Chapter 24: Clearing the Fog
"What are you thinking about?"
Looking at Ding Ning who seemed to be somewhat lost in thought, Wang Taixu said calmly, "Is it because you're a bit skeptical of what I said?"
"Nothing." Ding Ning shook his head, and after some thought, asked, "Does the business in the fish market have anything to do with your Two Tier House or Jin Lin Tang?"
Wang Taixu was slightly stunned, he didn't understand why Ding Ning would suddenly mention the fish market, but he still answered seriously, "No, that's truly upper tier business, lower tier people like us can't do that kind of big river business."
Ding Ning looked at Wang Taixu with contempt and said, "Legend has it that the people who make up most of the casino and flower house business are still lower class people?"
Wang Taixu shook his head, "Where is the exaggeration, at most accounted for a few percent of the business, and what we say about the upper and lower tiers is only related to the business object, the object of our business are ordinary marketplace characters and jianghu characters, while the business of the fish market involves a large sects and schools, temple characters, the great adversary and the great invaders, the kind of level of the characters, we entangled in a are dangerous, and also Only the truly great wisdom, great courage, great ability to do that kind of big river, at any time there is a river dragon trips through the business. This has to do with choice and heritage, and has nothing to do with whether or not there is money in hand, or whether or not there are a few powerful cultivators."
"Dragons have dragon paths, snakes have snake paths. Jiao dragons are born to be with jiao dragons, snakes, even if they turn into jiao dragons one day, don't have so much accumulation previously, and don't mix in the pool of jiao dragons, this is the so-called underpinnings, that's why in Changling the average aristocratic children and ordinary city children can't even play together." Ding Ning mused, "Listening to what you're saying, those who can qualify for that kind of business are also at least the kind of characters who come from a rank enough to be right."
Wang Taixu patiently said, "Those who can get in touch with large sects and temple figures are naturally not ordinary characters, and all of the rest of the gangs in Changling dare not intervene in the business of the Fish Market, nor do they dare to inquire about it. The rules of the fish market are set by 'Miss Shang', I only know that it is a woman, I only know that it must be extraordinary, exactly what is the origin and how did she come to this point, but I don't know anything."
"Jinlin Tang has no relationship with the fish market that's good." Ding Ning said calmly.
"It seems like you do have the potential to help me." Wang Taixu would have the wrong idea, he thought that Ding Ning was taking all such potentially relevant factors like the fish market into consideration, his eyes lit up with some strange flames of light, and he said in a deep voice, "Jinlin Tang's main business is actually some horse gangs and dart businesses, in addition to that, there are also some waterway transport businesses and military related, it's reasonable that no matter whether you're talking about their financial strength or their roots, it's not possible for them to compare with us. And perhaps you don't understand...in the business of the jianghu, although there are no laws and regulations, there are also many rules that have been agreed upon. A lot of what they did this time around was not minding the rules. We've been in Changling for so many years, and we've gotten along fairly well with other gangs, so after looking into it and thinking about it, we came to think that there were only two possibilities."
Ding Ning raised his eyebrows slightly, signaling that Wang Taixu could continue.
"One of those possibilities is that a dragon has suddenly come across the river, and there is suddenly an extremely powerful cultivator in Jinlin Tang. This kind of example is not unheard of, in the past, the Feng Shui Pier dispute in the north of the city was because the people from the Flying Fish Hall had a few more country bumpkins, and there happened to be a person surnamed Feng in those country bumpkins, who was an extremely powerful cultivator, just that he had not yet had the time to become famous in the small place. As a result, the Apricot Grove Nursery that eventually competed with the Flying Fish Hall was killed and chilled."
Wang Taixu lightly coughed several times and waited until his breathing was thoroughly regulated again before he said, "Since there was such an example in the first place, I thought of a way to deliberately give an opportunity that would allow them to assassinate me."
"That's why you've become false like this." Ding Ning smiled faintly and said, "This is indeed a good method... Jianghu gang battles are not the same as battles between cultivators, there are many ways to kill some individually powerful cultivators. For example, a crossbow and arrow array, a poison trap, or an assassination of an old, weak, woman or child. Now you are only weak, yet you are still alive, so what answer did you get from this kind of trial?"
"Other than some cultivators that we have already prepared for, there was no appearance of the kind of overgrown dragon-like characters that I was worried about." Wang Taixu's brows deeply furrowed once again, "So we feel that there is only one other possibility left, I'm afraid that there is some character in the temple who has taken a fancy to our piece of business."
"That's quite possible, after all, from what you've said, Jinlin Tang's business itself is connected to the Cao Transportation." Ding Ning frowned slightly, "In that case, yet it is not so bad that it can be fought over."
"I would like to hear your insights." Wang Taixu was unsurprised as he calmly looked at Ding Ning and said.
"In the entire Changling, the only people who don't need to consider His Majesty's thoughts are Minister Li and Minister Yan. But they shouldn't have the time would come to grab such a piece of meat, and according to those stories about the two of them...if they were to do it, it would either be that all of a sudden all of you would already have your doors full of people, or they would send someone very disciplined to do it slowly." Ding Ning raised his head to look at him and said seriously, "As for the other powerful people, they all have to take into account the thoughts of these two prime ministers and His Majesty the Emperor. So the cultivators in the dynasty are, in the end, His Majesty's property, and it has always been taboo to use the dynasty's power and cultivators to seek one's favor. Especially since the people of the city are also the people of the Great Qin Dynasty, using the dynasty's forces and practitioners who are His Majesty's private property to kill them, in case one of them is lost, it is very likely that these powerful people will not be able to bear the responsibility of such a crime. So if there's just some noble in the dynastic hall who has his eye on this piece of meat, it's not a particularly bad thing, you guys can still fight for it. They are limited in the power they can use to abduct seven or eight, and their hands are tied in doing things."
"I really haven't misjudged you." Wang Taixu's eyes grew bright, "Now what else do you need to know?"
Ding Ning asked, "I want to know about that trial that made you so vain, what price you made Jin Lin Tang pay, and what actions Jin Lin Tang is making right now that make you feel like you can't understand what you're looking at?"
"They left behind a total of fifty-three corpses, among them were six cultivators, and within the three of Jin, Lin, and Tang, only one, Tang Jiu, didn't show up, and both Xu Jin and Lin Qingdie were killed by us."
"So Jin Lin Tang is three people whose names come together?"
"Three brothers with different surnames who came out together from a small place in the countryside in the north to fight in the jianghu. There was no cultivator stronger than them within the Jinlin Tang, and no cultivator stronger than them appeared when they assassinated me."
Ding Ning listened carefully to these things in the bottom tier of the jianghu that he would normally find hard to access and understand, he then asked, "What was the cultivation level of Xu Jin and Lin Qingdie who were killed by you guys, and what was the cultivation level of Tang Lack?"
Wang Taixu said, "Xu Jin was at the upper rank of the fourth realm, and Lin Qingdie had already reached the lower rank of the fifth realm. As for Tang Lack, he should be at the upper rank of the fourth realm."
"Can you be sure that Tang Lack's cultivation level is not unexpected?" Ding Ning said.
Wang Taixu shook his head with extreme certainty, "It's certain that the reason he's not there is because he happens to be away from Changling and couldn't make it here for a while, not because he's in the Broken Realm or has a status far higher than the remaining two, as you may think."
Ding Ning nodded, "How are your losses?"
Wang Taixu glanced at him, "We didn't have too many losses."
Ding Ning said, "Then what's their next move?"
"Tang Jiu actually talked Fatty Zhang from Thunderstorm Hall into coming to negotiate with us." Wang Taixu took a deep breath and said, "This is what I can't figure out the most right now. Because if it were me, either I would have rolled the rest of the people together and fled out of Changling, or I would have made one more dying comeback and requested for some power that we don't know about. However, although the Thunderstorm Hall is not quite on the right card with us, wanting to get a bit of business from us, yet it is usually extremely disciplined. And having said that the place of negotiation is also inside our territory, we also have strict requirements for the people they come with, as long as they don't meet our requirements, I won't show up at all."
Ding Ning was silent for a few breaths of time, then said, "Not to mention the timing of the sky, at least the location and the people have all of you. To ask another significant Jianghu bigwig to make peace, how does it look like they're begging you guys to be magnanimous and not to cut down the number of people. So did they have any special requests for the people you arrived?"
Wang Taixu shook his head, "No."
Ding Ning smiled, "It doesn't matter if they let you bring more people?"
Wang Taixu looked at him, "Since it's in our territory, the place of negotiation is naturally set up by us."
"That's the problem."
Ding Ning looked at him seriously and said calmly, "I think I know why."
