80: Chapter 80 Lin Datong

"If you can't find it in thirty years, it means the thing doesn't exist in the first place. It's better to give up than to waste your effort."

"Bullshit!" Wei Feisen slammed his hand onto the armrest of the chair, and the solid wood armrest shattered at the sound. "Twelve years, at most!"

"Twenty-eight years."

"Fifteen years! One more year and I'll bring the Puppet to tear this house down!"

"Twenty-five years."

"Twenty years!" When Wei Feisen roared this number, the veins on his cheeks were throbbing. "Lin Shuangwan! I have already compromised enough! If you haggle for one more word, this deal is off!"

You watched his furious appearance and weighed the pros and cons in your heart for two breaths.

Twenty years.

To be honest, twenty years is likely enough.

In your previous life, you started from scratch with no clues, yet you still found the Immortal Cave on Funiu Mountain in the fifth year.

And in this life, you already know the specific target, Daliang Mountain.

If you are lucky, it might not take twenty years.

If you are unlucky, you won't necessarily keep some bullshit promise by then anyway.

"Twenty years." You nodded. "Deal."

Wei Feisen was stunned for a moment.

He probably didn't expect you to agree so readily.

Immediately after, his expression changed with an extremely bizarre speed before you, from gloomy to astonishment, from astonishment to suspicion, from suspicion to confirmation, from confirmation to...

A kind of joy that made your hair stand on end.

"Wanwan." His voice softened instantly, and his whole person seemed to have all his aggressiveness drained away. He leaned in fawningly, "A new Zuixian Restaurant has opened in Linyuan City, and their roast goose is superb. I've booked a private room, why don't I take you to try it?"

"Get lost." You somewhat speechlessly reached out and pushed him aside. "I'm annoyed just seeing you right now."

A trace of a hurt expression flashed across Wei Feisen's face, but he quickly smiled again, nodding like a pounding pestle.

"Alright, alright, alright, I'll go, I'm leaving right now." He retreated while saying, "I'll have someone bring you food later. What do you want to eat? Braised? Steamed? How about both?"

"Get out."

"Fine, I'm getting out." He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, but his footsteps dragged as he moved to the door. Before leaving, he looked back at you, "Wanwan, I'll have someone tidy up the place where you're staying later, it's right next to mine..."

Seeing your expression darken again, he helplessly said, "Leaving, leaving, leaving."

The Puppet behind him also left silently, its grayish-white mask sweeping a glance at you at the last second, its two hollow eye sockets bottomless.

The hall quieted down again.

You stared at the closed door and were silent for a long time.

Then you squeezed a sentence out of your mouth.

"Damn it."

"What a psycho among psychos."

"What kind of sin did I commit back then that I had to save him?"

Half a month later.

These past few days have gone more smoothly than you expected.

As the freshly minted "Deputy Leader" of the Black Tiger Gang, your status changed from a prisoner to one of the powerful figures in the city. Although discerning people knew how this "Deputy Leader" position came about, the teahouses and taverns in the city had long spread the relationship between you and Wei Feisen into the kind of stories that storytellers love most.

You couldn't be bothered to pay attention.

This day, you were sitting in the study of the East Courtyard of the Black Tiger Gang's Linyuan branch, holding a piece of rice paper with your left hand and a brush in your right, transcribing the manufacturing process of soap from memory.

This was a formula you had spent two years repeatedly testing in your previous life. What fats to mix with what lye, what temperature to stir at and for how long, and even the final solidification and cutting steps—you remembered them clearly.

If you want to unify Great Qing, having fists alone isn't enough.

Wei Feisen has Puppets, has martial power, and has the cultivation of the Xiantian Peak, but in his previous life, he exhausted his entire life and still failed to truly command the world.

The reason is simple.

Conquering the world relies on fists; ruling the world relies on silver.

Armies need to be fed, provisions need to be prepared, armor and weapons need to be forged, and intelligence networks need to be laid out—all these things require money.

And the experience you gained from running the "Lin Clan Chamber of Commerce" in your previous life tells you that in an era where soap and refined salt haven't been invented yet, these two things are money-printing machines.

The tip of the brush moved across the paper, "Filter—stir—mold—"

"Knock, knock, knock."

There was a knock at the door.

"Deputy Leader."

It was the voice of Xiao Cui, the female member of the Black Tiger Gang that Wei Feisen assigned to you. She was in her early twenties, efficient in her work, and didn't talk much.

"Come in."

Xiao Cui pushed the door open and entered, her face wearing a somewhat embarrassed and strange expression.

"There is someone outside the gang who claims to be your uncle." She paused, "His surname is Lin, and his name is Lin Datong."

Your brush tip paused.

Then you continued writing.

"He is kneeling at the door right now," Xiao Cui added.

"Mm."

"... Are you not going to see him?"

"No."

Xiao Cui acknowledged and retreated.

Outside the door.

Below the stone steps of the Linyuan City Black Tiger Gang branch, Lin Datong was kneeling on the bluestone slab.

His face was swollen.

The left cheek was bulging high, blue and purple, like it had been beaten several times and was swollen several rounds.

The corner of his right eye was also bruised, and there was a split on his lip that had scabbed over, dry and white.

His once oily, round face had slimmed down significantly, his cheekbones were protruding, and the cotton robe on his body was wrinkled, with stains on the collar and cuffs.

He raised his head and shouted at the tightly closed door—

"Shuangwan—my good niece—Uncle is begging you—"

"For your father's sake—for your grandfather's sake—please let your uncle go—"

His voice was shrill and broken, carrying a crying tone, and he deliberately shouted loud enough for everyone around to hear.

These days, his world had collapsed.

First, the wine shop. Half a month ago, three groups of people suddenly came to cause trouble one after another. They smashed the counter, overturned the wine jars, and left behind the words, "Lin Datong's shop, who dares to come and buy wine?"

Those three groups of people: one group was thugs from the gambling den in the west of the city, one group was servants sent by the young master of the cloth shop on East Street, and another group was yamen constables who said the size of his wine jars didn't meet regulations and fined him twenty taels of silver.

Twenty taels was enough for three months of wine sales.

He gritted his teeth and paid it.

Then, late at night on the third day, he was returning home from the shop when he was blocked by two masked men while passing through the alley of the City God Temple. Without a word, they pressed him to the ground and beat him up. They didn't beat him to death, but they specifically targeted his face, and he bled half a bowl of nosebleed.

When he crawled up, those two people were already gone. A peddler standing at the alley entrance watching the excitement muttered, "Serves you right."

And then, the matter of him keeping Xiao Cuihong at the Xiuchun Brothel was exposed by someone, he didn't know who.