Chapter 161: Going to Jiang City for the Assignment
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
The sky cleared after a light rain, leaving the moist and fresh air.
Early in the morning the shabby city gate of Jiang City was already open. As soon as the gate was open, oxcarts crowded out of the city with all sorts of sounds mixed together. Some were shouting to drive the carts. Some were yelling to rush out of the way, and some were cursing for their dropped commodities. Some were greeting their acquaintances with laughter.
It was the tapestry of each early morning in Jiang City. As the most important water transport dock of Zhonghe Prefecture, Jiang City had a prosperous business. It was the biggest commodity distributing center in Zhonghe Prefecture. Each day it was flooded by countless horses and carts, especially in the early morning, it was just like the morning rush hours of Junior Leopard’s previous life. Nobody knew how many goods needed to be carried out. When they were out of the city, the carts would move a dozen miles along the official route. As they reached a crossroad, different merchandisers would separate and head to their destinations respectively.
Rain had wet the ground yesterday. Although it was the official route, as an official route situated outside a small county, it wasn’t well constructed. Numerous carts crossing the route had caused the damp road to become a mess in less than one hour. Mud and stones were thrown in the air, water accumulated on the soil, causing it to flow everywhere.
Stretching his body, Su Ergou walked out of the city gate with a big broom in hand. It was nearly noon now, merchandisers that had awoken early had long been out of the city, so it was no longer busy here. Those who were walking were all ordinary people. Some were heading towards the city, some were heading towards the rural areas. All were scattered around.
Su Ergou began to sweep the ground with his broom from the city gate to the road pointing away of the city. He cleared all the mud and accumulated water off the road, but his purpose was not to keep the road 100% clean, the goal was merely to make sure the ground wasn’t too messy and was flat enough.
This was his daily work. Having lived in the Jiang City for 56 years and doing this job for 40 years, he was half admitted as the civil servant here. Life could also be called easy.
Words had it that it wasn’t safe in Jiang City recently. But however messy this place was, it wouldn’t influence Su Ergou’s life. What trouble would a cleaner get into after all?
Therefore, contrarily, he was having a better time compared to those full-time civil servants.
Su Ergou swept the floor once in a while. It was obvious that he was absent-minded now. He had many things to think about on his mind!
His neighbor, Old Huang’s family was ruined. He was such an idiot. He could make an enemy of anybody, but had chosen to make Sergeant Wu his enemy. Just by relying on the cloth store, he thought he was powerful, but he did not expect he would be charged of colluding with the water bandits by Sergeant Wu. Now his store had been ransacked and he was thrown into the jail. The cries were miserable when the County Administration’s yamen runner went to his house and caught him.
“Old Huang’s daughter is pretty and well educated. Now that their family has been ruined, I can probably seek a chance to get her. If I succeeded, then…” A pleasant smile climbed on Su Ergou’s face as he was thinking of the matter. Just as he was feeling the best, he suddenly felt that something wasn’t right. He raised his head, but a strange yelling followed, then the broom that was previously in his hand was thrown afar. He moved backwards continuously and only when he had walked 30 to 40 feet did he stop. As he stopped, he immediately slumped onto the ground.
“You, you, you, who are you?”
Sitting on the ground, Su Ergou stumbled, pointing at the figure as if he had seen a ghost. Standing in front of him was a man and a beast.
The man looked normal. He was young, tall and appeared powerful. But in these days, many people appeared powerful, because anyone who had practiced martial arts had an unconscious Qi Power all over their body. Having swept the floor in this Jiang City for such a long time, Su Ergou had surely seen such people before.
But what terrified him wasn’t the man, it was the huge silver dog. No, it was a wolf. No, it was…
No matter if it was a dog or a wolf, it was one of them. He had seen a lot at the age of 56, but frankly speaking, it was the first time that he saw such a huge dog. It was even bigger than a calf. As it stood there, its height could reach his shoulder. Covered in shiny and silvery fur, the dog was incomparably magisterial. It stood facing the wind and was staring at him with two cyan eyes as if he was its dinner. Su Ergou immediately felt desperate.
The tall lad who was standing beside the silver wolf did not answer Su Ergou’s question. He gently patted at the wolf’s head, “Little Du, I’ve told you many times. Don’t randomly scare people!”
The lad then turned his head and smiled at Su Ergou, “Excuse me, there must be Jiang City, right?”
“Yes, here is Jiang City!” Su Ergou nodded non-stop. He glanced at the Silver Wolf and stepped back unconsciously, “Are… Are you getting in the city?”
“Yeah!” The tall lad nodded his head and patted the Silver Wolf’s back. It roared in a low voice glaring at Su Ergou as if letting off its dissatisfaction. Then it followed behind the lad towards the county.
The young lad and the wolf, were Junior Leopard and his Evil Beast, Little Du.
Little Du had been following Junior Leopard since it surrendered. Only that Little Du’s figure was too eye-attracting, when Junior Leopard was in Zhonghe City, he didn’t let it accompany him all day. It was actually doing whatever it wanted most of the time. When living in the mountains and forests outside the city it was feeding itself. Except for that it wasn’t allowed to eat people, there wasn’t any other rules, so Little Du lived happily.
But this time, Junior Leopard had been assigned to Jiang City whose situation was complicated. He wasn’t sure what would happen, so he decided to bring Little Du with him to intimidate people.
No matter what, it was an Evil Beast, and in this world, an Evil Beast’s deterrence could be much more than that of a person.
That was why he decided to bring Little Du to Jiang City. But Little Du wasn’t happy with his decision, as it couldn’t have a free and easy life. However, no matter how unhappy it was, it couldn’t resist Junior Leopard’s willpower as it had surrendered to Junior Leopard. Hence it followed Junior Leopard for over 50 km reluctantly to this Jiang City.
It was because it wasn’t in a good mood that whoever it saw would be gazed upon with malice in its eyes. Su Ergou was only a cleaner and he had not seen this before. So only the lad and the wolf had walked away, Su Ergou noticed that his sweat had wet his clothes unconsciously. What was more bizarre was that his crutch was also wet.
“Who, who are you?”
In fact, not only Su Ergou was terrified, but the idle soldiers who were joking with each other were also scared. These soldiers’ leader was more sensible than Su Ergou. Su Ergou did not know what the wolf was, but the leader did. He was pretty sure that the Silver Wolf might be an Evil Beast.
Evil Beasts were rare nowadays. Although he had not seen it before, no matter if it was in the world of ordinary people or martial arts, it was the synonym of power, rebellion, brutality, blood and terror.
To fight against an Evil Beast wasn’t what the leader of soldiers at the city gate could do. He therefore emboldened himself and asked the question at the tall lad who was walking near the Evil Beast.
The lad was tall and strong with a humble and gentle smile on his face, it was incongruous for him to walk side by side with such an Evil Beast. However, a person who could walk with an Evil Beast and looked peaceful wouldn’t be an ordinary person. The gentle smile had finally given him courage to ask the lad the question.
The lad smiled and drew out an official seal from his chest. The seal was thrown directly into his hand, “I’m Zhou Bao, the newly assigned Commander of Navy of Jiang City. I’m here to take the assignment ordered by Li Yuan, Admiral Li.”
“Oh! You’re the Commander!”
In Zhonghe City, a Navy Commander of Jiang City was nobody. But in this Jiang City, a Navy Commander’s rank was much higher than the leader of the soldiers guarding the city gate. Hearing what Junior Leopard had said, all of the soldiers knelt on the floor.
“Please rise!” Seeing that the leader of the soldiers had finished reading the official seal, Junior Leopard pointed at him and said, “You, okay just you, bring me into the city. It’s my first time in Jiang City and I’m not familiar with the things here. I hope you can show me the way to the Garrison Mansion.”
“Yes!” The head of soldiers didn’t dare to speak more, he kowtowed at Junior Leopard respectfully, handed back the official seal to Junior Leopard with two hands and then obediently led Junior Leopard into the city.
Just as what Wang Tianlei had told Junior Leopard. Jiang City wasn’t big, but it was unusually prosperous. It was also because of its prosperity that there were incidents.
The leader of the soldiers led Junior Leopard around, wandering the streets. It was near lunch time and the people on the streets were continuously coming forth and away. Little Du’s figure was too attractive, in a moment, nearly everybody stopped and was looking at them. It didn’t take a long time before the street was crowded with curious people. Nonetheless, none of them dared to come closer. They were merely whispering to one another and pointing at them.
If the crowd wasn’t big, then the whispering wouldn’t be bothersome. But there were too many people here, everybody was whispering, so the sound was as loud as the exciting shouts during a world cup. A continuous humming sound surrounded Little Du like hundreds of flies. It was pretty annoying.
Little Du had long lived in the mountain. It was brutal by nature, plus it hadn’t been in a city where there were so many people, so naturally it was its first time to hear such annoying voices. It didn’t understand what people were talking about though, but it felt as if it wasn’t something good. It was naturally getting impatient. A roaring sound came out from its throat.
The roar was originally used to scare away wild beasts in the mountains. Low as its voice was, it was very terrifying. The people on the streets couldn’t hear it, but the leader of the soldiers could. As its roar lingered in his ear, he unconsciously fell onto the ground with endless fear rising from his heart.
Junior Leopard raised his eyebrows and looked at Little Du unsatisfied. He was just planning to lift the leader of the soldiers up and heard a yell, “Demon, where are you from? How dare you to collude with an Evil Beast in broad daylight and commit crimes here. Take him down!”