Chapter 263: Threat

My slightly flippant tone was a bit jarring in the rainy night. Jiang Long and his men retreated as one, unable to fathom how another person had appeared out of nowhere inside the villa.

"Who are you? I have no enmity with you, so why come knocking at my door?" Jiang Long grabbed the machete off the table, gesturing for his men to bare their weapons.

They stood ready for a fight, but until they figured out my background, no one dared to act rashly.

Looking at these gang bosses who had once thrown their weight around Jiangcheng, a cold smile hung on my lips. If Jiang Long hadn't brought out his trump card, I would have been prepared to play with them a little longer.

Since becoming an Underworld Live Show Streamer, I had experienced the deepest despair. No one in this city understood the unique emotion of fear better than I did.

Jiang Long had touched my bottom line. In retaliation, I naturally wanted to bring him a "perfect," unforgettable, ultimate experience.

This scum wasn't worth sympathizing with; they had too many sins on them. The people they had hurt swallowed their anger and endured the pain, yet they could hide in a comfortable villa, living a life of debauchery and luxury. It wasn't fair.

I had no intention of defying the law, but the law needed the support of evidence to take effect, and that evidence had long been obliterated by time. Therefore, to punish them, I had to bypass the law entirely and use a much more direct method.

"You and I have no enmity, but you looked at something you shouldn't have." I held up the Deer-Slaying Dao with one hand, its cold gleam completely exposed. This blade didn't know how to conceal itself at all; it was fierce, condensing the towering killing intent of an ancient battlefield.

"Looked at something I shouldn't have? Who the hell are you?!" Jiang Long flinched, pulling his knife hand back. He hadn't felt this uneasy in over a decade.

"Want to know?"

The blade slanted downward. I had been prophesied to die in three days; at this moment, I had no misgivings whatsoever. Unscrupulous, I prepared for one last bout of madness.

Lightning slashed across the sky, illuminating my thoroughly ordinary face. The few people in the room saw it clearly.

"You can call me Gao Jian."

I lowered the tip of the blade and extended my other hand out flat in front of me. In the center of my palm, a pitch-black eyeball swiveled. "Fate Ghost!"

It was as if the first-floor hall had been permeated by rain. From the cracks in the ceiling, the seams in the floor tiles, the backs of the furniture, and beneath the rugs, countless strands of long black hair emerged.

Screams and cries from men and women echoed through the living room, but they were to no avail.

"If howling could solve problems, donkeys would have ruled the world a long time ago."

The terror of a Mahayana Fate Ghost made even me, its master, feel afraid. It had devoured far too much. My method for raising a ghost was different from any orthodox tradition to date; I had absolutely no restraint, trusted the ghostly entity completely, and allowed it to eat and grow as it pleased.

The black hair coiled around their bodies, and they fought back desperately. The Fate Ghost's power might have been a bit scattered from attacking too many people at once. Jiang Long and one of his lackeys managed to struggle free before the black hair could completely ensnare them, and the two bolted upstairs.

"Why run upstairs? Isn't this seeking your own deaths?" Dragging the Deer-Slaying Dao, I closely followed behind them. I could let the lackey off, but Jiang Long, who had seen the Underworld Live Show materials, was unforgivable.

The sound of the blade scraping against the floorboards was somewhat harrowing. As I passed by those women, a layer of goosebumps broke out on their exposed skin.

Along the way, I also discovered that this blade truly had the effect of slaying evil. Wherever the blade dragged, the Fate Ghost's black hair parted on its own, not daring to collide with it.

"Fate Ghost, I'll leave these people to you."

The remaining thugs and women in the living room quickly collapsed to the floor. Their faces were ashen and their bodies stiff, the vast majority of their lifeforce having been plundered by the Fate Ghost.

I pursued them all the way to the third floor in one breath. Jiang Long and his lackey seemed to have hidden in the rooms on both sides of the hallway.

"Many horror movies have similar scenes. Facing the villain's pursuit, the protagonists hurriedly hide in an enclosed room, hold their breath, and wait in silence for the terror to descend."

The calm before the storm was the most torturous, but to the pursuer, it was a kind of enjoyment.

"The night has just fallen. I still have a long time to play this game with you."

"Bang!"

Gripping the Deer-Slaying Dao with both hands, I viciously hacked at the lock. After destroying the lock, I kicked the door open.

"Are you hiding in here?"

Carrying the blade, I wandered around the room, checking the guest rooms one by one and kicking open door after door. When I reached the end of the hallway, my ears twitched, catching the sound of suppressed panting from the adjacent room.

"Isn't your psychological fortitude a bit too poor? If you were dragged in to experience an Underworld Live Show live broadcast, you probably wouldn't survive a single round."

The blade pierced the wooden door, and then I violently kicked it open. I didn't enter myself, but first let the Fate Ghost scout the way.

Black hair flooded into the room like rushing water, slithering into the wardrobe, onto the windowsill, and under the bed.

"Get away! Get lost!" A man's hoarse voice tore out from under the bed. "Save me! Brother Long! Save me!"

"Stop shouting. He'll come over to keep you company in a moment." The Fate Ghost dragged the man out from under the bed, letting his screams echo throughout the entire villa.

"Just one left." I looked toward the room on the other side of the hallway's end. I had searched everywhere else; this was the only room I hadn't entered yet.

Pressing my ear to the door panel, I could faintly hear a very low conversation inside. The speaker's tone was rushed.

"Calling for help? Is it useful?" Hacking the door open with a flurry of strikes, I entered the room and happened to see Jiang Long hiding behind the desk. The phone on his desk had not yet been hung up, and he was holding up three talismans.

"Stop! We can talk!" Jiang Long shouted anxiously. The screams of his subordinate were still echoing in his ears. In his many years in the underworld, he had never been this panicked, nor had he ever seen someone so brutal and terrifying.

"Negotiation is built on the premise of equal strength. Are you worthy?"

Five years ago, or even before becoming an Underworld Live Show Streamer, I myself wouldn't have dared to imagine that I would one day say these words to a Jiangcheng underworld boss.

But now, all of this was truly happening. I had changed a lot in the short span of a few weeks. Although in my daily life I was still that down-and-out dog running an Adult Shop, without savings and without family, the difference was that anyone who wanted to bully me or take my things away would have to pay a bitter price.

Jiang Long didn't reply. He really couldn't grasp my background. He had been around Jiangcheng for over twenty years, yet it seemed neither the legitimate nor criminal underworlds had ever heard the name Gao Jian. "Did you come from out of province? This is Jiangcheng. If you stretch your hand out too far, aren't you afraid you won't be able to pull it back?"

"Think whatever you want; I can't be bothered to waste my breath on you. Did you go into 263 Tingtang Road and bring some things out from inside?"

"You mean the dog?" Jiang Long's eye twitched. "It was locked in the basement after the anesthetics wore off. If you came here for it, I'll give you the keys right now and return it to you."

"The matter of the dog is separate. I'm talking about the other things."

"I don't know about anything else. We were only responsible for knocking that dog out with anesthetics." Jiang Long looked doubtful, as if he really didn't know anything.

"What I'm looking for is a handwritten document. Inside is a record of information regarding a specific place."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jiang Long continued to feign innocence.

"Looks like I need to help you recall properly. Fate Ghost!" Black hair mottled with bloodstains climbed out from my shadow, bearing down on Jiang Long.

As the ghost approached, Jiang Long finally couldn't withstand the pressure and changed his tune. "Wait! I remember!"

"Where is the document?"

"It's in..."

Before Jiang Long could finish, an old man's voice came from the unhung phone on the desk. "Jiang Long, hand the phone to the person across from you. Let me speak."

I had heard the voice coming from the receiver once before at Jiang Chen's wedding banquet. He should be the helmsman of Jiangjin Real Estate, Jiang Chen's father.

Jiang Long looked troubled, but he didn't dare disobey Old Master Jiang's words and handed the phone to me.

"You must be Gao Jian. I've heard Jiang Chen mention you. It really is true that the younger generation is to be feared. To think you've even forced this adopted son of mine, who has lived on the knife's edge, to such a state. You're quite good."

A condescending tone, acting entirely like a senior dealing with a junior. I gave a cold sneer, had the Fate Ghost strangle Jiang Long's neck, and then placed the receiver by Jiang Long's mouth. That way, Old Master Jiang could clearly hear the sounds of his adopted son's dying struggles.