Chapter 19: Clear Water Gowned Brotherhood

Chapter 19: The Clearwater Paoge

So this was how he was being officially recruited?

Yu Kou watched Li Jun’s uncertain, suspicious expression and explained with a smile:

"Right now, you’re at least a Martial Ninth Rank. If you were walking the path of officialdom, according to our Great Ming’s civil service system, big or small, you’d count as a Ninth Rank Sub-official. Naturally, in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, you’d need an identity to match."

Yu Kou shifted his steps and sat down beside an operating table. His massive weight crushed the table’s hydraulic piston, sinking it sharply downward.

He seemed entirely unaware, continuing on his own:

"This method of proving identity is a bit old-fashioned, but it wins on security. If it were uploaded to the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s Huangliang Archives, who knows when your identity might be dug up by those Huangliang giant rats."

Li Jun asked in confusion: "Huangliang giant rats?"

"A bunch of rats who like stealing other people’s things in the Huangliang Dream. In those barbaric Western lands where the state has collapsed, they call these rats neural hackers."

Yu Kou seemed to have suffered a loss in this regard; his expression suddenly turned ferocious.

"If this old man catches them, I’ll rip out their family jewels one by one!"

Li Jun twitched the corner of his mouth; not a trace of relaxation showed on his face.

He knew full well pies don’t fall from the sky, especially not from someone like Yu Kou—impossible he’d hand out benefits for nothing.

"One cannot accept reward without merit. If the Sir has need of me, please give the order."

"Steady mind. No wonder the Centurion thinks highly of you."

Yu Kou laughed heartily, leaning back until he lay flat, like a mountain of flesh piled on the operating table.

Hands clasped over his chest, the whole man was utterly relaxed, utterly defenseless.

"There is a matter I need you to handle. Tomorrow, someone is trading a batch of contraband on your Muddy Water Paoge’s turf."

Li Jun frowned at this. Long Dragon Street saw massive volumes of contraband traded every day; what was so special about this?

"Is there something special about this trade?"

"Special? Not really. Just five Six Arts Chips. Valuable, at most."

Yu Kou said it lightly, but Li Jun’s face visibly darkened.

Six Arts Chips. He knew of these things.

Five Rites, Six Music, Five Archery, Five Charioteering, Six Calligraphy, Nine Mathematics—the Six Arts of the Confucian Gentleman, the basic requirement for advancing in the Confucian Sequence.

Just from the scope of the Six Arts, one could see the threshold of this Sequence was higher than the Dragon Gate; ordinary people could exhaust their lives and never meet such requirements.

Six Arts Chips were cheating tools developed by Confucian clans for their own untalented offspring.

The implantee could inherit the insights of generations of Confucian sages regarding the Six Arts, comprehending the vast ocean of classics and scriptures in an extremely short time.

And this thing simply didn’t circulate on the open market.

The Confucian teaching was inherently exclusionary; they would never put a "Confucian Entry Ticket" like the Six Arts Chip up for outside sale.

This kept the Six Arts Chip in a state of "priceless but unavailable" on the black market. A single chip was worth enough for Li Jun to advance to Martial Ninth Rank twice over.

This batch of five chips, their total value likely exceeded three million Great Ming Treasure Notes.

You had to know, by the current living standards of ordinary families in the Chicken-Goose District, three thousand Treasure Notes covered a family of four for a month.

Three million Treasure Notes absolutely counted as a massive fortune.

Li Jun probed: "Does the Sir want me to rob this shipment?"

"No. The Embroidered Uniform Guard’s pay isn't generous, but our table manners aren't that ugly."

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind?

Li Jun caught a hint of mockery in Yu Kou’s words and instantly understood: the Sir was reminding him that the Embroidered Uniform Guard knew the Paoge’s business just as clearly.

"This shipment belongs to the Shu Road Transport Group. The boss is named Gu Yong. Ever heard the name?"

Li Jun pondered a moment, then shook his head decisively. He had never heard the name.

"Seems Zhao Ding didn't tell you."

Yu Kou said blandly: "This Gu Yong is the biggest Clearwater Paoge behind Zhao Ding. Half your Paoge Association’s business is funded by this financier."

Clearwater Paoge. Four characters Li Jun had heard countless times.

He’d always known the Paoge had Muddy and Clear waters, but who the Clearwater Paoge actually were, he’d never known.

No one inside the association ever mentioned it; it seemed all Muddy Water Paoge held a deep taboo against the identities those four characters represented.

"Zhao Ding has sat steady as the Muddy Water Paoge’s helm for so many years by hugging Gu Yong’s thigh. But this time, someone wants to take advantage of his illness to saw off his leg."

Someone was robbing Gu Yong on Paoge turf!

Li Jun’s heart cleared. He finally understood what Yu Kou wanted him to do.

"The Sir wants me to help Gu Yong snatch the goods back, using the chance to get close to this Clearwater Paoge?"

Lying on the table, Yu Kou turned his head to look at Li Jun, a flicker of appreciation in his eyes.

"You’re sharp. Originally I planned to wait until you took Zhao Ding’s spot before approaching Gu Yong, but you’re a Martial Ninth now. Jumping out at this moment isn't too abrupt."

Li Jun asked: "Why not warn Gu Yong in advance? That would also win his favor."

"How would you explain the source of the intel?"

Yu Kou waved a hand, dismissing Li Jun’s suggestion. "These pen-pushers aren't idiots. And there’s a world of difference between adding flowers to brocade and sending charcoal in the snow."

Li Jun mused a moment, then asked: "Who are the robbers?"

Daring to rob goods worth millions in Treasure Notes, and on Long Dragon Street no less.

To have such guts, the bandits surely weren't ordinary. Li Jun couldn't help but be cautious.

"Just a bunch of desperate, starving commoners."

Yu Kou’s tone was casual. He gave Li Jun no chance to press further. He raised a hand, and that engraved talisman floating in mid-air drifted over like an obedient dog, hovering behind his head.

*Hum!*

Ripples surged behind Yu Kou’s head. The talisman strained upward, lifting his head from the table into a sitting position.

"Don't worry. You're an Embroidered Uniform Guard Captain now. I won't let you go die."

Yu Kou pocketed the talisman and shuffled toward the clinic door.

Just as he was about to push it open, the Captain suddenly looked back with a smile: "Right. That Inspector Luo Zhen from the Tianfu Garrison Office—if he’s an eyesore, you can kill him."

"But make it clean. Don't leave too many traces. And don't interrogate him randomly. If you pry out something you shouldn't know, it'll be messy to clean up."

With that, Yu Kou pushed the door and left. The instant the clinic door shut, the weapon arrays on the ceiling woke like a pack of mad dogs, twitching and rising and falling ceaselessly.

Targeting red dots drifted aimlessly back and forth, frantically scanning for enemy tracks, as if desperately trying to make up for their dereliction just now.

Li Jun gazed silently at the door, his eyes incomparably heavy.

Yu Kou’s appearance this time had its pros and cons for him.

The good: he finally knew the purpose of the Chengdu Prefecture Embroidered Uniform Guard Second Division—Yu Kou’s unit—in developing him as an asset.

No more wild speculation, no more endless suspicion like before.

The downside, however, was that he had only just scraped together the means to survive in the tiger's den; now he was being forced into an even more treacherous dragon's pool.

Li Jun sighed, tamping down the restless irritation churning in his chest. The red dots dancing chaotically overhead made his eyes ache with a sour sting. He reached down, snatching the unconscious Wu Ya Hua from the ground and giving him a rough shake, intending to rouse the man by purely physical means.

"Don't... don't shake me... has that man left?"

A voice, thin as a mosquito's whine, drifted into Li Jun's ears. His hand froze mid-air. He stared at Wu Ya Hua, who was still playing possum with his eyes clamped shut, and exclaimed in surprise, "You didn't faint?"