Gangs

Datong Ward, in front of an ordinary black courtyard gate.

Yang Jing stopped in his tracks, his gaze darkening.

He sized up the two thuggish men before him. One had short hair and a crooked neck; the other had frayed cuffs. Both were toying with daggers, their eyes full of scrutiny as they looked at Yang Jing.

"Yang Jing, your six months are up. Time to pay." The short-haired man twisted his neck, making it crack.

"You borrowed eight taels from our Great Fortune Gang. According to the contract you signed, you repay twice what you borrowed after six months. You owe us sixteen taels of silver now," the other man, tall and thin with frayed cuffs, said with a cold snort.

At their words, Yang Jing first frowned, thinking they were trying to extort him. But a moment later, he suddenly remembered.

Had he actually taken out a usurious loan?

Or, more accurately, the original owner of this body had taken one out, and he had merely inherited the consequences.

Fragments of memory surfaced in Yang Jing's mind.

Although he had received all the original owner's memories, there were simply too many, and they were too tangled. Yang Jing had not sorted through them all, merely left them piled together.

It was like how many people thought they had forgotten their memories from before the age of three. In truth, those memories were not really forgotten, but stored somewhere in the brain, perhaps to resurface under the right circumstances.

Yang Jing had it much easier, though. Whenever he needed those memories, he could retrieve and examine them at any time.

Soon, Yang Jing had sorted through the memories concerning the original owner's usurious loan.

Once he understood the whole story, his expression slowly darkened.

To get into Lu Yang, Zhou Lin, and Zhang Kehan's circle, the original owner inevitably had to treat them to meals. On two occasions when Qi Yun had joined them, he had deliberately rushed to pay the bill, hoping to build a connection with her and cling to her coattails.

Even so, Qi Yun had never spared him a second glance.

In the eyes of Qi Yun and the others, the original owner was nothing more than a country bumpkin with an abysmal root bone.

More importantly, Qi Yun, Lu Yang, Zhou Lin, and the others came from prominent lineages or wealthy families in town and could afford to spend freely. But what did Yang Jing have?

The monthly allowance his family sent him was not even enough to cover the meals at their drinking gatherings.

The original owner was a pauper through and through, with barely any silver to his name. How could he afford to treat Qi Yun, Lu Yang, and the others to food and drink? He had simply happened to learn that the Great Fortune Gang offered loans.

The original owner really had been brainless. Without considering the interest at all, he had gone straight ahead and borrowed eight taels of silver.

Yang Jing shook his head inwardly. The poorest one had insisted on putting on the biggest show, and now the debt collectors had come knocking.

"I don't have any money right now. I'll pay you when I do," Yang Jing said flatly.

He simply decided to be a brazen deadbeat.

First, he really did not have much silver on hand, nowhere near the sixteen taels he needed.

Second, he had never intended to repay this money at all.

A six-month term, with twice the borrowed amount due.

That interest rate was utterly outrageous. Even the authorities explicitly prohibited it. Such loans only circulated in secret and could never see the light of day, so Yang Jing had no fear of making a scene.

Moreover, from the original owner's memories, Yang Jing learned that besides usury, the Great Fortune Gang also committed utterly depraved acts such as human trafficking and mutilating people to turn them into begging spectacles.

Although Yang Jing was no saint or philanthropist, he still had a bottom line as a human being.

Naturally, he despised gangs like this from the bottom of his heart.

"You're asking for death!"

"Brat, you dare screw with us?"

At Yang Jing's words, the short-haired man and the tall, thin man immediately darkened, their voices turning icy.

Each took a step forward, closing around Yang Jing from two angles, looking ready to draw blood at the slightest disagreement.

Facing the two dagger-wielding gang thugs about to press in on him, Yang Jing's expression did not change in the slightest, nor did he feel any fear.

These two gang thugs were merely ordinary people. Judging by their muscles and blood and qi, they were only average even among ordinary people. They probably seldom exercised.

As for the Great Fortune Gang behind them, Yang Jing knew little about it, mainly because the original owner had left him too little information.

He had to admit that the original owner had been both foolish and stupid.

Without learning enough about the Great Fortune Gang, he had actually dared to borrow money for eating, drinking, and merrymaking. He had not even understood the interest rate.

But on second thought, people like that were not uncommon.

Even on Earth in Yang Jing's previous life, plenty of high school and university students had gotten involved with all kinds of online loans. At one point, there had even been a market for loans secured with nude photos. It just went to show that once people got carried away or stopped thinking, they were bound to take a nasty tumble.

Gangs. The word rose in Yang Jing's mind.

Although he knew little about the Great Fortune Gang, he did know something about the gangs of Yuhe County as a whole.

As far as Yang Jing knew, Yuhe County was thick with gangs. In particular, the various wards within the County Seat and the outskirts nearby were home to countless gangs bearing all sorts of names.

These gangs varied in strength.

The stronger gangs generally had leaders with hidden strength.

Next came the ordinary gangs, whose leaders generally possessed bright strength.

At the very bottom were the lowest-tier gangs. Competition among these was the fiercest, and some were composed entirely of ordinary people.

Ordinary gangs and lowest-tier gangs were the most numerous in Yuhe County.

With Yang Jing's current strength in the bright strength realm, he had little to fear as long as he did not provoke a gang backed by a hidden strength expert.

If he really did provoke a powerful gang like that, he could always hide in the Martial Arts Hall.

His master, Sun Yong, was a bona fide transforming strength expert, already one of the strongest handful of people in Yuhe County.

Yang Jing was no longer merely a registered disciple, but Sun Yong's formal disciple. If he really provoked a hidden strength expert, his readily acquired master could hardly stand by and do nothing.

At the very least, Sun Yong would protect him and look after him for a while.

As for the future, Yang Jing had that much confidence: given time, every enemy would be a paper tiger!

"Gentlemen," Yang Jing called to the two men drawing closer, raising his brows slightly as though something had occurred to him.

"What?" the short-haired man asked coldly.

"Can I borrow some more? I promise I'll pay it back!" Yang Jing said.

Since Yang Jing had already decided to tear off the mask of civility with the Great Fortune Gang, he wanted to try borrowing another sum. He had no intention of repaying it anyway.

"Fuck! You really are screwing with us!"

Both gang thugs froze at Yang Jing's words before catching on and cursing, "You don't have any fucking money to pay us back, and you still want more from us? Do you think the Great Fortune Gang's money just blows in on the wind?"

"I think you're asking to die!" the tall, thin man cursed, throwing the first punch. His fist carried brute force, but no technique whatsoever.