Chapter 921

Yang Qin and Fan Cun led their men to the entrance of a pawnshop, looked up at the large sign with white characters on a black background that read "Wancheng Pawnshop," and sneered.

Behind them, an old man with a hunched back, smoking a pipe, followed them at a leisurely pace, trailing far behind.

On the floor above the street-level shop, a gaudily dressed woman pushed open the window, leaned against it, pinched a cigarette, and stared at them without any avoidance, looking as if she were watching the excitement.

Yang Qin deliberately looked up and glanced at her, saying to the leader, Protector Chai: "Look..."

"What are you looking at? It's just a half-open door; they've hooked your souls!"

Protector Chai, having been indoctrinated with the sect culture by the leading deacon, now had his mind entirely on his career.

He said sternly to the crowd: "This street is covered by the 'Hong Hong Sihai' gang of the North City. Wancheng Pawnshop is the largest shop on this street. Even if Huo Laojiu, the big hoodlum of Hong Hong Sihai, came here, he would have to speak politely. If you want to occupy this street and force the Hong Hong Sihai hoodlums to come out, you have to start from here..."

He led them inside and, in front of the shop assistant, said: "Do you know how the hoodlums of Dagukou demand money?"

Yang Qin deliberately put on a fierce look, but unexpectedly, the shop assistant was a man of the world; he raised his eyes but didn't even bother to look at them, grabbing a handful of melon seeds, leaning against the door, cracking them, and even spitting the shells at their feet.

Protector Chai smiled, and the composure revealed beneath his smile made the assistant's back feel cold; he stopped cracking the seeds!

"Your routine might work on country folk, but the assistants in Dagukou are all men of the world, let alone a pawnshop assistant. As the saying goes, a pawnshop assistant is worth half a teahouse or restaurant manager. People have seen your routine many times!"

He pointed at the door frame of the pawnshop and said: "See that?"

Yang Qin leaned in, but apart from a few nail marks, he saw nothing.

Protector Chai laughed: "The hoodlums of Dagukou demand money by using 'climbing nails' to nail their own mouths to the door frame, and it's not over until they get the money. That look of baring fangs and blood flowing can scare a countryman to death. Even then, they can't get much money! You count, how many nails are on this?"

The assistant stopped smiling, grabbed a handful of melon seeds, and straightened up respectfully.

Yang Qin counted; there were over twenty nails in total.

"This is just for demanding money. If we want to occupy this territory, it won't be over without seven or eight lives! Huo Laojiu, the leader of the gang in this area, has added more than a hundred graves to the mass grave just to take over the North City." Protector Chai smiled: "This Wancheng Pawnshop is the biggest business on the whole street. If we cause trouble, the proprietor can handle it himself; at most, he'll just attract a few small hoodlums. It's not easy to make the proprietor change who he pays..."

"Back then, when Huo Laojiu took this place, he used Wancheng Pawnshop as his first target. When he brought his men, one hoodlum dug out an eye and nailed it to the door frame, wanting to keep watch for the proprietor. Later, after a gang war with the previous group, he established his position."

Protector Chai smiled slightly at the assistant who was already preparing to find the manager.

"Don't be busy; we aren't here for money!"

After saying this, he stood straight at the door and said to Yang Qin: "Later, take my head back; my body is to stay here to keep watch!"

Having said that, he twisted his hair into a bun, drew his blade, and wiped it across his neck. His entire head fell from his neck, and his right hand grabbed the hair and hung it there.

The blood that shot into the sky sprayed the shop's door vermilion.

Seeing Protector Chai's eyes tightly closed and his teeth clenched firmly in his hand, Yang Qin was dumbfounded. He subconsciously took the head handed over by Protector Chai's headless corpse. Another protector stepped forward and said to the assistant and the manager who had rushed over: "Our man standing here is a guest. He has 'dead-pawned' a mouthful of blood and a life! But this half-body is 'live-pawned'... He stands here and will not fall; you are not allowed to touch him!"

Then he said to Yang Qin and Fan Cun: "Let's go, wait for Huo Laojiu to come and beg us..."

The Reincarnators were well-informed, but they had never seen this before!

The manager of Wancheng Pawnshop chased after them, took out some silver, and distributed it to them, saying: "Take it for tea! Take it for tea... You gentlemen should leave your names, and the shop will naturally have gifts sent over. We will also cover the funeral expenses for that gentleman, covered! Don't miss the seventh day!"

Another protector took the silver, smiling but not smiling, and said: "Do you really think Old Chai needs to be buried?"

"We worship the Bright Venerable and believe in the Xuanjun. If you cut off our heads, we won't die; the dead will rise again! Can a dead person die again? You go back and think about it carefully; there are no living people in this world. Only by believing in our sect and serving the flesh and blood of the Tai Sui can one be considered to have a breath!"

"This tea money and funeral expenses are unnecessary!"

He stuffed the silver back: "This is not your business! Our All Xuanzhen Sect is here to save the world! You all! Just wait quietly to enjoy your blessings!"

The manager was sweating profusely, and upon hearing that they were from the All Xuanzhen Sect, he dared not move even more.

People knew what hoodlums wanted, but the sect members were all a bunch of lunatics; no one knew what they wanted.

At the entrance of "Wancheng Pawnshop" on Hebei Street, a headless corpse stood there.

The nearby neighbors had long since hidden behind their own doors when Protector Chai cut off his head, peeking through the cracks, and passersby walked around the pawnshop.

In this way, there was no business left.

In addition, the patrolmen in the city had all been transferred to the Sancha River estuary outside the city. A few stinky patrolmen came once, but they couldn't move the corpse, so they didn't dare to touch it again and told the people at Wancheng Pawnshop to pack up.

But the headless corpse blocked the door, and four or five people couldn't pull it away, so they couldn't even close the door.

Huo Laojiu and his group got the news and rushed over.

Seeing a headless body standing there at the head, even without a head, it was eight feet tall. Huo Laojiu's heart jumped when he heard the assistant finish describing the scene, but he was quite shrewd and didn't show it on his face.

Circling the corpse twice, Huo Laojiu gave a wink to his men.

Three burly hoodlums under his command rolled up their sleeves, hugged Protector Chai's waist and legs, planted their feet on the ground, and exerted force, but the corpse didn't move at all.

Huo Laojiu's expression changed!

He pushed the others aside and stepped forward himself. The green dragon tattooed on his arm suddenly had its scales bristle, and a pair of dragon eyes suddenly opened, revealing blood red. Huo Laojiu originally had the build of an ape-armed, wasp-waisted man, but now his arms were engorged with blood and swollen, thicker than an ordinary person's thighs!

He hugged Protector Chai's corpse around the waist, and the five toes of his two feet gripped the ground like a tiger.

"Rise!"

Huo Laojiu let out a violent shout, and the green dragon tattooed on his arm seemed to come alive, swimming on his arms. His thick body hair stood up like needles. With a pull like this, even a tree as thick as a waist should have been uprooted!

But Protector Chai's corpse didn't move a bit.

Huo Laojiu's blood and qi surged to his face. The cloth shoes on his feet burst, and his five toes gripped the bluestone slab under his feet like meat pads. The immense power seemed to want to uproot the entire Wancheng Pawnshop.

This surge of blood and qi was fierce to the extreme, actually spraying out from Huo Laojiu's pores, turning into clusters of blood mist that wrapped around him.

Accompanied by a sharp shout, the blood mist was ignited and turned into yang fire, burning Huo Laojiu's entire body. Sticking to Protector Chai's clothes, it immediately flared up as if gasoline had been poured on it.

"Three steps into the courtyard to watch the moonlight!"

The old manager of Wancheng Pawnshop looked at this scene in a daze and couldn't help but sigh: "I didn't expect Huo Laojiu's kung fu hadn't declined. After not making a move for these years, he has actually improved! Blood clouds pouring into the body, secret arts connecting to the divine! This is the strange phenomenon of the Green Dragon Fist—'Fire-Burning Clouds'!"

"It's a pity he couldn't pour the blood clouds into his crown; he was one step short."

Just as the fierce and explosive Fire-Burning Clouds were burning his blood and yang qi, incinerating all evil spirits.

Threads of black, grease-like mucus emerged from Protector Chai's corpse.

These threads of mucus were forced out from Protector Chai's headless neck by the yang fire. From the white cervical vertebrae, yellow nerves, pale yellow fat, and pink muscles, threads of black fungal mucus emerged.

At this moment, Protector Chai's corpse suddenly moved. His right hand formed a blade, and as if by reflex, he raised it and slashed out amidst the burning yang fire.

The Fire-Burning Clouds on Huo Laojiu's body suddenly extinguished, and he stood there in a daze.

Suddenly, his head fell off, and the headless corpse in front of him caught the head and placed it on its own neck.

The entire process was as smooth as flowing water.

At this moment, another headless corpse fell.

Instead, the corpse with Huo Laojiu's head took a proud step forward. The little assistant watching from the side was so scared that his legs shook like chaff, and a stream of yellow water flowed down his trouser legs. He let out a loud cry and ran away, tumbling and crawling.

The old manager also suddenly lost his voice and returned to the pawnshop in silence.

Only the hoodlums of the Hong Hong Sihai gang, who were standing in the back, didn't see what had happened. They only saw a headless corpse with blood spraying from its neck fall down, while their boss stood majestically, his tiger eyes wide open, staring at them.

The younger brothers in the back cheered in unison: "Good!"

"Boss Huo is great!"

But the few hoodlums in the front were pale.

"What's wrong?"

"The one without a head is Huo Laojiu!"

"That's not right! Who is the one with the head?"

"The one with the head is Huo Laojiu's head on someone else's body!"

The surrounding neighbors discussed it heatedly, and the shops on both sides closed their doors...

At this moment, the hoodlums finally reacted.

Someone went up to look, and sure enough, the headless corpse was wearing Huo Laojiu's clothes, while the body under Huo Laojiu's head was clearly much taller, and there was a black line between the head and the neck.

The hoodlums scattered in a rush, and Huo Laojiu stood at Wancheng Pawnshop for a day and a night.

The next day, people from the All Xuanzhen Sect came to collect the body, and the old manager of Wancheng Pawnshop stood at the door himself, carrying a gift box.

After Yang Qin arrived, he respectfully presented the gift box and said: "From now on, the monthly 'ice tribute' and 'coal tribute' for this shop, as well as the tea money for all the brothers, will not be a penny short. Whatever we gave Huo Laojiu, we will add thirty percent more to honor your sect!"

Yang Qin laughed: "If there is any news on the street, or if our sect has any activities, we might need to borrow the manpower and resources of your shop?"

"Just ask!" the old manager said sincerely.

Yang Qin then made a round of the street, sending gifts to every shop.