I'm Already the Richest Man, Why Did My System Just Arrive?

Chapter 231: Chapter 156: Back View

Not to mention those trying to be inconspicuous, parading through the streets in large, mysterious cloaks, the bulges on their backs clearly hiding weapons.

Still others brazenly placed their sabers on the table while eating wontons at a streetside stall.

”Come, take another look. It should be about time.”

Smiling, Chu Chengfeng led Gongsun Mo back to his seat and jutted his chin toward the floor below.

Although everything he saw was one of Gongsun Mo’s memories, and Gongsun Mo might not have understood at the time, Zheng Xiu was not Gongsun Mo. With Chu Chengfeng’s subtle prompt, Zheng Xiu quickly noticed something was off about the atmosphere downstairs.

It was too quiet.

On the spacious first floor of the teahouse, only three tables were occupied.

Two of those tables were far apart, each in a corner.

In the northeast corner sat a burly, bearded man. Beside him was a round, cloth-wrapped bundle with a long handle sticking out—it looked like a Copper Hammer.

In the southwest corner sat a handsome young man fanning himself. He wore an ornamental cap and was clad in snow-white robes. His demeanor was graceful, his smile as warm and gentle as jade.

And in the very center sat a woman dressed in black martial attire, exuding an undisguised aura of the Jianghu. From Zheng Xiu’s angle, he could only see her back. On her table was an entire roasted leg of lamb and a large platter of braised chicken—a good seven or eight pounds of meat by the look of it. The woman, who appeared slender from behind, was burying her head in her food, her enthusiastic eating making smacking sounds that broke the silence of the first floor.

’This woman can really pack it away.’

This was Zheng Xiu’s first reaction as he eyed the seven or eight pounds of meat on her table.

His second was that she looked... familiar.

Yes, her back struck ’him’ as inexplicably familiar.

When the idea of ’familiar’ surfaced like a flash of Intuition, Zheng Xiu tilted his head, thinking, ’How strange.’

He was beginning to have trouble telling if it was Gongsun Mo who found her familiar, or he himself, Zheng Xiu.

The two feelings were muddled, making it momentarily difficult for Zheng Xiu to tell them apart.

”Who is that woman?”

Zheng Xiu asked in a daze, staring at the familiar figure from behind.

Chu Chengfeng was taken aback. He turned to look at the distracted Younger Brother Gongsun and chuckled to himself. ’Just a moment ago he was talking about averting one’s gaze from impropriety, but look at him now. Scholars truly are hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another. Tsk, so devious.’ However, Chu Chengfeng didn’t call him out on it. He studied the woman’s back, trying to identify her, but finally shook his head in resignation. ”Her? She’s probably just some nobody. I, for one, don’t recognize her. But she isn’t who I wanted you to look at. There will be plenty of time to look at women later. For now, take a look at those two, the ones sitting far apart from each other.”

Chu Chengfeng first pointed to the burly, bearded man, a playful look on his face. With a smile, he began to explain to Younger Brother Gongsun, ”That man is quite famous in the Shu Region. His name is Cao Dongxue, an expert with a pair of Black Steel Eight-sided Hammers. His Wind-Fire Eight Strikes technique is immensely powerful, and he has few rivals back home. He’s currently ranked sixty-second on the Weapon Manual.”

”But it wasn’t his hammer skills that made him famous in the Jianghu,” Chu Chengfeng continued. ”It’s what happened three years ago. The beautiful bride he had lawfully wedded ran off with another man on their wedding night. He chased them from the Shu Region all the way to the north, a journey of a full eighteen hundred li. It took him a whole year, but he finally caught up to his wife and her lover, only to be taken down in a few moves. He became the laughingstock of the Jianghu. For a while, there wasn’t a soul who hadn’t heard his story.”

”How pitiful.” Zheng Xiu silently mourned for the poor man for a few seconds, then asked, ”And the other one?”

Chu Chengfeng’s expression grew even more peculiar. ”The other one is known in the Jianghu as the Iron Fan Scholar,” he said. ”He’s also... the lover.”

”So, you tell me,” he began, ”after three years—one in the north, the other in the Shu Region—they just so happen to meet today, in this little teahouse.”

Chu Chengfeng’s peculiar smile vanished. He patted Zheng Xiu’s shoulder and said in a low, meaningful voice, ”Is it a coincidence, or... is something else going on?”