Daomu Biji: Restart

Fatty was sharp-eyed and also noticed that the old man had something in his hand. He moved to break the old man's grip on it, but the old man was stubborn and refused to let go. He hadn’t dared struggle before, but now he was putting up a fight. I pulled Fatty away and told him not to be so violent.

The light in the corridor outside was streaming in and barely illuminating us. Those outside couldn't clearly see what was going on inside. There were many people out there, but I had basically already figured out their skills. Based on their level, they wouldn’t dare rush in.

The old man seemed to wilt, as if he didn't know what to do. When I looked at him, it was almost like I was looking at myself. The old grave robber must’ve been awesome back in the day and it had probably been quite a long time since anyone had challenged him. The old man was as stubborn as an ox as he got older and was no longer aware of himself. But he didn’t know it, so someone had to knock some sense into him before he would realize it.

Now the old man was probably unable to mesh the reality with his self-awareness. I poured him some wine and asked again, "What's going on? Come on, I'm here on travel and don’t want to have any grudges. Let’s make it clear, how did we offend you?"

The old man looked between me and Fatty and asked me, "What did you do with the things in the boat?"

I frowned. The old man took a sip of wine and bolstered his courage, "You two were at my place this afternoon and kept asking about the boat. When we went into the water tonight, everything in the boat had disappeared. Did you do it?"

Fatty glanced at me. I thought for a moment and immediately understood what the old man was saying. I had seen so many of those sea porcelain pieces earlier and suspected that the old man must have found a whole sunken ship in the sea. The porcelain in the boat wouldn’t be that valuable, so I wanted to buy it all up, exchange a large order for the old man's trust, and get some information about Qilin Island. As a result, the old man thought I didn't know that he was the boss and was trying to sniff out the information on the boat’s location.

I figured Fatty had done something similar, so the both of us asking about it really seemed suspicious. The old man went out to sea to salvage the goods after sunset, only to find that everything in the boat was gone. They thought we had been inquiring about it in order to screw them over.

This seemed like a reasonable conclusion, but we had been buying food and cooking ever since we came back. Fatty clicked his tongue in sympathy and said, "Old man, do you think we’re the type of people to do such things? How much money could you get for this shipment? Brother, the three of us can even afford to keep buying everything from you for half a year. Just ask the boss here. We’ve been cooking all night and never went out. To tell you the truth, we’re antique lovers and cooks. If you don’t believe me, just smell my sleeves. They’re covered in oil."

The old man dodged Fatty's sleeve and Fatty said to him, "Tell all your rotten sweet potatoes and smelly melons to go back first." With that said, he took out a business card and passed it to the old man.

"Now, people who jie hu (1) others never give out business cards. Let's make friends. You can take care of Beijing’s Fat King when there are good products in the future. Come on.”

The old man looked at us doubtfully and then glanced at the business card, "Didn't you do it?"

The three of us gave him a sincere smile. "First, it's not us. You can even ask the hotel owner. Second, you really can't beat us. There are more than twenty guys like us in the rooms on the other side. You should leave as soon as possible,” I said.

The old man thought for a moment before he stood up and took a step towards the door. When he saw that we really didn't want to stop him, he immediately ran to the door.

The people outside gathered around him as soon as he came out. We followed him out to the corridor and I lit a cigarette and leaned against the door to watch them.

"Shouldn’t he pay for the door and clothes?" Fatty asked.

"Forget about it,” I whispered. “He’ll suffer when he goes back."

After the old man’s battle tonight, I was afraid his foundation here would be shaken. Too many people had seen his stupid and cowardly appearance.

The old man looked at us and then his eyes suddenly moved. I turned and saw Uncle Two and his men coming out. When I turned my head back again, the old man had withdrawn.

Uncle Two came to stand beside me and I said to him, "We’re not the only ones on the island. There are also experts here. Is it a coincidence?"

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TN Notes:

(1) Mahjong term meaning “to win by priority”. Basically, stealing a winning tile from another player who also needs it to win due to rules of priority. I guess you could think of it as stealing it right out from underneath their noses.

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Surprise! You all can thank my mom for calling me and distracting me from "Mr. Queen". In the end, I got motivated to get this out lol