yet they dared to win more than six hundred taels of silver from me on the first day of business."

Li Zigui's fingers tapped lightly on the table he was leaning against; he would occasionally make such subtle gestures when he was thinking unconsciously.

"I'm not bragging, but if I were to drop six hundred taels of silver notes on the street now, and I were standing not far away, not a single passerby would dare to pick them up. Using the excuse that the outsider doesn't recognize me doesn't hold water. If he doesn't recognize me, don't all those onlookers recognize me either? Or do they simply not take me seriously, or is there some other reason?"

"What could be the reason? Does he know who you are and still deliberately provoke you? Does he have a death wish?"

Instead of directly answering Leng Honglou's question, Li Zigui brought up another matter.

"Speaking of not wanting to live anymore, I heard that you killed someone at the Golden Tooth Teahouse today, my wife."

"That was..."

"No need to explain, my wife can kill whomever she wants, it's not important to me."

Li Zigui looked at Leng Honglou, who was middle-aged and dressed in red. In his memory, she was still the red-clad girl who held a soft sword and shared life and death with him. More than twenty years had passed and she had not changed at all.

"If this doesn't count, when was the last time you killed someone, my wife?"

Leng Honglou thought about it carefully, and then gave his answer.

"It must have been the winter before last. You should remember, right? The caravan responsible for delivering medicinal herbs was robbed in Sifang Mountain. I went there, killed more than twenty bandits, and led the caravan to bring back the stolen herbs."

"Think about it, you haven't killed anyone in so long, and the only ones you've killed are bandits. It's only because no one in the entire Xichuan Prefecture dares to mess with you. If I'm not mistaken, you killed someone today because you overheard that person speaking ill of me. Otherwise, given your personality, even if he were a villain, as long as his actions weren't extremely heinous, you would never have taken his life in public at the Golden Tooth Teahouse. Am I right?"

"Indeed."

Although Leng Honglou was always swift and decisive in killing, there were still children present at the Golden Tooth Teahouse at the time. If the drunk man hadn't spoken ill of Li Zigui in public, she would have considered letting him go.

"My wife, what do you think of my character?"

Startled by Li Zigui's sudden question, Leng Honglou paused for a moment before nodding emphatically.

"Naturally excellent."

"I'm not talking about my character in your eyes, but in the eyes of the people of Xichuan Prefecture."

"That's still excellent. You run a clinic, practicing medicine and saving lives with superb medical skills. They should respect and love you."

"Do you think whether I can still use martial arts, or whether I'm still the best in the world, will affect their impression of me?"

"Probably not, they haven't seen you make a move."

"You often go to the Golden Tooth Tea House to drink tea and listen to storytelling; most of the local residents of Xichuan Prefecture know this. Even if you weren't there at the time, there's no guarantee that someone wouldn't tell you about it afterward. How did he get the audacity to speak ill of me in public?"

He must be drunk.

"Why haven't I seen anyone get drunk and cause trouble at the government office?"

"My lord, what do you mean...?"

Leng Honglou blinked, her tone full of uncertainty.

"Was he deliberately courting death?"

"Does it look like it to you?"

"I don't think so. Because he was clearly terrified before I killed him."

"That means he didn't know he was going to die beforehand."

"How could someone who speaks ill of you not die?"

"The clerk at the Sihai Gambling House cheated out of more than six hundred taels of silver from me, but he didn't die, did he?"

Leng Honglou frowned even more deeply.

"What happened to the body?"

"He must have been taken back by the constables from the yamen, who forcibly gave me the excuse of eliminating a scourge for the people."

"After dinner, let's go to the yamen and see if the person you killed had the same length middle and ring fingers."

As Li Zigui spoke, his smile deepened.

"interesting."