I'm Not a Hero, but I Just Can't Stand It

Ignoring the filth on Qianqian's body, Ye Wen gently picked her up and stroked her back. "It's okay now, it's okay. Big brother won't send you back to the orphanage."

After comforting Qianqian for a while and settling the bill with the owner, Ye Wen took her away from there.

After returning to the hotel where they were staying, he cleaned the dirt off Qianqian and thoughtfully bought her several new outfits. The little girl, once foul-smelling, filthy, and unpleasant to look at, immediately became delicate and adorable.

Her long, slightly curly golden hair resembled the Golden Fleece from ancient Greek legends—fluffy and soft. She was about the same height as an ordinary six- or seven-year-old girl, reaching roughly Ye Wen's thigh. Though her little face was somewhat thin from long-term malnutrition, one could still see her gentle nature.

Although Ye Wen had never majored in psychology or child-related studies, he considered himself quite skilled at dealing with little girls like her. After all, he had once been the big brother of an orphanage himself.

Under Ye Wen's persuasion, Qianqian lowered her guard and quietly fell asleep in his arms. Ye Wen also learned of another, unknown side hidden beneath the surface of this city.

David City's orphanage was managed by a relative of the City Lord. On the surface, he was a kind and amiable fat man, but behind the scenes, he seemed to be involved in human trafficking, something explicitly forbidden within the empire.

Yet that damned fat man secretly sold off the attractive orphans after awakening their martial souls. Unfortunately, young Qianqian had witnessed it. Qianqian also knew that she was cute, and that fat man would occasionally look at her with disgusting eyes.

So, when she was five, Qianqian escaped the orphanage that terrified her on her own. She had tried to persuade the other children to flee with her, unwilling to become slaves of nobles, but most of them feared hunger and all sorts of hardships. They were unwilling to leave an orphanage that could barely be considered decent.

From Qianqian's description, Ye Wen discovered something quite interesting: Qianqian should have come from a fairly good soul master family. Otherwise, an ordinary commoner would not have had such a deep understanding of nobles.

But Ye Wen was not particularly surprised by this. After all, children from ordinary families would find it difficult to be as clever as Qianqian.

What troubled Ye Wen now was how to deal with the orphanage. Though he was no righteous hero, slave trading right under his nose still made a child raised beneath the red flag feel deeply disgusted.

"Slaves? What a revolting term. Reporting that orphanage director would probably be useless. Collusion between officials and merchants has existed in every era. Not to mention that this damned fat man's backer is the City Lord of David City.

"For a noble to become the City Lord of a medium-sized city, they needed at least the cultivation of a Soul Emperor. And with such status, they could already come into contact with the central authorities of the Heaven Dou Empire. Trying to uproot them completely would probably bring trouble upon myself.

"If all I wanted was for that fat man to die of illness, that would be easy enough. But would replacing him with another orphanage director solve the problem? Obviously not.

"Ye Wen understood humanity's inherent greed for wealth all too well. Even he himself was obsessed with Gold Soul Coins. After all, even a hero can be stumped by a single penny."

Suddenly, Ye Wen seemed to think of something, and a sinister smile appeared at the corner of his lips.

Over the following days, Ye Wen continued wandering around the city as usual. At the same time, he introduced Qianqian to Huo Rui and her younger brother. At first, they were extremely surprised by the sudden appearance of this pitiful Little Girl, but her soft, adorable cries of "big brother" and "big sister" instantly melted them both. They spent every day circling around Qianqian.

For that, Ye Wen gave each of them a knock on the head and told them to calm down.

Lolicon tendencies were seriously perverted—ptui ←_←

Time passed in the blink of an eye, and the siblings successfully completed their ten-win streak, earning Ye Wen one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.

They also advanced successfully to Bronze Soul Fighters.

As for why they did not continue fighting, it was not because Ye Wen did not want to earn more Gold Soul Coins. Rather, making such a huge amount of money in a city like this was practically courting death.

This place was nothing like the imperial capital of Heaven Dou, where plenty of idiot great nobles casually threw around millions of Gold Soul Coins. One hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins was already enough to make the Soul Fighting Arena feel a twinge of pain. If they lost any more, the Soul Fighting Arena might resort to dirty tricks. Even the high-cultivation nobles in the city might target Ye Wen.

Knowing when to stop was the way to last.

Of course, it would be a different matter if his cultivation reached the level of a Titled Douluo.

Meanwhile, although Ye Wen appeared to have done nothing these past few days, he had secretly gathered evidence of the orphanage director's slave trade. However, that damned fat man had kept his relationship with the City Lord very clean, making it seemingly impossible to implicate the City Lord of David City through him. Still, this was enough.

Ye Wen quietly handed the information to the main branch of Spirit Hall in David City. With the relationship between the two great empires and Spirit Hall growing increasingly tense, Spirit Hall would surely be happy to use this matter to make trouble for David City and raise its standing among the common people.

As for that damned fat man, Ye Wen had slipped a colorless, odorless slow-acting poison into the tea he frequently drank. Before long, he would suddenly die of a heart attack, without the slightest trace of anything suspicious.

Even if someone truly discovered it, Ye Wen would have long since left David City by then.

In this feudal era, tracking down a murderer who had poisoned someone more than half a month ago was like looking for a needle in the ocean.

Ye Wen had already returned to Heavenly Path Academy. Even though he was now so far out in the countryside, he still heard while entering the city to purchase supplies that the slave scandal at David City's orphanage had caused an enormous uproar.

The City Lord of David City and his entire family were directly stripped of their noble status.

It was said that they later died unnatural deaths as well. For a time, Heaven Dou's nobles became extremely secretive whenever the subject of slaves came up.

"I didn't expect Spirit Hall to have been plotting against the two great empires so early. I knew Spirit Hall's relationship with the two great empires was poor, but I never imagined it had already reached this point. I thought they only intended to move against the two great empires during Bibi Dong's era.

"But this saved me quite a bit of trouble. I had originally planned to assassinate that City Lord of David City once my cultivation was strong enough if he went unpunished."

Ye Wen quickly put the matter behind him. He had come to Nuoding City this time because the metal he had commissioned the merchant guild to purchase had arrived.

Now that he understood how to make a first-grade Soul Tool, the Storage Ring, how could he not put his research into practice?

Besides, constantly relying on the Soul Fighting Arena to gamble for Gold Soul Coins might bring money quickly, but it was not a long-term solution. So Ye Wen planned to make and sell first-grade Storage Space Rings in the future.