Dunkirk's Young Nobles

Jin was in a foul mood.

To be precise, Jin had been in a very bad mood for the past three days. Both his left and right eyelids had started twitching at the same time, and they had twitched nonstop for three days. As the largest bankers in Dunkirk, Jin's family possessed a miraculous hereditary gift—whenever something bad was about to happen, their eyelids would twitch without end.

The worse the coming disaster, the harder their eyelids twitched, and the longer it lasted.

Ten years ago, when Jin's father made a mistake in an investment that cost the family hundreds of thousands of gold coins and nearly sparked a bank run, his eyelids had twitched for an entire day and night. But this time, Jin's eyelids had twitched for three days straight! Had the devil set its sights on Jin?

With his mind unsettled, Jin had slept poorly for several days in a row. Once a fairly handsome young man, he now looked utterly haggard. With huge bags under his eyes, a high hooked nose, and a darkened face, Jin looked into the mirror and felt that he resembled nothing so much as a damned Black Elf, or a vampire fiend whose heart ought to be pierced through with a stake of pure silver.

After two days passed without anything bad happening, Jin finally pulled himself together and brought his personal manservant to the Golden Rose Lounge, owned by his family. It was called a lounge, but in truth, the Golden Rose was one of Dunkirk's foremost money-burning dens. It had gambling halls, Beast Fighting arenas, gladiatorial pits, slave auctions, and auctions for all manner of exotic treasures. More importantly, one could enjoy beauties, fine wines, and delicacies from every continent here. Thus, it had become the favorite place for Dunkirk's young masters and noble ladies to pass their time.

In the long winter, commoners had to struggle bitterly to "endure the winter." The sons and daughters of great noble houses naturally could not brave blizzards to seek amusement outdoors either. During the endless winter, they could only hold indoor gatherings to find a little fun. The Golden Rose was precisely such a place, where everyone could find something to enjoy. So long as you had enough gold coins, you could find entertainment here to delight your eyes and heart.

Because of his twitching eyelids, Jin had not come to tend to the Golden Rose's business for two days. Yet when he arrived at the Golden Rose this evening, he heard Angel, Dunkirk's famed beauty, shouting in the lounge hall, "It really was him! I didn't see wrong—how could I possibly have seen wrong? It was that scoundrel! That scoundrel who robbed my brother's purse clean, smashed his head open, and shoved me into... into that awful place!"

The scoundrel who had robbed Angel's brother's purse and shoved her into some place? Why did that sound so familiar? Jin's head, aching from lack of rest, began working swiftly as he searched through every scrap of information related to the matter.

After a long while, Jin suddenly remembered a name that gave him nightmares at night—Lin Qi!

That scoundrel who had once tormented every young master and young lady of Dunkirk's wealthy noble families, left every sanctimonious young gentleman in disarray, made every finely dressed young lady wail to heaven and earth, and cast his demonic shadow over Dunkirk for years—until he suddenly vanished three years ago, with no trace of him ever seen since!

Lin Qi!

Jin felt a chill rush from the crown of his head straight to the soles of his feet. His body shuddered involuntarily. His head, neck, shoulders, waist, backside, legs—every part of him that Lin Qi had ever beaten began to ache violently.

Angel was still muttering away. "I saw him yesterday. Gods, it was a nightmare. The instant I saw him, everything went black before my eyes—I nearly fainted! At last night's ball, I told Anlin and the others about it, but they actually refused to believe me!"

Fanning herself angrily with a little handkerchief, Angel snapped, "But you have to believe me. That scoundrel really has come back! Gods, that devil, that disgrace, the shame of every great family in Dunkirk, that savage brute—why don't the gods punish him?"

In the lounge hall, dozens of young men and women sat silently upon broad, soft sofas, every face incomparably ugly.

They were all young masters and ladies from Dunkirk's wealthy and powerful families. Their elders were either local nobles of Dunkirk, with rich fiefs and estates that guaranteed them a life of ease, or wealthy merchants who wielded influence over Dunkirk's commercial world, allowing them to live in silks and dine on delicacies.

Yet deep in every one of their hearts was branded a name as black and twisted as a nightmare, a name that left them drenched in cold sweat whenever they awoke in the night—Lin Qi!

Whether they were boys and girls of fifteen or sixteen, or young adults nearing thirty, they all remembered that name, and that person, deeply!

That monster-like scoundrel who, from childhood onward, had relied on nothing but brute strength to beat Dunkirk's young masters until their noses were bruised and their faces swollen, then strip every last copper coin from their bodies; that devil-like bastard who, from childhood onward, had relied on shamelessness and sheer unreasonable tyranny to bully Dunkirk's young ladies into pitiful states, making them intimately acquainted with gutters, puddles, and the excrement of all kinds of livestock time and again.

Three years ago, his father had forcibly sent him to the imperial capital to study, and every young master and young lady had let out a sudden sigh of relief. They had heard not the slightest news of him for three whole years. What blissful years they had been—like the protection of divine grace. Over those three years, Dunkirk's young masters and ladies had flourished like flowers amid brocade and oil poured onto blazing flames, living lives of unimaginable freedom and ease!

But now, he was back!

The muscles in Jin's face twitched violently, at exactly the same rhythm as his twitching eyelids!

That devil who had snuck into the Golden Rose's gambling hall at the age of thirteen, then somehow won every last coin of cash in the Golden Rose's casino five times in a row—he was back? Heavens, surely he would not come to the Golden Rose first thing to collect spending money?

Thinking of the miserable days three years ago, when Lin Qi had treated the Golden Rose like his own purse and withdrawn money whenever he pleased, Jin's calves went weak.

"A-A-Angel!" Jin stammered. "For the gods' sake, tell me you're talking nonsense, aren't you? Hahaha, how could Lin Qi possibly come back? Ah, perhaps he's already lying dead in the streets of the imperial capital?"

Everyone stared fixedly at Angel. Jin's words suited their wishes perfectly. Perhaps that scoundrel had truly been taken out in the imperial capital? After all, that was the imperial capital, where high-ranking officials and nobles of the Empire gathered. Lin Qi could run wild and harm people in Dunkirk without restraint, but with so many important figures in the imperial capital, they were not people Lin Qi could provoke so easily!

The moment Jin finished speaking, the Golden Rose's famous door of pure gold was suddenly kicked with savage force.

Lin Qi's voice carried in, its piercing strength sending it straight into the lounge hall.

The faces of Dunkirk's young noblemen and ladies in the hall turned deathly pale. Everyone looked at Jin with strange expressions.