Volume One, Chapter Ninety-Three: I Seem to Be the Villain.

At almost the same instant, the Blind Man and Falling Cherry looked over and saw only a young man of about seventeen or eighteen, smiling at them with easy amusement.

“Who is that?”
“Yeah, never seen him before.”
“Strange. How did he get in here?”

Falling Cherry frowned. He had assumed this was some expert sent by the Blind Man’s side, but the way the Blind Man looked at him made it seem as though he did not know him at all.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the Blind Man asked as he came up to him, his long blade in hand.

The Blind Man was not short, but the young man before him was taller still, the top of his head just reaching the other’s chin.

“I’m just here to take a look. You can keep going. I’ll speak after you’re done,” the young man said, stepping back to signal them to continue.

Yet with him intruding like this, neither of them knew how to proceed. The fierce mood that had just begun to flare was already nearly extinguished.

“If you’re not going to continue, then I’ll speak first,” the young man said calmly.

Falling Cherry narrowed his eyes. “Boy, do you know where this is?”

The young man nodded without hesitation. “Of course I know. This is my territory.”

“Your territory?!” Falling Cherry stared at him in disbelief.

Had this child taken the wrong medicine? Come here to act mad?

“That’s right. So you’d better leave,” the young man said.

The Blind Man had come today specifically to cause trouble, and more importantly, he was here for territory. Hearing the boy say such a thing, he could not hold back any longer.

He pressed the blade of his machete against the young man’s neck. “Go on, say that again if you’ve got the nerve. Believe me, one swing of this blade and your head will be separated from your body.”

The young man blinked. “Ah? Why is it always that line? Do you know how many people have said that to me before? But after a day, they were never heard from again. Do you know why?”

The Blind Man still did not understand and asked, “Why?”

“Because they all died,” the young man said.

“You’re asking for death!” The Blind Man no longer cared. He slashed down with his long blade, and at the same moment he shut his eyes, afraid blood might splash into them.

But when the blade came down, there was not even a cry of pain.

The young man stood there unharmed and said, “All right, it seems you’re not the obedient sort either. But it doesn’t matter. Like I said before, anyone who lays a hand on me dies. You’ll be no exception.”

This time, the Blind Man truly felt fear, because he had never seen anyone whose throat had been cut by a blade yet not only suffered no injury, but could still stand there speaking. What kind of human being was this?

Just moments ago, when the Blind Man attacked, Falling Cherry had not blinked once. She had seen clearly that the young man’s figure seemed to blur for an instant, and then the blade fell without ever touching him.

The Blind Man did not believe it. He raised his blade and struck again, but this time the young man would not give him the chance.

A punch with no visible afterimage. The Blind Man had no time to react—not his body, not even his nerves. By the time he understood what had happened, five seconds had already passed.

His abdomen was punched straight through. With a dull crash, he fell rigidly to the ground.

The young man said, “Killed more than fifty people. A mad dog. You got what you deserved.”

He was not slaughtering the innocent at random. Before coming here, he had already looked into the Blind Man’s deeds, and they were all vile. Aside from the few restricted matters he had not dared to touch, there was almost nothing he would not do if it could make money.

He also ran loan-sharking operations, ruining families and driving people to bankruptcy and ruin. Jiang Chen counted all of that against him.

A man like that deserved nothing less than death.

Seeing the Blind Man, chest pierced through, Falling Cherry was utterly panicked. She had thought this was merely a clash between two ordinary organizations, yet she had not expected something like this to happen directly.

The Blind Man was dead, without even a trace of breath left.

Jiang Chen looked at Falling Cherry and said, “I don’t really want to kill people. I like talent, but he clearly wasn’t one.”

By “he,” he naturally meant the Blind Man, already dead.

Falling Cherry had clearly seen that punch just now. Even she would not have been able to withstand it, and she guessed Jiang Chen must be a cultivator, and a very powerful one at that.

Yet she was only an ordinary woman. She was not even a cultivator. To challenge someone with such overwhelming strength would be no different from courting death.

“What do you want?” Falling Cherry felt a little tense. Even if everyone present attacked together, they still would not be able to defeat this boy.

Her nervousness was inevitable.

Jiang Chen spread his hands. “Nothing. Didn’t I say it already? He wasn’t talented, so I wanted to see whether you are.”

Falling Cherry understood what he meant. “All of you, step back. Get back to work.”

“Boss...”
“Sis!”

At once, the subordinates around them crowded in.

“Back off! Don’t come near me. Do what you’re supposed to do!” Falling Cherry’s voice trembled with fear. Even though she had once led a group of people to divide the underground level into three parts, she still felt afraid now.

This was not someone she could contend with.

Jiang Chen felt as though he had become the villain. He had only come to discuss a business deal—why did it feel as though he would never leave alive?

“Uh, you don’t have to be like this. I have no interest in your boss, so there’s no need to worry. Your boss won’t end up like the man on the ground. As long as you don’t make a move, I guarantee you’ll live.”

The more Jiang Chen tried to reassure them, the more cautious the already wary crowd became.

Fine. Jiang Chen finally understood: they simply did not trust him at all.

But thinking about it, that made sense. What he had just done did not exactly fit their understanding of how things should be.

It was only natural for them to be guarded.

“There should be a place upstairs where tea is served, right? I’ll wait for you up there,” Jiang Chen said with a sigh, and went upstairs directly.

Falling Cherry knew today would probably be a dangerous one. “If anything happens to me, each of you should go home separately. Xiao Li, if I don’t come back down, divide up the money and assets. Make sure every brother gets a share of the rest. The others, I won’t worry about.”

Jiang Chen had excellent hearing, and from upstairs he could clearly hear what was being said below.

“Honestly, are final words supposed to take this long? Can you come up already? If you’re not coming up, then I’m coming down,” Jiang Chen said, sounding a little impatient.

After all, he had only come to talk business. Why was it being made to look like a matter of life and death?