Chapter 128: Make The Martial Artists Suffer—i’ll Bear The Infamy
By the time Li Ye came out again, it was already three days later.
There were quite a few missed calls and incoming messages on his mobile phone.
Jia Dong and Deng Hao took turns asking what had happened, after all, he was the first to leave during the martial arts competition.
There were also calls from Sun Shun and Pan Zhengyang.
Li Ye first called back Pan Zhengyang.
As soon as the call connected, Pan Zhengyang’s laughter came from the other end: “Yo, isn’t this Li Chuang Wang? You’ve finally finished being busy and deigned to answer the phone?”
Li Ye laughed, “Aren’t I Li Longhu? When did I earn the title of Chuang Wang?”
“When you slaughtered all the martial artists in Jinze City, along with their martial artist families, you got it. You’re much more ruthless than me, not leaving a single one alive.”
These words stunned Li Ye. He had been thinking about going back to cultivate and had forgotten about this matter.
He didn’t seem to have made a move on those martial artists’ families himself. If they were all dead…
Did Zhong Chang handle it that well?
Li Ye asked, “Any influence?”
Pan Zhengyang laughed and cursed, “Not a damn bit. There are just vacancies in personnel, but as long as you can control the situation before new people are reassigned, no one will blame you—especially since you broke six passes. Kid, it was Old Xu who contacted me that I found out. After you broke through Dragon Gate, you truly leaped over the fish gate. You’re about to transform into a dragon!”
First Realm Dragon Gate Realm, also known as Fish Leap, derived from the meaning of fish leaping over the dragon gate, but someone who truly showed signs of transforming into a dragon after breaking through Dragon Gate—Pan Zhengyang hadn’t seen a real one yet.
Li Ye was the only one he knew of who could truly transform into a dragon.
His reputation had grown quite a bit now.
The Demon Realm in Jinze City was taken over by the military, so the news naturally wasn’t concealed. The next day, people came knocking.
They were all companies with talent in this area that had recruited many martial artist employees, waiting for the military to stabilize the Demon Realm before starting to enter and pioneer.
The Demon Realm wasn’t large, equivalent to adding one Tongguan Mountain mine mountain range, not even reaching the level of adding a new district and county.
But because it had mines—high-quality ore bred by the Demon Realm—the nature was different, so quite a few companies came.
They came intending to bid directly. For such a small Demon Realm, one big company could swallow it whole.
But then they looked again—goodness gracious, the pollution level had dropped to nothing. There were only two or three small demonic creatures each day. Entering meant profit; no pioneering was even needed.
Such huge good news naturally made them go all out, preparing to take it in one fell swoop.
But upon inquiring, they learned the mine could only be half theirs; the other half had been contracted by someone.
It hadn’t even started yet—who had such capability?
Some familiar with Jinze thought it was the Chen Family. After all, as local tyrants, the Chen Family had some strength, but swallowing half…
Could they clearly swallow it?
Doing business in the Demon Realm wasn’t just about relying on martial force. Mining, transportation, refining, and price negotiations—all these had to be sorted out.
Every link was business.
The Chen Family didn’t have the capability to swallow it all. Even as local tyrants, swallowing one link was fine, and as local tyrants, they were willing to give them that face, even planning to hand over an entire link in the Demon Realm to them.
The rest, they would handle—higher profit and more convenient.
As for who would lead later, that didn’t matter.
But soon, these company representatives realized something was off. In Jinze City, forget the Chen Family—not even a single influential martial artist could be found. The ones found were local company martial artists, who had no influence and didn’t match this resource of mining.
Upon further inquiry, half the mine was contracted by influential martial artists from neighboring Ningjiang City, with the highest being Second Realm and the rest First Realm.
The numbers weren’t many, yet they boldly prepared to jointly pioneer a company and recruit martial artists.
If that was all, these company representatives could easily crush them, but besides the mine being contracted by Ningjiang martial artists, there was another piece of news.
All Jinze martial artists were gone.
Killed clean.
The Disinfection Bureau Chief from the neighboring city, a man named Li Ye, did it personally.
This news shocked quite a few people.
What era is this? Still killing whole families and implicating relatives, and done personally by the Disinfection Bureau Chief.
Never heard of it before. Where did this freak from the Disinfection Bureau come from? And after causing such a big incident, the person involved had no reaction, and no notices were heard.
Sometimes, cold handling is the best protection.
It wasn’t that no one fought back. Some public opinion was stirred up from somewhere, but it was immediately suppressed—the reaction speed was comparable to banned words. The provincial department’s sensitivity on this was terrifying.
In one sentence: Don’t spread it casually in the martial artist circle, let alone among ordinary people. If public opinion expands, the matter won’t end.
The stance was clear: they were determined to protect him to the death.
They didn’t care about anyone’s pressure.
With such a clear attitude, what could these companies not understand? It was another typical case.
And one who could kill whole families at that.
There was Pan Zhengyang the Great Ghost Blade ahead, who killed whole families, and now behind him Li the Great Bureau Chief, who not only killed whole families but escalated to implicating relatives, nearly turning Jinze City into a martial artist ghost city.
Business in Jianghuai Province was getting harder and harder.
Besides sighing, they could only accept it.
No choice—making money, bowing your head to a powerful dragon isn’t humiliating.
They even avoided conflicting with Li Ye behind these people—not only not suppressing the Ningjiang martial artists, but helping them expand their business, lest things go wrong later and they get splashed with dirty water.
But privately, from Ningjiang’s Ren Family to Jinze’s Chen Family, Li Ye’s deeds of barging into people’s doors, forcing whole families to die out, and swallowing others’ property—plus happening to have the surname Li—just like Fan Tie’s joke at the time.
He was truly branded with a “Chuang Wang” label.
In today’s society, it wasn’t a good term.
“What are your thoughts on this?” Pan Zhengyang laughed.
“Being a bad guy is better than being a good guy.”
Li Ye thought for a moment, then reached out and caught a falling leaf drifting from the tree.
It was December, winter had set in, but there were still a few dead leaves on the tree. At that moment, one drifted down and was caught by Li Ye.
“A bad guy does one good deed, and people praise him as if he were the Buddha of ten thousand families.”
“A good guy does one bad deed, and people hate him as if he’s fallen into boundless hell.”
“I’d say, being feared is stronger than being respected. Li Chuang Wang sounds better than Li the Good Man.”
Li Ye said, “The demonic creature problem in Jinze City has been prevented. Ordinary people don’t need to worry about threats from demonic creatures. The local tyrants are gone, so no more nonsensical things will happen. What’s bad about that?”
“Zhong Chang, the Information Section Chief of Jinze City Disinfection Bureau, gave me an investigation report when I arrived. The files inside detailed the harms caused by Jinze City martial artists.”
“From a big-picture perspective, they have a reason to exist. But from a normal person’s viewpoint, their existence harms the atmosphere. We are martial artists, not green forest bandits or plutocrat overlords. We are all cogs in society’s operation. Why should we at the Disinfection Bureau be the ones groveling?”
Since special privileges were given to the Disinfection Bureau, it wasn’t also leaving room for them to compete? If you can’t compete, accept it; if you win, why accept anything else? Li Ye wanted to get on top of others!
“Taking the opportunity to clean them out was very necessary. Just right, also use this to replace with a new batch of Disinfection Bureau members—enterprising, unafraid of trouble.”
“As for certain martial artists… make them suffer a bit. Anyway, I’ve already shouldered the infamy!”
