The Twelve-Link Docks were an immensely powerful faction, boasting a scale and influence on par with both Cangjian Villa and the Longmen Escort Agency.
They controlled three major rivers traversing north and south, monopolizing a colossal share of water transport.
Water transport was their lifeblood.
Yet, to stand unfallen for so many years, their sheer martial might was unquestionably formidable.
Every single one of the twelve dock masters of the Twelve-Link Docks had attained the Innate Great Perfection!
Chen Yu had also reached the Innate Great Perfection, but truthfully, compared to such dock masters, he was far from being in the same league.
Every single dock master had opened a full six meridians within their bodies!
As for him, he had only three!
Therefore, even though both belonged to the Innate Great Perfection, any random dock master they casually dispatched could wipe out the entire Longmen Escort Agency!
Their strength was terrifyingly vast!
Yet Chen Yu was no fool.
When he first learned a few months ago that this escort run had gone awry, he had immediately spurred his horse and rushed here to investigate!
The perpetrators had not yet completely erased their tracks, and after a complex and covert pursuit, suspicion pointed heavily toward the Twelve-Link Docks!
Yet now that he knew they were responsible, what could he possibly do about it?!
There was nothing he could do.
Was he genuinely going to break completely with the Twelve-Link Docks?
No.
The water transport controlled by the Twelve-Link Docks involved far too many intricate interests behind the scenes!
Within a radius of three hundred miles, the Longmen Escort Agency was a force to be reckoned with.
Once outside that three-hundred-mile radius, however, the Longmen Escort Agency was worth nothing at all.
Reporting the matter to Cangjian Villa was even more out of the question.
Should Cangjian Villa make any rash moves, the consequences would be unimaginably horrific.
"The situation is exactly as this junior has stated. The Twelve-Link Docks are simply too powerful; I cannot handle them."
Chen Yu felt a bitter, agonizing pain in his heart.
As the master of the Longmen Escort Agency, how could he possibly swallow this insult?
Yet the enemy's strength was so overwhelmingly formidable that swallow it he must, whether he could stomach it or not.
It was the classic case of knocking out his own teeth and swallowing them back down into his stomach.
There was not a single thing he could do.
Just as he was drowning in inner torment, utterly clueless about what to do next, the mysterious figure sitting quietly across from him gently supported himself on the table and stood up.
Chen Yu immediately raised his head in a daze, standing up in tandem.
He heard the mysterious figure casually leave behind a single sentence: "Tomorrow at sunset, I will return."
"At that time."
"We shall discuss the next steps."
With that.
Before Chen Yu's dazed and bewildered gaze, Shen Han vanished into the snowy night.
A full incense-stick-burning time after Shen Han's departure, Chen Yu finally snapped out of his trance, staring blankly at the wind and snow blowing into the room.
He had no idea who the mysterious figure before him was, nor did he know what this mysterious figure intended to do next.
He understood nothing, knew nothing, and could comprehend nothing.
The demeanor Chen Yu displayed at this moment was one of extreme bewilderment and helplessness.
Yet this very helplessness plunged the master of the estate into a profound sense of shame.
In the end, however, he could only tightly clench his fists in bitter resignation.
Feeling the utter weakness in his fists, he sighed softly in his heart.
"The Twelve-Link Docks are simply too powerful."
"Although I know not what the senior spoke of, whatever it is, it can never be easily resolved."
"Far too much is involved."
...
The next morning, eight hundred and twenty lis in a straight line from the Longmen Escort Agency, the Twelve-Link Docks were a hive of bustling activity.
A great river ran through the vast plains here.
The river was over thirty zhang wide, and even with winter having arrived, its waters showed no sign of freezing whatsoever.
Countless residences lined both banks of the great river.
House after house stood densely packed along the waterway, stretching for over seventy lis and giving the two shores a vibrant, lived-in atmosphere.
This place was known as Xuanwu River City.
At the edge of Xuanwu River City, two figures—one tall and one small—were trudging wearily toward the city.
Though the wind and snow had stopped, walking along the snow-covered dirt roads was agonizingly difficult.
The larger figure was an elderly man with firewood strapped to his back.
The smaller one was a little girl, sallow and malnourished, also carrying a bundle of firewood on her back.
The old man had tied a rope around his waist, with a hemp rope spanning the distance of a zhang to tether it to the little girl.
He lived in constant fear that the child might suddenly slip into the snow and freeze to death.
"Grandpa, when will we get there?"
"In another half an hour."
"Then when will we have our own little courtyard in Xuanwu River City?"
Faced with the little girl's childish and immensely hopeful voice, the old man's eyes brimmed with profound sorrow.
"Once we reach the city and sell the firewood, I'll buy you a candied hawthorn stick to eat."
Hearing the words "candied hawthorn stick," a glimmer of hope finally flickered in the little girl's dark eyes.
Just as she was about to agree, she immediately shook her head. "No, no, candied hawthorns are too expensive."
Hearing this, the old man's heart ached even more.
How he wished he could provide his granddaughter with a decent home, but there was simply no way.
Xuanwu River City was extravagantly wealthy, while the villages surrounding it were chillingly poor.
Based on his impressions over the years, a single household's grain expenditure in Xuanwu River City for one month equaled the entire year's earnings of ten people in a small village.
Wishing to rely on the meager silver earned from chopping wood in a small village to buy a house in Xuanwu River City?
It was impossible.
Right at that moment.
A martial artist wearing a bamboo rain hat and a carved wooden mask appeared before the old man.
Shen Han asked mildly, "Old man, is this Xuanwu River City?"
He had already located Xuanwu River City and held some intelligence regarding it in his mind.
Even as the young master of Cangjian Villa, however, his understanding of Xuanwu River City was rather sparse.
Having just arrived here, seeing a local peasant pair—one old and one young—after only a brief moment, questioning them naturally made the most sense.
At the same time, through the mouth of a commoner, he could roughly grasp what kind of region Xuanwu River City truly was.
"..."
The old man hunched his back, dazedly accepting the scattered silver pieces Shen Han handed over.
When he realized that the silver pieces Shen Han gave him amounted to more than what he earned in a whole month of chopping wood, he immediately dropped to his knees in a kowtow.
The little girl behind him, young as she was, immediately knelt down as well.
"Many thanks, My Lord!"
The two of them spoke simultaneously.
Shen Han helped them both to their feet and then formally began his inquiries.
...
Large cargo vessels crisscrossed the river one after another.
Dock laborers on the bank shouldered bulky packages and crates.
Time passed quickly over the span of half an hour as Shen Han made his inquiries.
"Understood."
"Thank you."
Before leaving, Shen Han fished out a few copper coins, bent down, and opened his palm before the little girl.
"This is for your uncle to treat you to candied hawthorns."
With that, he tapped his toes lightly against the ground, his figure vanishing like a bird dissolving into the horizon, disappearing entirely within the span of a single breath.
The two of them were utterly shocked!
Huffing out plumes of cold air, the old man was the first to snap back to his senses. "They are cultivators! Those incredible cultivators!"
"He must have come from another region!"
The little girl gazed off in the direction Shen Han had left.
Only when Shen Han's retreating shadow completely vanished from her sight did she look down with trembling hands at the warm copper coins in her palm.
"Grandpa, I want to cultivate too."
...
"In the eyes of the common folk in the surrounding villages, Xuanwu River City is both unreachable and indispensable."
Shen Han had learned this over the past half hour.
He could wipe out the Twelve-Link Docks, but Xuanwu River City would inevitably plunge into chaos afterward, and far more innocent people would suffer then.
The Twelve-Link Docks could not fall.
He could clearly perceive the reverence in the old man's voice when he mentioned Xuanwu River City, as well as that deep-seated fear rooted in their very souls.
Every single detail pointed to the immense power of the Twelve-Link Docks, which finally explained why Chen Yu of the Longmen Escort Agency yesterday, knowing full well the Twelve-Link Docks were to blame, lacked any power to resist.
"I won't exterminate them, but teaching them a lesson so they remember it is fine, too."
Shen Han's figure appeared on the roof of a seven-story tavern in Xuanwu River City, looking down at the bustling crowds below.
He watched the men and women inside and outside the pleasure houses indulging themselves without restraint.
The scene evoked a strong sense of singsong girls knowing nothing of the hatred of a fallen country.
After a brief silence.
His figure vanished from the spot once more, heading toward the low mountain on the northern side of Xuanwu River City, where the core inner city—the astonishingly vast estate of the Twelve-Link Docks—was nestled against the terrain.
This place was also heavily guarded.
Blade-wielding soldiers, spearmen, axemen, archers, and shield-bearers strictly enforced the rules of this domain.
By midday.
Shen Han strode into a courtyard, catching the instant malicious glares cast at him by the two figures inside.
He said casually, "You two go ahead and talk; I'm in no rush."