320 Information (1/2)

Chapter 320: Information

Translator: TransnEditor: Transn

The Meng family kept the news of Gu Shenwei killing the woman in the Bodhi Garden in North City a secret. After fighting for a few days, the two sides entered a temporarily cooling-off period.

Many Golden Roc's killers and machetemen had already been sent to different parts of the Western Region to protect the Meng family's property and to chase the bandits. At this point, Gu Shenwei still believed it was best to be prudent.

However, he also thought that, after provoking Old Meng's anger, he could not be overcautious. His next target would be First Young Master Meng, Meng Mingkuan.

Meng Mingkuan was about thirty, young, vigorous and well-known. His behavior, unexpectedly, was very discreet. He rarely showed up except when he was with his father.

He lived in a small house next to the Meng's residence, with doors which connected the buildings. Every morning, he would go to pay respect to his father, and deal with business for him in the studio, and in case of important matters, he would wait until noon to personally ask him for instructions.

365 days a year, wind or rain, frost or snow, First Young Master Meng would never neglect his duty. He would not let his father worry in the slightest. Even when he fell ill, he would take medicine and carry on working.

Thanks to the efficiency of his eldest son, Meng Yuzun had the energy and time to enjoy himself and also deal with more important matters. For this reason, there was no need to question who Meng Yuzun's successor would be.

Only his death could clear the way for the ambitious second son of the Meng's family.

Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus spent almost an entire day combing through the information they had obtained. In the end, however, they came up empty. This First Young Master Meng was truly impeccable. He was not addicted to alcohol, not lascivious, not fond of gambling, and for many years he had hardly ever stepped into South City. They could not use the traditional killer's method to assassinate him.

First Young Master Meng exerted an extremely stringent control over his subordinates. Those who he really trusted numbered no more than ten and he tempered justice with mercy towards them. He would offer them rewards, but one mistake, and he would never employ them again. Buying a traitor from within was not entirely impossible, but it would need time and would most definitely be expensive.

There was still a problem with getting rid of First Young Master Meng: they could not be too ostentatious about it, but they also had not to be too quiet. If they draw suspicion away from Meng's secondborn, they had to let everybody know it was Dragon King's handwriting, but at the same time, they had to be careful not to leak any information and to publicly blame the Great Snowmountain of cheating on peace talks.

For two days in a row, Gu Shenwei and Maid Lotus failed to come up with any plan and kept delaying action.

Finally, breakthrough emerged as unexpected news form Xu Yanwei.

Xu Yanwei spent ten thousand taels to buy a five-stores brothel. It was far from being the biggest in South City, but it was without a doubt the first in Pleasure Alley, where land was more precious than gold, and still bigger than Xiao Fengchai's one in front of it.

This was her great idea: Since the prostitutes in Pleasure Alley were the ones who earned the most money, why not open a bigger brothel and hire some women?

As a result, the ten thousand taels she received from her younger brother, Xu Xiaoyi, were spent in a blink of an eye. They had just enough to pay the rent for the first month. Additionally, the three girls she knew were not even enough to fill a single room.

In Jade City, they believed in miracles. Xu Yanwei made up a lie about the places he had been to in the previous years and how he rose from the dead and nobody doubted it, or at least, nobody cared to check the details.

In short, Xu Yanwei did not have any money and Xu Xiaoyi did not dare to give her more, leaving her with the only solution to go to Dragon King.

Xu Yanwei did not know yet that the two men had already been saved and she was still harboring guilt over their imprisonment. Being afraid of seeing Dragon King, she hesitated before scraping together some information and finally deciding to report in.

”I have important news, we don't have time to delay.” Xu Yanwei told the guards whom Dragon King had ordered to not let her in.

Only after being stuck at the gate for almost half an hour was Xu Yanwei allowed to meet Dragon King in the hall. She was upset about it, but ultimately, it was by her efforts that Dragon King decided to break that unhappy marriage. Although she had not thought about killing Meng Wu, she still contributed to Dragon King's mysterious poisoning.

She was full of complaints, as soon as she entered the hall, she beamed with joy. She did not mention her ”merits”, nor the money problem, but gave him all the information as sincerely as she could.

The merchants were asking where all the money stolen from the Meng family in the Western Region was. The machetemen were curious about who Dragon King's next victim would be. The protectors cared about the next conflict between Stone Castle and Dragon King. An old nobleman in exile, in his fifties, having lost his entire fortune and unexpectedly still wanted to stay at Xiao Fengchai's house, was sent to the checkpoint between South and North Cities, and, when thrown on a bridge, cried all day. When the old servant of Miss Xiao Ju's house talked about Dragon King, she did not show any sign of respect and even called him ”Yang Huan”. In those days, all the people in the Pleasure Alley were regular guests, but that day, there was no one around.

The pieces of information were becoming more and more trivial, but since Gu Shenwei had never made it explicitly clear what he wanted, he could not blame her.

After being stuck in the freezing cold for half and hour, Xu Yanwei spitefully decided to nag at him for that same amount of time. She wanted Dragon King to lose patience before telling him about the money so that he would agree to anything just to be left in peace.

Just like every other brothel, prices for the prostitutes at Pleasure Alley were fixed. It did not matter how high or how low the prices were, the prostitute would make the guest happy. The only important thing was that the tip left by the guest was usually higher than the fee.