White-Robed Chief
Chapter 52: Grand Opening

Zhuo Feiyang laughed aloud and patted Bai Zhijie's shoulder as he praised, "Good, good. You have balls. No wonder you're one of my own."

Bai Zhijie followed along and laughed too.

Zhuo Feiyang entered the house wielding his sword. He could barely walk straight as he was overwhelmed with excitement. He practically had joy written all over his face. He continued his swearing at his foe Chu Li and seemed to be having a whale of a time doing so. Zhuo Feiyang knew he could not beat Chu Li in verbal arguments, but when it came to writing, he was sure that he was not far off weaker than him.

He wrote and wrote, laughing all the while doing it. He was self-indulged in his skills at harassing someone. He felt satisfied with the fact that despite being triggered by Chu Li, he could still manage such masterful and explicit swearing towards him.

Then he yelled, "Bring the booze over!"

Bai Zhijie hurriedly served him a bottle of hard liquor. He poured it into a bowl for his master.

Zhuo Feiyang picked up the bowl and chugged the liquor down his throat. He gave his mouth a wipe and continued laughing. "Great stuff, great stuff. Satisfying!"

Bai Zhijie refilled the bowl with more liquor. Zhuo Feiyang again gulped down the whole bowl of it.

His alcoholic tolerance was not above average, yet he preferred to drink hard liquor. After two whole bowls of it, his face was blushed red. Yet he continued writing the swears, a paper after another. He released all his anger on the papers, all at once!

Whenever he finished writing a paper, Bai Zhijie would pick it up and let the wind blow the ink dry.

Zhuo Feiyang drank another bowl of liquor and started to appear tipsy. He threw his brush pen away from his hand and laughed again. "Oh, satisfying. How satisfying!"

Bai Zhijie finished blowing the last piece of it dry. Once he had collected all the papers, he counted ten of them. He put them all into a big envelope, and soon the envelope was stuffed full. Bai Zhijie laughed. "Master, then I shall go now!"

"Just go, just go!" Zhuo Feiyang seemed very proud of himself as he waved towards Bai Zhijie. "Quickly go, then tell me what his face was like when you return!"

"Yes." Bai Zhijie replied him courteously as he turned away and left.

He rowed the small boat all the way to the entrance of East Garden, then got up and knocked on the door.

Li Yue appeared soon enough. When he saw who the visitor was, his face turned gloomy. "Bai, what are you here for?!"

Li Yue looked down on Bai Zhijie. He thought that he was evil and sly. Last time, Bai Zhijie would smile whenever they met, and greet them with warm calls of "Brother" or "Senior. However, ever since he was accepted as Zhuo Feiyang's personal guard, he changed entirely. He started disrespecting everyone else, even his old comrades!

Bai Zhijie put on a serious face and started speaking with a low voice, "Brother Li, I was instructed by my master, Zhuo Feiyang, to send this letter to Master Chu Li."

"Chu Li does not accept any challenges!"

"Don't worry, this is not a call to combat, but a letter!"

"... Fine, just give it to me then!"

"My master has ordered, that I must give this to Master Chu Li in person."

"Pfffft! So many orders." Li Yue looked disgusted, and said "Follow me!... I warn you, don't go scampering around in here!"

"Got it." Bai Zhijie replied coldly.

Li Yue exhaled sharply, he felt very annoyed and walked away.

Bai Zhijie followed tightly behind him, and soon they arrived at the small courtyard. Chu Li was in the midst of chatting with Zhao Ying, with the latter giggling at whatever humor that was being discussed among them.

When he saw Bai Zhijie, Chu Li immediately wiped away his smile.

Bai Zhijie walked two steps in front towards him and handed him the letter he was holding in both hands. "Master Chu Li, this letter is from my Master Zhuo Feiyang."

Chu Li looked him in the eye, then smiled and took the letter from him before opening it.

Zhao Ying looked at Chu Li curiously as she noticed how thick the envelope was.

Chu Li skimmed through every single bit of the contents as a smile appeared on his face. He seemed more and more amused as he read through more of the papers, shaking his head happily while reading them.

Bai Zhijie was stunned at his reaction. He thought to himself, 'Why is he acting this way, he wasn't a tiny bit infuriated by it. On the contrary, he looks as if he is reading a comic book, this is just…'

'No wonder he could make Master Zhuo Feiyang angry, what a weird man!' Bai Zhijie thought.

"What does it say?" Zhao Ying asked curiously.

Chu Li kept the letter back into the envelope and grinned. "Interesting, alright, since he had already written this to me, I shall return the letter too. Bring out the ink and the brush pen!"

After he spoke, then only he realized, that he was not on the Jade Guardian island, and Xue Ling was not beside him.

Zhao Ying rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Let me do it!"

She stood up and walked into the house to take the ink and brush pen. She quickly prepared the ink bloc and gave it to Chu Li.

Chu Li simply wrote a few words on the paper, blew it dry with his mouth and folded it. He put it into an envelope and handed it to Bai Zhijie. "Let him see this."

"Yes." Bai Zhijie accepted the envelope with both hands.

Bai Zhijie bade farewell and left with Li Yue escorting him out of the compounds. Li Yue intentionally did that to watch over him, as every single flora in the East Garden was too valuable to be destroyed by an outsider. If Bai Zhijie did that, Li Yue would be the one in trouble, so he was very cautious with a sly man like Bai Zhijie.

Bai Zhijie was extremely curious about the return letter, not daring to even open it. He rowed his boat back to Zhuo Feiyang's Public House in swift fashion and handed his master the letter.

"Chu Li must be so furious, am I right?" Zhuo Feiyang opened Chu Li's letter in a casual manner. He took out a thin piece of paper and looked at it in delight. His cheeks were still red, but his eyes were bright.

"Yes, he's angry, so angry that he laughed." Bai Zhijie answered.

"Hmph, I may lose to him in a verbal argument, but when it comes to writing, he can't beat me!" Zhuo Feiyang smirked coldly, but when he took a proper look at what was written there, his face turned gloomy. He shouted furiously and then gritted his teeth hard.

"Shush!" The paper was shredded into many pieces, causing a mess as they dropped all over on the floor.

Bai Zhijie was startled. He cautiously looked back at Zhuo Feiyang. "Master?"

"Chu Li, I will settle my score with you!" Zhuo Feiyang yelled, he stood up and kicked his chair out of the room. He stormed outside and brandished his long sword. Before long, all the flowers and plants around him were reduced to bits and pieces, scattering across the ground below.

Bai Zhijie dared not go close to Zhuo Feiyang as he started to regret his decision earlier. If only he had peeked inside and read what Chu Li had written before delivering it, but it was already too late.

Zhuo Feiyang brandished his sword wildly for a good ten minutes before stopping. The garden was left in a dismal condition. Once he had finished venting all his fury, he pierced his sword into the ground and stopped, supporting his weight on it.

"Master?" Bai Zhijie asked with caution.

Zhuo Feiyang finally calmed down and grinned. "I will finish him sooner or later!"

Bai Zhijie hurriedly nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes. He fully deserves it for everything that he has done! Master, just ignore everything he had said to you."

"Hmph!" Zhuo Feiyang pointed at the mess he had just made. "Clean it up!"

"Yes." Bai Zhijie said. Deep down, he groaned frustratingly.

...

At dawn, the sound of firecrackers being set off broke out in Chong Li Yuning town. It was sharp and loud and had the people nearby looking for the source of the sound.

Many people in town had a lot of free time on their hands, so whenever they saw a crowd, they would join in the buzz.

When the crowd huddled closer to the source, they saw that the old cosmetics shop and the tailor had combined into one massive restaurant. Three big words on the large signboard read, "Leisure Cloud Pub". What drew people's attention more was the two rows of pretty girls standing in front of the pub. There were 20 of them looking stunningly beautiful as they dumbfounded the crowd.

Chu Li and Zhao Ying stood at the very front of their pub. They smiled as they watched the 20 girls.

Originally there were 50 of them, but they figured that it would be too much to behold if they were out all at once. 20 was a decent number that was just enough to pique people's curiosity. If 50 girls were to stand in front of the restaurant now, it would be very weird.

Zhao Ying smiled widely. "Senior Chu, we're finally opening!"

The workers that Chief Su had gathered for them were very skilled indeed. They carried out the construction work very quickly and only took a mere 15 days to finish everything.

Chu Li smiled back and said, "Sister, I still need to go over there and finish up some work. I shall leave this place to your supervision then. Our restaurant bears the name of the Yi Public House, so no one will dare to cause us trouble."

"Sure, leave it to me then." Zhao Ying smiled.

Chu Li said, "But don't let the business hold you back from practicing martial arts."

"Nope, it won't." Zhao Ying shook her head. "I am taking it one step at a time. Cultivating it in a relaxed manner will benefit my progress instead."

If she wanted to reach Innate Mastery in the future, she still had one massive hurdle to conquer. While foundations were strong alongside having consumed plenty of Torso-Refining Pills, she was still stuck there. Once she thought about how Senior Zhuo had achieved innate mastery on his first try, she could only concede to the fact that being talented was indeed important.

However, when she thought about it more, Senior Zhuo was born with a silver spoon in his mouth as his family had never struggled in terms of finances. Since young, Zhuo Feiyang had already consumed lots and lots of mystical herbs and pills, so that was why his talents could be stimulated to maximum potential. On the contrary, she herself never had the opportunity to consume any of those herbs.

Chu Li laughed. "No rush at all. Taking it one step at a time could be beneficial to you in the future."

He watched the restaurant in front of him in scrutiny. Originally this was two shop lots, after merging them together, the 400 square meters large restaurant was formed. It now had ten smaller rooms, and there were thirty plus tables in the lounge. Hence, the restaurant did not appear too big in size, it had an average serenity.

Patrons could choose to spend their time inside one of the rooms alone for some privacy or they could remain in the lounge to join in the party. It was conveniently down to their personal choice.

After the firecrackers ceased, another troupe of lion dancers joined in the scene to put up a performance. Once all the commotion was over, the place was restored to its usual tranquility. The group of girls too entered the restaurant and proceeded with their respective duties.

Among the various duties were cashiering, ushering, welcoming guests, brewing tea and preparing dim sum or fruits. The jobs were delegated effectively, thus making their services very organized, and it brought to the patrons a sense of comfort.

Chu Li returned to the Yi Public House to continue his cultivation of the Sentient Menace skill move.

With the protection of the Yi Public House, no one would dare to cause trouble. The usual trouble-makers are often quite well informed with the street gossip so they would not risk meddling with this restaurant

The Sentient Menace skill move's cultivation was a swift process. At this point, the wooden baton was retired and replaced by a steel baton instead.

Xue Ling let out a breath of relief because with the steel baton she did not need to use much energy. Thus at the same time, she could preserve her energy.

After a few days, Xue Ling needed to give it her all. With a single hit of the baton, she felt that she could break someone's bones. Yet Chu Li felt nothing at all, it was as if Xue Linge was still using the wooden baton when she hit him.

...

Later in the evening, Zhuo Feiyang went to Leisure Cloud Pub.

He was donned in sapphire-blue clothing, his face handsome, he seemed to be in a good mood. On his way there from the Yi Public House, he attracted a good number of glances from many women.

He ignored all the eyeballs and calmly continued walking with Bai Zhijie in trail.

"Is it here?" Zhuo Feiyang stopped in his steps, looking up at the signboard.

Bai Zhijie hurriedly answered, "Leisure Cloud Pub, yes it's here!"

"Go in!" Zhuo Feiyang scoffed.

Two beautiful ladies in pure white dresses gracefully walked towards them. "Welcome, my two Lords. May we ask where would you prefer to sit at?"

"There will do." Zhuo Feiyang pointed towards the lounge.

It was very lively inside. The thirty plus tables were almost fully occupied with people. The space between two adjacent tables were wide enough to accommodate an armchair, and customers could sit on them comfortably, leisurely sipping their tea or liquor.

"My Lords, this way please!" The two pretty ladies turned around and escorted them to an empty table.

Zhuo Feiyang glanced at the surroundings, then slowly sat down. Bai Zhijie was still standing as he demanded, "Give us all your best dishes and the best drinks!"

"How many dishes would you like, my Lord?"

"Make it twelve, and add on a jar of your best wine!"

"Please give us a moment." The two ladies turned and left.

Soon, six good-looking ladies walked towards them, each holding a plate. In swift fashion, all twelve dishes were served on their table along with a complementary bowl of soup, followed by a jar of wine. The jar was black and shiny, it had the sweet smell of alcohol.

Bai Zhijie waved the ladies away and then proceeded to pour out some wine.

Zhuo Feiyang tasted a bit of the wine and smiled smugly. "Where did Chu Li find all these women?"

Bai Zhijie shook his head. "I didn't get to investigate it. But according to sources, Chief Su lent him a hand."

"Hmph!" Zhuo Feiyang gritted on his teeth.