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Within the Su Residence.

Mingshu sat lazily in the main courtyard and yawned, “I’m so bored.”

“If you’re bored, then come and train. Look, you’ve gotten fat from your laziness,” said Zhou Hong as he diligently swung a set of stone barbells through the air.

“I don’t have any energy and I don’t want to train,” Mingshu replied.

Zhou Hong harrumphed. “There’s so many people in the world that would love to train and study here but don’t get the opportunity. You, on the other hand, are just sitting here slacking off.”

“Young Master’s not here anyways. What’s the point in working so hard?” Mingshu muttered.

“It’s not like the Young Master isn’t going to come back once he leaves. This place is still his home. He will return sooner or later. Once he returns and tests your strength, only to find that you’re still at the early stages of the Blood Boiling Realm, he’ll definitely punish you by spanking you a few times.”

“Psh. He’s been gone for more than a year and hasn’t asked about us once. Who knows when he’ll be back,” replied Mingshu, his lips curled.

He had just spoken when he saw a Cloud-Piercing Shuttle suddenly appeared in the sky, almost as if it had teleported above them. Of course, this wasn’t actual teleportation; the shuttle’s speed was just so fast that their eyes had misperceived it.

“Flood Dragon Emperor Shuttle?” Mingshu was initially taken aback before he began to yell with excitement, “Young Master! The Young Master is back!”

Zhou Hong threw the stone dumbells to the side and knelt down in front of the shuttle. “Zhou Hong greets Young Master!”

Su Chen stepped out of the shuttle. “How have you all been?”

“In response to Young Master, everything has been good. Even though Young Master has not been here, City Lord An has been taking care of everyone. He isn’t as facilitatory as when Young Master was here, but in general things haven’t been bad. No one has bullied us,” Zhou Hong replied.

“Mm, that’s good then.” Su Chen nodded.

With Su Chen absent, there was no way that the Su Residence would carry as much weight as before, but as long as they were able to get by comfortably that was already good enough.

Zhou Hong continued, “But the Long Clear Gang and the Evil Tiger Gang have become a bit at odds with City Lord An recently.”

Su Chen’s eyebrows jumped. “So they weren’t able to keep themselves in control, huh? Don’t worry about them. Their fate is now in their own hands. Go grab Li Shu, Gui Dashan, and the others, as well as all of the Su Palace’s guards and servants.”

Zhou Hong felt his heart jolt. “Is Young Master planning on giving up the estate here?”

“‘Giving up’ isn’t really the right phrase. We’re just going to a different place to set up a division into a smaller group,” Su Chen replied.

The Su Palace’s servants and guards numbered around three hundred in total, some of them bandits he had captured in the Four Flats Regions, some of them pirates, and some of them criminals from the gangs. None of them had particularly upstanding backgrounds.

However, after following Su Chen for quite a long period of time, their loyalty towards Su Chen was now resolute. They also all possessed the Hemolytic Totem, so their combat ability was also very impressive.

If Su Chen wanted to make a name for himself in Swallow River City, he alone would not be nearly enough; as such, he had made the decision to bring his subordinates along as well.

For this, he was even willing to give up on his businesses in Clear River City — in any case, he had already capitalized on the biggest opportunities. There wasn’t much profit left to be made, so he was now handing the Su Residence over to An Siyuan.

During his discussions with An Siyuan, Su Chen could tell that An Siyuan had intentions of dealing with the Long Clear Gang and the Evil Tiger Gang.

Su Chen didn’t oppose this. He just pointed out that if the two of them did end up fighting and if the gangs lost, he hoped that An Siyuan would be able to let Wang Wenxin and some others keep their lives if they surrendered.

Not pulling the weeds out by its roots was normally a big taboo, but An Siyuan agreed to it in the end.

The large bald man was very smart and knew when to press his advantage and when to retreat.

After taking care of these matters, Su Chen visited the Long Residence. He brought on a few more people, then left with Li Shu, Mingshu, Gui Dashan, and the others on the Flood Dragon Emperor shuttle. The others would stay in a nearby city and then rent out a large-scale Cloud-Piercing Shuttle to fly to Swallow River City. They would probably end up arriving around three days after Su Chen.

One thing worth mentioning was that Zhou Hong, Gui Dashan, Old Second Cheng, and Old Fifth Jin were all Yang Opening Realm cultivators now. Under Su Chen’s grooming, their strength already far surpassed their peers. The only one who was a bit weaker was Chang Er, through he was already an Origin Qi Scholar in the Blood Boiling Realm.

The bandits from the mountains were now Su Chen’s most loyal and effective subordinates.

After accumulating a large amount of Shadow Substance from West Laina Castle, Su Chen chose six more people from his group of followers and turned them into Shadow Servants. After this, Su Chen now had ten of them in total.

Two days later, the Flood Dragon Emperor Shuttle arrived at Swallow River City and along with it, Mingshu, Li Shu, and the others.

“Is this Swallow River City? No wonder it’s one of the largest cities in Longxi Country. It’s much more extravagant than Northface City,” Li Shu and the others chattered.

“Do you all remember what I told you on the way here?” Su Chen asked.

Li Shu said solemnly, “Your subordinates understand.”

“Then let us begin.”

——————————————

Iron Cliff felt a bit at a loss as he stood outside the Zhou Residence.

This was his first time carrying out a mission on his own.

There was no one telling him what to do or how to do it.

The Cliff Race were not usually known for their ability to use their brain.

They were guileless, persistent, diligent, and brave, but they weren’t that good at thinking things through.

Iron Cliff, however, was different.

That was because the master he served was Su Chen.

Su Chen always told him, “You need to learn to use your head. If you can use your head to resolve a problem, then don’t use brute force.”

It was very difficult at the very beginning. Iron Cliff could never figure out why he had to do it like this or like that.

Every time, Su Chen would patiently tell him the reasoning behind it.

Over time, Iron Cliff had slowly begun to understand.

He had started from the most obvious basics and progressively moved on to more and more complex scenarios.

He observed how Su Chen had cheated his opponents and toyed with them, what Su Chen’s thought process was when he was scheming, and how Su Chen had arranged the situation for his plans to succeed. He also needed to know how to account for fine details and understand the human temperament.

However, even understanding human temperament wasn’t enough.

The Cliff Race was really bad at using their heads, and they didn’t have the patience to think things over. As such, they could do battle for three days and three nights strength and still possess the mental acuity to remain alert, but they might feel a migraine and exhaustion coming on after ten simple math problems.

However, Iron Cliff was different.

He also needed to follow Su Chen when Su Chen performed his experiments.

Performing experiments was something that required great attention to detail and patience.

If you were too coarse or callous, your experiment would fail.

Iron Cliff had started out not being able to craft even the most basic vial, but as he continued to follow Su Chen, and under Su Chen’s neverending patient guidance, Iron Cliff had begun to improve.

He had lacked patience and an eye for detail before, but after constantly participating in experiments day in and day out, he had now learned how to do these things.

He had learned how to observe, how to think, how to remain calm, how to do a lot of things that many Cliff Race individuals struggled to do.

At that point in time, Iron Cliff understood something: knowledge was like strength in that it could be nurtured!

However, Iron Cliff had just never had a chance to test himself.

Until today, that is.

Su Chen sending him over here might not have been for Iron Cliff to exercise his thinking ability.

Even so, he wanted to do a better job than expected and give his master a favorable resolution.

He stood in front of the Zhou Clan’s front door and thought about everything he had gone through with Su Chen. The blankness in Iron Cliff’s eyes began to fade as it was replaced with determination and confidence.

“Attacking them on their way over is too obvious, so I can’t do that. If I try to stir up trouble, the Zhou Clan has stewards that can take care of it, and he might still be able to leave...... What if someone he cares for a lot suddenly falls ill?”

Iron Cliff’s eyes lit up.

“Humans value ceremony highly. If someone close to him falls ill but he still leaves to try and settle this marriage, he’d be considered unfilial. Hm, I think that will work. Is there something that can give someone the appearance of dying but without actually killing them?”