Chapter 780: Acting For Real

The man was terrified and still struggled. "Let go of me... Do you have any idea whose man I am? How dare you touch me..."

"Kill him," Gu Shuo said coldly.

One guard pinned him down while another drew his longsword.

Seeing they were serious, the man’s legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, wailing, "Don’t... don’t kill me! Help me... Don’t kill me... I was wrong, Boss Gu, I was wrong..."

Gu Shuo didn’t even spare him a glance.

With a sickening thud, the head of the kneeling man flew from his shoulders as blood sprayed everywhere.

The townsfolk were horrified. Hoes, fish harpoons, and sickles fell from their hands, clattering to the ground.

Only then did they realize that Boss Gu wasn’t just making threats—he was a killer.

"Heavens, how did a perfectly good port get smashed up like this? What a damn shame."

"Looks like our ship was smashed, too. We’re done for, we’re done for! That’s the Clan Leader’s ship!"

"Who the hell smashed my ship? I’ll kill them myself!"

"Huh? Is that the Guanghai Shuiyuan Clan’s ship? Tsk, tsk... They really are bold..."

Men from Mobei, the Eastern Border, and Loulan—several major clans—emerged from the crowd to see the port in a total mess.

The Mobei men saw their own ships had also been smashed. They flew into a rage at once, shouting as they pushed forward.

Their shouting made the already frightened townsfolk even more terrified. They huddled together, their eyes wide with horror.

"Lord Sun is here! Lord Sun is here!"

A detachment of soldiers appeared, and the packed crowd parted to make way.

Sun Shiming hurried over. The moment he saw the ruined port, his breath caught in his chest. Dayu City was surrounded by water on several sides; it depended entirely on this port to function.

’If it’s destroyed, who’s going to pay to fix it?’

"Lord Sun, the people of Dayu City have violated Nanyuan’s contract. You had best calculate the compensation owed with care," Gu Shuo said softly, glancing his way.

Sun Shiming had yet to process what he was seeing when the voice reached him. His aged face wrinkled. "Boss Gu, is there some reason for all this?"

"Are you asking the right person, Lord Sun?" Gu Shuo said, eyeing him sideways.

Sun Shiming understood at once. He turned to the crowd, seething with anger. "What in the world happened here? Why did you destroy the port?"

The townsfolk trembled, looking at one another, not daring to speak.

"What other reason could there be? They were just jealous that Boss Gu was making so much money."

"Just a moment ago, these people were spouting all sorts of justifications, insisting that Boss Gu was making dirty money. But the contract Nanyuan signed ten years ago was what it was. How is that dirty?"

"Exactly! A contract is a contract. Who tries to force a price hike before the contract is even up?"

"They’re so bold now. Ten years ago, wasn’t Nanyuan begging him to take the contract? We all remember what Nanyuan was like back then."

"Back then, Nanyuan might have been a country, but it was the poorest one around. If Boss Gu hadn’t established his trade routes, would Nanyuan be this prosperous now?"

Many of the onlookers were from various other nations, and they all chimed in.

Their comments were three parts enjoying the spectacle, three parts incitement, and four parts jealousy.

They were jealous of Nanyuan’s current prosperity. Everyone on the continent knew how poor Nanyuan had once been; it had always been at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

Since Gu Shuo signed his contract with Nanyuan and established his trade routes, in just five or six years, Nanyuan had leaped to become a land of wealth, second only to Xi Yan.

This made the other clans and nations green with envy.

Sun Shiming had more or less pieced together what happened, and fury welled up inside him. "You insolent commoners! The audacity!"