"Jianghu II"

Worry-Free Tower was not the largest tavern in Linked Mountains City, but it was certainly the most popular one among travelers of the jianghu.

Some said its wine was the fiercest, some said its meat was the most fragrant, and others said the proprietress was the most flirtatious.

In truth, it was simply because Worry-Free Tower offered honest and affordable prices, making it the most suitable place for those bottom-tier jianghu wanderers who lived day-to-day, dirt-poor yet desperate to put on an air of grand boldness.

At this moment, the first floor of Worry-Free Tower was packed with noise and smoke, the air thick with pungent wine and body odor.

Wanderers of the jianghu bared their chests, washing down peanuts with harsh wine while spitting wildly as they gossiped about the jianghu scandals within Linked Mountains City.

The primary topic among them was the struggle between the two major factions of Linked Mountains City: Heavenly Wolf Gang and Blackwater Gang.

Linked Mountains City was a small city in Youzhou of the Northern Lands, deep within the Nineteen Provinces of Great Xia. The largest powers inside the city were none other than these two gangs.

For decades, the two factions had fought endlessly, remaining locked in a stalemate, though recently the Blackwater Gang had gained a slight upper hand in their rivalry.

At that moment, a bare-chested man with a face full of coarse flesh slammed his wine bowl down onto the table with a fierce crash, shouting loudly:

"If you ask me, this Heavenly Wolf Gang is going to be finished sooner or later!

Jiang Kaitai, leader of the Heavenly Wolf Gang, was indeed a notable figure in his youth, and the Northern Wolf of the Northlands was no empty title.

Yet he is over seventy years old now; I am afraid his vital blood has long since begun to dry up and his strength to wane, whereas Gang Leader Yuan of the Blackwater Gang, the Iron-Head Arhat, is currently in the prime of his manhood.

Look at the next generation as well—the five guardians of the Blackwater Gang are all figures capable of holding their own against the world.

What sort of trash are the so-called Three Heavenly Wolf Elites of the Heavenly Wolf Gang? Which one of them has a single impressive combat record to show?

In these past few months, the Heavenly Wolf Gang has suffered defeat after defeat. In my eyes, this Linked Mountains City will belong to the Blackwater Gang sooner or later."

An older, world-weary jianghu wanderer sitting beside him shook his head gently and advised:

"Hu Laosan, you can eat your words recklessly, but you must never speak them so carelessly.

I know you have been getting thick with Zhang Biao, a leader in the Blackwater Gang, but the struggle between those two factions is not something people like you and me can afford to flap our tongues about.

Even if the Heavenly Wolf Gang really is failing, its remaining fang could easily bite you to death."

Hu Laosan stuck out his neck with an expression of intense grievance. "What? Has his Heavenly Wolf Gang become the emperor or something? People are not even allowed to speak?

Even the old emperor can be cursed, so what the hell is his Heavenly Wolf Gang supposed to be?"

Just as Hu Laosan's voice died away, a flash of saber light ignited without warning, and a vibrating, howling saber hum abruptly rang through Worry-Free Tower.

The next moment, Hu Laosan's oversized head dropped right into the wine bowl before the table, splashing up a mixture of turbid wine and blood.

Inside the bowl, the arrogant expression on Hu Laosan's face had not yet faded as he stared blankly at his own headless torso, which was gushing massive torrents of fresh blood.

Behind Hu Laosan, a young man in his early twenties wearing a black brocade robe flicked the beads of blood from his Wild Goose Feather Saber and sheathed it with a crisp, resonant ring.

"Is a piece of trash like you qualified to comment on my Heavenly Wolf Gang?

Within this Linked Mountains City you may curse the emperor, but whoever dares to insult my adoptive father or insult my Heavenly Wolf Gang shall die!"

The young man's complexion was slightly pale, his facial features carved as if by a knife and axe, and his gaze was as cold and sharp as a blade.

As his gaze swept across the room, the entire Worry-Free Tower instantly fell into a breathless, pin-drop silence.

A henchman walked over, picked up a black cloak embroidered with a silver wolf head, and draped it over the young man's shoulders.

The young man drew a ingot of silver from his bosom and tossed it upward, where it landed before a woman in her early thirties with a voluptuous and curvaceous figure, alluring and charming looks, and a tube-top long dress.

This woman was none other than Wen Rou, the proprietress of Worry-Free Tower.

"Boss Wen, apologies for soiling your Worry-Free Tower."

Wen Rou picked up the silver and weighed it in her hand; it was at least ten liang.

Her gaze toward the young man instantly turned so sultry it seemed it could drip water.

"Young Master Chen jokes. That fellow's mouth stank so badly I was already planning to throw him out anyway; I should be thanking Young Master Chen for helping me clean out the trash."

The young man waved a hand and led his henchmen out of Worry-Free Tower.

When the young man's figure had vanished entirely, someone finally asked in a hushed voice, "Proprietress, which one from the Heavenly Wolf Gang was that?"

Wen Rou sneered. "You speak behind people's backs yet you do not even know who they are?

Among the Three Heavenly Wolf Elites, the eldest, Qin Yuancheng, commands the Blood Fang Hall, and the second, Chu Ziping, commands the Punishment Hall.

This person is the third among the Three Heavenly Wolf Elites, the last adoptive son taken in by Gang Leader Jiang, Chen Yuan.

Young Master Chen commands the Merit Transmission Hall and usually does not walk about outside, responsible only for teaching martial arts to gang members.

Yet it is said he possesses the greatest talent among the Three Heavenly Wolf Elites; having studied martial arts for merely two years, his Heavenly Wolf Saber Art has already reached the pinnacle of perfection.

That move of Heavenly Wolf Swallowing the Moon just now looked to have already attained seven parts of Gang Leader Jiang's former mastery."

Outside Worry-Free Tower, Chen Yuan stepped onto the carriage waiting in advance and instructed his trusted henchman Zhang Xiaoyi, "Spread what happened inside Worry-Free Tower just now. Make sure to do it discreetly—don't make it too contrived, and primarily emphasize my anger toward someone slandering my adoptive father."

Zhang Xiaoyi nodded repeatedly and immediately turned to spread the news.

Chen Yuan boarded the carriage and gently rubbed the space between his brows.

After this little stunt today, his favorability rating with Jiang Kaitai should rise by quite a notch again, right?

Chen Yuan had transmigrated to this world ten days ago.

To be precise, he was not even sure if this was a real world.

Because the background of this realm was extremely familiar to him, matching the open-world holographic game Jianghu II that he had relied on for survival in his previous life.

Jianghu II was the sequel to the holographic game The Great Jianghu, making it far freer, more open, and even more realistic.

Chen Yuan had been a professional player of Jianghu II in his previous life, yet he had belonged to no guild, always fighting alone and earning the reputation of the strongest solo player.

He remembered that just recently, Jianghu II had released the teaser trailer for its final chapter, "Martial Arts Alliance Leader".

That mysterious martial arts alliance leader was merely a black silhouette, and the entire trailer had been utterly vague, playing out like a riddle-filled routine.

Chen Yuan had just wanted to log out and leave a routine angry review cursing the development team, but the moment he took off his helmet, pitch darkness swallowed him and he lost consciousness.

Upon waking, he found himself still inside the game world, yet devoid of any attribute interface and with no way to log out.

Spending a full day, Chen Yuan finally confirmed that he had truly transmigrated into the world of Jianghu II, becoming an NPC.

This world contained no players, only a genuine jianghu of flashing blades and drawn swords.

There was only a single life, and death offered no respawn.

At present, the time and year of Chen Yuan's location was the twenty-first year of Wuxing in Great Xia, which corresponded to the exact moment the servers had just launched in Jianghu II, and Linked Mountains City was merely one of the many novice villages.

The backdrop of Jianghu II was grand, encompassing the Nineteen Provinces of Great Xia, alongside overseas regions, grasslands, the Western Regions, and countless other maps.

The jianghu and the imperial court, sects and aristocratic clans, fought and conquered without end.

By this time, Great Xia had stood for five hundred years, already displaying signs of decline and rot; of the nineteen provinces under heaven, the imperial court truly controlled only the central nine provinces.

The remaining ten provinces remained under imperial rule merely in name, actually governed by the various sects and aristocratic clans of each region.

To maintain basic prestige, the imperial court levied only a basic tax on the cities of those remaining ten provinces; as long as the taxes were handed over, everything else belonged to the various factions within the cities.

Take Linked Mountains City, for instance—its true masters were the two gangs known as the Heavenly Wolf Gang and the Blackwater Gang.

The imperial court's power here was practically zero, consisting of nothing more than a magistrate and a dozen constables.

They were primarily responsible for adjudicating trivial domestic disputes and escorting the taxes surrendered by the Heavenly Wolf Gang and the Blackwater Gang back to the capital city.

Looking out the carriage window at the street scenes of Linked Mountains City, Chen Yuan gently massaged his temples, sorting through the memories in his mind.

When he first began playing Jianghu II, his novice village had not been Linked Mountains City, but as a professional player, he was intimately familiar with the opening of nearly every novice village.

The novice village boss of Linked Mountains City was none other than his adoptive father, the leader of the Heavenly Wolf Gang, nicknamed the Northern Wolf of the Northlands, Jiang Kaitai.

The reason Jiang Kaitai could become a novice village boss traced back to a foundational setting of Jianghu II: Divine Weapons and Demonic Arms.

During the Primordial Era of this world, countless mighty beings among gods and devils engaged in fierce battles; after their falls, their divine weapons and demonic arms remained behind, resisting decay across time.

These divine weapons and demonic arms possessed formidable power difficult for martial artists to reach, driving countless jianghu figures to fight desperately for them in a stampede.

One could say that the top factions of the current jianghu nearly all possessed divine weapons and demonic arms holding down their fortunes.

Even lacking complete divine weapons and demonic arms, they would still hold a portion of usable Seven-Kill Stele Fragments.

The reason the Great Xia Imperial Clan had been able to secure its throne for centuries was precisely because it mastered two divine weapons: the Great Xia Dragon Sparrow and the Human Sovereign Sword.

Presently, the jianghu contained only two types of factions: those possessing divine weapons and demonic arms as top-tier factions, and all others.

Though the Heavenly Wolf Gang controlled half of Linked Mountains City, it could only be considered the very bottom rung among those other factions.

Every year, after deducting the taxes handed up to the imperial court from the Heavenly Wolf Gang's earnings, eighty percent had to be surrendered to the powerful Youzhou clan, the Murong Clan of Dragon City, who mastered the divine weapon Starshift.

Chen Yuan's adoptive father, Jiang Kaitai, had accidentally discovered a Seven-Kill Stele Fragment, and thus secretly blood-sacrificed the divine weapon within Linked Mountains City in an attempt to master the Seven-Kill Stele Fragment.

Because the massive blood sacrifice attracted the attention of higher powers, both the Murong Clan of Dragon City and the One Qi Piercing Sun Alliance—standing behind the Blackwater Gang—sent people to investigate.

Jiang Kaitai grew raving mad, attempting to blood-sacrifice the entire Linked Mountains City to fuse with the Seven-Kill Stele Fragment, ultimately suffering heavy injuries from the joint forces of the Murong Clan and the One Qi Piercing Sun Alliance, before players finally finished him off.

In the aftermath, the Seven-Kill Stele Fragment fled and vanished due to the runaway blood sacrifice, failing to be seized by either the Murong Clan or the One Qi Piercing Sun Alliance.

As for the Heavenly Wolf Gang, its fate naturally ended in total annihilation.

Furious that Jiang Kaitai had dared covet a divine weapon and caused it to fly away from their own territory, the Murong Clan flew into a rage and wiped out the entire Heavenly Wolf Gang to vent their anger, leaving neither chicken nor dog alive.

In the original plotline, Chen Yuan's identity at this moment was merely a background prop, stronger only than other nameless foot soldiers, and his fate was bound to be extermination by the Murong Clan.

Upon confirming his identity, Chen Yuan's very first reaction was to flee.

To run far away, putting immense distance between himself and the powder keg that was Linked Mountains City.

Yet this thought flickered for merely a single instant before Chen Yuan snuffed it out.

Linked Mountains City truly was a powder keg right now, yet it also held unimaginable opportunities.

The divine weapon Seven-Kill Stele was the supreme divine weapon of Jianghu II's first-version storyline, forged from the Source of Killing Intent; even a mere fragment possessed boundless might.

Appearing in the novice village served solely to introduce the concept of divine weapons and demonic arms, making it fundamentally impossible for players to acquire in the original version.

Yet now, with no players present, he had come to this world with full knowledge of the plot—did he stand a chance at seizing the Seven-Kill Stele Fragment?

Chen Yuan was not the cowardly sort prone to cowering.

Otherwise, he never would have matched the professional players hailing from major guilds while playing as a solo player in the game.

Besides, even if Chen Yuan fled, the Murong Clan would hunt him down all the same in the future.

The Murong Clan of Dragon City was notorious in Youzhou for harboring a petty mindset and acting with absolute Rancor in everything they did.

In the original plot, not a single soul belonging to the Heavenly Wolf Gang inside Linked Mountains City was spared.

Even former Heavenly Wolf Gang veterans who had once joined the gang but already washed their hands of the pugilistic world to make a living in other cities were hunted down and killed by the Murong Clan just to vent their spleen.

As the adopted son of Jiang Kaitai, even if he fled right now, he would undoubtedly end up on the Murong Clan's wanted posters in the future.

Instead of living a life of hiding and dodging down the road, it was far better to stake everything on one bold gamble right now.

Therefore, over the past ten days, Chen Yuan had constantly been sorting through the plot while farming Jiang Kaitai's favorability score, all in preparation to seize the Seven-Kill Stele Fragment.

"Stop the carriage."

Chen Yuan, who had been gazing out the window the entire time, suddenly called out.

The driver immediately halted the carriage and pulled open the door.

Chen Yuan stepped down from the vehicle and walked up to a beggar on the street corner.

That beggar was disheveled and unkempt, his features impossible to make out.

Other beggars would still raise their bowls and plead for charity when people approached, but this beggar merely glanced at Chen Yuan without even budging his body.

Chen Yuan looked at the beggar, fished out a sliver of broken silver, dropped it into the beggar's bowl, and turned to leave.

That beggar still slumped right there, not even uttering a single word of thanks.

Climbing back into the carriage, Chen Yuan headed straight back to the Heavenly Wolf Gang's branch stronghold.

As one of the two major factions that ruled Linked Mountains City, the Heavenly Wolf Gang monopolized an entire street, with two ten-foot-tall giant wolf sculptures howling at the skies erected right at their gates.

Two rows of Heavenly Wolf Gang members dressed in wolf-patterned black attire stood guard on both sides of the main gates holding weapons, looking exceedingly imposing.

"Where is Adoptive Father?"

Chen Yuan asked the guards standing watch at the entrance.

"Replying to the Third Young Master, the Gang Leader is in the inner hall."

Chen Yuan nodded, walked up to the inner hall, rubbed his face, and put on a proper smile before stepping into the inner hall.

"Your son Chen Yuan pays his respects to Adoptive Father!"