At that, Lin Shu became a little interested.
That was what he had originally thought.
If the Immortal Scion ran into trouble, he could always force out her Essence Blood and pretend he'd never met her.
But things were different now.
Forget the unreliable business about Immortal Sect guide tokens.
Just the information Yu Sheng knew could make up for Lin Shu's lack of understanding of This World.
Of course, without enough strength, he could forget about protecting her outright.
But if he could gain as much control as possible over the area around Broken Firewood Courtyard, and combine that with the concealment effect of the Azure Qi that remained, he could at least greatly lower the odds of someone else discovering the Immortal Scion.
"Besides that, your Wolf Reputation has also been bestowed."
As Bai Feng spoke, the corners of his mouth suddenly tightened.
Lin Shu knew that expression well. After all, he'd worn it himself yesterday while trying not to laugh.
A sense of foreboding stirred in his heart.
When he'd gone to the banquet at the restaurant, Lin Shu had heard the other Fierce Wolves' nicknames. Nearly all of them were related to their methods.
Based on how he'd performed when killing Tian Jingyuan, he'd probably get something like "Black Hand."
Or perhaps he could show off the Red Moon Dharma Eye and get called the Red-eyed Wolf or something.
Yikes, that one wouldn't do. It sounded like a red-eyed dog.
"You tell him." Bai Feng glanced at Dong Cheng.
Dong Cheng's expression froze for a moment. He gave an awkward smile. "Master Lin's Wolf Reputation... is just one word: Greedy."
The name they bestowed depended on how the members of the hall described him.
Clearly, at that banquet, the members had been more impressed by Lin Shu's enormous appetite, how he'd demanded an entire street from Fatty Tian, and how he'd meticulously searched the corpse afterward than by his fifth-rank Claw Art Immortal Method.
"..."
Yan Jin silently looked away, evidently thinking the Wolf Reputation suited him just fine.
"Whatever." Lin Shu accepted it.
Compared to a hollow reputation, tangible benefits mattered more.
"That's about it. There's nothing else. As for how you'll take over Four Directions Street, Dong Cheng will explain everything to you. We'll be going now."
Bai Feng forced a smile and waved.
He'd waved goodbye just as casually the first time, when he hadn't even bothered to ask Lin Shu's name. This time, at least, he remembered to address him.
Yan Jin walked to the door, then turned back and said coolly, "Four Directions Street isn't a good place. Be careful."
There was nothing wrong with the street itself. The problem was the wolves.
Tian Jingyuan's rise to power meant that one of the Fierce Wolves had met with trouble.
Though Yan Jin didn't know Lin Shu well, she had been the one to bring him into Fierce Wolf Hall. For the time being, she didn't want to see the street get another wolf assigned to it.
Still, since this young man had kept some tricks up his sleeve, he probably wasn't as reckless as he seemed.
Any more advice would just sound like nagging.
"..."
The group had chatted so casually that none of them had noticed the Little Widow standing nearby.
Yun Niang remained quietly at their side.
Whether it was the way the two Fierce Wolves treated each other as equals, or what they'd been discussing, everything proved that...
In less than half a month, her benefactor had already shed his fox's disguise and become a Fierce Wolf.
He'd gone from a laborer in an Opera Troupe, begging passersby for spare change beneath the blazing sun while wearing a fur cloak and an oil-painted mask, to a Yama who could casually take the lives of commoners in the city.
"Master Lin, here's the account book. Please have a look."
Dong Cheng seemed not to have heard Yan Jin's assessment of Four Directions Street at all. Smiling, he pulled out a thick ledger and handed it to Lin Shu.
"Our street has six restaurants, two cloth shops, teahouses..."
"Just tell me how much money I can collect."
Lin Shu opened the ledger, took one look, and felt a headache coming on. He simply snapped it shut.
At the question, Dong Cheng's expression gradually turned peculiar. He stammered, "At first, you could collect nearly a thousand taels of silver."
The words left even Lin Shu a little surprised.
A single Magpie Nest might hand over twenty taels a month, but that was because they dealt in the flesh trade. Even the brothel girls had been kidnapped by Cunning Fox Hall. It was pure profit, with no cost.
But the businesses on this street were all legitimate.
Every month, they had to pay taxes to the Yamen, as well as Blackwater Gang's monthly dues. After costs were deducted, whatever they could squeeze out was the Fierce Wolves' share.
That monthly income alone was more than twenty times Brother Precious Blade's.
"So what happened afterward?"
But he had to hear the whole story. Lin Shu glanced sideways at him, not wanting to celebrate too soon.
"Later, that Wolf Lord died. When Master Tian... Fatty Tian came to take over, the shopkeepers with any influence stopped paying him, almost all of them following Boss Wang from the teahouse. He could only scrape money from small-time merchants and ordinary households."
"He managed to scrape together around four hundred taels."
Dong Cheng smiled awkwardly, but didn't finish what he was thinking.
Tian Jingyuan had only been in charge of Four Directions Street for a few days. He'd just finished scraping the place clean once. What would happen now that Master Lin was in charge was anyone's guess.
But remembering that even Yin Ling had been wary of this man, Dong Cheng gritted his teeth and lowered his voice. "How about I go take another look?"
These ordinary households made a living working for the wealthy, so they were definitely better off than the mud-legged peasants of South Suburb.
But they didn't have much to begin with. Even if you squeezed them until they bled, you wouldn't get more than a couple of taels out of them, and push them too hard and someone might die.
It was thankless work, and Dong Cheng didn't want to do it. But if he came back empty-handed, he'd have a hard time explaining himself to this Wolf Lord.
"I don't do that."
Lin Shu raised an eyebrow and glanced at him. "You'd better not do it either."
He remembered that the reason the street where he'd grown up was so filthy was that everyone had been desperate to wring something out of someone weaker.
He'd risked his life just to claw his way out of that quagmire, but he'd never done anything to make that street even more wretched.
In plain terms, compared to making money off the poor, Lin Shu preferred going after people like Tian Jingyuan, who were already stuffed to the gills.
"Ah... yes!"
Dong Cheng was still dazed when the other man's gaze sent a shiver through him.
Wasn't this Greedy Wolf also only in the early stage of Qi Refining? He'd just gotten lucky and learned an Immortal Method from the Middle Three Ranks.
The other man hadn't even used a spell. How could he put so much pressure on him?
Besides, if they couldn't make this money, they couldn't make any other money either!
Wouldn't they all starve to death?
As Dong Cheng stood there, distracted, he failed to notice that the young man before him had also frozen.
[Life and death are determined by Heaven; Yama snatches lives from his grasp, saving two lives at death's door. Awarded two Virtue Coins.]
Looking at the notification that had suddenly appeared, Lin Shu slowly lifted his gaze, concealing the surprise in his eyes.
He'd just been wondering how to earn Virtue Coins, and now they'd come so quickly.
Wait, that counted as doing good?
So if this Young Wolf really did go shake people down, two more lives would be lost on Four Directions Street today.
Lin Shu shook his head and gathered his thoughts. "So how did the first wolf die?"
"Just thinking about it makes my blood boil!"
Dong Cheng had spent many years on Four Directions Street. He'd once lived a life of luxury, and there was clearly a lot of resentment bottled up inside him. "At first, there was so much silver because a man surnamed Wang opened a teahouse and set up a gambling den underneath it. Liu Zhen, the assistant constable, was backing him from behind the scenes."
"He promised to give us a share. Then, when business kept getting better, he stopped wanting to share. That Liu bastard even found an excuse to kill the Wolf Lord outright."
"The merchants on the street used to prepare two payments every month, one for him and one for us... Now they pay just as much as before, but it all goes into his pockets!"
Dong Cheng's voice grew quieter with each word.
Because he'd suddenly realized something.
This Greedy Wolf wouldn't take money from the poor, but he'd asked how the previous wolf had died.
Could he be planning to snatch Liu Zhen's food from his mouth?
Don't make me laugh!
The first Wolf Lord had died, and when Fatty Tian came over, he hadn't even dared to fart. He'd gone out of his way to avoid people on the street.
Now they'd sent over a new one. He was stronger than that Tian fellow, sure, but he was still only in the early stage of Qi Refining. How much stronger could he really be?
He must have misunderstood. Master Lin had just asked out of curiosity.
Dong Cheng silently reassured himself, failing to notice that the Little Widow behind him had already changed expression.
"..."
Yun Niang stared at that tall figure and suddenly felt flustered.
When she'd first heard the conversation, she truly hadn't wanted Lin Shu to do something so cruel, sucking people dry to the bone.
But neither did she want him to cross paths with that infamous, vicious constable.
Yun Niang understood Lin Shu better than Dong Cheng did.
Though his handsome face wore a hint of laziness, as if he'd only asked casually—
He'd worn that very same expression earlier.
Then he'd raised his hand and slapped the Immortal Scion hard across the face!
Before you continue