Emerald Lake Street

Emerald Lake Street was named for its proximity to the eastern shore of Emerald Lake.

Here, there were neither sweatshops that exploited labor nor commercial streets directly administered by the authorities.

Yet there were people here—an enormous number of them. On this tiny ten-square-kilometer patch of land, the permanent population approached one hundred and twenty thousand, while the floating population was impossible to count.

Since they were scouting the place in advance, Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan naturally could not wander around in inspection uniforms.

They went to the nearest market and bought new clothes.

Wu Nanyuan wore a simple pure-white V-neck T-shirt on top, lightweight black athletic pants below, and white sneakers. The overall look was fresh and clean, brimming with a campus vibe.

Compared to Wu Nanyuan, Chen Jue's outfit was far more elaborate.

He wore a black modern Chinese-style Tang suit: a stand collar with frog buttons, a short-sleeved open-front jacket, red patterns embellishing the cuffs, and a white short-sleeved shirt underneath.

Below, he wore wide-legged cropped pants, with ink-wash landscape prints along the sides and iridescent disc-like material sewn onto the hems.

The overall style was both retro and relaxed. Paired with Chen Jue's peerlessly handsome face, he looked every inch like a young nobleman who idled his days away and played through life.

One in front and one behind, the two rounded the corner at the intersection and entered Emerald Lake Street.

In Chen Jue's childhood memories, Emerald Lake Street had once enjoyed its moment in the sun.

Back then, the Xue Clan of the inner city had surveyed an enormous spirit iron deposit in Emerald Lake to the west.

To excavate that vein of spirit iron, the Xue Clan had spared no expense in building three ironworks in the outer city, along with the three major residential districts of Emerald Lake, Lakeside, and Near Lake.

The Xue Clan's spirit iron refining business had originally flourished, and the economy of the western outer city had soared along with it.

Unfortunately, rumors later claimed that the Xue Clan had unearthed a vicious and eerie thing from the bottom of Emerald Lake.

Not only had the entire clan been reduced to ashes in that catastrophe, but even the spirit iron vein beneath the lake had vanished without a trace after the Xue Clan was exterminated.

Thus, the three ironworks, after shutting down production, swiftly became natural shelters for unemployed drifters.

As for the property deeds of the three residential districts—Emerald Lake, Lakeside, and Near Lake—no one knew when they had been transferred respectively to the Wu Clan, Tang Clan, and Sun Clan of the inner city, becoming proof of ownership these inner-city clans used to collect rent.

Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan walked through the dilapidated Emerald Lake Street. The buildings here rose and fell in uneven layers, their layout cluttered and redundant. Even in broad daylight, sunlight struggled to pass through the densely packed tube buildings and reach the street below.

And precisely because the streets here rarely saw the sky, the place carried an intense sense of oppression and decay.

It was like a festering sore growing in the heart of the city. If you did not look at it or touch it, you would not feel its existence. But once you came into contact with it, the pain made fear bloom in your heart. Afraid it would tarnish your own respectability, you would wish to raze it to the ground.

Many men and women stood along the street.

The women were scantily clad. Though it was already late autumn, they still wore tight camisoles, fishnet stockings, and red-soled heels.

Whenever they saw cars passing by, they would try to flaunt their charms, striking poses heavy with sexual suggestion.

Some also approached well-dressed men by the roadside, offering themselves for the night, but most failed.

Meanwhile, the men lingering by the roadside would occasionally study outsiders like Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan with appraising eyes.

Most of these men belonged to local small gangs. They had neither strength nor backing, yet their territorial instincts ran deep.

Chen Jue led Wu Nanyuan around for a full three hours before they finally covered all of Emerald Lake Street.

There were graffiti-covered cultural walls, skyscrapers with shattered doors and windows, and drifter tents cramming entire long streets.

The roads were pitted and uneven, with garbage scattered everywhere.

The drifters along the roadside either slumped there blankly or wandered about, peeping at passersby.

From street corners and alleyways, thieves and bandits would occasionally lurk and follow people.

Worse still, addicts who had taken too much could be seen burning braziers in the squares, dancing crazily in a muddled state.

There was scarcely a single shop in the entire district operating normally.

Only shack-like stalls resembling wizard shops sold medicines and daily necessities of questionable origin, while street stalls displayed heaps of old objects of unknown purpose.

Besides that, every residential compound's notice wall was densely plastered with missing-person notices, all for civilians who had vanished without cause over the past half month.

"Honored guests, if you wished to inspect the Emerald Lake district in broad daylight, you could have informed us in advance, or simply come in uniform."

"Disguising yourselves like a white dragon dressed as a fish—if some blind fool were to offend you two and hurt the harmony between us, that would not be good."

After touring the district, Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan were just planning to head toward the long-abandoned factory buildings by Emerald Lake.

But then, more than a dozen bald men in sleeveless undershirts suddenly sprang out from the corner of an alley and surrounded them.

Their leader was a martial artist nearing forty.

Sha Qi radiated from his body; he had presumably killed quite a few people. A slanted scar ran across his cheek, while his bare shoulders, exposed by his tank top, were covered in crisscrossing blade marks of varying depths. His face was fierce and cold.

Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan were sizing up the newcomers, while the vicious-looking bald men around them were also sizing up Chen Jue and Wu Nanyuan.

There was no need to mention Chen Jue. A heavy longsword hung at his waist, and his relaxed bearing carried the aura of a young nobleman. One look told them he was not someone to provoke.

As for the woman beside him, though she was thin and frail, like a scrawny girl suffering from malnutrition—

The pink fox eyes not concealed by her mask were exceptionally captivating.

Beneath that mask, she surely possessed a face as soul-hooking and spirit-stealing as a fox demon's.

These local thugs had not seen much of the world. Though they feared the pair's identities, they could not suppress the greed in their hearts, their gazes lingering again and again on Wu Nanyuan's fox eyes, their tails vividly red.

"Hey!" Chen Jue raised his sharp jawline at the bald men around him, then shot Wu Nanyuan a look.

"?" Wu Nanyuan did not understand what he meant and turned to look at him.

"Not even a shred of tacit understanding."

Chen Jue released his left hand from the hilt of his sword and, under everyone's watchful eyes, boldly drew his blade with his right hand.

Clang!

The sound of the blade leaving its sheath made hearts tremble.

The next instant, the sharp edge swept through the alley like a storm. Amid bursts of blood, no one could withstand even a single exchange. In only a few breaths, corpses carpeted the muddy alley.

"..." Wu Nanyuan was stunned by the sight.

How could this man handle a case like this? Without saying a word, he had killed everyone but one?

While Wu Nanyuan was still reeling inside, Chen Jue had already placed his ten-jin horse-chopping saber against the neck of the scar-faced martial artist.

"Your men are all dead..."

"So now, even if you say things you shouldn't say, it won't be a problem..."

"Do you understand what I mean?"

The bloodstained edge rested on his shoulder. Bone-piercing cold mixed with dripping blood and ran down his neck. The scar-faced martial artist holding his blade went icy from head to toe, and great beads of cold sweat streamed across his brow.

"Sir! Spare my life! Ask whatever you wish—I will tell you everything I know, without holding back a single word!"

The young man before him was terrifyingly strong and treated human lives like grass. He was most likely a scion of some powerful inner-city clan out gaining experience.

For small-gang members like them to encounter someone with such a background was nothing short of eight lifetimes of bloody misfortune.