Chapter 247.2: Begging to Support the Family Part 2

Ji Jue thought for a while. Ignoring Yue Ting’s muffled protests, he pointed at him, and the mercury immediately wrapped several more times around the man’s mouth. Then Ji Jue walked out of the warehouse and made a phone call.

Half an hour later, two trucks came roaring down the road. They pulled to a stop outside the entrance. After confirming everyone’s identities, several burly men got straight to work without saying a word, loading everything at the scene onto the trucks. As for the desperate outlaws who thoroughly deserved what was coming to them, they were not even given the chance to speak before being sent on their way for good.

At the same time, all records of the arrest operation in North Mount District were completely erased from the Cliff City Security Bureau’s files.

“Well, well. You did pretty well this time, Jue.” Mr. Zhang, who had come over with the trucks, patted him on the shoulder with a broad grin. “Good thing you were here. If we’d brought all this stuff back ourselves, we’d probably have spent the rest of the month working overtime and taking the blame for it.”

After learning the full story, even Mr. Zhang, who had been lounging on the branch office sofa and slacking off, had gotten quite a shock. How did a routine smuggling bust somehow come with this many hidden traps?!

He had had enough. It wasn’t that Mr. Zhang was afraid of a bunch of smugglers. What bothered him was all the shady characters who had been popping up all over Cliff City these past couple of days like weeds after the rain. If they were only talking about smuggling, this was nothing compared to the guy last time who had loaded several ships full of aberration-contaminated material and merrily tried to haul it out of the city!

The troubled season had passed, but winter clearly wasn’t going to be peaceful either. Based on all his years of experience slacking off and muddling through, Mr. Zhang could only say one thing: Don’t celebrate too soon.

This was probably just the beginning. The real trouble was likely still to come.

“Things have felt a little off lately. You should be careful too.” Mr. Zhang sighed and shook his head helplessly as he watched the two cases being loaded onto the trucks.

Ji Jue smiled and nodded, quietly shoving the prime orichalcum ingot he had just extracted with Pacifier deeper into his pocket.

As the saying went, never let a goose fly past without plucking a feather[1]. It was rare for such good material to practically deliver itself to his doorstep. How could he possibly stand by and watch it slip away?

If you don’t take some and I don’t take some, how is Mr. Tong supposed to take any? And if Mr. Tong doesn’t take any, how is anyone supposed to make progress?

Besides, Mr. No-Fun had already made it clear over the phone that, as far as the official record was concerned, none of this had ever happened: there had been no operation, no smuggling, no cases, and certainly no prime orichalcum. Even if they brought the cases back, they would only have to be destroyed, anyway. To keep things from getting out of hand, not a single trace of those two cases could be allowed to remain in this world.

If this whole thing was going to blow up, then it sure as hell wasn’t going to happen on Cliff City’s turf. Let it blow up somewhere else.

“So I guess you’re working for the Tong family now?” Mr. Zhang remarked as they chatted idly.

Ji Jue shook his head without a care. “We’re just friends helping each other out. It’s nothing like that. Besides, I’m only an apprentice. I don’t even have a craftsman certificate yet. Why would I get involved in all that messy stuff?”

Mr. Zhang looked even more pleased. He’s a smart kid.

Ji Jue made money when there was money to be made, and kept troublesome business as far away as possible. That was the wise way to live.

So what if the Tong family was rich? The farther away the trouble was, the better.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot.” Mr. Zhang slapped his shiny bald head. “Congratulations on the new place!”

“It’s nothing worth congratulating me over,” Ji Jue sighed. “The basement at home was already packed full, and I didn’t have enough room to work, so I just got myself a small workshop somewhere else. I only just moved in, and I haven’t even finished setting everything up yet. Once I’ve got the place sorted out, I’ll invite everyone over for drinks to celebrate.”

“Then you’d better hurry. Wen Wen’s been off alcohol for almost a week this time. I don’t think she can hold out much longer.”

They immediately burst out laughing.

After carefully checking the scene to make sure nothing had been overlooked, Mr. Zhang gave Ji Jue a quick checkup before leaving. Once he confirmed that Ji Jue had mostly recovered and hadn’t suffered any lasting effects, he gave him a couple of reminders to “get more rest”—advice that even he felt was probably useless—then dusted off his hands and left.

Before going, he only said that once Ji Jue had officially finished moving into his workshop, everyone in North Mount District had a gift for him. That immediately got Ji Jue curious.

Unfortunately, An Ran was tight-lipped this time. No matter how much Ji Jue questioned him, he could not get anything out of him. When he pushed any harder, An Ran would just avoid looking at him.

Ji Jue scratched his head. “Seriously? Why all the secrecy?”

He had learned to be wary. The last person who had suddenly shoved a gift into his hands had left him shaken to this day, after all.

An Ran blinked at him pitifully. “Ms. Wen told me not to say.”

“Fine, fine.” Ji Jue sighed and stepped on the brake, dropping the kid off outside an arcade. After watching him walk away, he turned the vehicle around and drove all the way to the outskirts of North Mount District to another warehouse district by the sea.

A few hundred meters from Professor Ye’s workshop stood a somewhat weathered two-story building. Ever since Seafire Day ten years ago, property prices in Cliff City had collapsed completely. What had once been an expensive detached seaside house now sat unwanted for years.

After returning to Cliff City, Ji Jue received all the back pay, allowances, and subsidies Mr. No-Fun had arranged for him. Added together, it was enough to buy ten old buildings like this and renovate every one of them from top to bottom.

For once, Ji Jue actually had money to spare. So he waved his hand generously and spent two hours haggling with the original owner and finally bought the place outright for seventy percent of an already pitiful asking price.

After four or five days of renovations, the building was now crammed with all sorts of things he had not yet had time to sort through. There was scrap he had pilfered from Spring City, materials he had salvaged, several lathes and milling machines that had changed hands who knew how many times, and all the miscellaneous junk that had once been piled up in his basement at home. Everything was still sitting in boxes, stacked around in complete disorder.

Ji Jue carried his bag inside and shut the door behind him. After confirming that the outer spirit matter seal was intact and that no one had entered while he was away, he headed straight for the basement.

Compared to the floors above, the basement was astonishingly spacious. An alchemy furnace he had dug out of the ruins of Spring City had already been set up inside. If one overlooked the almost complete lack of proper equipment, one could just about barely pass the place off as a workshop.

Unfortunately, aside from one scrapped furnace, it had practically nothing. It had the unmistakable look of a startup company on the verge of bankruptcy.

“I’m broke. Still so damn broke...” Ji Jue sighed as he surveyed the utterly bare-bones setup before him, then reached back and slowly closed the door behind him.

Click.

A ticking sound followed. Pitch-black marks spread from the door handle like flames, racing outward in all directions. In an instant, they swallowed the entire basement.

Just like that, everything changed. In the deathly silence, the ceiling rose while the floor sank. The already spacious basement expanded farther, transforming into a dilapidated train platform.

As the mist-like haze faded away, an ancient train covered in cracks emerged on the tracks like a phantom. A gentle, warm light shone from within the carriages, illuminating Ji Jue’s face. With a soft scrape, the carriage doors slowly slid open as the train waited in silence.

Ji Jue hefted the prime orichalcum ingot from his bag onto his shoulder and waved cheerfully. “Hey, hey, hey! We scored another meal, guys!”

1. “雁过拔毛” (yàn guò bá máo) (literally “to pluck a feather from a passing goose”) is a Chinese idiom that was originally used to describe someone with exceptionally high martial arts skill. Over time, however, it developed a negative connotation, referring to someone who is extremely greedy and always looking to take advantage of a situation or profit from an opportunity, especially by abusing their position or taking advantage of access to something. ☜