Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
Night had descended and Wang Yu was hugging his wife to sleep.
But a shadow had flashed past a street lamp outside.
One of the figure’s arms was plastered up in a cast, while his other arm had been wrapped up in bandages. This person was Brother Hui, whom Wang Yu had recently taught a lesson.
Brother Hui was just a simple thug with no stable income. He was trying to find a way to get some money since it was almost time for the new year.
But given his current appearance, don’t even mention beating people up and threatening them for money, he wouldn’t even be able to pickpocket anyone. Since there was no other way for him to get any money, he was planning to sell off the jade pendant that Wang Yu had given him.
Brother Hui had been a gangster for many years and definitely had some experience. He was naturally able to see that the pendant that Wang Yu had given him was worth some money. If he had some other way to earn some quick cash, he definitely wouldn’t resort to selling this pendant.
Under the moonlight, Brother Hui had arrived at a small alleyway, pushing open a door to a pawn shop.
Pawning was an extremely old profession. Thought most people would have thought that there was no room in society for this profession, this was not the case. In this society where money was needed for everything, pawn shops were still able to thrive.
This shop was called “Mori’s Pawnshop”, owned by a man called Mori Li. He was a veteran of the secret societies and was known as Grandpa Mori.
Back in his youth, Grandpa Mori had sold weapons, drugs, anything against the law you name it and he’s probably done it. But today, Grandpa Mori had already grown old and left that life behind, opening this pawnshop to help the younger generations. He could be considered one of the nicer ones in this circle.
Naturally, a high level figure like him was not strapped for cash, he had only opened this shop to kill some time.
Brother Hui nervously took a seat on the sofa while Grandpa Mori sat opposite him, sipping his tea as he asked: “What’s the matter Hui, why did you come running in at such an unearthly hour? This old man needs to rest too.”
“Grandpa Mori, I got something good, I wanted you to have a look!” Brother Hui hurriedly replied.
As he spoke, Brother Hui reached into his pocket to retrieve the pendant.
Grandpa Mori’s eyes sparkled with excitement as he looked at the pendant as he spoke: “That’s some high class goods you have there, not only is the jade itself extremely valuable, the craftsmanship is superb! It’s worth at least 500 000!”
“Re…really?” Brother Hui excitedly asked.
Brother Hui had initially thought that this jade pendant was worth a few grand, who would have thought the man who gave it to him would be so generous, gifting him with such a precious item…
“So are you selling it or pawning it……huh?” Just as Grandpa Mori was asking Brother Hui what he intended to do with the pendant, he suddenly felt a small row of carvings at the corner of the pendant.
“Wang Clan Leader”
Grandpa Mori’s heart skipped a beat when he read those words, hesitantly asking Brother Hui: “Where did you get this item?”
“It’s an heirloom…” Brother Hui hurriedly answered when he saw Grandpa Mori’s expression.
“Bullshit! This belongs to the clan leader of the Northern Wang Clan, which one of your relatives had the surname Wang and gave this to you?” Grandpa Mori angrily berated Brother Hui.
“This… I …” Brother Hui nervously stammered as he looked at Grandpa Mori’s enraged expression, it was as though the old man was prepared to kill him.
Grandpa Mori calmed himself when he saw how terrified Brother Hui was, gently speaking again: “Let me tell you young man, there are three types of people that you cannot offend in this world. Police and soldiers, these people are law enforcers who should never ever be offended. The other type are those hidden people, you should immediately hide the moment you see them!”
“Hidden people?” Brother Hui didn’t understand what he meant.
“Martial artists! These people aren’t afraid of you hooligans that run around brandishing weapons. Those wuxia novels aren’t far from the truth, those madmen won’t even bat an eyelid when they massacre your family!”
“Ah…” Brother Hui took a moment to process what he had just heard before he spoke: “I get it, so is the Northern Wang Clan that you spoke about a bunch of martial artists too?”
Brother Hui wore an extremely serious expression on his face. Previously he had also thought that all these stories of martial artists were just rumours, but after what had happened yesterday, he no longer doubted the validity of these stories. The wounds he had served as a painful reminder of this fact.
“That’s right! Southern Li Northern Wang, Eastern Chen Western Yang. These are the four great martial families in China. Don’t belittle the Wang Clan even though they are ranked second. In actual fact, their strength is far greater than the other three families combined! Your days are numbered now that you’ve stolen their leader’s jade pendant.” Grandpa Mori answered.
“I… Grandpa Mori, I’ll tell you the truth, this jade pendant was given to me by someone else, this was definitely not something that I stole.” Brother Hui sobbed as he explained.
“Who cares how you go this thing, you better throw it away, lest you cause a calamity to descend on yourself. Trust me, you don’t want to offend those man men. We’re nothing but ants in their eyes…” Grandpa Mori coldly laughed.
“Grandpa Mori, you have a lot of experience, why don’t you take this pendant. I’ll be grateful if you can give me some money for it, but I won’t blame you if you aren’t willing to give me a cent.”
Brother Hui was scared witless by what Grandpa Mori had told him. After being brutally beaten twice in one day, he didn’t dare to play with fire anymore.
“Scram you little punk, I still want to live my life peacefully.” Grandpa Mori dismissively said as he signalled Brother Hui to leave.
“Grandpa Mori… you watched me grow up…” Brother Hui pitifully pleaded as he knelt on the floor.
“Here, just take his as an old man’s pity. I’ll keep this pendant for now, but don’t you dare breathe a word about this matter to anyone, otherwise neither of us can bear the consequences!” Grandpa Mori ground his teeth as he begrudgingly kept the pendant.
“I… I got it. Then I’ll leave first.” Brother Hui profusely nodded his head as he turned around to leave.
“Hold on!” Grandpa Mori shouted.
“Is there anything else?” Brother Hui meekly asked.
Grandpa Mori took out a stack of notes, sliding it across the table as he spoke: “Here’s 10 000, and go write a will while you’re at it”
“Yes, thank you!”
Brother Hui hurriedly picked up a pen and wrote a few lines a piece of paper lying around the pawnshop before running out into the alley.
Grandpa Mori sat on his sofa, contentedly fiddling with the jade pendant as he mumbled to himself: “Youngsters nowadays are getting more and more spineless, martial artists… ha ha, how can there still be those kinds of people in today’s society? Even I don’t believe these old wives tales. But this jade pendant real… this stupid fool didn’t even think twice before throwing this at me. How good can the Wang Clan still be if its leader can so casually throw his jade pendant away.”
…
Wang Yu had woken up early the next morning to log onto the game. Being a professional gamer wasn’t easy, other than challenging the dungeons and doing quests, they would spend the entire day farming monsters, desperately trying to keep their levels above the rest.
Once he entered the game, Wang Yu realised that there was something amiss. The streets were very obviously destroyed by some heated battle that had occurred here. It seemed that even the system was hard pressed to repair the damage that had been dealt to the city.
“What’s going on here? Why does the city look like an utter wreck?” Wang Yu messaged the guild chat.
“You don’t know? There was a huge incident last night!” Crotch Lord promptly replied to him.
“What incident?”
“False Symphony and the Sanguine Alliance started a war here last night. Apparently it lasted the entire night and only stopped not too long ago…” Frost Blade added.
“Is this the truth? What exactly happened?” Wang Yu curiously asked.
“Not too sure, but I heard it was something about stealing someone’s kills…”Crotch Lord replied.
“Ha ha ha, you guys don’t know? This was all caused by someone called Sanguine Gangster.” Frost Blade contentedly laughed.
“Eh…” Wang Yu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry… Sanguine Gangster… wasn’t that Brother Spring?