Brothel Manager 2 :Path of DUAL CULTIVATION

The Pleasure City…

Mo Han and the trio came out from the sect to buy some necessary things.

Mo Han moved through the market like a ripple across still water: quiet, unassuming, but altering everything in his path.

Beside him, Jia Kai and Chi Kai argued softly over bolts of cloth, fingers flicking through patterns as if measuring the weight of decisions.

Fatty Lambu followed two paces behind, cradling a tiny, feathered ball in his broad palms. The chick — no larger than a teacup — chirped happily, fluff trembling with each breath. "Dambu," Lambu crooned, planting a kiss on the top of the chick's head. "You'll be famous too, like Mo Han!"

Shopkeepers and customers turned as Mo Han passed. Faces brightened, bows were offered reflexively; a middle-aged wine-seller thrust a cup of plum wine into his hand. "On the house, healer Mo! For your name brings luck!" The praise was not only from gratitude; Mo Han's reputation as the healer who mended flesh and spirit had spread far beyond the Pleasure City's gilded gates. People loved legends. People loved miracles more.

Threads of incense curled from an herbalist's doorway. A perfumer shyly held out a small vial, its fragrance layered with sandalwood and citrus. "Master Mo Han, please. A gift for your travels — if your heart permits." A baker pushed forward a tray of sugared buns. Children tugged at their parents' robes, whispering, "It's him! The healer!"

Mo Han received each offering with a nod, a silent, spare smile that never quite reached his eyes. He accepted what he needed and what he could not refuse, keeping his distance from the tide of praise as if wary of being drawn under. He moved like a blade sheathed in silk — useful, present, yet deliberately not flashy.

Jia Kai's hand brushed Mo Han's sleeve. "We're done here?" he asked, voice low. His eyes swept the market; ever watchful, ever the one to count risks and exits.

Mo Han inclined his head. "Almost."

They turned, laden with parcels: herbs for the road, clothes to replace ragged sleeves, incense to keep fatigue at bay. The Pleasure City's gate loomed ahead, its carved archway crowded with hawkers. A band of jugglers drew a small crowd; a pair of musicians traded a playful duel of pipes. For a heartbeat, the world felt small and safe.

"Boom"

Then the spear struck the earth.

The sound was less the shattering of metal and more the proclamation of thunder: a single, brutal crack that scattered birds from their perches and sucked the breath from the market. People froze mid-step, faces drained of color.

A man clothed in black — his garments plain but of sharp cut, mask obscuring every feature except for two eyes like cold chips of flint — planted his spear upright and stepped forward. The spear's butt dug into the dust, and when he tapped its haft with a gloved hand the sound echoed again down the lane, a heartbeat that turned to a drum.

Silence thickened like fog.

The masked man's voice cut through the hush, flat and edged. "Mo Han." His tone was simple; the name thrown forward like a gauntlet. "Step forward. Fight."

The murmurs arose like a wounded thing. "He's an elder rank," someone hissed. "Look at him — an elder rank cultivator. He's calling our healer."

Mo Han's hand fell to his side. He stepped forward, not because he craved spectacle, but because the spear's presence demanded a response that could not be ignored.

The masked man let out a short, humorless noise that might have been a laugh. "I did not come for words." He lifted his free hand, and the crowd drew a collective step back as energy — thin, jagged like frozen lightning — crawled along the spear.

Spectators murmured again, but the murmur was not sympathy. It was curiosity veiled thinly as fear.

Mo Han's face remained composed; a faint film of concentration glazed over his eyes. He turned his head to the masked man, and for the first time the crowd noticed a faint, black fleck under the hollow of his collar.

"Come, fight! Don't run and disappoint me." The cultivator mocked.

Mo Han's mouth barely moved. "Get ready to die today."

The masked man's spear hummed. "Then show your worth." He gestured, not with arrogance but with professional certainty. "One exchange. No slaughter. If you yield, you leave the city at once. If you win — I will withdraw."

"Sorry, you don't have the choice." Mo Han replied.

Mo Han drew himself up. He let the noise of hawkers and the rattle of the jugglers' instruments recede until the world narrowed to a tight band of awareness — the spear's black shaft, the masked man's rigid stance, the soft weight at his own side. The chick in Fatty Lambu's hand chirped and was quiet again; even the bird felt the change.

"Come On!" The opponent shouted.

"Very well," Mo Han said. The words were simple, but like a struck flint they ignited a latent tension in the space around them. He reached for the sheath and, with a movement both slow and devastatingly precise, freed his cursed sword.

The blade slid out with a whisper, not the metallic ring of a common steel but a sound like a dark bell tolling under water. The metal drank the light, folding the brightness of the market into a thin, hungry shadow along its edge. The crowd inhaled as one. Fatty Lambu's face had gone pale, Dambu forgotten against his chest.

The masked man's pupils narrowed. Even at a distance, the way his shoulders stiffened spoke of recognition — or of caution. An elder rank cultivator did not flinch easily.

Mo Han held the sword by its hilt, its weight a familiar pressure in his hand. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Then the first spectator, and then two more, began to step back

. The Pleasure City that had been alive with music and sale and small mercies watched, breath held, as two forces prepared to meet on the cobbles — one-man wrapped in mystery and black, an elder with a spear sharpened by title; the other a wandering healer whose blade sang the language of curses and old debts.

The city's color dimmed under the blade's shadow as if the sun itself stilled to see what would come to pass.