Silence.

The words rang out through the crowd, forcing everyone to shut their mouths abruptly. A look of incredulity was on the face of everyone in the area. The head guard, Xiao Hei, looked like a sheet of paper - his face devoid of any emotion. Ye Xiaofan had frozen, except for his shade which was currently switching through all of the colours of the rainbow. A thick vein in his temple had started twitching.

The silence was interrupted by a snicker, then a cough and then a giggle, and before long everyone in the crowd was doubled over - laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.

“He-he said that he would fuck his own sister for a slice of cheese!” Someone was on the ground wheezing as they shrieked.

“Fart in the toilet and then flush it! Fart in the toilet and then flush it!” Another was repeating the words while clutching onto his ribs.

One of the golden guards shot a glare of pure venom towards the crowd but this time… it was futile.

“Wang Tao… what a genius in the art of roasting! I have never seen such realm of perfection in the dao of the roast! Wang Tao isn’t just a roast master… he’s the Roast God!”

“Roast God!”

“Roast God!”

The crowd began to chant, whooping and hollering, proclaiming Travis as their god.

Ye Xiaofan looked inhuman at this point, and a sub-zero mist snaked out of him towards Travis, freezing everything in its path. The crowd stopped rejoicing, wary of the merit law Ye Xiaofan had learnt.

Travis looked at the cloud of frost winding towards him and blanched. Ye Xiaofan was way too strong for him to handle, but Travis snorted. He had had a plan this whole time. He glanced at Li Dong who looked back and nodded. Travis activated a technique that Wang Tao had learned previously. Travis and Li Dong shut their eyes as tight as possible. Travis yelled,

“Flashbang, nigga!” A piercing flash of light came from Travis’s palm. Ye Xiaofan, his guards and everyone in the crowd collapsed as the light burnt their retinas, and collapsed to the ground clutching their faces.

Travis and Li Dong fled in the midst of the chaos.

“Fuck, fuck it hurts so much!”

Disoriented, Ye Xiaofan screamed. He had never felt so humiliated in his life. First, he had been insulted worse than he had ever been insulted. Then, he had been subjected to the worst pain he had ever felt. Ye Xiaofan eventually recovered, but seeing his guards sprawled all over the ground, and the missing figures of Wang Tao and Li Dong, he looked up in the sky and yelled to vent his frustrations.

“Wang Tao, from today on, the Silver Wolf Gang and you are sworn enemies!” With tears flowing down his face, Ye Xiaofan was reminded of the mind numbing roast he had been subjected to and a heat bubbled up his throat. A river of blood sprayed from Ye Xiaofan; his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground - his mouth twisted into a frightening grimace.

While running back to Travis’s shack, Travis and Li Dong heard the howls of madness behind them. They giggled as they ran, indistinguishable from a pair of friends who had just pulled a successful prank. Side by side with Li Dong, with the wind in his hair, Travis felt for the first time that he belonged in Jiang Hu.

They stopped running when they got back. With a blinding smile on his face Li Dong stuck his thumb up at Travis.

“Great plan! What I would have given to have seen Ye Xiaofan’s face when he was screaming!” Li Dong trembled. “It would have been hilarious.” Li Dong cackled as he imagined Ye Xiaofan’s current sorry state.

Travis chuckled. “A man knows when to retreat, especially when retreat gives you such a huge victory.”

“Oh right, those insults were crazy! What were they calling you? ‘Roast God?’ My heart nearly fell out of my chest when I heard you say those things. Are you not afraid of Ye Xiaofan coming after you with all his power now? You have dishonoured the Ye clan.” Li Dong was back to his worrywart self after the high wore down.

Travis sighed. “They’re definitely going to come back at us harder than ever. We’re going to have to take care of ourselves.” Travis remembered something. “How hungry must you be now? You still haven’t gotten a chance to eat yet have you?”

Thunder rumbled. Travis looked towards the sky, but all he saw was a clear blue without any clouds. He looked back down, and saw Li Dong sheepishly looking back at him.

“Th-that was your stomach?” Travis asked with his mouth hanging open.

“I’m starving.” Li Dong stared at the dirt, hoping the ground could swallow him up.

Travis empathised with Li Dong. When he first dropped into the world, he had bore the brunt of Wang Tao’s immense hunger. Now that he had found weed he didn’t have to feel so hungry any more, but he still remembered what it felt like.

Li Dong looked up and grinned, and slung an arm around Travis’s shoulder. “Well, it doesn’t matter, I’m sure I’ll forget about it if I smoke enough!” He lead Travis into the house.

‘Isn’t he more eager than I am to smoke? Have I created a weed-smoking monster?’

***

In a dark room, a kid was hunched over the only source of light, which was a gaslamp inside a cage. The cage was massive, and housed a miniature bedroom. There was a four poster bed, canvassed with fine silks, a white tigerskin rug and fine oak furniture.

On the bed, weirdly enough, a pair of mice were in the middle of… sex. The kid was staring intently at the activity, muttering something intelligible under his breath. As the pair of mouse lovers got friskier and friskier, the kid’s grunts grew louder and louder until they orgasmed and he screamed alongside them, his shrieks intertwining with the tiny yelps of the mice. He suddenly stood up, and pulled a perfumed handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He wiped the minute beads of sweat off his face and slumped into a fine oak chair. Apart from the chair and the cage, there was seldom any furniture in the room apart from a portrait of a strikingly beautiful thirteen year old girl. She had pale blonde hair, almost platinum, and had the sweetest expression - almost as if she had been caught in the midst of something naughty by her lover. The painting had splotches of unexplainable white stains on it.

The kid swaggered up to the painting and put his finger to her cherry lips. “Shh” he said. “Wait for me my darling, my sweet. Once I take care of that trash Lei Wei and his gang, it’ll be but a matter of time before we meet again and I can be by your side.” Saying Lei Wei’s name was extremely hard for him - his mouth grimaced before he spat it out as if he had almost swallowed poison.

He put his mouth to the girl’s ear. “Then, I’ll fuck you like a mouse,” he whispered.

Someone knocked at the door. The kid’s lips twisted, and he turned red. “Didn’t I tell you not to interrupt me when I was having my private time?” He shouted ferociously. The person at the door pushed the door open with so much force it hit the wall behind it.

Now the kid was even more angry. “How dare-“

The person at the door ran in and kneeled. “I’m sorry boss, but this news is urgent! Ye Xiaofan of the Silver Wolf Gang was bested by Wang Tao! You said that we had to report any major developments pertaining to the Silver Wolf Gang within a minute of them happening or you would ‘flay us and serve our boiled testicles to our mothers!’.”

The kid calmed down, and coughed. “I did say that but… just tell me what happened.” He waved his hand and sat down in his chair, nodding at his lackey to speak.

After the lackey explained what had happened, the kid rubbed his chin. “You’re talking about Wang Tao and Li Dong? Who are they?”

“Well, this subordinate doesn’t remember them, but they seem to have been two of the pushovers we used to extort for pills on pill allocation day. It seems as though they hid their cultivation for whatever reason.”

The kid shook his head. Suspicion filled his gaze. “No…no… that’s not what my instinct is telling me. If they were so strong, why would they let us take their pills? I refuse to believe that they would kowtow if they had the strength not to. There’s no way that they don’t even have a sliver of pride.

“But what’s the point of debating human nature. Let us look at the facts. They have smacked the face of the Silver Wolf Gang, which is amazing. They would be splendid for my plans.” An evil smile crept across his face. He looked down at his subordinate with a menacing, excited look in his eyes.

“Go to Wang Tao. Tell him that Chen Jian wants to meet him!” Chen Jian waved his subordinate off and turned around to look at the portrait of the mesmerising girl. He smiled madly.

He could smell the fornication in the air.