The Golden Wolf, Jia Tianlong, was brimming with pride and satisfaction. His usually pale, bloodless face was flushed with a faint tinge of excitement.
It was no wonder he wore such an expression. The Wild Wolf Gang's mortal enemy, the Sect of Seven Mysteries, was about to collapse and die before his very eyes, brought down by his own meticulous schemes. As the master of the Wild Wolf Gang, how could he not feel triumphant?
He now stood on the lower slopes of Sunset Peak, at what had once been a Sect of Seven Mysteries sentry post. Around him swirled fifty or sixty of the Wild Wolf Gang's Red-Robed Iron Guards — elite warriors Jia Tianlong had painstakingly cultivated over many years. Every one of them was a top-notch fighter, and more importantly, loyal to the bone, utterly devoted to their master without a shred of treachery.
He had always regarded these men as his most precious treasure, never willing to deploy them in ordinary skirmishes. But now he had brought every one of them to his side. The reason was simple: to completely overawe the restive leaders of the various mid-sized and minor gangs. Without this show of force, the heads of the Iron Spear Society, Broken Water Gate, and other factions would never have been so obediently submissive.
After all, none of these factions wished to see the Wild Wolf Gang become dominant on its own. They preferred to see the two great powers locked in perpetual struggle or balance — for only in such a state could they hope to carve out a living in the cracks between them.
If Jia Tianlong had not, in a lightning strike, seized control of all the families and children of these faction leaders, and further tempted them with lavish promises of wealth, these smaller gangs would surely have turned on him long ago.
At this thought, he glanced back at the dozen or so minor faction leaders standing some distance behind him. Every one of them wore an expression of dejected submission. When they caught Jia Tianlong looking their way, some glared back with sullen fury, while others hastily averted their eyes and dared not meet his gaze.
Jing Tianlong allowed himself a cold, inward smile, then turned back and began to formulate plans in his mind for how to absorb these smaller factions once the Sect of Seven Mysteries had fallen.
Before him, nearly a thousand fighters dressed in every color and bearing every weapon swarmed like a wasp nest toward a single sentry post of the Sect of Seven Mysteries. Their formations were chaotic and they paid no attention to coordination, so their casualties were not light.
But Jia Tianlong did not care in the slightest. For the men attacking now were not his own Wild Wolf Gang — they were the lackeys of the Iron Spear Society, Broken Water Gate, and the rest. He had never expected these allied fighters to capture Sunset Peak, the final and most treacherous chokepoint. He simply wanted them to wear down the defenders' strength, so that his own elite could then sweep in with the repeating crossbows and take the position in one decisive stroke.
And when those military repeating crossbows came to mind, even Jia Tianlong's delicate, refined features softened with a hint of pure delight.
The Wild Wolf Gang's current advantage could never have been achieved without these deadly weapons from the army.
Without them, not only would the annihilation of the negotiating team have been impossible, but even the dozen-plus positions already captured before Sunset Peak would have cost the gang dearly in manpower — a devastating setback for his plans to absorb the smaller factions afterward.
The best part was, these military crossbows had cost Jia Tianlong not a single copper. They had simply fallen from the sky into his own hands, without effort on his part.
Every time he recalled how it had come about, his spirits soared.
It had happened three months ago. He had been at his headquarters, plotting this very campaign, when a man claiming to be a relative from the military had come to ask for an audience. Curious, Jia Tianlong had agreed to the meeting — and sure enough, the man turned out to be one of his own cousins.
It turned out that more than a decade ago, when the Wild Wolf Gang's predecessor had been nothing more than a band of horse bandits, a number of them had been offered amnesty and recruited into the government army. This cousin had been among them. Over the years, the cousin had risen through the ranks all the way to the rank of deputy general. Now, by a remarkable stroke of fortune, this deputy-general cousin happened to be escorting a shipment of military supplies to a border garrison in Jingzhou, and the route passed right by here. Having heard that his distant relative Jia Tianlong was now the leader of the Wild Wolf Gang, he naturally wished to pay his respects.
The two cousins greeted each other warmly and exchanged accounts of the years gone by. When Jia Tianlong mentioned the recent clashes with the Sect of Seven Mysteries, his cousin tossed his head disdainfully and boasted that such matters were nothing at all. Given a hundred repeating crossbows, he could personally slaughter the entire sect, from top to bottom.
The cousin spoke carelessly, but the listener's ears pricked up. A seed of an idea planted itself in Jia Tianlong's mind, and he gingerly asked his cousin whether it might be possible to procure some of those crossbows for him. The cousin smiled, and with characteristic bluntness told Jia Tianlong that the shipment he was escorting did indeed contain a great number of repeating crossbows. There was no reason he couldn't spare some — all it would take was a modest sum of silver to buy the silence of the receiving officers, and the number couldn't be too large.
Jia Tianlong was overjoyed. He promptly paid out more than twenty thousand taels of silver and, in exchange, received over three hundred military repeating crossbows from his cousin. These were entrusted to his most trusted subordinates for careful training and use, and it was on the strength of these weapons that the string of victories of the past several days had been won.
"Broken through!"
"They've broken through!"
……
A deafening roar pulled Jia Tianlong from his reverie.
Startled, he raised his eyes toward the mountain peak. The sentry post that had been flying the Sect of Seven Mysteries' banner was now swarming with fighters from the smaller factions — it had truly been breached.
Jia Tianlong frowned. Something felt wrong. Judging by the strength of the defenses at the previous positions, this last one should have been the most difficult to capture. How could these rabble have taken it so quickly? Was there some trap?
His expression darkened. Anyone who knew the great Gang Leader Jia understood that this was the outward sign of his displeasure. To provoke him at such a moment would be a fate worse than death.
"Hey — it's been broken! Why aren't we moving?" A voice like a cracked gong rang out, devoid of any deference toward the great Gang Leader Jia.
By rights, Jia Tianlong should have flown into a rage. But now the great Gang Leader simply turned to the side and replied with respectful restraint:
"Master Zhang, I feel there's something too convenient about this breach. I fear there may be a trap laid within. It would be wiser to exercise caution."
"What are you afraid of? With me at your side, how could these mortals possibly harm you? Move! Move! I've been stuck here all night and I'm exhausted. Finish off the Sect of Seven Mysteries quickly so I can finally get some rest!" The voice was not that of an old man, yet it spoke with a studied air of aged authority that was thoroughly irritating to hear.