Li Xiuwen calmed down and assessed the situation.
A sprawling network of drains ran beneath the Enclave and, indeed, all of Fragrant Sea.
He had heard from Huang Sihai that plenty of gangs who couldn't afford to show their faces aboveground had made their bases down there.
They had even given the sewers an elegant name: the Dragon Palace.
Brother Ji has been hiding in the sewers for the past twenty days. Maybe he crossed someone he shouldn't have.
Luckily, he hasn't noticed the changes in me lately... He doesn't know I've started practicing martial arts. He still thinks I'm the same spineless weakling.
I have to get rid of this menace. Without Brother Ji around, even the air in the Enclave smells sweeter.
As for the stronger Third Master, I'll be fine as long as I kill Brother Ji without anyone finding out.
Brother Ji had made plenty of enemies in the Enclave over the years, and he had recently landed himself in trouble. There would be nothing unusual about his getting killed.
He needed to take advantage of the unrest and murky situation in the Enclave to eliminate this menace before more complications arose.
A hardware store with no sign.
"Boss, do you have any fruit knives? Preferably a folding one," Li Xiuwen asked.
The owner was slurping noodles. "Right side of the shelf. Pick one yourself."
Li Xiuwen walked over to the shelf and immediately took a liking to a palm-sized folding knife. He unfolded the blade, and the smell of old lubricating oil hit him.
"You've got a good eye. That's imported, one of the cheaper models. Forged from M78 Fierce Steel. Plenty of martial artists pick that one. I'll give you a bargain-thirty."
"Too much. Twenty."
"This is imported, you know."
When Li Xiuwen turned to leave, the man said, "Twenty-five."
Li Xiuwen pulled some banknotes out of his underpants and bought the folding knife.
As his first personal weapon, he solemnly named it Butterfly.
The owner took the money with a look of disgust and went back to eating his noodles, muttering curses.
Li Xiuwen returned to Chen's Rice Noodle Factory.
Back home, he found his uncle-in-law and aunt-in-law standing in front of the machinery, looking miserable.
"What happened?" Li Xiuwen asked.
His uncle-in-law patted the machine. "A Wen, we might not be able to keep the rice noodle factory running... I don't know how we'll pay your tuition from now on."
His aunt-in-law's eyes were red; she seemed to have been crying. "Brother Ji sent someone over today."
"What does he want?" Li Xiuwen's voice sank.
"He wants us to pay the next ten years of protection fees all at once. He even said he'd give us fifty percent off, so we'd only owe eight thousand. Isn't that a joke?" His aunt-in-law gave a bitter laugh.
"In all my years, this is the first I've heard of collecting protection fees ten years in advance... He's gone too far! He's leaving us no way to survive!" his uncle-in-law said.
"It's not just us. Lots of our neighbors have been told to pay their protection money in advance too. Have the Thirteen Guardians gone mad?" His aunt-in-law couldn't understand it.
Li Xiuwen thought of Heaven's Will probing Ever Joy.
He guessed that the thugs of the Thirteen Guardians had sensed the storm brewing in the Walled City and wanted to make one last haul before running away.
"When does he want us to pay?" he asked.
"The third of next month. One week from now," his uncle-in-law said.
"Why don't we go see Mr. Ming?" His aunt-in-law took his uncle-in-law's hand.
"Mr. Ming would see the likes of us? Why don't you go see the empire's queen instead?" his uncle-in-law said listlessly.
"A Wen, could you beat Brother Ji?" his aunt-in-law asked.
"What are you thinking? A Wen has only been training for a month. Brother Ji made his name years ago. How could he fight him? And that's not even counting Third Master. You're grasping at straws."
His uncle-in-law looked at his aunt-in-law with displeasure. He had sent A Wen to learn martial arts so the boy could protect himself outside, not go looking for danger.
"Stay home for now," Li Xiuwen said. "In a few days, I'll go to the martial arts hall and ask my friends. See if anyone's willing to intervene."
Hope appeared on his aunt-in-law's face. "Good. That's the benefit of learning martial arts-you make connections. We'll surely find a way to solve this."
His uncle-in-law clearly wasn't optimistic. The masters of the Walled City's martial arts halls were shrewd businessmen who looked out for themselves and rarely got involved. They weren't chivalrous heroes from ancient times.
Late that night, Li Xiuwen went to the old woman's Pig Blood Soup Shop.
He wanted a bowl of pig blood soup before staying up late for extra training.
He had three days to get stronger and make certain he could kill Brother Ji!
A crowd had gathered around the Pig Blood Soup Shop, talking among themselves.
As he approached, he saw two partially decomposed, grotesquely bloated corpses on the ground.
One old, one young. Their clothes were just enough to identify them.
One was the old woman. The other was A-Hua, the simpleton.
"Ah, why did the pig blood soup lady have to go and poison herself?"
"And A-Hua too. She probably poisoned him as well. He was a simpleton, couldn't take care of himself... But they were doing fine. Why kill themselves?"
"I was drinking pig blood soup here the day before yesterday. She did mention it, but I thought she was joking about ending it all so she wouldn't have to bury someone younger than herself."
"I heard A-Hua got hooked on opium. He'd been stealing money from home lately."
"Ah, that poor old woman. Her only son was a simpleton, and then he got addicted too... Those damned drug dealers. How could they bear to swindle a simpleton?"
The neighbors gathered around them talked on and on, grief-stricken but powerless to help.
Li Xiuwen's blood seethed as though a fire were burning inside him. His fingers dug deep into his palm, veins bulging.
Three days later.
Dusk was falling, the setting sun blood-red.
Its crimson afterglow fell across the increasingly rich blue sheen on Li Xiuwen's arms.
For the past three days, he had relentlessly practiced the Sea of Stake Training and Sand-Turning Palm.
He had also spent a thousand on two fish balls from Old Huang, using up even next month's monthly fee.
Old Huang had warned him not to eat too many fish balls. Toxins would build up and affect his potential.
But with Brother Ji hanging over his head like an executioner's blade, he could no longer afford to worry about that.
With the fish balls' help, the results were impressive.
Li Xiuwen looked at the [Incense Burner].
[Li Xiuwen] [Martial arts] [Basic martial arts knowledge: beginner (73%)] [Sea of Stake Training: beginner (88%)] [Sand-Turning Palm: beginner (76%)] [Stage: blue membrane (88%)]
In three days, my stance training proficiency shot from 44% to 88%. Those fish balls really work. That's half a month's hard training saved.
With my current cultivation, I'm among the best at the blue membrane stage.
Strength, resistance to blows, agility... My physical abilities have improved across the board.
Unfortunately, the fish balls only speed up training by stimulating the body's acupoints and meridians. I still have to slowly practice technical things like combat techniques myself.
Over the past few days, Li Xiuwen had discreetly questioned Huang Sihai and learned that Brother Ji practiced the Bear Mountain Style.
Different styles each had their own strengths.
Both the Sea Sand Style and the Bear Mountain Style excelled in strength.
But the Sea Sand Style was, after all, an orthodox style with a long history. It also developed agility, speed, and the like.
The Bear Mountain Style, by contrast, was an inferior form of wild fist that had only emerged in recent years.
It had adopted training methods from the foreigners' "Martial Fighters" without grasping their essence.
As a result, it sacrificed agility and other all-round capabilities to a considerable extent in exchange for exaggerated muscle mass and strength.
Practicing this style also required a specially prepared secret medicine. It emphasized quick results, leaving its practitioners with a flimsy foundation far inferior to the steady, solid progress of the Sea Sand Style.
Naturally, it was even less comparable to the solid cultivation Li Xiuwen had built using the Incense Burner.
"I can make my move now." Li Xiuwen went downstairs, ready to keep his appointment.
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