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

At the entrance of the village.

The shrewish woman stood with one hand on her hip and the other waving a chipped, rough porcelain bowl, spitting as she cursed.

"You little bastard, how many cornmeal have you eaten from my family for free? Not only did you kill your parents, but you also want to bring trouble to our family!"

The skinny man next to him shrank his neck and didn't dare to utter a sound.

The onlookers pointed and whispered, revealing the coldness and indifference of human nature in this impoverished and remote village in 1925.

Just as the woman was getting into her tirade...

"Crunch, crunch..."

The sound of footsteps crunching through the snow drifted slowly down the dirt road at the village entrance.

The crowd instinctively parted ways.

A thin boy wearing a black cotton-padded jacket and a tattered felt hat was leading a little boy with a runny nose from the cold as they strode towards them.

Behind them.

Following them was a burly giant, at least two meters tall, completely wrapped in a black leather trench coat and wearing a large straw hat.

With each step the giant took, he left a deep crater in the frozen ground. He carried a heavy old camphor wood opera box on his shoulder, and exuded a chilling, menacing aura.

It was Lu Guan, Gouzi, and the half-step Ironclad Fiend, A Da!

"A dog?!"

The woman was taken aback at first, then flew into a rage and rushed forward to grab the boy's ear.

"Well, you little beast, where have you been in the middle of the night? You even dared to bring outsiders..."

"Snapped!"

Before the woman's hand could even touch the dog, a large, iron-like hand had already gripped her wrist.

Lu Guan's expression was icy, and his Qi and blood, which had reached the Great Completion Ming Jin stage, trembled slightly.

A crisp "crack" sounded.

"Oh my goodness!"

The woman's wrist dislocated instantly, and she screamed in agony like a pig being slaughtered. She fell heavily onto the muddy ground, and the rough porcelain bowl in her hand shattered into pieces.

"You...you dare to hit someone?!"

When the skinny man saw his wife being beaten, he gritted his teeth and tried to step forward to reason with her.

"roar--"

Ah Da's eyes, hidden beneath his straw hat, snapped open. He let out a low growl and took a heavy step forward.

The menacing aura of the century-old corpse assaulted the man's face.

The skinny man was so frightened that his eyes rolled back, his legs went weak, and he knelt down in the snow with a thud, his crotch instantly getting soaked.

The surrounding neighbors were so frightened that they backed away, looking at Lu Guan as if he were a living Yama.

Lu Guan didn't even lift his eyelids, looking down at the trembling dog beside him.

"Is this your home?"

The dog bit its lip, tears welling up in its eyes, but stubbornly shook its head.

"This isn't home... They won't give me food, they make me sleep in the cowshed. My grandma is gone, I have no home."

Lu Guan sighed and reached out to pat the boy's shriveled head.

"Would you like to come with me?"

"From now on, follow me, and you'll have meat to eat and clothes to wear. But you'll have to learn how to kill. Do you dare?"

The dog raised its head, and in its naturally heterochromatic eyes, Lu Guan's cold and stern face was reflected.

Without the slightest hesitation, he nodded emphatically.

"dare!"

"it is good."

Lu Guan turned around and took out five gleaming white silver dollars from his pocket.

Clang.

The silver coin arced through the air before landing in the mud in front of the woman.

In 1925, one silver dollar could buy thirty catties of high-quality white flour. In this poor, remote rural area, a farmer might not see a single silver dollar in a year.

The woman and the man stared wide-eyed, forgetting even the pain in their wrists, and threw themselves into the mud, clutching the few silver dollars tightly.

"This silver dollar can buy this child's life."

"From now on, he has absolutely no connection with your family."

"If they dare to utter even a single word of gossip outside, or try to claim kinship with us..."

Lu Guan glanced at A-Da behind him.

"My brother here loves to eat human flesh."

After saying that, Lu Guan took Gouzi's hand, and with A Da in tow, walked into the swirling snow without looking back.

All that was left were a village of dumbfounded villagers and a snobbish couple, thanking each other profusely in the mud.

……

noon.

The border between the French Concession and the Chinese-controlled area, the Military Affairs Department of the Governor's Office, the Section for Inspecting Unusual Activities.

In the dimly lit archives room.

With his only remaining right eye, Bai Dangtou stared at the half-mask scabbard stained with black blood on the table and gasped.

"The core dough of the Demon Mask?!"

The old man stared at Lu Guan as if he were a monster, his hand trembling as he could barely hold his pipe.

"You little brat... you killed that big bastard last night, even Inspector Feng found it troublesome?!"

"It's just luck; this beast ran right into my line of fire."

Lu Guan sat down in his chair with an air of authority and tapped the table with his finger.

"Senior Bai, let's inspect the goods. This stuff will be split 50/50 between me and Zhao Linchuan's team. How many merit points will I get in return?"

Bai, the head of the white-robed office, knew that this was probably Lu Guan's doing all the work, but he didn't say anything. He picked up the abacus on the table and quickly fiddled with it a few times.

"If it's a 50/50 split, the mysterious case at the abandoned tomb in the west of the city, plus this core token of the demon-faced monster..."

"You'll get 300 merit points!"

Three hundred points.

Lu Guan frowned slightly.

He glanced at Ah Da, who stood behind him like an iron tower. This half-step Iron Armor Black-haired Demon had cost him a full thousand points.

"Senior Bai, how many points would it cost to retrieve another ordinary corpse puppet from the water dungeon?"

"An ordinary corpse puppet?"

Bai touched his chin.

"If it's a white-haired evil spirit that has just risen from the dead, or a water evil spirit that drowned in the sea or river, its ferocity is not as great as this black-haired evil spirit, probably around 350 points."

Fifty points short.

Just as Lu Guan was figuring out where to take on another small case to make up the numbers...

Bai Dangtou's gaze suddenly passed over Lu Guan and landed on the dog following behind Lu Guan, who was curiously looking around.

Upon seeing this, the old man's one eye suddenly flashed with a sharp light!

"This child..."

Bai Dangtou suddenly stood up, strode over to Gouzi, grabbed his chin, and carefully examined the eyes whose pupils had a pale, double-image-like edge.

"Born with heterochromia, and a birth chart dominated by Yin... Yin-Yang eyes?!"

The old man was so excited that his voice trembled.

"Lu Guan, where did you pick up this peerless gem?!"

"In this chaotic world filled with yin energy, the Yin-Yang Eyes, which are born with the ability to see through illusions and identify demons, are a treasure that our Department of Mysteries could not find even with a lantern."

Bai Dangtou turned to look at Lu Guan, his tone urgent.

"Young Lu, hand him over to me."

"Our Bureau of Mystery Investigation has a 'Geography Bureau,' which specializes in locating auspicious sites and tracking supernatural phenomena. With a little training, this child could absolutely be the pillar of our Geography Bureau!"

Lu Guan's face darkened, and without hesitation, he pulled the dog behind him.

"Senior Bai, this child is mine."

"The Fuju Ban won't starve him. The government's influence is too deep; at his age, going in would just make him cannon fodder."

He knew all too well how the Governor's Mansion operated.

In this meat grinder, without real skills, just having a good pair of eyes won't even get you to know how you died.

Bai Dangtou was so anxious that he stomped his feet, just about to try to persuade him again.

The dog hiding behind Lu Guan suddenly tugged at Lu Guan's clothes.

Although the little boy's face was blue from the cold, his eyes were unusually determined.

"Mr. Lu... I want to go."