“What do you mean why did I do this?! How long have you been in the store!? Do you think with our current traffic grandma and I are able to survive with that amount of shoppers?!” Shawn was not happy when Jianmen asked him why he would involve himself and Nan into these illegal, unethical not to mention extremely dangerous trades: “We don’t have any money saved up for backup and we have a hefty bank loan on both this house and the store. We don’t necessarily have a choice here!”

“Okay, understood. But do you have an exit strategy?” Jianmen sighed, he was never the judgmental type, especially now that the bad choices were made already: “I mean, at least have a plan to have a foot out the door?”

“No.” Shawn sat down by the side of the kitchen with his head low and eyes staring at the ground: “And I checked out what that son of a bitch Yedong said - it’s true, the Zhang family mob took control over this part of town. They’re now sending their goons to visit all of the dealers and even suppliers in the area, calling it ‘regrouping and reorganizing’ their resources. And those two we sent away were sent by them for real - they actually held Yewei hostage and I had to buy them off with the meth and some cash.”

“But not the scroll?” Jianmen asked with a frown: “Did you give them the scroll?”

“No! Of course not!” Shawn shook his head then looked up at Jianmen: “Why are you so concerned with the scrolls?”

“Well… ” Jianmen thought for a while, then decided to come up with a simple answer: “Antique smuggling and trading can be a pretty serious crime. And the appraised value of them can often be inflated and become a terrible card against you in court.”

“Yeah, I’d think about that when I get caught. But now I am still trying to feed myself and grandma.” Shawn sighed: “Tomorrow I’ll go to the old Chinatown and contact the buyer. Then I’ll see if I can get enough cash to please the Zhangs and not mess with our supply channel.”

“Okay. Do you need me to accompany you?” Jianmen sighed and asked.

“What? No! You don’t need to, that’ll be a bad idea.” Shawn immediately refused: “None of them know you, and it will raise a lot of suspicion.”

“You can say I am your bodyguard.” Jianmen shrugged: “I can fight. Normal spec op guys are no match for me.”

“Woah, cooking, selling, accounting and fighting, what can’t you do?” Shawn chuckled and asked: “But no. Thank you. I’ll need to go alone, they won’t take it well if it was not someone they know already.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Okay. Understood.” Jianmen nodded and stacked the already clean dishes by the dish rack: “And do be careful. Grandma is worried about you.”

“Yeah. She’s always worried.” Shawn sighed.

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That night, Jianmen sneaked out per usual, but this time he did not go for material gathering. He headed straight towards Yedong Wu’s place - during the day, he casted a small tracing spell and placed tracking symbols on him and the two men in matching jackets just in case he would like to find them. And right now at least one of these tracking spells proved useful - during the day, Shawn took the antique scroll in a cigarette box to a secure place and he would not tell Jianmen where it was. So Jianmen decided to go and check out Yedong and Yewei’s place and see if he could find it there - it was a long shot, but he had to at least try.

Jianmen knew that even though he found the scroll, he could not actually do anything lest he incite the fury of the Will and bring blowbacks on himself. But he would like to at least know what was going on.

Yedong Wu’s place was not that far away from where he stayed and Shawn’s grocery store, at least to Jianmen, and with around 15 minutes of sprinting, he was already one block away from the location of the tracking symbol.

But to his surprise, even though it was already 2 A.M, Yedong still didn’t seem to be in his place. And following the tracking symbol, Jianmen found himself at a street of bars, liquor stores, pawn shops and random people drinking, smoking and fighting on the road. When he finally got close enough, he realized that Yedong was in a night club, named “Hot & Spice”.

The night club was crowded and loud, luckily enough there was no line at the door, so Jianmen was about to walk right in without having to wait. But then, he was stopped by the bouncer.

“You sure this is the place for you, Ojisan? ” the bouncer had two full arms of tattoo and a teardrop tattoo at the corner of his left eye.

“Yes. I am looking for someone. Don’t worry, I will pay for my drinks. ” Jianmen did not want to make a scene, so he took out a fiver dollar bill and handed it to the bouncer.

“Alright.” the bouncer stepped to the side and let Jianmen in: “Just don’t drink too much, can’t have any more old men dying here again.”

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“He called you Ojisan?” inside a very vintage looking bar, Jason asked Jianmen while sipping his glass of glowing and reflective cocktail.

“Yeah. I did look old...er. I looked older due to the injuries from the travel to this world. And the entrance of the night was very dark. So I might look even older than normal.” Jianmen shrugged and asked the waitress walking by: “Excuse me, can I have another round of this? What’s it called?”

“It’s called ‘Enchanting Silver Moon’, one of our specialties.” the waitress smiled and picked up the empty wooden mug from before Jianmen: “Coming right up.”

“And did you find him? Did you find the scroll? ” Caroline was not drinking this time, but she seemed to have found her new favorite snack - the purple, red and green chips made from the powder of unknown grains and vegetables: “By the way, can we have some of this at the inn? This is delicious.”

“Unfortunately no … and you may want to hold your horses on those chips.” Jianmen shook his head and said: “Those are made from a kind of addictive and even slightly toxic yam commonly used by a lot of wizards, witches and alchemists to craft some basic potions. It could have some weird effects on the consumer.”

“Toxic? But it tastes so good!” Caroline immediately laid back on her chair.

“Yeah. It’s meant to be a bit addictive, and you can actually get a bit drunk on it as well. But you’re already a pretty solid layer two cultivator now so don’t worry about it too much.” Jianmen smiled and took another wooden mug from the waitress: “So you won’t get addicted easily. The worst you’d have is a stomach ache and diarrhea.”

“EW ew ew. Thanks.” Caroline immediately pushed the chips away.