263: His son was a soldier who died in the Ninth Mountain (asking for monthly tickets)

Two days later, in Jinguancheng, it was morning.

Thousands of miles away, the common people wailed, demons were ferocious, and it was a human purgatory, but this giant city, known as the City of Heaven, was bustling with people, noisy and lively. On the Spring River, pleasure boats came and went, and in the brothels, there were already singing girls, the sound of music, and guests filling the seats.

It seemed that, from the outside, nothing had changed in this city; it was just more crowded and lively.

The streets had many more well-dressed, unfamiliar faces.

When there are more people, chaos will arise, order will lose control, and many weeds will sprout from the dark corners.

In North City, in a restaurant called Zuixianju, on a seat by the window on the second floor, a slightly fat man with a grimace-like face, his face bruised, was drinking sullenly with a gloomy expression.

At this moment, several people came upstairs, saw him, and walked over.

"Old Tang."

"Why are you drinking by yourself first?"

"Hmm? What happened to you? What happened to your face?"

Several familiar brokers saw the grimace-faced man's injuries and his lack of his usual spirit.

The grimace-faced man looked up, his eyes filled with unwillingness, "I called you all here today because I want to ask you for some information. You all have active information channels."

Seeing him like this, his familiar acquaintances, who were all brokers and had well-informed news in various trades in the city, knew that someone so usually spirited must have encountered something. "Tell us, what happened?"

"I want to ask about the Qing Sha Gang that popped up in North City, whose background are they?" The grimace-faced man said this with a gloomy expression.

"Qing Sha Gang? Another new Gang that popped up?"

"Old Tang, did you get into a conflict with these people?"

The grimace-faced man gritted his teeth, "I do business that thrives on harmony; why would I actively seek trouble? It's these people who took over my brokerage business in North City. A shopkeeper who had followed me, Tang, for a long time, was unwilling and was beaten to death by them, and my staff were also detained. When I heard the news, I invited the master of Tianquan Martial Arts Hall to mediate. He went to their stronghold, and the result... The Gang leader of the Qing Sha Gang is a stranger and actually has Heavenly Gate cultivation. I've never seen this person."

The rest of the story, he didn't say, but his expression was ugly, suggesting he had suffered greatly.

Hearing this, the other few people's eyelids twitched. Old Tang was considered a respectable person in Jinguancheng, yet he was treated so badly.

Blatant murder, Heavenly Gate master.

Several people were silent, shook their heads, "It seems to be a Dragon crossing the river."

Then they talked about their respective news and conjectures.

"With the defeat of the Fa Shan Army, Jinguancheng is becoming more and more crowded, and houses in the city are becoming increasingly scarce, with prices skyrocketing. You mentioned last time that many mysterious people came to your brokerage, suspected to be from the Central Plains, seemingly for something. It's possible these people are targeting your connections."

"It's getting more and more chaotic recently. In West City, where I live, there's also a former Cao Gang. They were originally just some small-time guys, but recently their Gang leader changed to a stranger, whose strength is unknown, but his financial resources are abundant. He's been recruiting people on a large scale and causing trouble. There have also been several vicious incidents in other places."

"What's that? Yesterday, in Shanyuan Lane, South City, a vendor rushing on his way, carrying a pole, accidentally bumped into a noble's sedan chair, and his head was cut off by the noble's attendant in the street with a sword! How pitiful. I heard that the yamen's constables were useless when they came, and even the garrison was alarmed, but the person in the sedan chair, guess what, openly resisted arrest, injured people, and left." One person sighed, his face somewhat frustrated.

"What is the Dao Fu Division doing? Is it losing control of the situation?"

"So many soldiers died on the front line, what do you think? I heard that Commander Pei, who was originally stationed in this city, took those young men to the front line. Now, there's almost no one left in the city."

"Alas, it's chaotic, it's going to be chaotic. Many people are going to show their fangs. Old Tang, I'll help you ask around, but as your brother, I still advise you not to provoke these people. It's possible these people are just tools used by certain big figures, specifically for dirty work. If you get marked, people like you and me, to put it bluntly, are just errand runners making a living. No one cares about our lives."

In fact, all of them had Body Profound cultivation and were considered to have some small assets in the city, but in the current situation, they lived cautiously, fearing to encounter a Dragon crossing the river, whether from the Central Plains or other parts of Shu, and suffer disaster.

The grimace-faced man's small eyes flickered with unwillingness. Finally, he suddenly grabbed his wine glass, took a gulp of sullen wine, and just as he was about to put the glass down, he suddenly heard a heartbreaking cry from outside.

Then, across the main street from the restaurant, in an alley, there was a crashing sound, and a courtyard wall of one of the houses collapsed with a rumble, kicking up dust.

This commotion quickly alarmed the nearby people.

People gasped and looked, including the brokers in the restaurant.

Following the sound, they looked over and clearly saw that, a hundred meters away, the main gate of a single-entry courtyard, along with its surrounding wall, had completely collapsed.

After the collapse, the view became somewhat open. Amidst the flying dust, there were a dozen burly figures.

The grimace-faced man who had just been drinking sullenly looked out the window and saw the figures in those uniforms. His eyes instantly darkened, and his voice almost squeezed out from between his teeth.

"It's the Qing Sha Gang!"

More than a dozen figures, dressed in green tight-fitting clothes with black belts wrapped around their hands, entered menacingly, stepping over the collapsed wall bricks.

After the wall collapsed, however, white banners fluttered, and inside was a main house, with a lacquered coffin placed in the main hall.

A sorrowful, gray-haired old woman cried out in alarm, fell backward to the ground, then quickly got up and, crying, rubbed her hands towards the approaching Qing Sha Gang members.

"Please don't demolish it."

"If you demolish it, my son won't be able to find his way home."

"Please!"

However, the leader of the Qing Sha Gang members had a rat-like face, with a pair of triangular eyes slightly narrowed, flashing with sinister light. His sparse eyebrows grew wildly, like two worn-out brooms across his forehead.

He grabbed the gray-haired old woman by the collar, lifted her up, his eyes fierce, and pulled out a deed, "Old hag, how precious houses are now. You've made this place dirty; what's it worth now?"

Saying that, he flung the old woman aside and barked at the people behind him, "Smash this house down completely, flatten it for me. And that coffin, damn it, it's been here for days, how unlucky."

As soon as these words fell, the Qing Sha Gang members immediately grinned menacingly, grabbed large hammers, and rushed over, directly surrounding the walls of the main house, swinging their hammers down fiercely.

Immediately, the walls boomed and cracked, breaking open with holes.

The dust, bricks, and tiles above were all shaken down.

"No, my poor son!"

The gray-haired old woman looked at this scene with heartbreaking anguish, rushed in, and fell onto the coffin, holding it tightly with both hands.

Beside the coffin, there was also a young woman, holding a five or six-year-old child, wearing white mourning cloth on her head, kneeling closely beside it. Her tears had already dried, and she just tightly held the child in her arms who had cried himself to sleep.

A tile fell and hit the young woman's head, instantly drawing crimson blood, but the woman did not cry out. She just closed her eyes, her face pressed against the coffin, as if trying to recall something.

At this moment, the leader of the Qing Sha Gang came up and kicked the coffin fiercely.

The black lacquered coffin on the footstool tilted, and the coffin lid slid down, revealing the scene inside the coffin.

There was no corpse inside.

Only a thin piece of armor and a Dao!

"Damn it, it's even an empty tomb."

The man cursed angrily.

At this moment, someone outside, seeing this scene, finally couldn't help but speak out in indignation.

"His son was a soldier of Ninth Mountain, sacrificed while fighting demons. They protected Shu, aren't you afraid of divine retribution for doing this?"

This commotion attracted a large crowd outside.

The neighbor of this family, an old man, tremblingly shouted in anger.