Wangyou Tower wasn't the largest tavern in Lianshan City, but it was the most popular among the martial artists who passed through.
Some said the wine here was the strongest, others said the meat was the most fragrant, and still others said the proprietress was the most seductive.
But in truth, it was because Wangyou Tower offered fair, affordable prices—the most suitable place for these bottom-rung martial artists who lived day-to-day with no thought for tomorrow, poor yet still putting on airs of grandeur.
At this moment, the first floor of Wangyou Tower was already filled with noise and smoke, the air thick with the pungent stench of cheap wine and sweat.
Bare-chested jianghu men sat with coarse wine and peanuts, spitting and gesticulating as they discussed the latest gossip of Lianshan City's martial world.
The main topic of discussion was the conflict between the two great gangs of Lianshan City: the Heavenly Wolf Gang and the Blackwater Gang.
Lianshan City was a small city in the northern reaches of Youzhou, among the Nineteen Provinces of Great Xia. The greatest powers within the city were these two gangs.
The two had fought ceaselessly for decades, always evenly matched, but recently the Blackwater Gang had gained a slight upper hand.
At this moment, a bare-chested, brutish-faced man slammed his wine bowl onto the table and shouted:
“In my opinion, the Heavenly Wolf Gang is doomed sooner or later!
The Heavenly Wolf Gang’s leader, Jiang Kaitai, was indeed a somebody in his youth; the Northern Land Heavenly Wolf lived up to his reputation.
But he’s over seventy now. I’m afraid his blood and vitality have long since dried up and his strength has decayed. Meanwhile, the Blackwater Gang’s ‘Iron-Headed Arhat,’ Gang Leader Yuan, is in the prime of his life.
Look at the next generation—the Five Protectors of the Blackwater Gang are all capable of standing on their own.
What kind of useless things are the so-called Three Heroes of the Heavenly Wolf Gang? Which one of them has any decent achievements to speak of?
These past few months, the Heavenly Wolf Gang has lost battle after battle. I say this Lianshan City will belong to the Blackwater Gang sooner or later.”
An older, weathered martial artist beside him shook his head and advised:
“Hu Laosan, you can eat indiscriminately, but you can’t speak indiscriminately.
We know you’ve been getting cozy with the Blackwater Gang’s leader Zhang Biao recently, but the struggle between those two gangs isn’t something people like us should stick our noses into.
Even if the Heavenly Wolf Gang is truly failing, one remaining tooth could still easily bite you to death.”
Hu Laosan stiffened his neck, looking indignant. “What, has the Heavenly Wolf Gang become the emperor? We can’t even talk about them?
I dare curse the old emperor himself. What the hell is the Heavenly Wolf Gang?”
The moment Hu Laosan’s voice fell, a flash of blade light rose without warning. The trembling, whistling cry of a blade abruptly rang throughout Wangyou Tower.
In the next instant, Hu Laosan’s massive head had already fallen into the wine bowl on the table, splashing up a mixture of turbid wine and blood.
Inside the wine bowl, the arrogant expression on Hu Laosan’s face had yet to fade. His eyes stared blankly at his own headless body, which was gushing great streams of blood.
Behind Hu Laosan, a young man in his twenties dressed in a black brocade robe shook the blood from his goose-quill saber, sheathed it, and produced a clear, resonant chime.
“Is my Heavenly Wolf Gang something a piece of trash like you is qualified to judge?
In this Lianshan City, you may curse the emperor. But those who dare insult my foster father or insult my Heavenly Wolf Gang—die!”
The young man’s complexion was slightly pale, the lines of his face as if carved by blade and chisel, his gaze even colder and sharper than a knife.
As his gaze swept across the room, the entire Wangyou Tower fell instantly silent, not a single sound to be heard.
A henchman walked over, picked up a black greatcloak embroidered with a silver wolf’s head, and draped it over the young man’s shoulders.
The young man took out a silver ingot from his bosom and tossed it upward. It landed before a woman in her thirties with a voluptuous, enchanting figure and seductively beautiful features, wearing a strapless long dress.
This woman was Wenrou, the proprietress of Wangyou Tower.
“Miss Wen, apologies for dirtying your Wangyou Tower.”
Wenrou picked up the silver and weighed it in her hand. It was at least ten taels.
Her gaze toward the young man instantly grew so coquettish it seemed it could drip water.
“Young Master Chen jests. This fellow had a filthy mouth. I wanted to throw him out long ago, and I must thank Young Master Chen for helping take out the trash.”
The young man waved his hand and walked out of Wangyou Tower with his followers.
Only after the young man’s figure had completely disappeared did someone ask quietly, “Proprietress, which one from the Heavenly Wolf Gang was that?”
Wenrou scoffed. “You speak behind people’s backs, yet you don’t even know who they are?
The Three Heroes of the Heavenly Wolf Gang: the eldest, Qin Yuancheng, commands the Blood Fang Hall; the second, Chu Ziping, commands the Punishment Hall.
This is the third of the Three Heroes, the last foster son taken in by Gang Leader Jiang—Chen Yuan.
Young Master Chen commands the Martial Transmission Hall. He normally does not show himself in public and is only responsible for teaching the gang’s martial arts.
But it is said he possesses the greatest talent among the Three Heroes of the Heavenly Wolf Gang. Having studied martial arts for only two years, his Heavenly Wolf Saber Technique has already reached the realm of perfection.
That slash just now, Heavenly Wolf Swallows the Moon—judging by its appearance, it already possessed seventy percent of the divine essence Gang Leader Jiang had in his prime.”
...
Outside Wangyou Tower, Chen Yuan stepped onto a waiting carriage and instructed his trusted henchman, Zhang Xiaoyi: “Spread word of what just happened in Wangyou Tower. Remember to do it covertly, not too deliberately. Mainly emphasize my anger at someone slandering my foster father.”
Zhang Xiaoyi nodded repeatedly and immediately turned to spread the news.
Chen Yuan sat in the carriage and gently rubbed the space between his eyebrows.
After today’s performance, his favorability rating with Jiang Kaitai should rise by quite a bit, right?
Chen Yuan had transmigrated into this world ten days ago.
To be precise, he wasn’t even sure if this was a world.
Because the background of this world was very familiar to him—it was exactly the same as the open-world holographic game he had relied on to make a living in his previous life, Jianghu II.
Jianghu II was the sequel to the holographic game Great Jianghu, even more free, open, and realistic than its predecessor.
In his previous life, Chen Yuan had been a professional player of Jianghu II, but he had no guild. He had always fought alone, known as the strongest solo player.
He remembered that in his previous life, Jianghu II had just released the pilot trailer for its final chapter, Martial Alliance Lord.
That mysterious Martial Alliance Lord was only a black silhouette. The entire trailer was muddled and deliberately cryptic.
Chen Yuan had been about to exit and viciously rant at the developers, but the moment he removed his helmet, his vision went black and he fainted.
When he woke up, he discovered he was still in the game world, but there was no attribute interface and no way to log out.
After spending a day, Chen Yuan finally confirmed that he had truly transmigrated into the world of Jianghu II, becoming an NPC.
There were no players in this world, only a true jianghu of flashing blades and sword shadows.
He only had one life. If he died, there was no respawning.
The time Chen Yuan currently found himself in was the twenty-first year of Wuxing of Great Xia. In Jianghu II, this was when the game had just launched, and Lianshan City was one of many beginner villages.
The background of Jianghu II was grand in scale: the Nineteen Provinces of Great Xia, plus overseas lands, the grasslands, the Western Regions, and other maps.
Jianghu and imperial court, sects and aristocratic families, ceaseless warfare.
At this time, Great Xia had stood for five hundred years and was already showing signs of decline and decay. Of the nineteen provinces under heaven, the imperial court truly controlled only the Central Nine Provinces.
The remaining ten provinces were only nominally under the court’s governance; in reality, they were controlled by the various local sects and aristocratic families.
To maintain a veneer of dignity, the imperial court only levied a base tax from each city in the remaining ten provinces. As long as that tax was paid, the rest was left to the various local powers within each city.
Take Lianshan City, for example. The true rulers were the two gangs: the Heavenly Wolf Gang and the Blackwater Gang.
The imperial court’s power here was practically zero—only a county magistrate and a dozen or so constables.
They were mainly responsible for adjudicating trivial domestic disputes and escorting the taxes paid by the Heavenly Wolf Gang and Blackwater Gang to the capital.
Chen Yuan looked at the streets of Lianshan City through the carriage window, gently rubbing his head as he sorted through his memories.
The beginner village when he started playing Jianghu II hadn’t been Lianshan City, but as a professional player, he was intimately familiar with the opening of nearly every beginner village.
The beginner village boss of Lianshan City was his foster father, the leader of the Heavenly Wolf Gang, Jiang Kaitai, nicknamed the Northern Land Heavenly Wolf.
The reason Jiang Kaitai could become a beginner village boss had to do with a basic setting in Jianghu II: divine artifacts and demonic armaments.
In ancient times, countless god and demon powerhouses had fought fiercely in this world. After their fall, their divine artifacts and demonic armaments remained, never decaying with time.
These divine artifacts and demonic armaments possessed power that martial artists could hardly match, causing countless jianghu people to desperately compete for them, scrambling over one another to obtain them.
It could be said that nearly every peak power in the current jianghu had a divine artifact or demonic armament anchoring it.
Even if they did not possess a complete divine artifact or demonic armament, they would possess some usable fragments.
The reason the Great Xia imperial clan could maintain its rule for hundreds of years was because it controlled two divine armaments: the Great Xia Longque and the Human Emperor Sword.
It could be said that in the current jianghu, there were only two types of powers: peak powers that possessed divine artifacts and demonic armaments, and everyone else.
Although the Heavenly Wolf Gang controlled half of Lianshan City, it could only be considered bottom-tier among “everyone else.”
Every year, after deducting the taxes paid to the imperial court, eighty percent of the Heavenly Wolf Gang’s profits had to be handed over to the great clan of Youzhou: the Dragon City Murong Clan, which controlled the divine artifact Dou Zhuan Xing Yi.
Chen Yuan’s foster father, Jiang Kaitai, had accidentally discovered a fragment of the divine artifact Seven Kill Stele. Thus, he secretly performed blood sacrifices to the artifact in Lianshan City, wanting to control the Seven Kill Stele fragment.
Because the blood sacrifices were too numerous, they attracted attention from above. Both the Dragon City Murong Clan and the Qi-Piercing Sun Alliance behind the Blackwater Gang sent people to investigate.
Jiang Kaitai went mad, wanting to blood sacrifice the entire Lianshan City to fuse with the Seven Kill Stele fragment. In the end, he was heavily wounded by the combined efforts of the Murong Clan and the Qi-Piercing Sun Alliance, and finally slain by players.
Afterward, the Seven Kill Stele fragment went missing because the blood sacrifices went out of control, and it was not obtained by the Murong Clan or the Qi-Piercing Sun Alliance.
As for the Heavenly Wolf Gang, its fate was naturally complete annihilation.
The Murong Clan was furious that Jiang Kaitai dared to scheme for a divine artifact, causing it to fly away on their own territory. In their rage, they exterminated the entire Heavenly Wolf Gang to vent their anger, not even chickens or dogs spared.
Chen Yuan’s current identity in the original plot was just a background character, only slightly stronger than nameless, faceless minions. His fate was naturally also to be destroyed by the Murong Clan.
After confirming his identity, Chen Yuan’s first reaction was to run.
Run far away, get far from Lianshan City, this powder keg.
But this thought was extinguished by Chen Yuan the moment it appeared.
Lianshan City was indeed a powder keg right now, but it also contained unimaginable opportunities.
The divine artifact Seven Kill Stele was the supreme divine artifact in the first version of Jianghu II’s plot, formed from the source of killing intent. Even a fragment was immensely powerful.
Its appearance in a beginner village was only to introduce the setting of divine artifacts and demonic armaments, so in the original plot it was fundamentally impossible for players to obtain.
But now there were no players, and he, who knew the plot intimately, had come to this world. Was it possible for him to seize the Seven Kill Stele fragment?
Chen Yuan wasn’t the type to be timid and cautious, only knowing how to hide and cower.
Otherwise, in the game, he wouldn’t have been able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with professional players from major guilds as a solo player.
Moreover, even if Chen Yuan fled, he would still be hunted by the Murong Clan in the future.
The Dragon City Murong Clan was famous in Youzhou for being narrow-minded and vindictive, repaying every slight tenfold.
In the original plot, everyone in Lianshan City belonging to the Heavenly Wolf Gang had been killed without exception.
Even former members of the Heavenly Wolf Gang who had retired from the jianghu and gone to other cities to make a living were tracked down and killed by the Murong Clan to vent their anger.
As Jiang Kaitai’s foster son, even if he fled now, he would definitely end up on the Murong Clan’s wanted list in the future.
Rather than hiding in the future, it was better to take a gamble now.
So for these past ten days, Chen Yuan had been sorting through the plot while simultaneously grinding Jiang Kaitai’s favorability rating, preparing to seize the Seven Kill Stele fragment.
“Stop the carriage.”
Chen Yuan, who had been looking out the window the whole time, suddenly called out.
The driver immediately stopped the carriage and opened the door.
Chen Yuan stepped down and walked to a beggar at the street corner.
That beggar had matted hair and a dirty face, his features unreadable.
Other beggars would raise their bowls and plead for charity when they saw someone coming, but this beggar only glanced at Chen Yuan and didn’t even move.
Chen Yuan looked at the beggar, took out a piece of broken silver and placed it in the beggar’s bowl, then turned and left.
The beggar remained slumped there, not even uttering a word of thanks.
After getting back in the carriage, Chen Yuan returned directly to the Heavenly Wolf Gang’s headquarters.
As one of the two major gangs ruling Lianshan City, the Heavenly Wolf Gang occupied an entire street. At the entrance stood two massive wolf sculptures about ten feet tall, howling toward the sky.
Two rows of Heavenly Wolf Gang members in black clothes embroidered with wolf patterns stood at both sides of the gate holding weapons, looking very imposing.
“Where is my foster father?”
Chen Yuan asked the gate guards.
“Replying to the Third Young Master, the Gang Leader is in the inner hall.”
Chen Yuan nodded, walked to the front of the inner hall, rubbed his face, revealed a proper smile, and then stepped into the inner hall.
“This child, Chen Yuan, pays respects to Foster Father!”
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