[I told you might makes right. Cultivators only care if someone is stronger than them and if they are, they better be stronger than their whole clan, sect, family otherwise they won’t care. They might respect you for your strength, but if you have something they want. Then you better watch out.]

So I pretty much need to get as strong as possible, as fast as possible?

[That would be helpful, but the system can give you things to help protect you. You will have to buy them though.]

Of course I will. Nothing is ever easy with you.

[Life itself is not easy, why should the system be?]

Fair enough.

After everyone is done crying and looks somewhat calmed down, Zhi says. “I am sorry for your loss and I thank you for sharing with me.”

It’s another minute or so before Yongzheng says, “Thank you for listening, but we became a little side tracked. You were talking about your problem and what to do with Mo Pengfei and his thugs.”

“That is correct, actually it’s a little more complicated than that. I was using my skill this morning and overheard a couple of their people who were watching me and Zhao. They will most likely kidnap the Hai family to use as hostages against me in the next few days. After they get me to pay them back, they will most likely kill us all. At least according to what I overheard.”

Yongzheng nods his head before replaying, "That would be consistent with what those types of people do. There are a few "families" that run rackets in the city. Each one acts about the same and whenever someone goes against them, they always make a public example."

Meifeng adds in, "They are almost worse than cultivators, mostly because they are always around. But as long as you pay for their "protection” they tend to leave you alone.”

Zhi looks over at Yongzheng and asks, “Do you pay this “protection fee” to Mo?”

Yonzheng shakes his head as he says, “We are in the territory of Long Guowei, so we pay him. There is also Xue Lei, Shi Jianjun and Zhou Tao who run the outer city split between themselves along with Mo Pengfei. You could also kinda add in Feng Fenfang to that list, but she only cares about her brothel and the health of her workers.”

“What about the walled off city where the city lord is? Does anyone run a racket in that area.?”

Yongzheng shakes his head again, as he says. “As far as I know the city lord has stamped out crime in the walled area where his city guard works. But anything outside those walls the guard doesn’t patrol or really care about.”

“Alright, so if I made a move on Mo and his goons. Would anyone stop me?”

“I doubt it, the other families would be happy and try to split up the territory. The city guard won’t leave the walled city, and the only way the city lord would come look is if you showed off being a cultivator. He would most likely just come out to invite you to his home and be his guest. That is what he does for any cultivator that comes through town.”

Zhi sits quietly for a while as he thinks on what he should do. After a while he finally says, “I think I have an idea of what to do. But I will need some help, also do you have a spare bedroom?”

Yongzheng nods and says, “We do have a few spare bedrooms, what is your plan?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later Zhi leaves their home and goes about his day. As he is walking around he is paying close attention to everyone around him with his spirit sense. But no one is following him personally. The two people who were outside the restaurant never followed him and Zhi even went out of his way to change his appearance as he walked around the market. No one was tracking him at all. After divining some peoples talents and then cooking dinner for the Hai’s and training Zhao, his day didn’t change much from the last few days.

In the morning their routine was the same, wake up, train, find something to eat on the way to work. Then Zhi would watch Zhao and give him pointers on anything he found wrong in his technique. He left the restaurant early today after giving Yongzheng, Meifeng and Xiulan their bribe of food for the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the men watching the Hai’s house says, “You know today is weird, normally we would see Qiangs wife leave for work by now and Qiang himself wouldn’t be too far behind.”

The other man replies, “You are thinking too much, I am sure they will leave their home any moment. Look, there is Hai Ya now.”

Stepping out of the front of the house is Hai Ya, she has a bundle on her back. After walking out the door she yells into the house, “Make sure you meet me at my work in an hour Qiang, we will leave from there.” No reply can be heard from the house as she closes the door and walks off. About twenty minutes later Hai Qiang walks out of the home with a bundle on his back. He walks down the street following the way Ya went.

The second man says, “See they both left for the day. No big deal.”

The first one replies with, “Ya but why did they have packs on? Also Ya said something about leaving from her work? Are they going somewhere?”

The second man says, “If you really want to know, go and follow them.”

The first man laughs and says, “No way, the orders were to watch the house. I am not gonna get in trouble for not following orders.”

The second man laughs and says, “If that's the case, then stop thinking about all kinds of random stuff. So we should have about five or six hours before anyone comes back, wanna play cards?”

The first man pulls out a set of cards and replies, “Sure one iron bit a game.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that night and even the next day the two men see no sign of Hai Ya or Hai Qiang. They never returned after leaving with those packs, but they did see Zhi and Zhao go about their normal routine. The next day it was the same, only Zhi and Zhao came in and out of the home. They left early in the morning, then came back later in the day.

First man, “Looks like Diang and his wife went somewhere. The boss won’t be happy if they aren’t here when our mission is done.”

The second man replies, “It will be fine, worst case they come back in a few days. Our orders were to watch the home and that is what we have been doing. He probably put other people to watch other places or even the family themself.”

The first man nods his head and says, “That would make sense, no reason not to have someone following them. Tomorrow morning I will stay and watch the house. You go back and report our findings.”

The second man nods his head and says, “Sounds good, I will go grab us some dinner. What do you want?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning the second man reports back with their findings and that Hai Qiang and his wife left with packs three days ago and have yet to return home. Another man from the restaurant team reports back with their findings. The man or rather boy is named Ming Zhi and is a guest chef to the restaurant and all he is doing is teaching the Hai boy how to cook. He only trains him in the morning and leaves before the restaurant opens for the day.

Mo Pengfei wasn’t happy, but he could still make this work. He just needed the boy. Pengfei looked over the few men in the room. He glances at his lieutenants, the one who caused this whole thing in the first place. After a moment he says, “Xu Hui you take a couple men and take the boy on his way home from work. Bring the boy to me after you catch him. Once we have the boy here, you will take some men to go find Ming Zhi and bring him to me.”

Xu Hui looks over at the men in the room and after pointing at a few of them he says, “You guys come with me.”

Xu Hui and his lackeys leave their compound and make their way over to The Blue Jewel restaurant and meet up with the man who was left to watch it. After finding which way the boy would walk to get home, they took that path and waited. It was later in the day when they finally saw Hai Zhao walking down the street. He was followed by the man watching the restaurant. As he got closer to their position Xu Hui stepped out into the middle of the alleyway in front of Zhao.

Zhao stops walking and looks at the man in front of him. After a moment he looks a little shocked and says, “Hello, is there something I can help you with?”

Xu Hui smiles as his two men move out of cover to each side of Zhao. Zhao glances at them both and then behind himself to see the other man behind himself. Zhao doesn’t say a word but crouches down a little looking like he is about to run. The men around him tense up and each of them pulls out a small club.

Xu Hui doesn’t do anything but he says, “I wouldn’t suggest trying to run, you won’t be hurt if you just come with us quietly.”

Zhao doesn’t say anything, instead he just runs straight at Xu Hui who is about ten feet from him. He catches everyone off guard with his action, and within a moment Zhao is jumping up and using his momentum to carry himself forward. He grabs Xu Hui by the head and slams his knee right into the man's nose. The force of the blow carries Zhao and Xu Hui a few feet, Xu Hui lands on his back dazed with blood pouring from his broken nose. Zhao lands on his feet and continues to run down the alley.

The other three men are stunned at the boy's action and don’t move until they hear the boy yell at them from down the alleyway, “SUCK IT LOSERS!”