Chapter 37: Getting Rich!

"Now that I am the Gang Leader, I naturally must manage the affairs of the Red Head Gang. I want to protect the Red Head Gang, and I also want to protect the Red Head Gang's assets." Ruan Xing's tone was resolute, carrying a kind of overbearing determination to succeed.

"It seems your plan on that side is going quite smoothly. I, as your brother, should congratulate you first on successfully becoming the Gang Leader. It's just that no one can see through the City Lord's intentions, and the City Lord Mansion is so airtight that not a single piece of news can be pried out. For now, we can only take it one step at a time," Young Master Liu sighed.

But Ruan Xing would not take it one step at a time. She had always chosen one step out of a hundred; whichever result from the Simulation best matched her ideas, that was the direction she would choose.

After pondering for a moment, she said, "Like this, I still have matters to handle, so I will return to the gang first. Notify me after your brother-in-law wakes up."

Young Master Liu nodded and said, "Mm, be careful in everything. If it truly doesn't work out, abandoning part of the foundation is fine. In any case, I have already become the Left Commander; once the limelight passes and I develop for a few more years, I will be back."

A few years? She did not want to wait several more years. Ruan Xing made up her mind, said her goodbyes, and left the Qianshi Mansion to return to the Red Head Gang headquarters.

The sky had already turned dark. The evening breeze blew away the heat of the day, but it could not blow away the smell of blood at the Red Head Gang headquarters.

Lanterns marked with red characters had already been lit under the eaves and corridors everywhere, swaying slightly with the wind.

When she returned, she happened to see Zhang Chenghui directing a few low-level gang members to splash water on the ground and clean up the bloodstains.

Aside from inside the meeting hall, there was also quite a bit of blood at the various guard posts and hidden sentries outside. For such a large area, it was impressive that he could clean it up so quickly.

Could it be that the corpses had already been dealt with? She immediately spoke up: "Xiao Hui, where were the corpses sent?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Chenghui's body stiffened, and he managed a forced smile: "They have all been collected and placed in the Ancestral Hall, waiting for the families of each to come and claim them for burial."

"Oh?" Ruan Xing hummed with an ambiguous laugh, and cold sweat immediately broke out on Zhang Chenghui's back.

He secretly regretted showing such kindness. Now it was done; the first task the new Gang Leader had ordered was not done to her satisfaction. The next person to be cut down would surely be him, Zhang Chenghui thought in despair.

"You certainly have a compassionate heart." However, Ruan Xing did not punish him. She hadn't expected this person to be so naive; she wondered how he had survived in the gang for so many years. Could it be that the rules originally set by that little Hong were actually being followed honestly by someone who never cut corners?

She had already sent Lu Youqi and Zhao Sanniang to raid their homes; who would still come to claim the remains?

"Xiao Hui, go buy..." Ruan Xing thought for a long time but couldn't recall the specific quantity, so she simply said, "Thin wooden coffins. Get them set up and placed; I have a use for them."

"Yes." Zhang Chenghui breathed a sigh of relief. Although he had escaped a disaster, he also understood that it was absolutely impossible for the Gang Leader to let those people be buried properly.

"Right," Ruan Xing asked casually, "Have Xiao Qi, Xiao Hong, and the others returned?"

"Vice Gang Leader Hong brought people back with the goods and is currently waiting in the study to report to you. Qi Ge and the others have not yet."

She hadn't expected the efficiency to be this fast. Ruan Xing was somewhat happy, so she quickened her pace and went to the study.

Before even entering the door, Ruan Xing had already seen the dozen or so large chests piled up in the courtyard at the entrance of the study. The lids were half-open, allowing Ruan Xing to see the gold, silver, treasures, pearl strings, and jewelry inside at a glance.

The clear moonlight spilled down, mixing with the half-red, half-yellow light from the lanterns on the eaves, as if casting an ambient glow on that gold and silver, making it shimmer. Her gaze lingered, unable to turn away; it actually made her unable to move her feet.

So! Much!

If she were in a two-dimensional world, her pupils would surely have turned into little stars.

No wonder joining a gang in Jiangning City had become the pursuit of all young men; it turned out to be so profitable? Hong Xi had originally been waiting at the study entrance, and hearing footsteps, he turned around.

Heaven have mercy, that was originally his study, and now he didn't even dare to enter.

He stepped forward and bowed his head to Ruan Xing: "Gang Leader, the family assets and private properties embezzled by those parasites within the gang, as well as all current income from the gang's internal treasury, are all here. Due to the tight schedule, I have not been able to verify them one by one. This is the rough inventory; please take a look."

Hong Xi handed over a thin booklet with both hands, still carrying the scent of fresh, wet ink.

Ruan Xing took it and scanned it a few times, then frowned and said, "These silver notes, as well as antiques and jade ornaments, all exchange them for gold and silver and send them to me."

A flash of astonishment crossed Hong Xi's eyes, and he hurriedly said, "Gang Leader, please forgive me. With so many silver notes... I fear the silver shops in Jiangning City do not have that much ready cash! Moreover, liquidating those artifacts will likely take time..."

Previously, aside from some precious medicines, Hongtou Daoren loved antiques and jade ornaments the most; the older they were, the better, and if they came from a tomb, even better. Seeing that Pure White Youth following by Ruan Xing's side, he had thought her hobbies would be similar. Now it seemed otherwise; this new Gang Leader's hobbies were terrifyingly straightforward.

She only wanted gold and silver.

Ruan Xing understood after a rough thought. Scouring for various precious medicines was for Alchemy, and ancient objects were for Puppets; the white jade eyeballs of the Sword were precisely ancient objects imbued with Spirit Qi that Hongtou Daoren had carefully selected.

It was just that she didn't practice Puppets, so there was no need for that.

She was just curious: "Jiangning City is, after all, a large city with tens of thousands of residents; how could there not be that much ready cash?"

"This..." Hong Xi hesitated, "Nowadays, for the convenience of merchants, transactions mostly use silver notes. Furthermore, we just paid out the tribute silver to various places before the new year, and now it just happens to be the summer harvest. Currently, the place with the most silver in Jiangning City is the official treasury. All the silver shops in Jiangning City combined would not have tens of thousands of taels of silver. If we were to exchange all the silver notes, I fear it would affect the people's livelihood and cause unrest..."

He stopped mid-sentence, the implication clear: if they exchanged all the silver from the shops, other ordinary merchants and commoners who didn't know the truth would surely panic, thinking something major was about to happen, and would follow suit to exchange their silver. However, they would have already exchanged all the silver, and the public would have nothing left to exchange. They wouldn't believe any excuses about delays of a few days; they would only spread by word of mouth that the silver shops had no silver, triggering even greater panic. By then, the economy of Jiangning City would truly collapse. Hong Xi was also a native of Jiangning City and naturally did not want to see such a situation occur, which was why he had gathered the courage to advise Ruan Xing.

Then what could be done? Ruan Xing did not want to harm innocent people, and she couldn't rob the official treasury, so she could only sigh and give up the idea of exchanging the silver notes, saying regretfully, "Fine then. How is the annual tribute silver given? How much is it?"

Hong Xi reported in detail: "The annual net profit from the gang's industries is about twenty-three thousand taels. This is the income after taxes. Of this, fifty percent is used to purchase medicines and antiques for the Daoist, thirty percent is used to support gang members and maintain the gang's normal operations, and twenty percent is used for various gifts and bribes, with the Patrol Security Division alone taking half of that as a dividend."

Ruan Xing did a rough calculation; that meant over four thousand taels were sent out as gifts every year. It didn't sound like much, but for an ordinary Guan managing an area, no matter how greedy they were, they wouldn't reach this amount in five years.

Sigh, even if they did nothing, as long as they held the title of the Patrol Security Division, they had to be given money.

Ruan Xing felt a bit pained and didn't want to talk about this anymore, turning to ask: "What about the families of those people?"

"Temporarily detained, awaiting disposal," Hong Xi replied softly.

"Mm." Ruan Xing waved her hand, "You go down and rest first; we'll talk tomorrow."

Hong Xi bowed and withdrew. Ruan Xing was left alone in the study courtyard. She no longer suppressed her excitement and happily lunged toward one of the chests filled with silver ingots.

The lid was open, and the silver ingots inside were stacked in several full layers. Ruan Xing's small body could just fit lying on top of them. She stretched her body to find a comfortable position and squinted at the ink-blue night sky.

Although it was hard and a bit uncomfortable.

But the dream of sleeping on silver.

Had finally been realized! Falling asleep was impossible, not because it was uncomfortable, but because there were things to do! Ruan Xing only lay there for a moment before rolling off. She was just about to top up the Simulator with all the gold and silver in the chests when she suddenly stopped her hand.

This was the first time she had possessed so much money... could she trigger a bug?

Ruan Xing didn't know if it would work, but she wanted to try.

So she emptied one of the largest chests, transferred the contents to the floor, and then carefully packed all the gold inside. After packing the gold, there was still space, so Ruan Xing packed half a small chest of silver ingots, and used some small silver pieces to fill the gaps until it was overflowing and couldn't hold anything else, then she stopped.

Still feeling a bit uneasy, she took off her clothes and stripped naked.

Looking at the chest in front of her, Ruan Xing rubbed her hands excitedly and began the Simulation.

【Simulation in progress】

At six years old, you became the Gang Leader of the Red Head Gang... You used all your True Qi to strike your own heart with one palm, and you died.

【Simulation ended】

Please choose the reward for this simulation: 1, Memories at age six.

2, A random item from your person at age six.

3, a random skill mastered at age six.

4, the cultivation realm reached at age six.

She couldn't wait to choose two, and suddenly, a large black box appeared before her.

Two black boxes filled with gold and silver sat on the left and right, looking extremely symmetrical and pleasing; Ruan Xing's eyes sparkled, and her mouth opened into an 'o' shape.

It really works! Couldn't she just step on her left foot with her right and ascend to heaven, constantly simulating to become the world's richest person? Anyway, a simulation only costs her one tael of Silver now! Just as Ruan Xing prepared to repeat the trick, the Simulator suddenly emitted a busy signal interface as if it had broken down.

【Detecting……error……! Currently……ur……gently repairing!】

Oh no, she didn't crash the Simulator by triggering a bug, did she? Fortunately, after only a moment, the Simulator finished repairing and could be used normally, though a patch had been added: if she implanted the thought of self-harm into her simulated self again, she would no longer be able to choose the second option.

But it didn't matter; the Simulator hadn't taken back the wealth she had just obtained by triggering the bug. It wasn't bad to fleece the wool this one time; she roughly calculated that this large box contained the net worth of one and a half Pei Qianhu.

In Pei Qianhu's home, she had scavenged over two thousand in cash and four or five thousand taels in silver notes. As the Guan with the deepest pockets and most wealth in the Red Head Gang, he was able to save up such a fortune; other Guans did not have the extra income from managing gang industries that he did, so even if they were greedy, their net worth would only be four or five thousand.

The gold and silver items originally sent by Hong Xi were worth about thirty thousand taels, and there were over eighty thousand taels in silver notes. Now that she had conjured about ten thousand, she had forty thousand taels in cash.

She topped it all up into the Simulator and checked her panel.

Name: Ruan Xing

Age: Six years old

Skills: Gambling Entry, Talisman Entry Level, Dance Basics, Weaving Basics; Cultivation Art: Blood Refining Art; Realm: Acquired Realm

Points: 4,108,093. Over four million! Enough for the current Ruan Xing to simulate over forty thousand times.

Although in reality, Ruan Xing always had new Silver to top up before her points ran out, she still felt an inexplicable sense of urgency because of the Simulator's point scaling—the higher her cultivation, the more points it consumed.

Once she reached the world of Cultivation, money would certainly not be as easy to earn as it was in the mortal world. She had to save up more now to plan for her future cultivation foundation, not to mention she didn't know the exchange rate between Spirit Stones and gold and silver...

If the rate was absurd, she would immediately become a pauper once she reached the Cultivation realm and wouldn't be able to simulate as recklessly as she did now.

This was also one of the reasons why she dared not easily step onto the path of an Evil Cultivator.

After sighing with emotion, Ruan Xing began to settle down to do serious work.

She had to find a way to resolve the Red Head Gang's crisis through simulation.

Her initial thoughts were actually similar to Lu Youqi's; she didn't believe the City Lord would go on a killing spree to destroy the Red Head Gang and plunge Jiangning City into a new gang struggle. Wasn't it just about money? Anyway, she had no use for those silver notes and rare items, so why not give them to the City Lord? Plus, adding those culprits pushed out to take the blame, that should be sincere enough, right?

However, after simulating a few times, she felt something was off.

Every time she went to the City Lord Mansion to deliver gifts, the City Lord wouldn't accept them, and once the three-day deadline arrived, he would send the Qianling Guard to raid the Red Head Gang headquarters.

At first, she thought it was because the money was too little and the City Lord looked down on it, but she had already given away all the eighty thousand taels of silver notes and other valuable treasures she could take out, and the City Lord remained indifferent. She cursed the City Lord in anger, but she didn't die in the City Lord Mansion; she was just kicked out by the Qianling Guard.

Afterward, she tried a few more times, and no matter how insolent she was, the City Lord would not kill her in the City Lord Mansion.

The three-day deadline hadn't arrived, so he wouldn't kill her. Why? Could it be that the three-day deadline wasn't an excuse from the City Lord, but that he believed the Red Head Gang could actually provide the answer he wanted?

Ruan Xing recalled a sentence Young Master Liu had said to her.

"……He even sent a physician to examine my brother-in-law, and then concluded that the case was committed by the Red Head Gang……"

Having seen the state of the Assistant Prefect's soul leaving his body, he concluded it was the Red Head Gang's crime.

Could it be that the City Lord had seen Soul Separation Syndrome before?

Or perhaps, the City Lord had a grudge against Hongtou Daoren, and Hongtou Daoren had used magic to capture the soul of the City Lord's relative to threaten him, which was why the Red Head Gang established by Hongtou Daoren could run rampant in Jiangning City... This seemed quite possible, because in the many simulations where she didn't kill Hongtou Daoren, Hongtou Daoren not only went to Qiye's hall to capture her safe and sound a few days later, but even years later had the leisure to slowly curse her to death using sorcery.

This was enough to prove that killing an Assistant Prefect was nothing to Hongtou Daoren. As long as he was alive, the City Lord wouldn't touch the Red Head Gang because he held the City Lord's weakness in his hands.

The more Ruan Xing thought about it, the more she felt this was the case. Now that Hongtou Daoren was dead, the City Lord's pent-up frustration of several years had erupted, and he was taking the opportunity to vent his power on the Red Head Gang. The answer he wanted was some soul she didn't know about; if it couldn't be handed over in three days, he would make the Red Head Gang pay with their lives.

Ruan Xing looked at the Triangle Flag in her hand and was at a loss.

Soul Separation Syndrome didn't kill people, but turned them into vegetables who would slowly weaken for five or six years before dying naturally. The Assistant Prefect could be saved because it hadn't been more than three days, but the one in the City Lord Mansion... how many years had it been? She really had no way to deal with that!

(End of chapter)