Translator: Larbre Studio
Editor: Larbre Studio
You have found one of your kind!
You have obtained the following information:
Name: Zhang Mingyuan
Condition: None
Speciality: Ancient Martial Arts 69%
Skills: A Strong Impression
Inheritance: ?
Fellow walker: The target is also a Yanfu walker. You two may encounter a conflict of interest, but you have the same goal. Killing him will not result in any benefits.
Li Yan still had two things left to do for the mission. One was to reach the seventh stage for the boxing competition, and the other was to awaken the soul of the Bird of Ubume. For the former, Li Yan had won ten continuous matches and only needed to win another two more, which was not too difficult. The latter would be much harder to achieve.
Looking at it in a new light… the goal was to awaken the soul of the Bird of Ubume, but it didn’t specify whether or not you had to achieve it alone. Therefore, Li Yan and Zhang Mingyuan could basically work together to obtain more pieces of fragments about the Bird of Ubume.
However, the Yanfu case’s manual did mention that more rewards would be given if more pieces were obtained. And there were not more than five pieces in total.
If they worked together, who would get more prizes?
Fu Yi Tower’s nightlife was never-ending, but Li Yan found a quiet corner to continue scrolling through the information obtained from A Strong Impression, pondering.
“There you are,” Li Yan said suddenly.
Zhang Mingyuan stopped three meters away from him.
“I should’ve known that was you when I heard your name in the boxing ring.”
Zhang Mingyuan’s voice was clear.
“The Skinny Tiger of Hejian.”
Li Yan felt a little humbled hearing his title.
The martial arts scene in the North wasn’t that big. Zhang Mingyuan knew about Li Yan, and Li Yan knew about him.
He turned around and tried to calm himself down. “I don’t want to make small talk. We came here for different reasons. I don’t want to know about yours and I hope you don’t ask about mine. Give me your piece and I will find the rest. Meanwhile you only need to earn more money and wait for your time to leave. Do we have a deal?”
Zhang Mingyuan shook his head and said slowly, “I met He Changhong just now and said I want to fight you. He was already unhappy with the lady who supports you, so he agreed immediately.”
Li Yan was surprised about this decision.
The instruction was clear that once he lost a match, he would have to return to reality, regardless of his progress here.
“I am just being…direct.”
Zhang Mingyuan said, “I don’t like to work with other people, and I don’t trust you. Let’s fight. The one who wins will get everything and the one who loses will leave here immediately.”
Li Yan laughed lightly. He stood up, maintaining his indifference, and walked towards the lift.
“So is that a yes or a no?” Zhang Mingyuan asked. He didn’t want to cooperate because things could get extremely complicated with backgrounds like this. Zhang knew that he might not win against Li Yan if they played mind games because of his own lack of experience. It would be much simpler if they dealt with it in the ring, but he was scared that Li Yan might not want to do so.
“See you in the ring tomorrow.”
Li Yan answered before entering the lift.
As the lift doors closed, Li Yan frowned tightly.
“That wasn’t him.”
As Li Yan returned to Judy’s booth, someone opened the door from inside before he touched the door knob. He saw an arrogant young man emerge.
He Changhong judged Li Yan from head to toe, “Here comes the King of Hell! I really want to see who is going to hell tomorrow.”
Li Yan ignored them and walked in. He saw Judy drinking a glass of wine and Red Ghost was silent.
“Yan, what kind of weapon do you need? Red Ghost will prepare them for you.”
“Weapon?”
Li Yan realized that the man who had just left was He Mingchang. He immediately thought of the spiky tobacco stem used by Zhang Mingyuan when Judy asked him about his weapon.
There were a lot of weapons involved in Eight Trigram Palm, but the Li’s of He Jian were famous for their mix of skills, as mentioned by Yu Shu. Li Yan was only familiar with two of them, but they were special enough to help him win the match.
“Red Ghost, help me prepare a longsword. It has to be at least one meter long. Ideally 1.3 meters.”
“No problem.” Red Ghost replied firmly.
……
“Yan.”
Red Ghost stopped Li Yan and threw a cigarette at him. As he was lighting his cigarette, he asked,
“I asked you to conduct a full body check-up. Have you done it yet?”
“Red Ghost, when did you start to nag me, too? I know about my own health.”
Li Yan answered with his cigarette in his mouth. Regardless of whether or not he was sincere, Red Ghost really did try to take care of him.
“Have you met the Grand Duke?”
“Yes.” Li Yan nodded.
“The Grand Duke said that you were deficient in vital energy when you were fighting, and she suspected that you were severely ill. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But you’ve only been here a few days. I don’t want to hold your funeral just yet. Take a break and I’ll talk to Judy if needed.”
Li Yan stared at Red Ghost for a while before looking away.
“Red Ghost, you are too soft to make a living in a place as cruel as Kowloon.”
“That was what The Grand Duke said as well.”
Red Ghost laughed to himself and turned his head to Li Yan, “I’m serious. The Grand Duke said your body can’t bear such physically demanding activities.”
“Red Ghost, will Grand Duke come and watch the match tomorrow?”
“Maybe. It depends on her schedule. Why?”
“Can you ask her to come?”
“…Okay.”
It was already 10pm when Li Yan returned to his apartment. Li Yan had to cover his nose to enter his room because he couldn’t tolerate the rotten smell coming out from the fishball factory downstairs. He felt like his disgust had somehow worsened.
After a while, someone knocked on the door. Li Yan opened the door and saw a shy young girl.
“Xiu, it’s been late. What are you doing here?”
“Yan, my mum heard that you are here alone. She made some roasted pork for you to thank you for protecting me last time.”
Xiu passed the lunchbox to Li Yan.
“Help me thank your mother.”
Li Yan was always happy to receive her mother’s homemade food. It was delicious.
“Oh right, Xiu, I noticed that you’ve been lighting candles recently. Anything wrong with your lights?”
Some people in Kowloon liked to redirect their circuits illegally. It was common for the electricity to disconnect.
“Yes, we had power failure for a long time.”
Xiu lowered her head. She didn’t dare to look at Li Yan.
“Do you need me to fix it? I can go and say thank you to your mother in person as well.”
Xiu suddenly raised her head and rejected him, “No, no need.”
“Oh, okay.”
Li Yan was a bit confused.
“I’ll go back.”
Xiu left vivaciously. She was much more bubbly than the time she had seen Li Yan.
Li Yan closed the door and opened the box. The rice was still hot. Egg yolk flew out as soon as he poked the fried egg with his chopsticks. Decorated with some light green vegetables, a huge piece of roasted pork laid on top of the rice. It looked extremely tasty.
Li Yan leaned against the table and stared at the bento box. He suddenly felt that his life here in Kowloon was not that bad.