The night was growing late, and the open-air food stall was steeped in the hot, savory aroma of wok hei mixed with the scent of charcoal stoves.
The sizzling grease on the iron griddles and the clamor of drinking games from the next table painted a vivid picture of lively street life.
In front of Liu Zheng and Old Bai sat two plates of stir-fried beef noodles. Lin Mo, however, looked like an outsider. He was unhurriedly rinsing his cup and bowl with freshly boiled water, his movements steady and full of a sense of ritual.
"What? You called me out late at night just to watch me wash my dishes?" Lin Mo didn't even look up, his voice flat.
Liu Zheng's hand, holding a teacup, froze mid-air before he awkwardly set it down.
"Just catching up. You're heading to Tianjing soon. That place isn't like Yangcheng; it's a dragon's den, and too many eyes will be on you."
Lin Mo casually set down his washed teacup and finally poured himself some tea.
"It doesn't matter. You know I have principles. If people don't mess with me, I don't mess with them. If they do, I'll send them to the afterlife. Don't worry about me. Instead, what about the Hidden Sects? Aren't you going to put them in their place? At least beat one to death as a warning, like the Gongsun family."
Hearing this, Liu Zheng felt his temples throbbing. This kid was as fierce as ever.
Old Bai, on the other hand, slapped his thigh, so excited he nearly flipped the table. "Exactly! That's how it should be! Those bastards from the Hidden Sects all walk around with their noses in the air. If our Yanhuang Awakening wasn't here to keep things in check, they would have been riding roughshod over ordinary people a long time ago!"
At the mention of this, the slight awkwardness Liu Zheng had felt dissipated, turning into a long sigh.
"The Hidden Sects are indeed a huge problem. Director Chen said that we've been wanting to teach them a lesson internally for a while. But these people are all connected. If we strike too lightly, it won't hurt them. If we strike too hard, we're afraid they'll band together and retaliate, which would cause massive chaos."
Lin Mo finally shifted his gaze from his teacup, looking straight at Liu Zheng.
"What's wrong? You want me to be your hired thug?"
With one sentence, he pierced right through the delicate facade Liu Zheng had spent so long building.
Liu Zheng's old face reddened, and he gave a dry chuckle. "How could we? This is just reasonable mutual assistance, isn't it? The main thing is, in a little while, it'll be time for the Hidden Sect disciples to come down the mountain for their experiential training again. None of those little brats are easy to deal with."
Actually, that afternoon, Liu Zheng and Chen Lai had reported the relevant matters directly to Director Long.
Director Long only replied with one sentence: Don't interfere with Lin Mo. As long as his actions are legally justifiable, let him do as he pleases.
Liu Zheng had pondered the deep meaning behind these words all afternoon, and now, naturally, he intended to reveal a bit of it to Lin Mo.
Murder with a borrowed knife.
The knife was Lin Mo.
The ones to be killed were those arrogant Hidden Sect disciples who were about to come down the mountain.
Lin Mo naturally understood. He could even guess the calculations of Director Long behind Liu Zheng.
Using his uncontrollable sharp blade to fix those troublemakers that Yanhuang Awakening found inconvenient to deal with. This would serve as a warning to the others, and if anything went wrong, they could wash their hands of it completely.
They were calculating things very shrewdly.
But why should he play the father figure and wipe Yanhuang Awakening's mess for them?
Lin Mo just smiled, casually picked up a chopstick-full of beef noodles, and slowly put it into his mouth.
"Mmm, the heat control on this is pretty good."
Liu Zheng and Old Bai both watched him nervously, waiting for him to continue.
So Lin Mo just smiled and then asked a question.
"Do you know where the entrance to the Hidden Sect's Gongsun family is?"
Lin Mo asked this so lightly, as if he were merely asking for the address of a roadside restaurant.
"Pfft!"
Liu Zheng had just picked up his teacup and taken a sip. Hearing this, he nearly spat it all out. He managed to force it down with great difficulty, his face turning bright red.
He leaned in abruptly, lowering his voice like a thief.
"No, I was just talking earlier. You really want to go after a Hidden Sect? Don't do it. The reason Yanhuang Awakening hasn't moved against the Hidden Sects is actually because these sects all have certain trump cards. If they pool them together, it would be very troublesome."
Trump cards?
Lin Mo thought of that Sky-Splitting Arrow.
That trump card was useless now. A spiritual weapon without spiritual energy to drive it couldn't even unleash a third of its power.
Lin Mo tapped his fingers lightly on the table.
Lin Mo's long, slender fingers tapped unhurriedly on the mahogany tabletop, every beat striking right on Liu Zheng's anxious heart.
"It's not that I'm looking for trouble; it's that trouble will definitely find me."
He looked up, his gaze calm and placid.
"The Gongsun family wants an arranged marriage with Yunlu. If this isn't resolved, it's like a thorn stuck in the flesh. Even if I resolve the Situ family's matters, this thorn will still be there. When those guys come down the mountain, they might just come straight for me."
Hearing this, Liu Zheng was left somewhat speechless.
Indeed, the root of this matter was basically provoked by the Gongsun family. There was nothing wrong with what Lin Mo was doing.
Old Bai, on the other hand, was more concerned about Lin Mo.
"Lin Mo, this matter isn't that simple. The Gongsun family's main base isn't in eastern Guangdong. They're over in Bamin, where they've been entrenched for years with deep roots."
Old Bai paused, his voice dropping even lower.
"Moreover, the Yanhuang Awakening branch over in Bamin has a very close relationship with the Gongsun family. To put it bluntly, they have deep cooperation and turn a blind eye to things. After all, when manpower is tight, the Gongsun family has indeed helped handle quite a few tricky situations."
Yanhuang Awakening was not a monolith internally. There were radicals, and naturally, there were pragmatists who chose to cooperate with the Hidden Sects for the sake of local stability.
After all, in situations of personnel shortages, the Gongsun family provided a lot of help to Bamin.
Lin Mo currently held the title of Yanhuang Awakening consultant. If he went straight to Bamin and slapped down the Gongsun family, it would be tantamount to slapping the face of the Bamin branch.
It would definitely incur the displeasure of the Bamin Yanhuang Awakening.
Lin Mo was now a consultant for Yanhuang Awakening, so his identity was somewhat connected.
"Then it's simple."
"Give me the number of the Gongsun family's external liaison. I'll personally call to provoke them. When they get too angry to bear it and voluntarily stick their faces out to Yangcheng, I'll carry out justice on behalf of heaven and give them a vicious slap. That way, I'll be completely justified."
You can play it like that?
Liu Zheng's brain buzzed as a thought exploded in his mind.
Damn! You're a freaking genius!
Tricking people out of their lair and then killing them—this maneuver was absolutely brilliant!
It had to be said, what Lin Mo suggested wasn't actually impossible.
Liu Zheng and Old Bai exchanged a glance, both seeing two words in the other's eyes: It's feasible!
"Alright, I knew I couldn't control a great deity like you."
Liu Zheng leaned back against his chair as if deflated, though a flush of excitement colored his face.
"Alright then, I knew I definitely couldn't control you, but I can give you intel. Right now, we're somewhat short-handed here in Yangcheng, so you'll have to rely on yourself for a lot of things."
From beginning to end, Liu Zheng and Old Bai were on Lin Mo's side.
It was just that their positions limited them, and they couldn't do anything too out of line.
"It's just a number. A small matter."
Liu Zheng took out his phone and started pressing the keys.
"I've asked around. The person in charge of the Gongsun family's secular affairs is named Gongsun Ang. He's a notorious smiling tiger, extremely arrogant. If you provoke him even a little, he's guaranteed to take the bait."
"I'll send you his private number right now."
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
