Republic of China: From Street Performer to War God in a Chaotic Era

"Oh, this must be Young Master Lu, right? Truly, a hero emerges from among the young."

When Master Zheng saw the door open, he chuckled and slowly took out a gilded cigarette case from his pocket, pulled out a cigarette with foreign writing on it, and handed it to Lu Guan.

"Take a puff? It's a genuine American-made product, with a mint flavor."

Lu Guan did not refuse.

He reached out and took the cigarette, then put it in his mouth.

A sharp-eyed thug from the canal gang immediately lit a match and came over.

"call--"

Lu Guan took a drag and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke. Through the lingering smoke, he calmly looked at Master Zheng.

"With Master Zheng's entourage, it doesn't seem like he's here to watch a play."

"Haha, young master, you speak your mind!"

Master Zheng put away the cigarette box, then casually pulled out a red paper name card sprinkled with gold from his sleeve and handed it over with both hands.

"Brother, I've come today to make friends with the young master."

"The whole affair with Greyhound has been thoroughly investigated by the gang. It was his own gambling addiction that caused trouble for the out-of-town 'Insect King' at the black market. He brought this upon himself. It has nothing to do with you or the Fuju gang, not even a single penny!"

Master Zheng spoke in a grand and dignified manner, and his smile deepened.

"However, let's not beat around the bush. Master Pan has his eye on the Fuju Ban plot of land and wants to buy it to do some business."

"I have come here today with sincerity."

Third Master Zheng held up five fingers as thick as carrots and waved them in front of Lu Guan.

"Five hundred silver dollars in cash!"

"As long as the young master nods and signs the land transfer document, these five hundred silver dollars will be delivered to your yard immediately."

"Why don't you take this money, buy a small villa in the foreign concession, and marry two concubines? Wouldn't that be much more enjoyable than staying here guarding this dilapidated theater?"

Five hundred silver dollars.

In 1925, this sum of money was an astronomical figure that ordinary people could never earn in a lifetime.

But Lu Guan knew exactly what was going on.

In Nanshi, every inch of land is incredibly valuable!

That was a den of iniquity where all sorts of people from all walks of life in Tianjin gathered.

Although the yard in Fujuban is a bit dilapidated, its location is excellent, connecting two main streets.

If they were to demolish the site and build opium dens and brothels, the net profit from that would be more than five hundred silver dollars a month!

Master Zheng isn't here to buy land at all.

If it were half a month ago, when Lu Guan had not yet awakened to the stage of destiny, he would probably have had no choice but to sign and seal the document in frustration when faced with these dozen or so burly men carrying ghost-head knives.

But now?

Lu Guan didn't even lift his eyelids, and slowly took another puff of the cigarette in his mouth.

Sparks flickered on the snow.

"Third Master Zheng, do you think I'm young and naive, or do you think everyone in my theater is a beggar?"

Lu Guan exhaled a smoke ring.

"Five hundred silver dollars to buy a prime piece of land in the heart of Tianjin's southern district?"

"Your scheme is so cunning that it can be heard across the Haihe River."

The smile on Zheng Sanye's face suddenly froze, and his hands, which were fiddling with walnuts, also stopped.

Seeing this, the dozen or so thugs from the canal gang behind him stepped forward in unison, slamming their large, red-cloth-wrapped swords to the ground.

"Bang!"

The shockwave sent the snow on the ground flying up in a flurry.

"Hey Lu, don't be so stubborn!" one of the thugs shouted angrily.

Master Zheng raised his hand, stopping his men from shouting.

His eyes, squeezed into slits by his fat, stared intently at Lu Guan. The amiable look on his face vanished completely, replaced by the ferocious appearance of a thug.

"So, according to the young master, how much do you want for this land?"

Lu Guan ignored him.

He took the half-smoked cigarette from his hand and pressed the bright red butt onto the gold-flecked name card that Master Zheng had just handed him.

"laugh--"

A burnt smell rose up, and a charred hole was instantly burned into the center of the name card, with sparks spreading rapidly along the edges of the red paper.

Lu Guan released his grip, letting the burnt-to-ash name card drift away in the wind.

"I will not sell the land."

Lu Guan stared directly at Master Zheng, and at that moment, a trace of the terrifying pressure of the Great Completion Ming Force was released.

This single sliver of emotion sent a chill down the spine of Master Zheng, who only knew a few fancy moves, into a freezing abyss, his breath catching involuntarily for a moment.

"But if your gang thinks the threshold for this Fuju Class is too high, you can always try again."

"If I do it again, I'll go into the ice hole in the Haihe River and retrieve a few more corpses."

"They were all wearing the kind of jackets worn by members of the Green Gang!"

"you……"

The dozen or so desperados carrying ghost-head knives turned pale, completely silenced by a single sentence from a thin boy who was not even twenty years old.

Master Zheng's face turned pale and then red, and his chest heaved violently.

He brought his men here today because he wanted to take advantage of Greyhound's death and bully this pushover to establish his authority.

But to his utter surprise, the kid in front of him was not only not soft, but was like a piece of raw iron that had been poisoned!

"Okay, okay, okay!"

Master Zheng laughed in anger, nodding through gritted teeth.

"Young Master Lu has a tough backbone, I, Zheng, have witnessed it firsthand. We'll see how things unfold."

"Let's go!"

With a flick of his sleeve, Master Zheng turned around and prepared to leave the dilapidated courtyard that inexplicably oppressed him with his men.

Just as he turned around...

"etc."

Lu Guan's voice rang out unhurriedly from behind the crowd.

Master Zheng paused, turned around, and sneered coldly, "What, has the young master changed his mind?"

The dozen or so thugs also gripped their knife hilts tightly, assuming that Lu Guan was about to make a move.

However, Lu Guan didn't even look at Master Zheng.

His gaze passed over the layers of thugs and landed on an inconspicuous person at the very back of the group.

He was a tall, thin man wearing a gray cloth robe.

In this heavy snow, this person wasn't wearing a cotton-padded coat.

Throughout, he kept his head down, hiding at the very back of the crowd, like a shadow with no presence.

Lu Guan had sensed the tension when the two sides were about to clash.

Of the dozen or so living people, only this tall, thin man was completely silent, without even the slightest breath.

Lu Guan's hand, hidden in his sleeve, gently grasped the "Heart-Reflecting" ancient mirror he had acquired from the ghost market.

"Buzz—"

The moment Lu Guan's gaze locked onto it.

The bronze mirror was inside his sleeve, and a thin layer of black frost had formed on its surface.

If the mirror reflecting one's heart moves, evil spirits will surely be lurking in front of one!

Lu Guan narrowed his eyes and looked down at the wrist of the tall, thin man that was sticking out of his sleeve.

Beneath the pale skin, a purplish-black line of blood was writhing eerily along the veins.

A storm surged through Lu Guan's heart, but his expression remained unchanged.

"It's nothing."

Lu Guan withdrew his gaze, put his hands back into his sleeves, and said calmly.

"Just a reminder to Master Zheng, the snow is slippery, so when you walk... don't step on anything unclean."

Master Zheng was baffled by these words, thinking that Lu Guan was just making threats and cursing him, so he spat out a mouthful of saliva.

"No need for you to trouble yourself, young master, let's go!"

The group walked out of the alley, grumbling and cursing.

Lu Guan only slowly closed the courtyard gate after the members of the canal gang had completely disappeared from sight.

"Young Master, have you dealt with the people outside?"

Hearing the door close, the old blind man groped his way out of the inner room, still clutching the Browning in his hand.

Lu looked at the mirror in his hand, his brows furrowed, his expression more solemn than ever before.

"The person has been dealt with."

"But... this is a big problem."

Lu Guan walked to the clay stove and placed the ancient mirror, which was covered with black frost, on the fire to heat it, making a "sizzling" sound.

"Blind man, it seems like something dirty has infiltrated the Canal Gang's headquarters. Or perhaps... these people were never clean from the start."

Upon hearing this, the old blind man's expression changed drastically.

"You mean, among that group of thugs just now, there were... there were inhuman creatures?"

"Um."

Lu Guan then described in detail what he had just discovered, as well as the strange purplish-black bloodline on the tall, thin man's wrist.

"The warning from the 'Heart-Reflecting Mirror' should be accurate."

"A monster that was not breathing and was bleeding from dead people was brazenly mixed in with the gang of thugs of the Canal Gang, and Master Zheng and the thugs around him were completely unaware."

In Lu Guan's mind, the events of the past few days quickly connected together.

Gray Fairy, Fox Clan, poisoned herbs, water monkeys in the Haihe River...

Beneath the waters of Jinmenwei, there seems to be a large net slowly spreading outwards.

The most powerful gang in Nanshi, the canal gang, was likely already infiltrated and even controlled by this vast network.