The Familiar Scent

The four gold-stamped characters for Mercenary Guild were so dazzling under the sunlight that they could almost blind a person.

With its deep pockets, the guild occupied the best and most central location on the Cross Avenue of the South City. The massive three-courtyard compound boasted a front gate so spacious that eight horses could easily gallop through it side by side. Outside the main entrance, the most striking feature was not the two majestic stone lions guarding the estate, but a giant white marble stele standing a full ten feet tall.

Carved into the stele with vigorous, masterful strokes and traced in red cinnabar were the ironclad laws of the guild:

Tiered Commissions, Pay by Effort, Royal Guarantee, Breach of Contract Strictly Punished!

These words carried an unquestionable dominance and a highly modern spirit of contract, forcefully intimidating this crowd of rough, blood-licking martial artists.

As soon as Wang Hao and his party stepped over the high threshold, a clamor even louder than the boiling streets outside, mixed with the smell of sweat, alcohol, and wound medicine, hit their faces like a physical force.

The hall was truly a chaotic dance of demons, packed wall-to-wall with people.

Burly, bearded men carrying nine-ring broadswords, lean and sinister-eyed escorts, swordsmen wearing bamboo hats trying to look profound, and reckless brawlers in short tunics showing off tattooed arms... People from all walks of life, a complete mix of dragons and fishes, were now obediently squeezed together. Like a flock of ducklings waiting to be fed, they craned their necks and pointed frantically at the giant Task Board on the wall, spit flying everywhere.

Fuck! A bandit suppression task! The government just issued a bounty for those murderous thugs at the West Mountain Twelve Peaks. Five hundred taels of silver! Which fearless brother wants to team up and risk it with me? We split the reward evenly once it's done! a burly man with a scarred face roared with his raspy voice.

Screw your five hundred taels, if you don't want your life, I still want mine! Look over here, a long-distance escort! A silk caravan from Jiangnan to the capital, guarantee a safe journey for a full one hundred taels! It requires three-star mercenaries or above. This is a steady job!

Get lost, get lost, make way for me! Look at this one, mine guard! The royal coal mine in the western suburbs is hiring night guards. Three taels of silver a month, and they even provide three solid meals a day, with meat at every meal! This is a god-tier retirement job, I'm definitely going for it!

On the outskirts of the crowd, dozens of Eastern Depot agents in capable plainclothes stood with cold faces, maintaining order. The special steel tokens hanging at their waists were faintly visible. With their hands resting on their belts, their eyes were as sharp as knives, looking as if they could scrape a layer of skin off anyone they stared at. With these living Yamas from hell standing there, leaking a murderous aura, not a single reckless martial artist dared to slam a table or cause trouble here.

Wei Zhongxian squeezed in next to Wang Hao, sticking out his chest and belly, the wrinkles on his old face smoothing out with pride. Like a student who had just scored full marks and was eager to show off to his parents, he stood on his tiptoes, leaned close to Wang Hao's ear, and lowered his voice, his tone filled with uncontrollable smugness:

Young Master, take a look! Is this servant's work to your satisfaction? You have no idea how hard these grassroots martial artists used to be to manage, causing trouble in the capital every single day. Now that we have this guild, whether it's bandit suppression, escorting, guarding estates, or even carrying goods at the docks, we take it all!

Wei Zhongxian rubbed his hands together, his eyes shining with gold. He kept his voice low and continued his sycophantic rambling: The best part is, no matter what job they take, our guild takes an unshakable thirty percent cut! Not a penny less! And they still have to be grateful to us! Your strategy is simply brilliant. Not only does it gather these dangerous, idle elements right under our noses, reducing security troubles for the imperial court, but it also brings in an endless stream of massive wealth! What is this called? This is killing three birds with one stone!

Listening to Eunuch Wei's speech, which perfectly matched the face of a ruthless capitalist, Wang Hao's lips curled into a faint smile, but he said nothing.

Standing on the other side, Yu Huatian cast a cold glance at Wei Zhongxian, his eyes looking at him as if he were an idiot who only knew how to count copper coins. He turned slightly and reported in a cool, soft voice that only Wang Hao could hear: Young Master, wealth is merely a worldly possession. The true value of this guild lies in intelligence. This subordinate has already deployed all the hidden agents of the Western Depot. The background of every single person in this hall is currently being verified. If any suspicious individuals, foreign spies, or wanted criminals with major cases dare to register, they will immediately fall into this subordinate's sights.

Pei Jingzhe did not participate in the secret rivalry between these two spymasters. He stood like a lifeless statue, remaining half a step behind Wang Hao. However, his eagle-like, sharp eyes were scanning every corner of the hall at a terrifying frequency. If anyone's breathing quickened by a fraction, if their footsteps faltered by an inch, or if they carried an unwarranted killing intent, he would silently mark them as a dead man in his mind.

Sun Li followed at the very back, looking at the bustling hall and then at those life-threatening tasks on the wall, clicking his tongue in wonder. How exactly was the Emperor's brain wired? To come up with such a wicked scheme to turn the thorns of the martial world into long-term laborers for the imperial court... Oh no! This old servant has truly had his eyes opened today!

Wang Hao still didn't speak. He simply flicked open his folding fan and waved it gently. His gaze drifted slowly and seemingly aimlessly across the noisy hall, his expression as calm as if he were inspecting his own back garden.

He had originally just planned to take a casual stroll, to see if this capitalist money tree he had planted with his own hands was running smoothly, and to experience the long-lost bustling atmosphere of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

But just as his casual gaze swept carelessly past a thick red-lacquered pillar in the southwest corner of the hall...

The hand Wang Hao used to wave his fan came to an abrupt halt.

It was as if even the noisy air around them had frozen in the second he paused.

In the shadow of the pillar stood a man in a green shirt.

The man had a thin figure and an extremely ordinary face, the type that if you threw him into a crowd, you would forget him completely even after staring at him for three days and three nights. He had a few somewhat messy fake whiskers on his chin, and his facial features had clearly been altered by brilliant disguise techniques, rendering him completely unremarkable and devoid of any distinct characteristics.

He just stood there quietly, wearing a washed-out, half-old long shirt, holding a cup of coarse tea provided for free by the guild. He had his head tilted up slightly, seemingly studying the task board on the wall in a leisurely manner.

But only a true master could notice that his movements when drinking tea were incredibly light, and his eyes would inadvertently, almost imperceptibly, dart toward the guild's main entrance and several key exits. It was a vigilance that seeped into his very bones, like a lone wolf in sheep's clothing, ready to violently strike out and injure someone at any moment.

With just that light, fleeting glance.

Wang Hao's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

It wasn't fear. It was the excitement and alertness of a hunter who had suddenly stepped on his prey's droppings in the tall grass.

Too familiar.

It wasn't that this mediocre face was familiar, but that figure, that gait with the center of gravity pressed slightly low, the habit of curling the pinky finger slightly when holding a teacup, and that underlying, self-important arrogance that remained hidden in his bones despite his desperate attempts to conceal it, even from dozens of meters away!

Wang Hao couldn't possibly be more familiar with this vibe!

Wang Hao calmly lowered his gaze, his long eyelashes concealing the cold gleam that flashed within his pupils. With a sharp snap, he closed his folding fan, his fingertips gently rubbing together beneath the cover of his wide sleeves.

Deep within his heart, an emotionless, low shout echoed like thunder:

[Emperor's Qi Observation Art, Activate!]

In an instant, the world transformed in a way only Wang Hao could see.

An invisible, peerlessly tyrannical, and supremely noble purple-gold dragon qi silently emanated from his body. Like radar ripples, it instantly pierced through the dense layers of the crowd, bypassing all mortal flesh and disguises, to lock directly onto the man in the cyan robes.

A second later, the cold light in Wang Hao's eyes seemed tangible enough to sever the void itself.

Illuminated by the purple-gold dragon qi, an incredibly dense mass of intertwined purple and yellow providence hovered directly above the head of the seemingly ordinary cyan-robed man, taking the shape of a blooming lotus flower!