Chapter 24 – Partner In Crime
Lu Cengfeng’s story was simple, but at the same time absurd.
His mother, the Maiden Rongyang, the only daughter of Marquis Yuanyang in the Lu Kingdom, was a child from a noble family with a great background, however, she was known for her bad behavior.
Marquis Yuanyang and the previous chief of the Lu family had agreed to a marriage arrangement for the eldest children from both families. Marquis Yuanyang had much influence and power in the military of the Lu Kingdom, whereas the Lu Family had great power among the civil officers within the government, they were also a wealthy family and having their net worth ranked within the top three families in the Lu Kingdom. The marriage arrangement was to create an alliance between the two great powers that would provide mutual benefits.
But, the Maiden Rongyang had done something that disgraced Marquis Yuanyang, and almost made the previous chief of Lu Family die of extreme anger.
Just three months before the marriage ceremony, the Maiden Rongyang was found pregnant, and the child was Lu Chengfeng. She never told anybody about this, and was married to her husband with great glory. Just four months after the marriage ceremony, she had given birth to Lu Chengfeng.
This is something that was really disgraceful, let alone the Lu Family from Liyang, even ordinary families wouldn’t accept this. But, for some unknown reason, Marquis Yuanyang and the Lu Family had this news covered up, and thus, Lu Chengfeng had become the eldest son of the Lu Family.
It was not difficult to imagine how Lu Chengfeng, the eldest son of the Lu Family, would be treated. He was raised with a golden spoon in his mouth. When the other children of the Maiden Rongyang had grown up, and Lu Chengfeng had become the potential threat to the inheritance of the Lu Family, he was ‘exiled’ to Little Meng City by the chief of the Lu Family.
Without any unexpected events, and if Lu Chengfeng was not putting in any more effort, he would have to spend the rest of his life in Little Meng City.
Keeping his story simple and straightforward, Lu Chengfeng told Wu Qi about his past, then he tried to remain calm and asked Wu Qi, “This is my origin, does it make it difficult for you to accept me?”
Xiaohei and Laohei lowered their heads and sighed. They had seen a lot of those young masters from rich and influential families who immediately stopped associating with Lu Chengfeng after they learned about his origin. Everytime Lu Chengfeng had to listen to their insults and laughing, each and every single time, Laohei and Xiaohei, who were loyal to Lu Chengfeng, would feel as if there was a sharp blade cutting at their hearts, making them feel a sad pain for their master.
Wu Qi looked at Lu Chengfeng disapprovingly, with a smile on his face, he said, “I thought it was just sex before marriage? What’s so surprising about that?”
It was nothing more than Lu Chengfeng’s mother having a one night stand before her marriage, and, in this era, they simply didn’t have any effective birth-control methods, thus Lu Chengfeng was accidentally conceived. This kind of story was so normal back on Earth that Wu Qi had heard far more ridiculous stories than this, how would he be surprised by this? How could he discriminate against Lu Chengfeng?
“No matter what, your parents raised you up, even if they really did something wrong to you, and made the world look down upon you, you still need to stand up and work your way out. You need to live a life such that no one else can look down on you anymore. One day, when you are standing at the peak of your life and look down upon these people, you win the chance to slap their faces, and that will be the greatest time of your life!”
After delivered a long speech, Wu Qi yawned and stretched his back.
But, Lu Chengfeng became super excited by the speech, he stood up and kept walking back and forth in the hall while rubbing his hands.
“You’re right, you’re so right. Wu Qi, what you just said did make sense! When I stand on the peak of my life and look down upon all mortals, who would have the right to laugh at me?” Lu Chengfeng was so excited and kept nodding his head, “I must work my way up with all my effort, I want to let those people witness this, although I, Lu Chengfeng have left them, I can still become something great!”
“That’s for sure, that’s definitely going to happen!”
Wu Qu kept his smiling and encouraged Lu Chengfeng. The faster and higher Lu Chengfeng climbed up in this world, the better for Wu Qi. He heard someone tell him, those wealthy and influential families worshipped cultivators? He really wanted to know what the cultivation level of those cultivators was, and is there anything they own that Wu Qi can steal?
It was too bad that Wu Qi was weak at the moment, or else he would just ditch Lu Chengfeng and explore the world himself. His only had the cultivation level of peak Houtian Warrior. Even Lu Chengfeng was stronger than him, and this world was a messy, complicated world. Before he possessed the power and strength that was enough to protect himself; before having more knowledge on this world, Wu Qi wouldn’t leave Lu Cheng Feng.
Lu Chengfeng was the biggest umbrella for Wu Qi, the key for him to enter this world!
Wu Qi stood up and looked at the sky outside the General’s Office. It was getting darker. With a deep voice he murmured, “Since young master has been so honest with me, I, Wu Qi, will be honest to get what we need.”
“Crucibles?” Lu Chengfeng stared at Wu Qi with a puzzled expression, “Why do you need crucibles?”
Wu Qi stared back at Lu Chengfeng surprisingly, then he laughed and said, “We need them to melt gold! I happen to know of a ‘source’ of gold. We will need to melt the gold down with crucibles. Only then we can sell it off, unless you think we can sell it in it’s original form?”
Lu Chengfeng blinked his eyes fast and said to himself, “Someone told me, Yi Yan had a bed made entirely from pure gold! That alone should have cost him at least thirty thousand gold coins!”
Reaching his hand into his sleeve and searching for some time, Lu Chengfeng then took out a black dagger and passed to Wu Qi, “This is a fine cutting device. By injecting your innate energy into it, you can cut through gold and jade easily. Hmm, are you really that confident that you can do this?”
Wu Qi took the dagger and nodded his head in a manner full of confidence, “Young master, you just stay here and prepare the crucibles. This will be an easy task!”
Lu Chengfeng had his face twitched, he gazed at Wu Qi and asked, “Be blunt with me. Are you the burglar who stole everything from Yi Yan?”
Wu Qi touched the edges of the dagger with his fingers, staring at the sky afar and remain silence. His face became blanked and obviously had his mind went somewhere far away, totally ignoring what Lu Chengfeng was asking.
Lu Chengfeng puffed out his cheeks, then he shook and breathed out a helpless sigh, “I never dreamed that I, Lu Chengfeng, would have a chief right-hand man that was a thief!”
Wu Qi never responded. He just kept staring at the sky with a pure and flawless smile on his face, just like the smile of a newborn baby, pure and innocent.
It was midnight again.
With a faded water vapor covering his body, Wu Qi sneaked into Yi Yan’s home again. The innate water energy flows within veins in Wu Qi’s legs, making him move like a stream during Spring time, overcoming those obstacles and barriers swiftly, without making any noise or kicking up any dust.
After suffering great losses because of the burglaries, the number of guards on night duty had increased by three times. Outside of Yi Yan’s bedroom, the serving ladies had been replaced by a few muscular and strong guards.
But these defenses meant nothing to Wu Qi. Those guards outside of bedroom never realized that Wu Qi was nearby, Wu Qi simply dashed to their backs and gave each of them a punch on their head, and they all fainted without making any noise.
Wu Qi then sneaked into Yi Yan’s bedroom and pressed his finger on Yi Yan’s ‘Sleeping’ Acupoint, making him fall into the deepest slumber.
With his full strength, Wu Qi pulled on one of Yi Yan’s arms and dragged him from his bed onto the ground. After he finished doing that, Wu Qi had sweat all over and was breathing rapidly. He really wondered what had this meatball had eaten all this time. With Yi Yan’s height of more than two meters, his weight was definitely more than two hundred fifty kilograms. With Wu Qi’s full strength, he can barely move his body.
Putting on a bitter smile, Wu Qi wiped his sweat and started to examine the room.
Wu Qi was astonished by the speed Yi Yan earned his money, because, in just two days, he had stored up a few hundred silver and gold coins and dozens of gemstones and jadestones in the secret chamber. Who knows where he squeezed all these fortunes from. Of course, Wu Qi wouldn’t be so polite with him, he grabbed everything and packed them up, then brought all these treasures back to General Residency immediately.
At the backyard of General Residency, within Lu Chengfeng’s bedroom, he was waiting in deep anticipation for Wu Qi’s arrival.
When Wu Qi brought back a big bag of gold and silver, gemstones, and jadestone to his bedroom, Lu Chengfeng took out his precious lower tier magical item ‘Little 25th Lamp’ immediately without saying anything. He inserted a fire stone in it, forming a seal with his hand, and pointed at the lamp. Then a tiny hair sized thread of red flame burst out, twisting at least a foot high into the air and increased the temperature within the bedroom.
Lu Chengfeng grabbed few hundred gold coins and threw them into the tiny thread of flame. These gold coins floated within the flame and, in just a blink of an eye, they were melted into liquid form.
Lu Chengfeng changed a few patterns of seal with his fingers, then the liquid gold was divided into sixteen equal portions, each weighing 500 grams. After that he changed the seal again, this time the sixteen portions of gold liquid transformed into the flat and square shape of gold bars. After doing this, Lu Chengfeng shut the flame and the liquid gold cool down immediately.
Wu Qi was impressed by what he saw. He can’t help but clap his hands. Although he had inherited the Scroll of Stealing, he, basically, had nothing. He didn’t have any magical items or weapons to use. He had never seen something so amazing before.
Lu Chengfeng breathed out a sigh of relief, raised his sleeve and wiped away some of the sweat on his forehead. He gazed at Wu Qi proudly and said, “I spent eighteen years taught myself all of this. It was a tough journey, but, if you are interested, I can teach you!”
Wu Qi jumped out from the windows while laughing, and never bothered to reply.
With the Scroll of Stealing, Lu Chengfeng’s trick was nothing for Wu Qi! Lu Chengfeng was a man from a wealthy family in his early twenties, but he hadn’t broken through to the Xiantian level yet, and need to use a magical item to produce magical flame! Wu Qi sighed silently, and thought to himself, this Lu Chengfeng was just like a beggar, and the beggar was trying to teach a multi-millionaire something!
He hurried back to Yi Yan’s bedroom quietly. Wu Qi then took out the dagger, and started to work on the bed. He cut off a cube shaped piece of gold weighing about fifty kilograms, then he found a black cloth and put the gold cube in it. Then he carried it all the way back to General Residency.
There was only one wall between the General’s Residency and Yi Yan’s backyard. Wu Qi had no issues with committing an easy and pleasant crime.
Each trip would only cost him fifteen minutes, and the reward was 50 kilograms of pure gold. Although Yi Yan’s golden bed was huge, it only took Wu Qi two hours to completely dismantle the bad, which was turned into hundreds of smaller gold cubes and placed into Lu Chengfeng’s bedroom.
This night, Lu Chengfeng was exhausted. He had used up all his innate energy, and one whole piece of firestone. He had managed to melt all the gold into bricks, which were now neatly placed underneath his bed.
There was a logo of three leaves flower on all the gold bricks, that was the symbol of Lu family. With the symbol, no one could say these gold bricks was from Yi Yan’s bed, they can only treat it as the money Lu Chengfeng brought here from Lu Family.
Early morning next day, Wu Qi and Lu Chengfeng each carried a bowl of porridge in one of their hands, and some pastries in the other hand, and both squatted in front of the General’s Residency.
A short while later, a horrible scream, like a cuckoo was crying its blood out, suddenly came out from inner courtyard of the Mayor’s Mansion, “My bed, my bed, my big golden bed! Ahhhhh, who is the bastard that stole all my money?”
Soon, screams and roars started to resound from the chaotic inner courtyard.
“Somebody hurry! Go get the doctor and bring him here, Mayor is spitting blood and has fainted!”