Chapter 172: A Transaction, From Now On You Are Called Chen Shisan
Chapter 172 – A Transaction, From Now On You Are Called Chen Shisan
“Young Master, what is there to see in a filthy errand boy? Why not look at your humble servant instead?”
Chen Changsheng observed the bloody spectacle below with quiet interest, a detachment that visibly soured the heavily powdered woman leaning against his side.
Just as the courtesan pressed her soft curves against his shoulder, Chen Changsheng halted her with the crisp edge of a silver banknote.
“These three hundred taels of silver will be yours momentarily. For every word you utter, I will dock ten taels. For every time you touch me, I will dock fifty.”
“How much you walk away with depends entirely on you.”
A flash of bitter desolation crossed the woman’s painted eyes, but she expertly forced a sweet, practiced smile.
“It is only natural that the Young Master finds this servant lacking. If you forbid my touch, then I shall not touch.”
Hearing this, Chen Changsheng kept his gaze on the ground floor and spoke with a calm, even cadence.
“Mortals are all carved from the same clay; no one is born inherently nobler than another.”
“If I had been born into your circumstances, I might have clawed out a living even more wretched than yours.”
“These three hundred taels are simply your wages for shelling melon seeds for me. You may take them with a clean conscience.”
The corners of the woman’s rouged lips trembled slightly.
This enigmatic Young Master had frequented the Wan Hua Lou for five consecutive years. Every time, he claimed this exact table, ordered a few platters of melon seeds and pastries, and simply sat in silence.
Unlike the other patrons whose hands wandered and who rushed to drag girls into back rooms, he was a bizarre anomaly.
He was a breath of fresh air amidst the suffocating reek of stale wine and cheap perfume that permeated Wan Hua Lou.
What truly baffled the establishment was his generosity; any girl who performed a mundane task for him was handsomely rewarded.
Pouring a cup of wine, shelling a handful of seeds…
Such trivialities earned anywhere from dozens to over a hundred taels of silver.
Over the years, every girl in Wan Hua Lou had grown genuinely fond of this “eccentric.”
It wasn’t the fiery lust of romance, nor was it the hollow greed for his wealth.
To be precise, it was a quiet, desperate respect—because he was the only man who looked at the girls of Wan Hua Lou as human beings, rather than flesh receptacles to vent their base desires.
……
“Enough. Halt your hands.”
Chen Changsheng’s voice, neither loud nor strained, drifted down from the second floor, instantly freezing the Wan Hua Lou enforcers in their tracks.
Seeing that the brothel’s most lucrative “regular” had spoken, the thugs backed away from the bloody heap on the floor.
The head enforcer wiped a splatter of blood from his cheek and forced a fawning smile. “Young Master Chen, this little bastard broke the rules. If we don’t beat some sense into him, it sets a bad precedent!”
“Rules must naturally be upheld, but your incessant shouting and butchery have completely ruined my leisure.”
“Take these hundred taels of silver and buy yourselves some tea. Throw him out into the street. I am tired of looking at him.”
With a flick of his wrist, Chen Changsheng sent a silver banknote fluttering down from the balcony.
As the crisp note drifted downward, the brutish enforcers erupted into a greedy scramble, shoving each other to snatch the windfall.
On the blood-slicked floorboards, the battered youth wheezed, his fingers digging into the wood as he miraculously dragged himself upright.
He painstakingly gathered his scattered, blood-stained bits of silver. Limping heavily, he dragged his broken body toward the exit, never once casting a glance toward the second floor.
He knew Chen Changsheng was up there. He also knew that if he simply opened his bruised mouth and pleaded, Chen Changsheng would undoubtedly grant him salvation.
But his lips remained sealed, even as his bones had audibly ground together under the thugs’ boots.
Watching the youth’s retreating, blood-soaked back, Chen Changsheng chuckled softly. “What a piece of raw, unyielding iron.”
Dropping his teacup, Chen Changsheng finally rose and departed the Wan Hua Lou.
The stubborn youth he spoke of was critically injured; without intervention, the boy’s life force would seep away into the gutters before dawn.
……
Inside a dilapidated, drafty temple on the outskirts of Jinshan City.
Thud!
The crushing weight of his internal injuries, coupled with massive blood loss, finally broke the stubborn youth’s physical limits.
His frail body collapsed in a heap before a crumbling, headless Buddha statue. At that exact moment, Chen Changsheng’s figure materialized soundlessly at the temple entrance.
“Tsk, tsk!”
“Running into you is truly my karmic retribution. But logically speaking, the Heavenly Dao shouldn’t be punishing me like this!”
“I act as an undertaker! Sending the dead to rest in peace accumulates immense yin virtue. Why did I have to cross paths with a headache like you?”
“Perhaps I just haven’t buried enough people yet.”
Grumbling with the weariness of an eternal wanderer, Chen Changsheng knelt in the dirt and began treating the grievous wounds of the youth named “Thirteen.”
……
Time bled away into the dark. A sharp flare of pain jolted Thirteen, forcing his heavy eyelids open.
Staring at the crackling campfire, he glanced down at his chest, finding his horrific wounds neatly bound in clean bandages. Without a word, Thirteen fished into his rags and extended a crude, jagged piece of broken silver.
But halfway there, his bruised hand paused, then retracted.
He rummaged again, swapping it for an even smaller, duller, and more pathetic-looking crumb of silver before extending his hand once more.
Staring at that pitiful fleck of silver—so rough it would chafe if used to wipe one’s backside—Chen Changsheng almost laughed out loud.
“Seriously? Could you not have offered a piece with slightly better luster?”
“Furthermore, do you honestly believe this loose change covers the cost of my medicinal pastes?”
Hearing this, Thirteen hesitated for a fleeting second before emptying his entire bloodstained pouch, thrusting every last copper and silver scrap toward Chen Changsheng.
“I know this isn’t enough. I will repay the rest.”
Their gazes locked across the firelight. Within the boy’s dark, battered eyes, Chen Changsheng saw a willpower so unyielding it bordered on the psychotic.
“Do you have any concept of what the medicine I applied to your flesh is worth?”
“No.”
“One hundred thousand taels of gold will only buy you a passing glance at it.”
Hearing this astronomical figure, the youth’s jaw tightened, his lips pressing into a thin line.
“I know I can never repay a sum that vast, but I will still pay you back.”
“As long as I draw breath for a single day, I will work to repay you for a day.”
“When the day comes that I die, the debt will be considered settled, because a corpse cannot earn silver.”
Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue, a sardonic smirk playing on his lips.
“By that calculation, I am taking a massive loss here.”
“How about you just sell your life to me? That seems a far more equitable trade.”
“My life still has purpose to me. I cannot sell it to you.”
“If you feel you have been cheated, you may take your ointment back, or you can beat me until I am in the exact same state you found me.”
With cold, mechanical precision, the youth began clawing at his fresh bandages, fully intending to rip the life-saving paste from his own healing flesh to return it.
Smack!
Chen Changsheng’s hand shot out, clamping around the boy’s wrist like an iron vise.
“Five years!”
“I have sat in Jinshan City for five years, and I have observed you for five years.”
“For five long years, I devised countless scenarios to force you to bow your head, yet your spine has never once bent.”
“I, Chen Changsheng, have buried immortals and mortals alike, but someone as bone-headedly stubborn as you… you are a first.”
“At this rate, I fear I will never see the day you willingly lower your head.”
“So, let us make a transaction.”
“I will guide you to become strong, and in exchange, you will accomplish one task for me. Once the deed is done, the karmic ties between us are severed.”
“Deal,” Thirteen replied instantly, his voice raw. “What do you need me to do?”
“You do not need to know that yet, because your current strength is pitiful.”
“Ah, right. I only know the Wan Hua Lou calls you ‘Thirteen.’ What is your surname?”
“I have no surname.”
“Is that so? Then take mine.”
“From this day forth, you shall be known as ‘Chen Shisan’!”
The transaction was forged in the firelight, and Chen Changsheng finally smiled.
And deep within the desolate, wolf-like eyes of the aloof youth, a second glimmer of profound light ignited.
……
The next morning.
Fueled by Chen Changsheng’s miraculous spiritual medicines, Chen Shisan’s battered physique had entirely knit itself back together overnight.
Staring at his unblemished skin and feeling the vigorous thrum of vitality in his veins, Chen Shisan’s eyes widened in genuine shock.
“Are you… an Immortal?”
“You could call me that.”
“Then why did you choose me? Am I a peerless, one-in-a-million cultivation genius?”
“Hardly. Your innate talent is rotten to the absolute core. It would require immense effort to find a mortal with meridians more trash than yours.”
Chen Shisan: “…”
Suddenly, I really don’t want to speak to you anymore.
……