Sweat streamed down Han Si's body.
As a petty thug with some reputation in Ya County, Han Si had little ability beyond stealing chickens and dogs, swindling, and cheating. But he excelled at reading faces and gauging moods, because one careless move could offend a true bandit chief.
Especially in Ya County, where bandit bosses filled the mountains and street tyrants prowled everywhere, any petty thug who could not read between the lines would long since have been beaten to death and left sprawled in the street.
Though barely past twenty, Han Si had personally seen no fewer than thirty petty thugs lying dead in the streets.
At first, Han Si had not understood Han Shouling's intentions. But once Han Shouling finished speaking, he instinctively distilled the key points.
First, behind Han Shouling stood the Han Feizi Family, the Sacred Academy, and Fang Yun. Any one of those three could wipe Ya County off the Saint Origin Continent. Together, they could easily overturn an entire kingdom.
Second, this Han Shouling was truly ruthless and merciless. On the surface, he seemed to be joking, yet his choice of this particular place made his intentions all too clear: he wanted to eliminate every faction in Ya County to please Fang Yun. In the eyes of a scion of such a great family, those people were worth less than ants.
Third, and most important in Han Si's view, Han Shouling had brought people from the Han Feizi Family, including at least one or two Hanlin Academicians, and possibly even a Grand Academician.
In a place like Ya County, however vicious or wicked its people might be, its powerful clans were merely clans headed by Provincial Graduates. Even if the bandits had scholars among them, they were at most Licentiates or Academy Students who