Chapter 1: Leopard Tooth

As night fell, the city of Qingyuan, under the twilight, was brilliantly lit. Qingyuan, under the jurisdiction of Yidong Province, is located at the intersection of three provinces and is the largest city in the western part of Yidong Province. Surrounded by towering mountains for hundreds of miles, Qingyuan City shone like a brilliant pearl in the night sky, radiating a captivating luster amidst the mountains.

Of course, it couldn't compare to true metropolises.

As the top "big brother" in Qingyuan City, Chen Guo was no bumpkin. He had been to many places and seen many sights. The capital, Mingzhu, Jiangkou, and Shancheng—these most prosperous metropolises in the country—Chen Guo had all visited. They were indeed impressive, but Chen Guo felt nothing. In those cities, he had no roots, no status, and no one recognized him. Only when he returned to Qingyuan City could Chen Guo regain the feeling of being a big shot.

Now, Chen Guo leaned on the railing of the second-floor corridor, his mouth holding his most beloved leopard tooth pipe, looking very content. This leopard tooth was taken from the mouth of a hungry adult leopard he had personally killed in the deep mountains years ago. After so many years, Chen Guo still seemed to feel a trace of the fierce aura of that ferocious leopard from the leopard tooth pipe.

In Qingyuan City, Chen Guo had every reason to be proud.

For example, the magnificent Qingyuan Grand Hotel at his feet, standing twelve stories tall, was the largest, most luxurious, and most extravagant hotel in Qingyuan City. It was a place of nightly revelry and daily extravagance. For the western mountainous area of Yidong Province, where the average annual income was less than 2,000 yuan, the high consumption at the Qingyuan Grand Hotel was simply unimaginable.

It was said that staying in the most luxurious suite at the Qingyuan Grand Hotel for one night would cost an ordinary person's entire annual income. If you wanted to do something else, your annual income would be far from enough.

Not to mention the mountain dwellers deep in the mountains, even ordinary office workers in Qingyuan City could only look up to the Qingyuan Grand Hotel and dare not step inside. Those who could enter the Qingyuan Grand Hotel were all extremely wealthy people, either rich or powerful.

From this, it can be seen how much the people of Qingyuan revered and admired the owner of this hotel, the big boss Chen Guo.

Of course, most people in Qingyuan were a bit puzzled as to why such a remote mountain city could support such a luxurious hotel, and they wondered where all the wealthy people who frequented the hotel came from.

They definitely weren't from Qingyuan, at least not all of them.

Qingyuan couldn't possibly have so many wealthy big bosses.

The secret was on the twelfth floor of the Qingyuan Grand Hotel.

Right under Chen Guo's feet.

The entire twelfth floor was a huge hall, covering an area of over a thousand square meters.

Dozens of luxurious crystal chandeliers illuminated the entire hall as bright as daylight.

There were also quite a few people in the hall, including the hotel staff, probably a hundred or two. With two hundred people spread out in a hall of over a thousand square meters, it didn't feel very crowded.

Chen Guo believed that among these guests, some might have more wealth than him, perhaps even several times or ten times more.

In today's world, there were indeed too many wealthy and powerful people.

Chen Guo knew how vast the outside world was.

In cities like Jiangkou and Mingzhu, the number of millionaires might exceed the entire population of Qingyuan City.

Qingyuan City was the largest herbal medicine trading center at the intersection of the southwestern three provinces. More than half of Qingyuan City's fiscal revenue depended on this herbal medicine market.

And the Qingyuan Grand Hotel was the highest-end trading place for precious herbs.

Those who could come to the twelfth-floor hall of the Qingyuan Grand Hotel for transactions were not ordinary people. They included major herbal medicine merchants, powerful figures in the underworld, highly skilled hermits, and even government officials with hidden identities.

No matter who you were, as long as you had the qualifications to enter the trading hall of the Qingyuan Grand Hotel, you were absolutely safe. Here, no one would investigate your background, no one would ask about the origin of your trading items, and you didn't have to worry about exposing your wealth.

Chen Guo, known as "Seventh Master Chen," absolutely guaranteed your safety.

A man without integrity cannot stand.

This was a truth Chen Guo had learned after many years in the underworld. Because he understood this, Chen Guo was able to transform from a pharmacy apprentice into the ruler of Qingyuan City's underworld, known as "Seventh Master Chen" in the underworld, the leader of the outer three halls of the Gelaohui, and a prominent figure among the Pao Ge.

In the entire Yidong, Bashu, and Shancheng provinces, anyone who saw Chen Guo would respectfully call him "Seventh Master." Only the head of the Pao Ge in Shancheng, Third Master Huang, could influence Seventh Master Chen.

In Qingyuan, no one could pose a real threat to Seventh Master Chen.

Unless it was a big shot from the provincial capital, Lingyan City, in Yidong Province, who could make Chen Guo feel a sense of awe.

After all, the times had changed, and the power of the government was not something the underworld could resist. Otherwise, Chen Guo wouldn't spend so much money every year to maintain connections.

To rule the underworld of Qingyuan, you needed the protection of powerful figures on the surface. Without that, it was impossible.

Chen Guo was always very clear about this.

A big shot from the provincial capital could destroy Chen Guo's vast empire in Qingyuan and his years of hard work with just a small finger.

Fortunately, the Qingyuan Grand Hotel was just a place for trading herbs, and at most, some entertainment. It wasn't a big deal.

Chen Guo hadn't been involved in bloody affairs for a long time.

In Qingyuan City, no one dared to defy Seventh Master Chen. Unless they were truly tired of living and eager to die, Seventh Master Chen would let them have their way, but it would be out of necessity.

There were probably less than a hundred real guests among the one or two hundred people in the hall, with the rest being staff, not fewer than the guests, and the service was very thorough.

Since they were all "masters," they had to be treated with the respect due to a "master." This rule could not be abandoned anywhere.

This was also why Seventh Master Chen and the Qingyuan Grand Hotel were so popular with guests.

Who cared about money among the guests who could come to the twelfth-floor hall of the Qingyuan Grand Hotel? What they cared about was enjoyment and face, and they could not be wronged.

Chen Guo treated guests like masters, and the guests treated him like a master.

Every time the trading session opened, Chen Guo would personally come to oversee it, fearing that someone might cause trouble. No one in Qingyuan City dared to cause trouble in Seventh Master Chen's place, but that didn't mean others wouldn't. There were many wealthy and powerful people among the guests.

Seventh Master Chen and the Qingyuan Grand Hotel's reputation could not be tarnished.

Chen Guo, holding the leopard tooth pipe, squinted his eyes and slowly scanned the hall.

Chen Guo was in his early forties, with a standard build and no trace of a belly. Over the years, Chen Guo had never truly neglected his martial arts skills, which he had learned from his old master when he was an apprentice at the pharmacy. It wasn't until his master's death that Chen Guo learned that this old man had once been a notorious figure among the twelve protectors of the Pao Ge, known for his "Yanluo Medicine Hands," which had claimed the lives of many heroes and villains.

Without this foundation, Chen Guo wouldn't have dared to go into the mountains alone to gather herbs or fight a starving leopard bare-handed. He had broken three of the leopard's fangs, leaving only one intact, which he carved into a pipe.

Chen Guo's eyes were very sharp. As he slowly scanned the one or two hundred people in the hall, he could clearly distinguish each person. For a martial artist, poor eyesight was a major taboo, and even with diligent practice, their achievements would be limited.

Suddenly, Seventh Master Chen's eyebrows twitched.

He saw two new faces.

Very young.

They were a young man and a young woman, and Chen Guo's eyes lingered on them for a long time.

The two young people were seated at table number 27.

The layout of the trading hall at the Qingyuan Grand Hotel was similar to an exhibition, with each guest having one or several independent seats, sofas, coffee tables, and glass display cases. Guests placed their precious herbs in the glass display cases or directly on the coffee tables to trade with other guests.

The coffee tables and glass display cases were small and exquisite, but that was enough. The items traded here were all rare and high-quality, such as six-leaf old mountain ginseng, shaped polygonum, and natural snow spirits from the depths of Miaojiang. These treasures were not uncommon in the trading hall of the Qingyuan Grand Hotel, which was not a roadside stall.

Good things don't need to be numerous.

The coffee table and glass display case at table number 27 were clean and empty, with nothing visible.

These two guests had not yet taken out their items for trading.

However, what Chen Guo was interested in was not the herbs but these two people. They were both in their twenties. The young man was wearing a plain white Tang suit, clearly made of linen, not silk, and was wearing old cloth shoes. He was of medium height, and sitting down, it was hard to tell his height, but he was probably around 1.78 meters tall. He had a delicate and scholarly appearance, and he didn't look like a wealthy businessman, a government official, or a powerful underworld figure. He had a bit of the air of a hermit.

Holding a blue-and-white porcelain cup, he slowly sipped his tea, looking very gentle and unassuming, with no sharp edges. If it weren't for his youthful appearance, one might think he was a middle-aged man over forty.

The young woman standing next to him was dressed very simply, the kind of plain young girl you could see on the streets of Qingyuan. She had shoulder-length black hair, a very pretty and pure face, and gave a first impression of being clean and fresh.

Not the usual kind of clean, but fresh and clear.

Over the years, Chen Guo had seen too many young girls with heavy makeup, coquettish and flirtatious, who called themselves "old lady" at the age of fifteen and were eager to announce to the world that they were not virgins.

Such clean and fresh girls were rare.

The young girl stood quietly next to the man, unusually still.

Suddenly, Chen Guo felt a dizziness in his head.

Chen Guo was startled and quickly regained his composure, unsure where the dizziness came from, perhaps because he had stared at the girl for a moment too long.

How could this happen?

Chen Guo's face changed slightly, feeling a bit uncomfortable.