Volume One: Days in the Shantytown - The Gods Will Answer Prayers (Part Two)

Rows of low, cramped apartment blocks huddled together like seedlings. The buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, shutting out the sun, and the narrow passageways were dark and damp. Luo Qian stood in the shadows. With the slightest effort to conceal himself, no one would spot him.

He had waited there all afternoon for someone who could tell him what had happened.

It was nearly midnight before a familiar figure appeared at the far end of the street. He crept along, glancing left and right, too distracted even to notice when he stepped into filthy, murky wastewater. At the entrance to one of the buildings, he eased the door open a crack, trying not to make a sound. Luo Qian stepped out of the shadows and called, "Chen Baozi."

The Shadow shuddered. Once Chen Baozi saw Luo Qian's face, he rushed toward him as though salvation had arrived. "Boss, you're finally back! They beat the brothers half to death!" Chen Baozi was the shrewdest of the men Luo Qian had hired. Luo Qian had guessed he might have gone into hiding, and sure enough, he had found him at his old lodgings.

"Stop crying and get up. Tell me exactly what happened!" Luo Qian said with a frown.

They left the apartment blocks and found a teahouse. Chen Baozi ordered some pastries and, between ravenous mouthfuls, told Luo Qian what had happened.

Three days after Luo Qian had last left, a mob had stormed his base with long knives and clubs. Without a word of explanation, they had started beating everyone. Chen Baozi had seen trouble coming and fled, but the others had all been beaten badly enough to land in the hospital. The base had been wrecked, and the tens of thousands of magazines they had just bought had been stolen.

"Did they say anything?" Luo Qian asked. Chen Baozi thought back. "A few of them were shouting while they beat people. Something about how we'd dared to mess with Brother Geng's woman and must be tired of living..." Luo Qian frowned. "Brother Geng? Do you know who that is?" Chen Baozi shook his head. "No. He might not be from this city. I know a little about all the big shots around here..."

Luo Qian thought for a moment, then took out a bank card. "There's Three Million on this. Leave town, find another city, and keep our plan going. But be more careful this time!" Chen Baozi's hand trembled as he took the card. "Boss, aren't you afraid I'll run off with all this money?" Luo Qian chuckled. "Would you dare?" Chen Baozi really wouldn't. Three Million was no small sum, but he had never been able to get a read on Luo Qian. This wasn't the first time Luo Qian had hired him for a job, and no matter where he was, Luo Qian always managed to find him. Vanishing with the money was more than he dared attempt. The men who had stormed the base might have been terrifying, but Chen Baozi was certain Luo Qian was a hundred times worse.

"All right, boss. I'll leave for S City first thing tomorrow. I have an online friend there. It'll make things easier." Chen Baozi gripped the bank card tightly.

Chen Baozi decided to spend the night in the teahouse. Luo Qian paid the bill, stepped outside, checked his bearings, and cast the first-tier immortal art Sky-Leaping Vault before heading north.

Luo Qian found an internet café and opened a search engine. The magazine carried considerable weight in the country's gaming world, and this beauty contest was one of its biggest events of the year, so it had drawn plenty of attention online. A quick search turned up a wealth of information. He narrowed the results to "rumors," and sure enough, a whole row of red headlines appeared.

Without breaking a sweat, Luo Qian found the girl's "rumored boyfriend"—a middle-aged real estate tycoon. His surname wasn't Geng, though. His name was Jia Daoyi. Luo Qian checked the other related stories and found no other rumored boyfriends. This had to be the man.

Luo Qian knew what he needed: the national security department's criminal database.

He knew his way around the capital, B City, like the back of his hand.

He wasn't one of those hackers in fantasy novels who could do anything, nor was he some freakish immortal whose mental powers let him invade a network with brainwaves. He was merely a good-for-nothing Tribulation Immortal. But even a Tribulation Immortal was still an immortal. By Mortal Realm standards, the Ministry of Public Security's secret division had advanced security measures. More than a dozen experts with extraordinary abilities guarded the place, including three cultivators.

None of that posed an obstacle to Luo Qian. He slipped into the computer room with ease, where the access level was high enough for him to look up anything he wanted.

True, Luo Qian was only a Tribulation Immortal. But even a Tribulation Immortal had no equal in the Mortal Realm. He didn't need to hack the whole world or invade a network with his mind. He only needed to find a place that could give him the access he wanted, and that was something he knew how to do.

He entered Jia Daoyi's name and searched. The system rapidly filled the screen with a long list of records. Luo Qian started. Oh? So this guy's a priority target!

This was hardly his first visit to the computer room, and he had figured out some of the national security department's conventions. The name was red, the file was classified Level B, and the records were unusually thorough. Jia Daoyi was clearly under close scrutiny.

He skimmed the file: Jia Daoyi, formerly known as Geng Huai. Han Chinese. Education: left middle school before graduating. Started out in organized crime, where he was known as Brother Geng. Went legitimate at thirty and entered real estate development...

The rest of the file detailed how he had bribed officials to obtain land-use rights and used illegal practices and violence to seize farmers' land. The evidence was conclusive, but he hadn't been arrested because the secret division suspected he had a powerful patron. Until they identified that patron, they weren't making a move.

Luo Qian whistled. He had made up his mind. Young Master Du was right: a villain like this ought to be punished by a god. People spent all day praying for the gods to protect them. As one of those gods, wouldn't Luo Qian be letting them down if he did nothing?

In a rare display of divine conscience, Luo Qian left the capital and returned to Z Province. His base wasn't even in Z Province, yet Jia Daoyi had still sent men to attack it. That showed how brazen he was. No wonder the state wanted to bring him to justice. As the saying went: if the gods wanted a man ruined, they first drove him mad; if they wanted him mad, they first made him buy a house. It was a true portrait of the modern mortgage slave. But change one word, and it worked just as well: if the gods wanted a man mad, they first made him sell houses.

People selling houses were even crazier than those buying them. They would name any price and use any means...

Jia Daoyi was a perfect example.

He was already worth well over a billion, and the women in his bed had been top stars from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Then, at an unimportant banquet, he had met this girl who had only just entered show business. Somehow, the little minx had bewitched him. After one tumble between the sheets, he couldn't get enough of her and couldn't bear to let her go.

To his mind, spending a few million to buy first place in a talent contest was nothing. He did it all the time and had expected no trouble this time either. But someone had chosen to oppose him.

When it became clear that first place was slipping away, the little minx cried and made a scene. Jia Daoyi initially tried putting quiet pressure on the gaming magazine, but it had powerful backers of its own, and he didn't dare act recklessly. The magazine had its own plans: the fiercer the contestants' rivalry, the greater its profits. Scandal or no scandal, media hype would only make it more famous.

Unable to do anything about the magazine, Jia Daoyi went after the softer target. He called in some underworld friends and had them destroy Luo Qian's base.

It wasn't that Luo Qian couldn't swallow an insult and bide his time. But why should he have to in the Mortal Realm? I am a mighty... Tribulation Immortal! He might be nobody in the Immortal Realm, but in the Mortal Realm, he was the only god around!

The night was dark, and the wind wailed. Luo Qian floated above a villa that sprawled across half a hillside, watching a room lit by yellow lamplight below. Inside, two people were tangled together in a frenzy of passion. One glance was enough for Luo Qian to recognize that round backside. Yes, it belonged to the girl who had taken first place.

Luo Qian was angry. The consequences would be severe.

He was just a smuggler, not some professional crusader against shady dealings. He should have been able to earn five Mid-Grade Immortal Jades on this trip without any fuss, but those two had ruined it. As the saying went, anger rose in his heart, and wickedness swelled beside his gall. Luo Qian never went looking for trouble, but he didn't shrink from it either.

The couple finally finished and lay still. The man stuck out his potbelly, stroked the few hairs on it, then picked up a wineglass beside the bed and went over to the desk. A laptop sat there. He began looking through some accounts.

Luo Qian floated into the room and cast an Invisibility Spell. Neither of them could see him. As it happened, the man was looking at a list of officials who had colluded with him over the years. Every gift he had given them, its date, and its value were recorded in perfect detail.

Jia Daoyi hadn't risen from a street thug to where he stood today through luck. He had the cunning of a jackal. One day, those records might be the last straw he could clutch to save his life. If he went down, everyone on that list would have to do whatever they could to get him out.

Luo Qian spotted a USB drive on the desk. He walked over and flicked a finger, sending a wisp of Immortal Spirit Energy into Jia Daoyi's meridians to seal them. Then, right in front of him, Luo Qian began copying the files.

Jia Daoyi felt a chill sweep past the back of his head, and suddenly he couldn't move. Then the tiny USB drive on the desk seemed to come alive. It plugged itself into the computer, and the mouse came alive too, moving and clicking on its own. The files were soon copied.

Jia Daoyi came from the underworld and had a particular faith in ghosts and gods. Every year, he even took his men to pay their respects to Lord Guan and Zhong Kui! Faced with something supernatural before his very eyes, Jia Daoyi rolled his eyes back and toppled to the floor with a thud.

"Ah—!" A woman's scream split the night sky. Luo Qian was already dozens of miles away.

As noted, this was not Luo Qian's first visit to the security department's computer room. He returned, copied the data into its computer, and tossed the USB drive aside. The list filled the gaps in Jia Daoyi's evidence file. Now an official investigation could begin.

Early the next morning, the officer in charge of the database turned on the computer and stared at it in disbelief. A uniformed colleague nudged him. "What's wrong with you? Spacing out this early? You'll get chewed out..." The officer pointed at his screen. "The gods answered our prayers..."

The god who had answered them had already returned to the Immortal Realm. He had spent several days in the Mortal Realm this time, and Ling Xiaose had come looking for him more than once. Luo Qian apologized repeatedly and, in the end, had to throw in a few adult discs for free before the young master of the Ling household went home satisfied. Luo Qian weighed the five Mid-Grade Immortal Jades in his hand and finally smiled.