Dingzhou City

Dingzhou City was a prefectural seat, a bustling and prosperous place with tens of thousands of permanent residents.

The city was divided into four main districts: east, west, south, and north.

The eastern district held the highest status, home to high officials, the powerful and influential, and wealthy Aristocratic Clans.

The western district came next. Though less prestigious than the eastern district, it was still affluent, populated mainly by wealthy merchants, scholars, and officials.

The northern district was quieter, home to garrison troops, military posts, military households, and some longtime residents.

As for South City, it was a place of common streets and markets, where vendors, artisans, refugees, entertainers, and people at the bottom of society mingled. People of every stripe could be found there, dragons and fish jumbled together.

The four districts were as distinct as the Jing and Wei rivers, with a strict hierarchy between them.

The Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters was in South City.

South City was complicated and chaotic, but the area around the Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters was exceptionally peaceful.

That was because they were the greatest masterminds behind the chaos.

The Canglang Gang had originally been a minor, third-rate gang in Dingzhou City, but as its backer climbed higher and higher in rank, the Canglang Gang rose with the tide.

In just a few years, the Canglang Gang had driven back or swallowed up most of the gangs in South City, becoming the largest underground force in the Southern Urban District.

Through its backer's connections, it had also gained control of many of Dingzhou City's gray-market businesses, including gambling dens, brothels, docks, marketplaces, and loan sharking. It was even involved in the buying and selling of people.

It had a hundred core members alone, while its peripheral members and affiliates numbered over a thousand. Across the northern jianghu, it might not have been renowned far and wide, but it had made a modest name for itself.

At the Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters,

in Mighty Far Hall,

Sha Pingwei paced back and forth in the main hall. He did not know why, but he had suddenly felt restless and uneasy today, unable to sit or stand in peace, with the constant feeling that something was about to happen.

He had specifically summoned his advisers and stewards to question them. Nothing major had happened in the city over the past few days, the gang's various businesses and trades had been fairly stable, and he had heard of no one offending any of the city's important figures.

He might have been the leader of a gang, with influence, underlings, and connections, but in Dingzhou City, he did not even qualify for a seat at the table.

What was black was black, unfit to be seen in the light.

All it would take was a ray of sunlight, and the power he had spent years building would melt away in an instant, like the last snow after winter.

For the high officials and powerful figures of Dingzhou City, killing him would be as easy as crushing an ant.

It was precisely because Sha Pingwei understood this that he spared no expense each year, spending heavily to cultivate connections at every level. He also strictly forbade his men from provoking the children of Aristocratic Clans and powerful families.

It was this caution and foresight that had allowed his Canglang Gang to establish itself in Dingzhou City and gradually become its largest gang.

But today,

Sha Pingwei's heart fluttered, and his eyelids twitched fiercely.

He had thought it would pass with time, but who would have guessed that, instead of easing, his heart would grow more panicked and his eyelids twitch all the more fiercely as time went on?

He had not felt this way in a long time.

Back then, he had been ambushed by a rival gang and surrounded in a warehouse, with only a few men left under him. Just when it seemed they would all be wiped out, he had taken the lead and fought through a sea of blood, narrowly breaking through the encirclement and escaping with his life.

That time, death had been at his door, and he had survived by one chance in ten.

Yet even in a situation as dangerous as that, his heart had never panicked as it did today.

Could today be ten deaths with no chance of survival?

Sha Pingwei laughed at himself, thinking he was overthinking things and letting suspicion get the better of him.

His Canglang Gang was now as steady as a rock in Dingzhou City. As long as he did not court death himself, who could threaten his life?

Besides, his backer held a fairly high position in Dingzhou City. Even if one of his men had truly been blind enough to offend one of the city's powerful figures by accident, it would only take some extra gold and silver and an apology to settle the matter.

After all, the jianghu was not about fighting and killing, but about knowing how to deal with people.

He, Sha Pingwei, was only in his forties, in the very prime of his life, and he still had grand goals and ambitions.

He would lead the Canglang Gang beyond Dingzhou City and build it into a major gang renowned throughout the northern lands.

For those goals and ambitions, even if his hands were stained with blood and he bore endless sins, he, Sha Pingwei, would fear nothing and have no regrets.

Talk of an immortal had already spread through every corner of Dingzhou City, growing more and more fervent.

He had heard that even Assistant Prefect Lord Xiao had made a special trip to Heyang County, making the talk of an immortal seem all the more credible.

But he did not believe it.

He, Sha Pingwei, believed only in himself, not in ghosts or gods.

If immortals truly existed in this world, then for the countless sins he had committed over the years, heaven should have struck him dead with lightning long ago.

Yet he was still standing here, perfectly well, and had even escaped death and come away unscathed several times.

So much for the cycle of cause and effect, for retribution that never failed.

So much for heaven's vast net, with its wide mesh that let nothing slip through,

and for those who did too much evil bringing about their own destruction.

It was all bullshit.

He had clawed his way up from the bottom, one step at a time. What sort of people, trades, and crooked arts had he not seen?

In his eyes, this rumor of an immortal descending to the mortal world was merely another scheme cooked up by the demonic Daoists and evil monks of the Spirit-Tuning Sect.

They played gods and ghosts to cheat people of their money and their virtue.

It was just that this time, they had made a rather big show of it, attracting even a high official like Associate Magistrate Xiao.

But they could not fool him, Sha Pingwei.

After Sha Pingwei drained a pot of cold tea, the inexplicable panic and palpitations in his heart were finally suppressed somewhat.

"No, I'm still not at ease."

Sha Pingwei's expression hardened, and he immediately issued another order, summoning all the gang's core members in the city back to the Main Headquarters, just in case.

High in the sky,

the wind was fierce.

It stung Xiao Ya's cheeks and sent her hair whipping wildly. No matter how she tried, she could not hold it in place.

So she stopped trying and let her long hair dance wildly in the gale.

The young master's back was right before her. It was not broad, yet it gave her a tremendous sense of security.

She should have died.

After finishing the death by a thousand cuts on Scarface Gou, she should have used that dagger to kill herself.

But in the end, she had not died.

Because...

Her blood-deep grudge had been avenged.

Xiao Ya sat on the ground amid severed limbs and blood.

Yet there were no tears in her eyes,

because she had shed them all.

The exhilaration and satisfaction of taking revenge came quickly and vanished just as quickly, leaving only endless confusion and emptiness.

She did not know where to go or what to do.

Her father and mother were dead, her chastity was gone, and now she had killed her enemy too. It seemed there was no longer any reason for her to exist in this world.

Xiao Ya lowered her head and glanced at the dagger lying in the blood, then reached out, picked it up, and held it in her hand again.

I should die.

Once I'm dead, I won't have to suffer or feel sad anymore.

The young master is an immortal. A ruined flower and withered willow like me isn't worthy of staying by his side.

I can only repay his immense kindness in my next life.

Just as the dagger came within 0.01 centimeters of her throat, an azure figure suddenly appeared before her eyes.

"Come with me."

Clang—

The dagger fell to the ground, and a glimmer of tears returned to those eyes that had already run dry.

Xiao Ya raised her bloodstained right hand and rubbed her eyes hard.

"All right."

She suddenly no longer wanted to die,

because the young master still needed her, so she would go on living.

When the day came that the young master no longer needed her,

then she would die.