Chapter 55 - Who do we Choose? (1/2)
The night was exceedingly beautiful. The clear, bright moonlight shone onto the space outside the window of Xu Yi’s little abode, painting an image of cool elegance. However, as the same moonlight shone onto the Black Dragon Hall’s dim meeting hall, it added a hint of ghostly eeriness.
At first, the lamps in the great hall were all lit. Hundreds of lamps made of tinted glass within the domed roof lit every corner of the magnificent hall.
But then, Ma Wensheng dashed into the extremely sombre meeting hall, went right up to Hall Master Wan Youlong’s side, and whispered into his ear.
With a single fist, Hall Master Wan smashed the round table next to him into pieces. It was a table forged out of purple gold. He shouted angrily at the heavens with a roar as loud as a dragon’s. The hundreds of glass lamps shattered into pieces, causing the meeting hall to turn dark.
Even with all of the lights extinguished, Hall Master Wan’s anger still had not subsided. “Wensheng, did you or did you not convey my intentions properly? Even without an eighty percent refund, even a sixty or seventy percent should be possible, right? I’ll have you know that the very reason I sent you was because I saw that you knew how to be expedient,” he growled in a low voice.
Ma Wensheng responded, “Hall Master, I am ashamed. I have definitely done all that I can, but it’s not just sixty or seventy percent. The other party would not even settle for ten percent. Their only response was, ‘He who bets must also be prepared to lose!'”
Wan Youlong had wagered a full hundred million gold on Gao Pan and had lost it all that very day. His heart bled and his anger could reach the heavens.
He had the temperament of a miser. Normally, when rewarding a few hundred gold to members of the Black Dragon Hall for their contributions, he could feel the pain in his flesh. Now, with a hundred thousand gold going up in smoke, the pain went all the way down to the marrow. With no way of recovering the loss, he racked his brains and finally came up with the idea of getting a refund from the betting house.
Hall Master Wan saw himself as a man of great standing. Seeing that dealing with the betting house was tough, he decided that he could reward them with twenty thousand gold. As long as they were willing to refund him eighty thousand.
In his eyes, he was already conceding a lot to the betting house. Furthermore, by sending advisor Ma, the most resourceful in the hall, he was sure that he would get the money back.
At that moment, after hearing Ma Wensheng’s reply, the blood rushed to Hall Master Wan’s head. “To hell with them and all their ancestors! A hundred thousand gold, what a large appetite! They’d better not stuff themselves to death. Wensheng, go back there now and tell those bastards: if they take that hundred thousand gold, they will have to answer to all thirty thousand of our brothers at Black Dragon Hall.”
“Hall Master please calm down. How can a betting house that would accept a bet of ten thousand gold be that simple? The betting house we went to? The boss behind them is Lingxiao Hall,” Ma Wensheng gently reminded.
If not for the lack of lamplight, one would be able to see that every face in the hall was flushed. The only difference was that Hall Master Wan’s was from anger, whereas Ma Wensheng and the other deputies and elders’ were from anxiety.
The great Black Dragon Hall was not willing to back down after losing and resorting to asking for a refund from the betting house. Such behaviour was worse than good-for-nothing thugs on the street.
If they could get the money back, then there would be nothing worth discussing any longer. For the hundred thousand gold, even losing a whole bunch of men in the process would be worth it.
But the important question was, could they? In all of Guang’an City, each and every betting house was backed by some power. Either one of the Three Great Orthodox Sects or one of the Great Noble Families. Even the prefecture governor had secretly opened a betting house.
Within Guang’an City, Black Dragon Hall was a formidable power, but that was only in regards to the underworld.
But in the eyes of the Three Great Orthodox Sects or the Great Noble Families, what were they?