Chapter 1 — The Miraculous Mission

Wei Zhao could not understand it. The missions he carried out were so dangerous, his enemies so powerful, the profits his clients reaped so lavish, and yet what finally fell into his own hands was so pitifully small.

Where on earth did the old man dig up these top-notch assignments for him? Every time it was a brush with death, and what he got for it was fifty, a hundred, and that was the good times. There were even times of two yuan or three. Whenever he thought of it, Wei Zhao felt like crying.

Taking the two hundred yuan he had bought with his life, the first thing Wei Zhao wanted to yell was, damn it all! Though he was an orphan and had never had a mother to begin with.

He had spent fifteen years learning fighting skills from Old Man Wei, who had raised him, and fifteen years studying books. Surely that made him a master of both letters and arms? In ancient times he would have topped both imperial lists, yet he was driven like a hired laborer. When would these days ever come to an end!

He had heard that men who built houses in the city could make tens of thousands a year, while he went through hell every day and made barely a thousand or eight hundred in a whole year.

"Old man, are you playing me? Two hundred yuan? I seriously suspect you are skimming my pay?" Wei Zhao had suspected this more than once, but the old man dressed just like him and ate just like him, and hardly looked like a rich man.

"Be glad you are getting anything at all. Do you think money is that easy to earn these days?" Old Man Wei rolled his bulging eyes and said irritably, "What? You don't want it? If you don't want it, give it back. I haven't treated myself at Widow Wang's snack stand at the village entrance for ages."

"..." Wei Zhao dearly wanted to give this skinny, shriveled old man a good beating, but he knew perfectly well that if he raised a hand, he would be the one getting beaten.

Just how formidable Old Man Wei really was, Wei Zhao never knew. He only knew that whenever the old man sparred with him, he never used his full strength. And just when Wei Zhao thought he had moved up a level, he would suddenly discover the old man had moved up a level too, and he was still no match for him.

"All right, you have trained enough over these years. It is about time for that great undertaking." Old Man Wei did not even lift his eyelids, sitting cross-legged on the kang and crunching noisily on a dish of anise beans before him. "Do this job well, and you will never have to worry about food and drink for the rest of your life!"

"Really?" Wei Zhao knew that ever since the old man had picked him up while scavenging when he was three, he had been taught fighting, medicine, and knowledge of the outside world, all for the sake of carrying out some great deed. Yet Wei Zhao greatly doubted whether the reward for that deed was really as grand as the old man claimed, that one job could feed him for a lifetime.

"When have I ever lied to you?" Old Man Wei tossed another anise bean into his mouth. "Are you going or not? If not, I will find someone else?"

"I am going, of course I am going!" Wei Zhao thought, only a fool would pass up such a good deal! One job to live on for a lifetime, and he would never have to kill himself like this again. Even if it was a dragon's pool or a tiger's den, it would be worth risking everything!

"Good, then go. Go to Songshan City, to the Gu Group, and find a man called Gu Pengzhan. He will tell you what to do next." A barely perceptible sly smile crossed Old Man Wei's lips. "But think it over. Once you take this mission, you must see it through. You cannot quit halfway."

"Why? If there is danger you still won't let a man run?" Wei Zhao was not the stubborn-to-the-death type. Anything he knew meant certain death, he flatly refused to do.

"Xiao Yi, I raised you for fifteen years, fed you, gave you drink, bought you a laptop, bought you a 3G card..." The old man rolled his eyes and nagged on and on. "I ask you to do one little thing and you have so many questions. Don't force me!"

"Damn it!" Wei Zhao flared up at those words. "You raised me for the first three years. Since I was six, I have been the one cooking, chopping firewood, and weaving straw sandals to earn money to support you. Don't you force me either!"

"You sneak up at midnight to watch porn on your computer. Don't think I don't know!" The old man glared and said, "You forced me to say it! You were facing the computer and..."

"Fine... I will go... I won't run away, all right?" Wei Zhao blushed. He had not expected that something he had done so secretly had been noticed by this old wretch. Damn humiliating. If he let him go on, who knew what unspeakable scenes he would describe.

And so, under Old Man Wei's threats and bribes, Wei Zhao packed his bag, boarded the northbound train, and traveled thousands of miles to Songshan City, that modern international metropolis.

Sitting on the train, Wei Zhao thought he would have to encrypt his porn films from now on, hide them in the system folders, and when he did the deed, keep his eyes open in all directions and his ears pricked on all sides.

Still, he was looking forward to this mission. A good deal that let him retire after one job was exactly what he dreamed of, though from Old Man Wei's words he could sense this task would not be simple. Well, the harder the better, the more challenge the better!

"Pop", the pockmarked man sitting opposite Wei Zhao pulled open a canned cola, then tossed the pull tab casually onto the table.

The flat-headed man beside him pretended not to care as he picked up the tab and fiddled with it in his hand. After fiddling a few times, he suddenly shouted, "Wow! Wow! Holy crap! First prize!"

Though the flathead's voice was not very loud in the noisy carriage, the nearby passengers all heard it and turned to look at him.

The pockmarked man was no exception. Seeing that the tab in the flathead's hand was the very one he had just thrown away, his face turned rather unnatural. "Give it to me. That is mine..."

"Yours? Where is your name written on it?" The flathead snatched back his right hand, clutching the tab tightly in his fist, and glared. "Is your name First Prize?"

"No... I am not called First Prize... that first-prize tab was thrown away by me..." Seeing the flathead's fierce looks, the pockmarked man grew timid, yet unwilling to lose what was rightfully his, he stammered out.

"You said it yourself, you threw it away. Since you threw it away, whoever picks it up owns it." The flathead snorted with disdain.

"Hey, how can you be like that?" The pockmarked man grew anxious and called out to a passenger opposite him, the bespectacled man sitting to Wei Zhao's left. "Sir, you look like a scholar. Judge for us. How can he act like this? Isn't this just being a scoundrel?"

"Who is being a scoundrel?" The flathead was unhappy too, and turned to the bespectacled man. "Master, you tell us. Who should this tab belong to?"

"Hmm..." The bespectacled man pushed up his glasses and hesitated before saying, "I am a university teacher. Since you both trust me, I will judge this for you."

"Please, please!" Both the pockmarked man and the flathead nodded eagerly, staring anxiously at the bespectacled man who called himself a teacher.

"Strictly speaking, this tab was pulled off the can by this brother here, so the thing should be his..." The bespectacled man had only said half when the pockmarked man showed a smug expression, while the flathead grew anxious and was about to speak, but the bespectacled man waved him off and went on. "However, since this brother already threw the tab away, and this other brother picked it up, then it should belong to the latter..."

"But you just said that tab was mine..." Hearing this, the pockmarked man's face fell at once.

"In my view, why don't you two just split the prize? That way neither of you loses!" The bespectacled man suggested.