Chapter 29: Where to Find It

Tiger Head City was not large.

Among frontier towns, it certainly counted as prosperous. But compared with the cities of later generations, where urban sprawl casually reached a third, fourth, or fifth ring road, it still felt far too tiny.

The four men led their horses and soon arrived at the inn.

Normally, by this hour, business should already have quieted down. At most there would still be two or three tables of customers stubbornly sitting around, each waiting to see who would be the first to say they were leaving—and therefore be stuck paying the bill.

A contest of endurance.

But tonight, the inn was clearly abnormal.

It was too quiet.

So quiet that aside from one small lantern hanging at the entrance, everywhere else lay in complete darkness.

“Master, something’s wrong.”

Xue San immediately darted in front of Zheng Fan and assumed a protective posture.

Something was definitely wrong.

It was like discovering that a nightclub in later generations had somehow shut its doors at ten in the evening. Either something had happened, or there was a crackdown underway.

Zheng Fan narrowed his eyes.

He was genuinely worried something might have happened to the inn. After all, this was his home in this world.

And there were still people at home.

“Is that you lads back?”

At that moment, an old white-haired man holding a lantern leaned out from the doorway to look at them.

Zheng Fan knew him.

He was the inn’s doorman. Normally, after the inn closed for the night, he would come out, make up a bed behind the door panels, and keep watch.

The old man had no family or connections in Tiger Head City and had already reached the point where he could no longer survive on his own. It was Feng Siniang who had given him a mouthful of food.

There were no wages, but his meals were covered, and he also received a red envelope during festivals.

“What happened at home?” Xue San asked the old man.

“Oh! You really are back—and all of you, too.”

The old man lifted the lantern and looked over the four of them.

Then he said, “The inn isn’t open anymore.”

“Not open? Did something happen?” Zheng Fan asked.

“No, no. A while back, the Fourth Lady and Mr. Bei bought another residence. Everyone moved over there. I’m the only one left here now, keeping an eye on the place.

“Oh, right. The Fourth Lady told me that if you lads came back, you should go to the courtyard at the innermost corner by the old well at the street entrance.”

“We moved?”

Zheng Fan looked puzzled.

Why move house for no reason?

Even if they were trying to speculate in property and buy land... there was no future in doing that in Tiger Head City.

Xue San and Liang Cheng, however, did not seem particularly surprised by this explanation.

It was almost as though they had expected it.

They had gone out with Master and enjoyed themselves slaughtering people.

How could the few who stayed behind possibly remain quiet?

If they didn’t stir up some trouble of their own, wouldn’t that mean they had been shown up?

...

“Double the monthly silver paid to every official in Tiger Head City, top to bottom, according to the amounts listed in the ledger.”

The Blind Man Bei sat in a chair, holding an orange and peeling it as he made the decision.

Because the region received so much sunlight, the oranges here were very sweet.

“Double?”

A’Ming, who was holding the account book, did not understand.

“Isn’t that too much?”

The Three Gods Society, after the Blind Man Bei’s “one song that shattered liver and intestines,” had seen its entire leadership depart overnight to embrace whichever deity each of them believed in.

As for the remaining believers, they scattered the very next day once the tree fell and the monkeys fled.

A gang with no real commercial profits, surviving entirely by tricking believers out of incense money, was simply too easy to dismantle.

The Hyena Gang had practically been slaughtered by A’Ming alone.

Perhaps two or three insignificant stragglers had survived, but they would not affect the overall situation.

As for the Hyena Gang’s business, the Blind Man Bei had stopped it outright because he was mindful of Zheng Fan’s attitude.

The barbarian slaves were kept as servants, while the dozen or so young women were all retained and specially settled by the Blind Man Bei.

The Brotherhood Gang and Cart Gang had been taken over relatively smoothly.

But now that the inn’s faction had unified all four underground powers in Tiger Head City, that also meant inheriting the monthly payments those four factions had to make to officials of every rank throughout the city.

The lofty officials above did not care how the gangs below fought, killed, or wiped one another out.

As long as their monthly silver continued arriving at their doors, they would not interfere.

The underworld had its path.

The official world had its path.

On the surface, the two did not interfere with one another.

In truth, they were intertwined like the black and white fish of a taiji diagram, and from ancient times onward, they had never truly been separable.

Now, however, the inn’s side had lost two streams of income, yet under the Blind Man Bei’s decision, it would also have to pay twice as much monthly silver as before.

Faced with A’Ming’s confusion, the Blind Man Bei jerked his chin toward where Feng Siniang sat.

“A’Ming, ask the Fourth Lady. She’s opened clubs and brothels in all sorts of eras and cities. She knows this business.”

Hearing that, Feng Siniang nodded.

“This expense cannot be cut.

“More importantly, we are newcomers who have only just begun to show our heads. We need to demonstrate our attitude with even greater sincerity.”

A’Ming shook his head.

He did not particularly enjoy this sort of endless calculation and scheming.

But there was still something else he did not understand.

“Why did we dismantle the Three Gods Society so completely?”

The incense money offered by its believers each month had not been a small sum.

“Master used to be a cultural creator.

“Well, I mean before.”

“What does that have to do with Master?”

“Just as Master detests human trafficking, he also doesn’t want to touch churches or cults.

“So forget about that money. We won’t get involved in that sort of business.”

Feng Siniang lifted a cup of tea, took a sip, then added the finishing blow.

“The Blind Man Bei had one of his comics banned back then because the plot touched on that sort of thing.”

“...”

The Blind Man Bei fell silent.

A’Ming did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“It’s fine. The gangs had quite a lot of silver saved up. It’s enough for our expenses in the near future.

“For now, we feed those two-mouthed fellows above until they’re full.

“As long as they don’t get in our way, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to make money later.

“The seven of us together, in this ancient era no less—if we still can’t scrape together some silver, we might as well slit our own throats.”

“Mm. Making money won’t be difficult.

“Once all the relationships above and below have been properly handled and smoothed out, we can start.”

Feng Siniang agreed.

As long as their future businesses could keep up, the silver they currently held would be enough to cover everyone’s expenses for several months.

And cover them lavishly.

“What business?” A’Ming asked.

The Blind Man Bei turned his empty eye sockets toward A’Ming.

He said nothing.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” A’Ming asked.

“Look into my eyes.”

“...”

A’Ming fell silent.

Feng Siniang stepped in to smooth things over—and, while she was at it, stabbed A’Ming once too.

“We’re transmigrators. How hard can it be to make some perfume or soap and earn money?”

At that moment, the door was pushed open from outside.

Little Yun poked her head in and called to the three people inside, “Mother, Master is back. They’re all back.”

...

Zheng Fan felt as though he were dreaming.

He had read plenty of transmigration stories before.

Most protagonists had miserable lives after crossing over.

Later, it even became fashionable for them to arrive with a little sister in tow, an extra burden hanging around their necks.

Zheng Fan’s own start, however, had come with a maidservant.

Then he went out wandering for a while.

When he came back, even a large courtyard residence had appeared.

Especially after he was led past the artificial rockery in the courtyard and saw two rows of young women dressed in ancient-style clothing standing on either side, all greeting him in unison for a moment, Zheng Fan felt genuinely dazed.

At that instant, a thought suddenly rose in his heart.

Maybe... living like this forever would not be so bad.

There was no electricity.

No internet.

No air-conditioning.

But the life of a wealthy master in ancient times three wives, four concubines, ordering people around at will possessed an extraordinarily powerful attraction of its own.

The fragrance of cosmetics drifted through the air.

Hot water had already been prepared in the bathing pool, with flower petals scattered across the surface.

The sound of strings and bamboo instruments rose around him, perfectly tuned to tease the heart.

At some point, Zheng Fan’s clothes had already been removed.

Half-dazed, he walked into the pool and sank into the perfumed mist.

Whew...

So decadent.

...

“I think this is a little too much.

“Aren’t you afraid Master will simply sink into it?”

A’Ming was somewhat worried.

At present, all their plans were progressing methodically.

The underground forces of Tiger Head City had already been unified.

Master and the others had also returned safely.

Yet the Blind Man Bei had directly arranged this nest of warmth and pleasure.

Was he planning to get Master drunk on soft living and never let him out again?

The Blind Man Bei shook his head.

“It still depends on Master’s own choice.”

“Choice?”

“A person’s desires can never truly be satisfied.

“Once you obtain one thing, you naturally begin wanting the second and third.

“A lot of literature likes portraying simple farmers who spend their lives with their faces to the yellow earth and their backs to the sky.

“They’re called honest.

“Kind.

“Steady.

“But if they truly had a path upward, if they could see hope of leaving that life behind, who would willingly remain that ‘steady’ forever?”

“I just think using this sort of thing to tempt Master is a little low.”

“It’s fine.

“Master went out and has now come back. He should enjoy the fruits of our team’s development.

“Master is different from us.

“Every one of us is, in truth, some kind of freak.

“Most of our interests and hobbies don’t lie in what normal people would call enjoyment.

“Our needs are more extreme.

“Our desires more twisted.

“But Master has far more of an ordinary person in him.

“You can’t seriously expect that one day Master will squat beside you while the two of you sample blood together and discuss which age group and which region produces the sweetest flavor, can you?”

“Just don’t overdo it.

“If Master stays in the rear courtyard forever and refuses to come out, so happy he forgets home, you’ll be the one crying.”

“That would be Master’s own choice.

“We promised him before that the right to choose belongs to him.

“He can become a rich household patriarch, live peacefully for the rest of his life, have children, raise a family.

“That is also something he can choose.”

“I only remember that Master didn’t make that choice before.”

“People change.

“When we first arrived, all we had was one inn, barely enough to live without worrying about food and clothing.

“Back then, we were barefoot and had no fear of those wearing shoes.

“Now our circumstances are better.

“Naturally, Master deserves another chance to choose.

“You’ve heard the story of the two cows, haven’t you?”

“Liang Cheng and the others are already eating in the side hall.

“You’re not going?”

“I am.

“We’ll go together in a bit?”

“Fine.”

The two stood there for roughly another quarter of an hour.

Zheng Fan still had not emerged from the rear courtyard.

The Blind Man Bei sighed.

“Let’s go to the side hall.

“We should hear what exactly happened to them on the road.”

...

In the side hall, Xue San, Liang Cheng, and Fan Li had already finished eating.

Especially beside Fan Li, two enormous rice tubs had already been emptied.

The poor fellow had finally gotten a chance to eat rice after going out into the desert.

He had eaten so much he could barely stop.

After the Blind Man Bei and A’Ming entered, everyone was present except the Demon Pill.

Feng Siniang asked with some confusion, “Where’s Master?”

“He’s probably gone to rest,” the Blind Man Bei replied.

For a moment, everyone present fell silent.

Xue San smacked his lips.

He looked at the Blind Man Bei, clearly wanting to say something but not knowing how.

Yet it was obvious he felt deeply unwilling to accept the situation.

Liang Cheng was more direct.

He raised his head, faced the Blind Man Bei and A’Ming, and said flatly, “Nonsense.”

Clearly, they too had learned of the arrangements the Blind Man Bei had made for Master.

The Blind Man Bei remained silent.

He even felt slightly like laughing.

Feng Siniang, meanwhile, concentrated entirely on the needlework in her hands.

“Oh? Everyone finished eating and drinking?”

At that moment, Zheng Fan’s voice came from outside the door.

Everyone stood at once and looked toward the entrance.

They saw Zheng Fan walk in barefoot, wearing a full suit of leopard skin.

He strode directly to the seat of honor and sat down.

The feeling was rather like someone finishing a shower at a bathhouse, changing into the bathhouse’s lounge clothes, then walking from the shower area into the relaxation area.

There were two differences.

First, the leopard print was so outrageously flashy it bordered on obscene.

Second this really was actual leopard skin.

It was probably a collectible left behind by the leader of the Hyena Gang.

Feng Siniang had altered it and given it straight to Master.

“Fourth Lady.”

Zheng Fan pointed toward her.

“Master.”

“Next time, leave a set of clothes beside the bathing pool for me.

“I searched for ages and this was the only thing I could find.

“I really couldn’t come out to see all of you naked.”

“I understand.

“That was my oversight.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Zheng Fan waved his hand.

Then he looked at everyone around the dining table and smiled.

“So.

“Everyone eaten and drunk their fill?”

“We have, Master.”

“We’re done.”

“We were just waiting for you, Master.”

Zheng Fan smiled.

He leaned slightly toward the left side of his chair, brought his hands together, and clapped softly.

“Good.

“Then let’s discuss serious business.”

The five Demon Kings present all felt that from the moment Master entered until now, his entire aura had undergone a tremendous transformation.

That confidence.

That maturity.

That sense of complete composure...

It was almost as though he had become another person.

Only the Blind Man Bei smiled without speaking.

A moment earlier, using his mental power, he had detected that Master had actually been standing in the corridor outside the hall for quite a while.

Shivering slightly from the cold, while muttering to himself as if performing self-hypnosis:

“I am Chen Daoming.

“I am Chen Daoming.

“I am Chen Daoming!”

---

(End of Chapter)