Chapter 120 – This Life’s First Deal’s Commission
(TLs note: Hi guys, we’re trying to increase this novel’s pace now, so we can shift it to our main projects soon.
Ps: took a little longer than usual since this chapter was much longer in size.)
“There’s a lot of investigation going on around the destruction of the northern part of the city. It could be a coincidence, but Qin Hu’s son, Qin Xiao Bao unknowingly and unintentionally offended Tang Yuan and Jun Mo Xie! Jun Mo Xie and his sidekick would have surely retaliated in some way, but I don’t think that they could be behind the mysterious destruction of the northern part of the city…. however, I don’t could just be becoming a little paranoid, but I think that this could be related in some way, but I can’t really describe the reason behind my suspicions.” Li You Ran stood up and started slowly pacing back and forth. “At the moment, the northern part of the city has lost its eyes and ears, which is why we are missing the majority of our sources in that part of the town, so we’ll need to make up for that loss as soon as possible.”
“Good, you must work on that.” Li Shang closed his eyes: “I would recommend you to join the Imperial court, but since you’re insisting against it, all I can say to you, Li You Ran, is that I’ve built the foundation of our Family due to my position in the Imperial Court, and not by sitting beside rivers and lakes, this you must always remember! I know that you’re ambitious, but you must understand your limitations…… it’s very dangerous to chance your luck all the time, if you wish to progress, you must do so cautiously and calculatedly!”
“Your grandson understands.” Li You Ran had silently lowered his head for a while before replying.
The autumn wind was flowing free and leisurely, and two unknown men were enjoying its delicacy. One of them had a yellow face, his figure was exceptionally tall. His sharp eyes looked disproportionate to his yellow face, while the other one was slightly darker in shade, but this young man’s complexion was still looking quite similar to his companion’s.
“The Tian Xiang Imperial City has changed a lot in this past decade ah.” The middle-aged man was walking slowly as his eyes looked around the city’s streets. His voice sounded a bit desolate, almost as if he had been to a different world, and had suddenly returned to face a different reality. “That place was Ye Family’s ancestral hall ten years ago, and I grew up playing around there with my Brothers…he he…” He laughed, but it still sounded like he was weeping.
“Uncle, you’re not getting caught up in the past again, are you?” the youngster next to him smiled: “After all, you must get used to it. All things must die one day, whether it is man or a soldier or a system: whatever begins in life… ends in death. If it wasn’t about life and death, then no matter what happens, no one no would bother about fame and success.”
“To get used to life and death….. easier said than done!” The middle-aged man sighed loudly, “The last ten years have passed away like a bad dream. I just see desolation everywhere…. Once I had brothers, and now they are all dead, and I’m left alone in this world…..”
“Uncle, do you ever think about our feet?” The youngster chuckled gently, but with a hint of a gentle mockery, almost as if he was mocking the irony of life on this earth! At this moment, the youngster’s eyes were seemingly seeing through the past and the present, and he seemed ignorant to everything else. He pointed at the land under his foot: “Third uncle, since ancient times, since tens of thousands of years, do you know how many people have been buried under this piece of land?”
“In a way, we are actually always standing on the corpse of someone else! This moment, we perhaps stepped on the corpse of beggar, and maybe the next moment we might be standing on the remains of a great emperor! The matter that this thick soil consists off…. is comprised of a mountain of bones. Life and death are just like dry and vegetation, once it gets old and withered, it dies… so what does it matter? One day, you, or perhaps, I, will lie under this soil, ready to be trampled upon by other humans!”
“But the most important thing is now! Now, we are stepping on someone else all the time, whether he was a commoner, or a once-in-a millennia imperial lord, or the beautiful daughter of a minister. But what are they now? ….the obvious reaction to stepping on other’s graves is that we must build our selves to a position where the others cannot step on us!! Whether we live or we die!”
“Ha ha…..” the man laughed wickedly: “That might be true, but we must also cherish the memories of the dead from time to time. If we don’t cherish their memories, or worse, make our-self unworthy of being remembered, then how can we expect our future generations to remember us? The king might have been a king in his life, but if he killed a million men, then it doesn’t matter if he died on a mountain or on a river bed, he would have still gone to hell!”
“In life, we mustn’t regret! Even if we have done something wrong, we mustn’t regret! A wrong done for the right reasons is still a right, and a right done for the wrong reason is still a wrong?…. No one knows the reality of right and wrong in truth…. While we live, we must have fun! Live like the sea, free and unrestrained… follow the desires of the heart. If we don’t like someone, we must step on them! And kill the ones who hurt us! And destroy the ones that stand in our path!”
“In life, both men and women must proudly look at the heavens, and let the ones that overlook this earth know, that we are alive! That we were worthy of coming to this world!” the youngster’s eyes were distantly gazing at his surroundings: “This is just a game, nothing more!”
These two men were rather strange, even though they looked quite young, they were preaching like old men.
This strange combination was obviously the uncle and the nephew duo of Jun Wu Yi and Jun Mo Xie.
Jun Wu Yi hadn’t left the Jun Family’s courtyard in these last ten years, so Jun Mo Xie wanted to take him out in order to relieve him of his boredom. This was exactly what Jun Wu Yi needed, and he readily agreed, and so the two men sneakily slipped out and decided to take a stroll around the capital’s streets.
Jun Mo Xie had lived a very stealth life in his previous incarnation, and had acquired peerless expertise in disguising himself using a variety of modern and ancient techniques. At this moment, they looked so different from their original appearance, that no one in the entire Xuan Xuan continent would be able to tell their real identities, which is why the two men were boldly wandering around at present.
“Mo Xie, do you really believe that…..” Jun Wu Yi finished listening to Jun Mo Xie, then shook his head and laughed: “If you can’t see yourself, then you must at least listen to yourself. I’m afraid that you’ve changed a lot, you’re seeing through the concepts of life and death like an extremely old man ah.”
Jun Mo Xie smiled in his heart. He was indeed running his mouth like an old man would, but then again, he was quite experienced in life, this after all, this was his second life, and he was talking from experience….
“This place used to be great prince’s residence ten years ago; they’ve actually managed to convert it to a Huang Hua Hall? I really wonder, this being the capital city, who would dare force a prince out his home?” Jun Wu Yi frowned as he looked at the concave that lay on the left side of the road. The road to it looked slightly humble, but it rolled up and down and led straight to a very big house. A frail and faintly shrill voice rank from within, and it seemed rather weak and full of despair. “Huang Hua Hall… what does it mean? I don’t remember it being here in the older days?”
The pedestrians passing by would try to stay as far away from the Huang Hua Hall, almost as if the place was riddled with snakes on the inside. Everyone’s eyes were filled with hate and a hint of fear, and they would inevitably quicken up their steps as they would pass by the gate of the building.
Jun Mo Xie quickly searched through the memories in his brain, and said: “Huang Hua Hall is like a Brothel of sorts. But the escorts here are relatively younger in age, and most are quite good-looking……..children!” Suddenly, a strong sense of anger swarmed Jun Mo Xie’s heart.
“This is a transit point for the sale of young boys and girls. If they are well qualified, then they sent away. The one who aren’t very educated but are good looking and clever, are tuned up and then sold for high prices to large families for profiteering purposes. The first class recruits are the worst off; they are allowed to stay here for a few years, until they reach puberty, and then, they are sold into the Spirit Fog River to be the playthings of men and women. This place is the base of sin and filth.”
Jun Wu Yi looked sharply at the gate: “I didn’t expect that such an establishment would be allowed to function inside the Tian Xiang Imperial City! How do the officials allow this?”
Jun Mo Xie sighed. This place had belonged to the prince once, and he had to let go off it, but no one knows what happened and why…. Who would have the guts to go up against such people? If the site belonged to a prince, and someone was capable of taking it off the hands of a powerful prince, then what could common men do about it?
This was a bureaucratic empire, and his place had managed to stay out of all litigations, so maybe a top ranked noble or the son of a very powerful man was behind this establishment, but who would have the courage to try and find out?! Besides, most people came here willingly since they needed the money, while some were homeless children from homeless asylums, and were tantamount to slaves anyway. What could other people say about this matter?
“This is awful! This is very disappointing!” Jun Wu Yi groaned coldly. He glanced sharply at the entrance gate, unwilling to walk past it, but today, he’d have to turn back, since exposing his identity would be very troublesome. Moreover, Jun Wu Yi’s body was still healing and he strictly needed to keep it a secret, so even though he didn’t wish to, he turned around to walk away from it.
Just as the two men were leaving, a sudden and shrill cry sounded behind them, which was followed by a loud uproar from a crowd of people. A figure dropped onto the middle of the street; it was young maiden, her clothes were disheveled and torn, while her beautiful face was distorted with pain. Her mouth was constantly vomiting blood, and her glazed eyes already seemed to have lost the will to live. Her mouth opened as she cried in a low voice: “….. ….. ….. I ask you Brother….. I beg you Brother, don’t let him do……”
“Sister…..” then, a sharp voice cried after her, and a thin and weak child emerged at the entrance of the building. A hand was stopping the child from walking out, but the child’s face was very anxious and he was constantly struggling to break free; but how could a mere child break free from the hold of a brawny adult man. In his state of anxiety, the child ceaselessly kept throwing his elbows around in the hope of breaking free of his captor. Then suddenly, the child opened his mouth and fiercely bit the man’s arm. The man winced in pain and the boy took his opportunity and rushed out towards the middle of the street, where the young girl lay dying.
The dying girl looked over and saw the small figure that was approaching her, and suddenly her eyes revealed a color of joy and fear. She was barely able to lift her hand as she tried to extend it, hoping that it would be met by her own Brothers’.
Just then, a voice suddenly cursed out loudly, and a sharp and piercing sound followed. The boy who was in the middle of speeding towards his sister, found his body being twisted unnaturally, almost as if a sugar cane was being bent in the middle. He fell to the ground with a ‘plop’ sound, and the punch that he had just taken had suddenly cut his life short! He was silent now, and his body no longer breathed. His body slid on the ground under the impact of the attack, but his eyes were still flushed with anger and anxiety, while his hand was still stretched out towards his dying sister. But his hand was unable to make the distance as his dead body came to a stop, a foot away from her dying sister’s body.
This one foot of distance was actually separating two siblings and this distance was so large for them, that they were unable to cover it, even at the cost of their lives!
A young boy was actually dead in front of his older sister’s dying eyes?!
The angry and indignated maiden howled wildly as she tried to crawl closer to her brother’s corpse, but only managed to struggle twice before she was unable to move any further. Her beautiful eyes still stared at the corpse of her younger brother, as the final trace of life left them, but they still refused to shut, unable to rest in peace. Her breathing had ceased, but her slender arm was still obstinately stretched towards her brother’s dead body…….
‘Pop’. There was a slight sound, and a small, broken, copper coin fell out from under the young maiden’s breast clothing, curled along her arms, and rolled across the ground which was stained in the blood of these two siblings. The coin rolled and rolled for a long time, and came to a stop next to Jun Mo Xie’s shoe’s front, and no longer moved any further.
“Sinful ah! There have been too many this month! Well, these children were really poor…” a passerby whispered to himself, shook his head, and quickly left the scene.
“This is what happens to people who sell themselves to slavery… I guess this can be considered as their punishment for their own sins?!” one man muttered in disapproval.
A lot of people looked on with a color of compassion on their faces, which was concealing a strong sense of anger beneath, but no one dared to speak a word against it openly. In the blink of an eye, the entire crowd had quickly started to disperse, and the street started to clear again.
“Animals!” the sound of Jun Wu Yi’s voice made everyone turn around. He had done an irreversible deed in a fit of rage: “How could you murder such young children? Do you still have some humanity left in you, or some sense of justice perhaps?”
There were a few men standing at the entrance of building, grinning at the bloody spectacle that they had just choreographed, extracting some evil pleasure from the sight of it. They had never imagined that someone would openly accuse them! This was the Huang Hua Hall, and no ever said anything here.
“Don’t watch it if you don’t like it, and mind your own business! Go home to your mother and don’t you dare say another word. I decide the fate of these two, who are you to call me out for justice? Or humanity?!” the man who had been bitten by the kid was still grinning.
Jun Wu Yi was presently dressed as a scholar, but his strange robes made him look like a poor man, and less like an accomplished scholar.
“I dare you!” Jun Wu Yi was furious: “You do these activities in the heart of the Imperial City?! How dare you show such disregard for life and trample upon it?”
At this time, Jun Mo Xie was looking down, spellbound, at the broken coin which was stationary next to his shoe. At this moment, his heart was soaring and a strange but familiar feeling was rushing through his heart!
This is a broken coin, and could have tumbled over at the slightest vibration, but it still happened to make its way through several people’s feet and landed on mine! What is this…. Coincidence, or perhaps…providence?
At this moment, Jun Mo Xie had gone back to his previous life, where he had become a Hitman, the King of all assassins – King Jun Xie!
He slowly leaned down and solemnly picked up that broken copper coin, and placed it in the center of this hand as he whispered: “I assure you, you may now rest in peace. I accept your money as the commission from my first deal in this life! No contract is needed; the heavens will be the witness!”
He slowly looked up, and his dazzling eyes saw the three words ‘Huang Hua Hall’. Jun Mo Xie’s eyes narrowed as a light shone through them. Like a ray of sunshine that penetrates through the dark clouds, his eyes glimmered in a brilliant, but murderous blaze!
I don’t care what the story behind these children are, and I do not need to know the girl’s identity. I do not care about the power that supports this Huang Hua Hall!
I only know what I need to do!
The subject of this money is human misfortunes!
A coin is money, even if it’s broken, it’s still money!
I have received this money as the commission for a deal! And since I’ve accepted this commission, these people need to die!
So now – I Kill!