The Bund, Vol. 1, Chapter 41: Hidden Poisonous Schemes and New Territory

The winter sun made the inside of the workshed pleasantly warm.

When Chen Lin lifted the door curtain, Pan Qiliang was pacing back and forth around a wooden table, a large patch of sweat soaked into the back of his coarse cloth tunic, making him look precisely like a cat whose tail had been singed by fire.

"Chen Lin!" Pan Qiliang rushed over in a few strides, his voice trembling. "Do you still have the leisure to dawdle?"

Chen Lin raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his temple and raised an eyebrow. "What? Is this about Lian Tinghuang?"

"What else could it be!" Pan Qiliang stamped his feet in anxiety, the legs of the wooden table scraping a harsh sound against the muddy ground. "This matter hanging in my mind feels just like being scratched by a cat!"

"What is there to rush about?" Chen Lin sat down on a long bench, casually picked up a coarse porcelain bowl from the table, and took a sip of cold tea, his tone as relaxed as if he were discussing daily household chores.

Pan Qiliang leaned in closer, lowering his voice somewhat. "What on earth are you planning? Can you at least give me the bottom line first?"

Chen Lin put down the bowl and tapped the edge of the table with his fingertips. "Why don't you disguise yourself and mingle in the crowd outside the Prefectural Magistrate's Yamen? The moment Lian Tinghuang walks out, you step up and strike him with a blade. Wouldn't that settle it?"

Pan Qiliang's eyes widened abruptly, his face instantly turning the color of a pig's liver, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists—this was blatantly telling him to go and throw his life away!

"Hahahaha!" Watching him assume this expression, Chen Lin could not help bursting into laughter, his knuckles tapping Pan Qiliang's arm. "I'm just teasing you. I figured out a plan long ago."

Pan Qiliang let out a breath, his chest heaving, and before he could fully recover, he heard Chen Lin say again, "Help me do something. It's what you do best."

"What is it?" he hurriedly asked, the sweat on his back not yet dry. He was not afraid of charging ahead, but he certainly did not want to be a headless fly.

"Send people to keep an eye on Lian Tinghuang's daily routine." Chen Lin drew a circle on the table with his fingertip. "Find out what he likes to eat and which shop he buys his groceries from."

"Are you going to poison him?" Pan Qiliang's eyes lit up, but he immediately shook his head again. "It's useless! That old bastard has done too many evil things; before eating, he always tests his food with a silver needle. He's craftier than a fox!"

Chen Lin curved the corners of his lips, his tone carrying a trace of certainty. "My poison cannot be detected by a silver needle. Even if he makes his servants taste it first, they won't find anything. Once he dies, when the coroner comes to examine the body, he will only assume it was a sudden heart attack."

He was not boasting. In his past life in the laboratory, the reagents he used to handle could fill half a room. Silver needle poison testing? In his eyes, that was nothing more than a child's game of pretend.

Aconitine modified by esterification reactions, small doses of cardiac glycosides, natural strychnine, and organic arsenic compounds—any one of these chosen at random would allow Lian Tinghuang to quietly breathe his last.

*(This is for literary effect and contains fictional toxic substances. Readers must not imitate; dangerous behavior must be avoided.)*

"What kind of treasure is that?" Pan Qiliang's eyes shone brightly, but he quickly closed his mouth again—Chen Lin definitely would not talk about such things.

In his heart, however, he was already calculating that if he could get his hands on this, whether for revenge or self-defense, it would be an excellent item. It was practically an essential medicine for walking the jianghu.

He suddenly recalled the gathering last night, when the brothers in the society had secretly given Chen Lin a nickname—"Breaking Bad." Looking at it now, this moniker was not the least bit inaccurate.

"I've already discussed it with Old Man Zhai." Chen Lin stood up and patted the dust off his clothes. "The society will soon open a pharmacy, and these items will be sold through internal channels from now on."

Pan Qiliang's jaw nearly dropped. No wonder Old Miser Zhai treated Chen Lin with special regard; when these two got together, they really could come up with golden ideas!

Chen Lin looked up at the sky. The sun had not yet reached its zenith, and the light was plenty bright. "Call some of the brothers and come with me to a place."

Pan Qiliang did not ask further. He was long accustomed to Chen Lin's temperament; asking was pointless anyway. He would just follow along and provide protection, acting as a qualified bodyguard.

Just as they reached the entrance of the workshed, they saw Han Zhongxin trotting over, his coarse cloth trouser legs stained with many mud spots. "Boss! The manpower and boats are all prepared!"

Chen Lin nodded. Since he was now managing the construction site and did not need to report to the foreign firm for desk duty, he enjoyed quite a bit of freedom.

The three of them walked toward the riverbank. The wind was wrapped in moisture, carrying a faint, fishy scent of river water.

From afar, a dozen black-awned boats could be seen moored along the shore, stamped with the mark of the Dent & Co. foreign firm on their hulls. Their canvas sails were swollen by the wind, and the sacks piled high on the boats weighed the hulls down slightly, all of them filled with grain.

"What is this for?" Pan Qiliang finally could not help asking, his gaze sweeping over the boats as he harbored doubts in his heart.

"We're going to our new territory." Chen Lin stepped onto the wooden gangway, which swayed gently beneath his feet.

Aside from the dozen or so bodyguards led by Pan Qiliang—ever since the previous ambush, the personnel around Chen Lin had doubled—Han Zhongxin had brought dozens of stalwart fellows, the muscles on their arms bulging enough to burst through their coarse cloth tunics.

With this lineup, ordinary hoodlums and scoundrels would not even dare to approach upon seeing them.

The black-awned boats cleaved through the waves, drifting downstream along the current.

The mark of Dent & Co. truly proved effective; the inspection boats encountered along the way merely glanced from afar and did not come over to interrogate them.

After traveling for about an hour, the fleet turned into a tributary. The water surface narrowed somewhat, and the withered yellow reeds on the banks were taller than a man, rustling as the wind blew through.

"Are we heading to Chuansha?" Pan Qiliang stood at the bow, gazing at the hazy shore in the distance with a furrowed brow.

"Yes." Chen Lin leaned against the gunwale, his fingertips playing with the reed leaves in the water.

At this time, the northern part of the Pudong area was under the jurisdiction of the Chuansha厅 (Chuansha Sub-prefecture).

"That place won't do!" Pan Qiliang said anxiously. "It's all saline-alkali land, so barren that even grass won't grow properly, and there's a bunch of salt field refugees. It's terribly chaotic!"

"Precisely because it's chaotic, the officials don't bother to care." Chen Lin withdrew his hand and shook the water droplets from his fingertips. "Only then can we acquire several thousand mu of land at a low price."

"Buy land?" Pan Qiliang's eyes widened. "What is the use of buying that wretched land? It can't grow grain; are we supposed to keep it as ornaments?"

"We aren't growing grain." Chen Lin patted his shoulder, a hint of teasing in his tone. "Little Pan, you have rather too many questions today."

Pan Qiliang touched his head and said no more. Having Chen Lin around, one never felt bored—this person's thoughts were never like those of ordinary people.

The fleet proceeded eastward along the tributary, and the scenery on the banks grew increasingly desolate.

After traveling several miles, not a single human figure could be seen, save for a few water birds skimming close to the water's surface, their wings parting delicate ripples.

Occasionally, they would encounter a dilapidated little fishing boat, its planks split and bound with hemp rope. A bone-thin fisherman squatted at the bow, holding a bamboo fish trap and slowly lowering it into the water, his movements as sluggish as if he were afraid of shattering something.

Continuing further ahead, people finally came into view—and in great numbers.

These people had erected a cluster of shacks along the river, all plastered with mud and thatch. The tallest of them was barely over a meter high, crouching low to the ground much like pigpens.

Around the shacks, several ragged women were spinning hemp thread, their trousers, layered with patches, rolled up to their knees to reveal thin, withered calves.

Several children chased each other in the muddy ground. Despite the bitterly cold weather, some were not even wearing trousers, their bare legs frozen purple. As they ran, clods of mud fell off their knees with a rustle.

Watching this scene, Pan Qiliang knitted his brows tighter, feeling a heavy tightness in his chest.

Yet he also knew that in the Great Qing dynasty, this was the most common occurrence of all.

Refugees who had lost their land could only drift about, heading wherever there was a bite to eat.

After the opening of Shanghai as a commercial port, foreign firms and trading houses clustered together, creating a demand for considerable manpower. Refugees from the surrounding areas all flooded toward this direction, but Songjiang Prefecture exercised strict control, setting up checkpoints at every intersection.

Only the Chuansha Sub-prefecture, established during the Jiaqing reign, maintained the loosest regulation—here, the population was sparse, and much of it consisted of desolate saline-alkali land and tidal flats, leaving the officials disinclined to spend effort on it.

The entire Chuansha Sub-prefecture stretched from the Great River in the north to the sea in the east, bordered Nanhui County to the south, and Shanghai County and Baoshan County to the west.

When the sub-prefecture was first established, the salt soldiers from the two eastern salt fields had been incorporated into the civil registry, but these people possessed no land. To survive, they had no choice but to take on odd jobs for others.

Consequently, this place became the source of cheap labor for the factories and docks of the Shanghai Bund.

Among Han Zhongxin's construction crew, quite a few fellows hailed from right here.

The wages they earned in a month were pitifully small, yet they had to support entire families.

Even so, for them, simply having a job to do and not starving to death was already a supreme blessing.

Pan Qiliang had assumed the fleet would continue moving forward to bypass this shack area. But they had not gone far when the bow of the boat suddenly veered and moored along the shore.

"We're going ashore here?" He immediately grew alert, his hand pressing against the short blade at his waist. "With so many refugees, in the event of a riot, our small number of people won't be able to handle it!"

"Rest assured." As Chen Lin spoke, he had already stepped onto the muddy ground of the shore, his shoe soles sinking into the soft mud and kicking up tiny spatters.

Hu San walked in front, appearing ready at any moment to protect his master.

Han Zhongxin followed behind, clutching a cloth package as he lowered his voice. "Boss, these refugees belong to ten different clans. I've already had people contact the person in charge of each clan."

"Mmm." Chen Lin nodded, his gaze sweeping over the shacks as his voice deepened. "From now on, these people are all our own people. Don't fear having many; even if there were ten times as many, we could still support them."

He paused, heightening his tone slightly. "But I have one rule—those who eat with us must never harbor double-minded loyalty."

"Understood!" Han Zhongxin replied crisply. "The common folk are honest; give them a bite to eat, and they are willing to risk their lives for you. That is only right and proper; no one will feel it's unfair."

The commotion made by the fleet docking was not small; the canvas sails flapped loudly in the wind, and the landing footsteps of the men thudded solidly against the mud.

Those refugees watched from afar, their eyes filled with curiosity, yet none dared to approach—the people stepping off the boats were all robustly built, with weapons tucked at their waists, looking fierce at first glance.

Chen Lin followed Han Zhongxin toward the shack area. Aside from a few left behind to watch the boats, the rest followed along, their footsteps sounding exceptionally sharp in the open space.

At the center of the shack area lay an open ground, completely bare without a single blade of grass. A fire pit had been dug in the middle, the firewood within burning vigorously and emitting a thin, blue smoke.

A blackened, large pottery kettle hung over the fire pit, its spout dripping water that sizzled as it fell into the flames.

Dozens of people were already seated around the fire pit. The inner circle consisted of the elderly, their hair white and the wrinkles on their faces deep enough to trap mud, making them look as though they were seventy or eighty years old—though in reality, most of them were only a little over fifty.

In this era, living to such an age was already considered longevity.

"The head boss has arrived!" Han Zhongxin stepped forward, his voice booming and echoing across the open ground.

That group of people instantly stood up, their movements somewhat sluggish yet imbued with respect.

Someone instinctively pulled together the lapels of their ragged garments, their gazes locking unanimously onto Chen Lin with a trace of astonishment.

How could he be just a half-grown lad?

The wind blew across from the river, carrying moisture and brushing against Chen Lin's face.

Looking at these people before him, he knew clearly in his heart—from this day forth, this desolate land, along with these people struggling for survival, would form his foundation in this era.