Chapter 143: Peace Hotel

Chapter 143: The Peace Hotel

When he laid eyes on this city within a city.

Li Jun's first impression was that this place was almost a vertically stacked, three-dimensional composite of the Chicken-and-Goose District.

Save that the gulf between them in stratum and grade was nothing short of the difference between heaven and earth.

The so-called 'Iron Tower' was in fact these dozens of buildings connected to one another by spacious corridor-bridges, forming a single, vast, interconnected floor.

In a space fully fifty zhang high, warm yellow light flooded the volume, a stark contrast to the cold-toned, dazzling glare of the Chicken-and-Goose District, putting one's body and mind at ease.

Countless bizarre projections burst from signboards, floating and drifting through the air, roaming at will.

Beneath the vast heaven, upon the teeming earth, beyond the three realms, within the five elements.

Whatever you could imagine, it was for sale here.

Even the night wind from outside the towers, upon blowing in, would be seized by desire, forced to linger and slow its pace.

Li Jun looked until his eyes could take no more, a chill rising unbidden in his heart.

Compared to this, the various contraband trades of Chengdu Prefecture were mere child's play, not worth a mention.

If one absolutely had to find a rival trade to measure against, perhaps only the Imperial Bureau of Music would suffice.

Yet even that would only hold in a head-on clash; when it came to the bizarre and the novel, the Bureau of Music would likely be left in the dust.

Before coming here, Li Jun had worried that his conical hat might draw attention.

Now it seemed his concern was entirely superfluous.

His getup, amidst the surging crowds of the Iron Tower, could not be called ordinary—it was downright conventional.

Li Jun stared, dumbstruck, as a nearly naked mechanical body passed before him, almost entirely devoid of synthetic skin, clad only in simple cloth below the waist.

Before he could tear his gaze away, he was startled by a Mohist exoskeleton armor crawling with plants, a flower blooming atop its helm.

The pilot sensed Li Jun's astonished stare and immediately returned a look dripping with contempt.

Figures as outlandish as these, while not ubiquitous in the Iron Tower, were certainly not few.

Shocking to the world, a veritable night parade of a hundred demons.

"No wonder the Dao Gate sealed off Chongqing Prefecture's population base from the rest; if these people entered the Yellow Millet Grotto-Heaven, they'd surely be branded as outer-demons."

From the situation at Hongya Mountain, one could glimpse the whole leopard; Chongqing Prefecture wore a brocade of flowers on the surface, but within, it was likely oil on a raging fire.

In such a chaotic environment, every great clan and Sequence held sway like tigers and dragons; once his identity was exposed, endless trouble would follow.

One must know Li Jun carried not only the Qingcheng Group's massive bonus, but the legacy of the Chu Wu Sect.

He was a walking mountain of gold; though the slopes were steep and deadly, Chongqing Prefecture was never short of those unafraid to die.

Thinking to this point, Li Jun pulled the brim of his hat lower and strode quickly toward the location Zhou You had given him.

"Iron Tower East Street, Number Nine. This... is the place?"

Hazy, seductive lights of every hue rolled across Li Jun's face; above the shop door floated two yin-yang fish chasing each other's tails, rotating to the faint drumbeats drifting out, now slow, now fast.

On the facade, a line of black-and-white seal-script characters, possessed of staggering visual impact, throbbed like a heart.

No Illusions! No Yin-Yang!

What the hell kind of restaurant looks like this? This is clearly a nightclub!

"Brother, looks like it's your first time here?"

A man in a crisp suit, hair slicked back, walked up to meet him.

His attire, paired with the Fuxi Bagua floating behind him like bubbles, gave Li Jun a sense of disjointed chaos that was somehow seamlessly unified, a bizarre feeling that made the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Is this really the Peace Hotel?"

"Guaranteed authentic."

The suited man suddenly flashed an ambiguous smile. "Yin and Yang in harmony is called Peace. Food and sex are nature; thus it is called a Restaurant. Brother, savor it. Savor it well!"

"Well savored!"

Li Jun fell silent for a moment, then gave a thumbs-up.

"I'm the head waiter here, Zou Sijiu. Whatever you want to play, just say the word."

Zou Sijiu's expression was eager; he reached out to clap Li Jun on the shoulder, only for Li Jun to dodge cleanly.

This man gave Li Jun a strange feeling—unfathomable, rather.

This unfathomable air was not the deep, fortified cunning of a schemer honed by worldly affairs.

It was a trait born of the Sequence.

The Soldier's Way is cold; the Mohist's heart is hot; the Martial Artist is like a saber; the Gentleman is like a sword.

But the man before him was like a bottomless pool; the enthusiasm on the surface was mere ripples.

This Zou Sijiu was undoubtedly a follower of the Yin-Yang School Sequence.

"No need for play. I'm here to pick something up."

Seeing Li Jun on guard, Zou Sijiu casually lowered his raised right hand behind his back; his smile didn't falter, but his bearing grew more serious.

"The Peace Hotel's deposit and withdrawal business is open only to honored guests."

A flicker of something strange crossed the suited man's eyes. "I wonder, honored guest, do you have proof?"

Li Jun fixed him with a stare, his tone flat. "Does the Peace Hotel conduct its business in the middle of the street?"

"Ah, my apologies. This business hasn't been done in so long, we've grown rusty."

Zou Sijiu offered an apologetic smile and gestured forward. "This way, please."

Li Jun followed behind him, his eyes turning cold, every tendon in his body covertly tensing.

The Yin-Yang School Sequence had always been secretive in the Great Ming Empire; intelligence on them was even scarcer than on the long-declined Martial Sequences.

On the streets of Chengdu Prefecture, virtually no one had ever seen a follower of the Yin-Yang School.

Across the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces, Li Jun had never heard of any region serving as the Yin-Yang School's base.

The unknown is usually a synonym for danger.

Moreover, he was now stepping onto the other's turf; if they possessed methods akin to Buddha-Realms or Grotto-Heavens, he would be delivering himself to the butcher's block.

Li Jun's spirit was on high alert as he followed Zou Sijiu through the hotel's main doors.

In that instant, Li Jun suddenly felt a suffocating sensation, as if his face had been plunged underwater; even the faint music and singing at his ears vanished without a trace.

The feeling flashed and passed, and what met his eyes was not a neon-lit nightclub, but an ancient pawnshop with counters reaching the ceiling.

Illusion... or a hidden door?

"It is Qimen Dunjia."

Zou Sijiu, as if reading his mind, spoke to answer the doubt in Li Jun's heart.

"Hotel deposits and withdrawals rely on name as proof. Would you trouble yourself to state the deposit name once more?"

Li Jun's brow arched. "So casual? Aren't you afraid I'm claiming it fraudulently?"

"A man is as his name; to see the name is to see the face. A name is not merely a code, it is life itself. If you are the guest's man, then speaking the name is enough."

Zou Sijiu's explanation—Li Jun understood every single character, yet strung together, their meaning could only be guessed at.

"Mummery and hocus-pocus."

Li Jun muttered inwardly, but honestly recited the name Wuyahua once more.

The moment the words fell, a hidden door beside the counter slid open without a sound.

"Please."

Li Jun strode forward, and in the instant the hidden door shut behind him, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse.

Zou Sijiu stood rooted to the spot, eyes on nose, nose on heart.

Behind the hidden door lay emptiness, save for a waist-high platform rising from the center, upon which sat a metal case.

No sudden developments, no shocking turns—Li Jun's process of producing the key and opening the box was utterly uneventful.

When he saw four martial arts injectors of differing colors lying neat and orderly in the silk-lined case.

Li Jun, long accustomed to bitter days, found himself momentarily stunned.