We agreed on the twelve zodiac animals, but you've transformed into the Monkey King?

On the morning of the third day, a pale ray of morning light shone through the French-style floor-to-ceiling windows of the upscale apartment on Avenue Joffre.

"hiss--"

Wen Xiao covered his bruised cheek and grimaced as he climbed up from the priceless Persian carpet.

Last night, he had hoped to use his drunkenness to get some real leverage from that high-and-mighty young lady from the foreign firm.

Shelly only took half a step back, and the woman called Sister Yuan pounced on her from the shadows like a ghost.

Wen Xiao swore to God that it was definitely a female tyrannosaurus in human skin. He didn't even have a chance to throw a punch before he was unilaterally pinned down and rubbed on the carpet for a full ten minutes.

After finishing the fight, the female Tyrannosaurus Rex looked down at her, straightened her training clothes, and coldly uttered, "Tch, useless man."

Shelly then left behind a piece of cardboard with foreign writing on it, and walked away with Yuan Jie without even giving him a second glance.

"Damn it... this gigolo is just too much of a pain to swallow."

Wen Xiao spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and changed into the British-style custom-made suit Shelly had left on the sofa. The size was surprisingly perfect for his broad frame, making the sickly ferocity between his brows and eyes even more like that of a well-dressed thug.

However, when he pushed open the apartment door, the cold wind carrying coal dust from the Huangpu River hit him head-on, and the absurd fantasies and sense of humor he had last night were instantly frozen into a cold reality.

When he arrived at Gonghexiang Wharf, the scene before him made him frown.

Shelly's warning from last night came true. Lu Yongxiang's thugs erected barbed wire along the land, while the remnants of the Guangdong gang hijacked the grain transport boats on the water. The entire dock was effectively shut down.

Chen Jinbiao, with several brothers, was calming down the restless laborers on the pier. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot. When he saw Wen Xiao arrive, he strode over to greet him.

"Fifth Master," Chen Jinbiao said in a low voice, his tone weary, "Yanluo spoke up last night, saying that although you've established yourself, you're still a newcomer and haven't managed the docks before. Plus, Gonghexiang just took over, and he's worried that the local thugs won't be convinced, so he asked me to put aside my work at Shiliupu and come over to hold things up for you for a few days."

Wen Xiao nodded and looked down: "What's the situation now?"

Chen Jinbiao gritted his teeth: "The brothers below, cook the last bit of coarse rice into thin porridge and distribute it. If we don't see any food by tomorrow morning, these five hundred-plus brothers will either starve to death or mutini!" Wen Xiao stood on the pier, looking at the group of laborers below.

The winter rain was like needles, and they were shirtless, their shoulders raw and bleeding from the ropes binding them.

They didn't understand factional struggles or the division between Chinese and foreigners. In this cannibalistic Far Eastern metropolis, they were merely fuel at the very bottom, their only wish being to have a mouthful of coarse rice to swallow at noon tomorrow.

They might just be a stream of data within a Sumeru system, but the blood flowing from them is hot.

He turned and strode into the drafty steward's cabin at the dock, grabbed the black crank telephone on the table, and quickly dialed the number Shelly had left the night before.

The phone rang for a long time before being answered. On the other end of the line, languid French chansons came from a gramophone, along with the crisp sound of clinking glasses.

"Awake?" Shelly's husky, sexy voice came through. "I thought Sister Yuan hit you too hard and you wouldn't be able to get up today."

"Enough with the nonsense." Wen Xiao's tone was icy cold. "The docks are shut down. Not even a fly can get out of here. Since you left me that HSBC promissory note, stop watching the show. Tell me, how do we break this deadlock?"

A soft chuckle came from the other end of the phone. Shelly seemed to have shifted to a more comfortable position and lay down: "Fifth Master Wen, you don't actually think I'd use the influence of the trading company to fight a warlord with a large army to the death, do you? Those old bones on the board of directors wouldn't approve it."

"Stop beating around the bush, how did that piece of paper become life-saving food?"

"The black market." Shelly's smile vanished, her tone turning icy. "Reasoning with warlords is nonsense. The only way is to throw money at them! Smash a bloody path through the black market, bribe the water police, and bring in water and grain at exorbitant prices. 'Dafeng Money Exchange' in Shiliupu can convert promissory notes into cash the fastest, but that place is a ruthless hellhole. Fifth Master Wen, I've given you the capital; let's see if you have the teeth to bite that money out of hell."

"As long as I have enough money, I'll brave even the gates of hell."

Wen Xiao slammed down the phone, sending dust flying from the table.

He pushed open the door and yelled at Chen Jinbiao outside, "Tell them to stop work! Save your energy!"

Chen Jinbiao was startled: "Fifth Master, where are we going?"

"Shiliupu." Wen Xiao's eyes were as still as a pool of water. "I'll bring back silver dollars and grain this noon."

Chen Jinbiao grabbed his arm: "Fifth Master, the money exchange in the Sixteenth Shops is a very dangerous place! Your health..."

"I'm a dying man." Wen Xiao pried his hands off, a sinister smile twisting his lips. "Even the King of Hell has to wait in line to take my life. Who do they think they are?"

……

The streets of Shiliupu were muddy and impassable. Behind the towering Western-style buildings lay shantytowns overflowing with sewage.

Outside the refugee shantytown, several ronin in kimonos were setting up a table to distribute stale steamed buns and meager amounts of copper coins. Each refugee receiving the reward had a blood-soaked, dirty bandage wrapped around their forearm, and a dozen crudely made glass jars under the table were filled with a dark red, viscous liquid. Wen Xiao expressionlessly pulled down the brim of his hat and disappeared into the shadows of the crowd.

Just as we passed through a narrow alley, a sudden burst of shouts and curses, along with the dull thud of whips striking flesh, came from ahead.

"You jinx! I'd rather raise a dog than you! You dare steal the offerings from Guan Yu, you worthless piece of trash, I'll beat you to death!"

A makeshift opera troupe was beating someone in the street. The troupe leader, with a fierce face, was stomping a little girl in the mud, lashing her repeatedly with a thick leather whip soaked in salt water.

The girl was wearing a tattered Monkey King costume.

Her tattered coat was torn and flapped wildly, her back covered in crisscrossing gashes. But she gritted her teeth, protecting the half-moldy apple in her arms like a stone.

She was just like the starving laborers on the docks, and even like Wen Xiao herself, a piece of rotten meat trampled on the chopping block of this world.

Wen Xiao's pent-up anger exploded.

He charged forward like an enraged street thug, without any martial arts routines, his leather shoes dripping with filth, and delivered a vicious front kick, slamming it hard into the side of the troupe leader's knee!

"Go to hell!"

"Snap!"

The sound of bones cracking was crisp and piercing. The troupe leader let out a pig-like scream, and his two-hundred-pound body crashed into the mud, rolling on the ground clutching his bent right leg.

The onlookers who had been making a fuss scattered in terror, turning back in fear as they ran to look at the thug in the expensive suit.

Wen Xiao, panting heavily, bent down and pulled the girl out of the mud.

The girl trembled all over, her clear eyes filled with terror. When she recognized the cold-faced man who had given her candy the night before, her fear turned into astonishment.

Looking at Wen Xiao's equally pale and sickly face, I seemed to recall his suppressed coughing in the rain last night.

The girl suddenly broke free from Wen Xiao's hand. Her small hands, covered in frostbite and whip marks, groped very carefully inside the tattered layers of her costume, finally pulling out a crumpled, musty-smelling ball of dirty paper.

She grabbed Wen Xiao's large hand and stuffed the crumpled paper into his palm.

"Sir..." the girl's voice trembled with barely suppressed sobs, "The candy last night... was so sweet."

The girl forcefully closed Wen Xiao's fingers one by one, gripping the crumpled paper tightly.

"Grandpa said this is a talisman left by the Great Sage, it can ward off disasters..." The little girl's eyes were red, tears mixed with talisman paint streaming down her face, forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace. "But Ah Man's life is cheap, she coughed up black blood, even the Great Sage couldn't stop her. The Master drove away the bad guys, the Master is the Great Sage... Here, take this, it will protect you from getting sick..."

Just then, the sharp sound of a police whistle came from outside the alley.

Like a startled fawn, Ah Man suddenly let go of her grip and stumbled into the depths of the intricate alleyways, her small figure instantly swallowed by the rain.

Wen Xiao paused for a moment, then looked down at the wad of dirty paper still warm from her body in her hand.

"Great Sage..." Wen Xiao gave a self-deprecating twitch at the corner of his mouth.

With the lives of over five hundred brothers on the dock still counting down in the funnel, he had no time to pursue the gratitude of a little beggar.

He casually stuffed the wad of dirty paper into his suit pocket, suppressed the ripples in his eyes, and continued walking toward the largest underground bank in Shiliupu—"Dafeng Bank"—with a cold face.