Chapter 1: A Magical Task

“This is your payment for going to North Africa.”

Old Man Lin carefully took two crumpled hundred-yuan bills out of a well-wrapped rag and handed them to Lin Yi, who had been watching him with eager eyes from the side.

Lin Yi couldn’t understand it. The missions he carried out were so dangerous, his enemies were so powerful, and the profits the clients reaped were so substantial—yet in the end, his own earnings were so meager.

Where on earth did the old man find these top-tier missions for him?

Every time, it was a brush with death, yet the pay he received was fifty or a hundred yuan. That was actually considered good; there were times when he only got two or three yuan...

Whenever he thought about this, Lin Yi wanted to cry.

Taking the two hundred yuan he had traded his life for, the first thing Lin Yi wanted to curse was, "What the hell!"

Even though he was an orphan and hadn't had a mother since he was a child.

He had spent fifteen years learning martial arts and fifteen years studying under Old Man Lin, who had raised him. Didn't that make him a master of both pen and sword?

In ancient times, he would have been a top scholar in both civil and military examinations, yet he was being used like a manual laborer... When would this life ever end!

He heard that people who built houses in the city could make tens of thousands a year, while he was out there risking his life every day only to make a thousand or eight hundred a year...

“Old man, you aren’t messing with me, are you? Two hundred yuan? I highly suspect you’re skimming off my pay.”

Lin Yi had suspected this more than once, but the old man ate and dressed just like him; he didn't look like a rich man at all.

“Be grateful you’re getting paid at all. Do you think money is so easy to earn these days?”

Old Man Lin rolled his bulging eyes and said irritably, “What? You don’t want it? If you don’t want it, give it back to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Widow Wang’s snack bar at the end of the village to treat myself.”

“……”

Lin Yi really wanted to beat the living daylights out of this scrawny, shriveled old man, but he knew that the result of throwing a punch would be getting beaten up himself.

Just how strong Old Man Lin was, even Lin Yi didn't know.

He only knew that every time the old man sparred with him, he never used his full strength.

Whenever Lin Yi’s own skills improved to a new level, he would suddenly discover that the old man had also improved to a new level, and he remained the loser.

“Alright, you’ve had enough training over these years. That big task is just about time.”

Old Man Lin didn't even lift his eyelids. He sat cross-legged on the kang, munching on a dish of fennel beans: “If you do this mission well, you won’t have to worry about food or drink for the rest of your life!”

“For real?”

Lin Yi knew that ever since the old man picked him up while scavenging when he was three, he had been learning martial arts, medicine, and outside knowledge from him specifically to perform one big task!

But Lin Yi was very skeptical about whether the reward for this "big task" was really as much as the old man claimed—enough to live on for a lifetime.

“When have I ever lied to you?”

Old Man Lin tossed another fennel bean into his mouth: “Are you going or not? If you aren’t, I’ll find someone else.”

“I’m going, of course I’m going!”

Lin Yi thought to himself, such a good deal, only a fool wouldn't go!

If one mission could support him for a lifetime, he wouldn't have to risk his life like this anymore.

Even if it were a den of tigers or a lair of dragons, it would be worth the gamble!

“Good. Then go. Go to Songshan City, to the Pengzhan Group, and find a man named Chu Pengzhan. He will tell you what to do next.”

A trace of an imperceptible, cunning smile crossed Old Man Lin’s lips: “But you’d better think it through. Once you take this mission, you must see it through to the end. You cannot quit halfway.”

“Why? Can’t a guy run if there’s danger?”

Lin Yi wasn't the type to be stubborn; he definitely wouldn't do something if he knew it would lead to his death.

“Little Yi, I’ve raised you for fifteen years, provided your food, provided your drink, bought you a laptop, bought you a 3G network card...”

The old man rolled his eyes and began to nag incessantly: “I ask you to do one thing and you have so many questions. Don’t force me!”

“Screw that!”

Lin Yi was furious when he heard the old man: “You raised me for the first three years, but from the age of six, I was the one cooking, chopping wood, and weaving straw sandals to earn money to support you. Don’t you force me either!”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been watching on your computer in the middle of the night!”

The old man glared and said, “You forced me to say this! You even, in front of the computer...”

“Fine... I’ll go... I won’t run away, okay?”

Lin Yi’s face turned red. He hadn't expected this old guy to notice the things he did so secretly. It was damn embarrassing.

If he let him keep talking, who knew what kind of inappropriate scenes he might describe.

And so, under the coercion and temptation of Old Man Lin, Lin Yi packed his bags, boarded a train heading north, and traveled thousands of miles to Songshan City, a modern international metropolis.

Sitting on the train, Lin Yi was quite looking forward to this mission. A good deal that would allow him to retire after just one job was something he had dreamed of.

Although, from Old Man Lin’s words, he could sense that this mission didn't seem simple.

Well, it’s only challenging if it’s not simple!

“Snap.”

A pockmarked man sitting across from Lin Yi opened a canned soda and tossed the pull-tab onto the table.

A man with a crew cut sitting next to him pretended not to notice as he picked up the pull-tab, fiddled with it for a moment, and then suddenly shouted

“Wow! Wow! Holy cow! First prize!”

Although the crew-cut man’s voice wasn't very loud in the noisy train carriage, the passengers sitting nearby heard him and turned to look.

The pockmarked man was no exception. Seeing that the pull-tab in the crew-cut man’s hand was the one he had just discarded, his expression immediately became unnatural: “Give it back to me, that’s mine...”

“Yours? Does it have your name written on it?”

The crew-cut man pulled his right hand back, gripped the pull-tab tightly, and glared: “Is your name ‘First Prize’?”

“No... my name isn’t ‘First Prize’... but that first-prize pull-tab is the one I threw away...”

Seeing that the crew-cut man looked fierce, the pockmarked man became a bit timid, but he didn't want to lose what he felt was rightfully his, so he watched the pull-tab with trembling, eager eyes.

“You said it yourself, you threw it away. Since you threw it away, whoever picks it up gets to keep it.”

The crew-cut man snorted dismissively.

“Hey, how can you be like this?”

The pockmarked man grew anxious and turned to the passenger sitting across from him—a man with glasses sitting to Lin Yi’s left—and cried out: “Sir, you look like a scholar. Please judge this for us. How can he be like this? Isn’t this just being a rogue?”

“Who’s being a rogue?”

The crew-cut man wasn't happy either. He turned his head toward the bespectacled man and said, “Mister, you tell us, who should this pull-tab belong to?”

“Hmm...”

The man with glasses pushed up his spectacles, hesitated for a moment, and said, “I am a university teacher. Since you both trust me, I will judge this for you.”

“Please, go ahead!”

Both the pockmarked man and the crew-cut man nodded, looking anxiously at the man who claimed to be a university teacher.

“Logically speaking, this pull-tab was pulled off the drink can by this brother here, so the item should be his...”

The man with glasses was only halfway through when the pockmarked man showed a triumphant expression, while the crew-cut man became anxious and was about to say something. The man with glasses waved his hand to stop him and continued

“However, since this brother had already discarded the pull-tab, and it was then picked up by this other brother, it should belong to the latter...”

“But you also said the pull-tab was mine...”

Hearing the man with glasses say this, the pockmarked man’s face immediately fell.

“In my opinion, why don’t you do this: the two of you split the prize. That way, neither of you loses out!”

The man with glasses suggested.

“Split it...”

The crew-cut man hesitated, gritted his teeth, and said, “Fine, let’s split it.”

Perhaps the crew-cut man also felt his argument was a bit weak, which was why he agreed to the suggestion.

As for the pockmarked man, seeing that the pull-tab was already in the crew-cut man’s hand, he realized that if he didn't agree, he might end up with nothing at all. It was better to get half, so he nodded in agreement.

“Alright, since you both agree, then split it.”

The man with glasses took the soda can from the pockmarked man’s hand, looked at it, and said, “It says here that the first prize is one hundred thousand yuan. After deducting twenty percent in personal income tax, there is eighty thousand left. But since claiming the prize is quite troublesome, whoever goes to claim it should give the other person thirty thousand yuan, and then go claim it themselves. What do you think of this idea?”

“Fine!”

The pockmarked man was happy to get any money at all, so he agreed immediately: “You give me thirty thousand, and then you go claim the prize!”