The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness

“Damn it, this ‘good stuff’ you’re talking about is this piece of crap?!”

The Rat King’s expression changed drastically. He shot to his feet, his palm slapping the little box and sending it flying.

The exquisite wooden box fell to the floor, and the small pouch of colorful, powdery substance inside spilled out. A faint exotic fragrance immediately began to spread.

Seeing this, the Rat King hurriedly held his breath and shoved open the porthole of the cabin, forcibly driving out that floating, euphoric sensation that seemed to intoxicate his entire brain.

“Piece of crap?”

Mister Gro did not go to pick up the box from the floor. He did not seem surprised by the Rat King’s reaction. He only narrowed his already tiny eyes and said with a chuckle:

“I don’t know what Lord Rat King means by that. Wasn’t this once the hottest-selling product in the Lower District of Belrand?”

“This is a forbidden drug! ‘Hottest-selling’ was all in the past!”

The Rat King ground his teeth.

“This stuff has been completely banned!”

“How strange. Is the smuggling of your magic materials not banned? Or did I get it wrong, and the mighty Rat King who carved out such a huge territory in the Lower District is actually a respectable, law-abiding citizen?”

Mister Gro suddenly leaned in, lowering his voice:

“Don’t forget, Lord Rat King, the profit on this is far higher than that of the magic materials you toil over. Just this alone—if you have it—would be enough to multiply the income of your casinos and brothels several times over, wouldn’t it?”

“......”

At the word “profit,” a strange light immediately flickered in the Rat King’s eyes.

He might act as if he shunned this stuff like a venomous snake, but the profit on it was the one thing he could not refute.

Because, apart from the channels controlled by the nobles, there was truly little in the world that could make more money than this trade.

No—those high-and-mighty nobles had likely all dipped their hands into this business at some point.

“But it still won’t do.”

The Rat King took a deep breath. The light in his eyes receded, and he once again returned to calm.

“I will absolutely not sell this sort of thing. No one in the Lower District will sell it now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a rule that man left behind.”

A cold, deep face flashed through his mind. Even though it had been months since he had last seen him, the Rat King still could not help but tremble slightly.

That man had not appeared for a long time, but when he reorganized the entire Lower District, he had left behind two rules: no dealing in forbidden drugs, and no trafficking in human beings. Those rules still circulated in the Lower District to this day.

This did not mean that man was so kind-hearted that he could not bear the filth of the Lower District. On the contrary, it was more like a red line he had deliberately drawn.

A red line for establishing his authority.

Like a boundary monument standing in the Lower District, declaring to all restless souls:

Step across, and die.

Otherwise they would end up like the Red Fire Gang and the Hyena Gang, wiped out in a single night.

That was where that man’s authority lay.

The Rat King felt that, for the moment at least, he was still far from touching that red—

“That man... oh, you mean that so-called Dark Emperor who reigns over the entire Lower District?”

Suddenly, a hoarse, dry voice, like two plates of pig iron grinding together, rang out, cutting across the Rat King’s thoughts.

“Who?”

The Rat King looked at the black-robed guard behind Mister Gro, his brows knitting as he barked:

“How dare you!”

“Heh, it’s not that my courage is too big. It’s that after all these years, the Mouse Society, the Brotherhood, the Three-Headed Dog, the Trading House... one by one, your courage has shriveled to this extent. Truly disappointing. I originally thought you’d at least made some progress.”

The black-robed man walked forward a few steps without expression, and Mister Gro at his side was not surprised in the slightest. He even took the initiative to lower his head and move aside.

As if the real master of this place was not Mister Gro at all, but this “guard” behind him, whom the Rat King had barely paid any attention to.

“Who are you? What is the meaning of this?”

The Rat King grew wary. He slowly backed away while signaling his men behind him to draw their weapons and move forward.

But the black-robed man merely raised his hand and pointed lightly.

The subordinates who had been about to draw their blades suddenly froze. Their faces flushed red, as if they had exerted all their strength, but their swords remained stuck in their scabbards, unable to be drawn.

The Rat King’s expression turned to horror. He snapped up the military repeating crossbow he had already cocked long ago and aimed it at the black-robed man:

“Just who are you, and what the hell are you trying to do? This is my turf!”

“Relax, relax. Of course we know this is Lord Rat King’s turf. That was just a little joke, that’s all, a little joke.”

Mister Gro hurriedly waved his hands, still smiling as he tried to smooth things over.

But the Rat King did not even glance at him. His eyes remained locked on the black-robed man. His instincts, which had rarely steered him wrong, told him this was the true source of his sense of danger.

“Heh.”

The man let out a disdainful chuckle, then slowly lifted the hood that concealed his face.

“After all these years, the street-brawling thug Sam has finally become qualified to point a weapon at me?”

“You...”

In the narrow, cramped cabin, a few candles cast an unsteady, flickering light.

As the candlelight fell across the man’s face, the Rat King’s pupils shrank sharply. Terror twisted his expression, as if he were seeing a ghost drifting through the dark.

“Old Ghost? You’re Old Ghost? You’re not dead?”

The Rat King staggered back a few hurried steps. At the sight of that face, long-buried memories were dragged up. That terrifying existence who had almost completely conquered the shadowy side of the Lower District resurfaced in his mind and overlapped with the elderly man before him.

That was a chapter of history already old enough to be called distant. Many in the Lower District had completely forgotten it, but some of the elders who had lived through that era could never erase what had been carved into their bones.

Ten years ago, long before Mister Bruce ever appeared, there had been a gang leader codenamed Old Ghost who had almost unified the entire Lower District through iron-blooded methods, vicious schemes, and a chilling reign of terror.

Unfortunately, just on the verge of his success, he somehow offended some supposedly tremendous big shot above.

Then the big shot sent powerful men after him, and the towering gang Old Ghost had built collapsed in a single night. His organization scattered like monkeys from a fallen tree. As for the man himself, no one knew where he went. Rumor had it that his corpse had been cut into thirteen pieces and, together with all the wealth he had accumulated over a lifetime, sunk into the deepest part of the Glein River.

That rumor had once sparked a sizable treasure-hunting craze. Many people had wanted to find Old Ghost’s wealth and his corpse. And now, this “dead man” who had vanished for ten years had actually appeared before him again?

“Yes, I am Old Ghost. I’m not dead. And now, I’m back.”

Old Ghost smiled, spreading his arms as if enthusiastically welcoming an old friend.

The orange candlelight flickered over an extremely weathered face, with time’s marks clearly engraved upon it.

His temples had already gone gray, and there was a faint scholarly air between his brows and eyes.

But a hideous scar running from upper left to lower right across his whole face completely ruined that refined air, leaving only a ferocity that seemed to brew boundless hatred and fury.

He was clearly unarmed, and the lethal repeating crossbow was {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} trained right between his eyes, yet the Rat King instead felt that he was the one locked onto by a savage beast. His body trembled involuntarily.

His lips had gone pale. His voice came out hoarse:

“N... no way. Old Ghost is dead. He died ten years ago! Otherwise... otherwise after all these years...”

“Yes, it’s been many years.”

Old Ghost let out a sigh thick with emotion and turned his head to look out at Belrand’s night through the window.

“Many things have changed. I don’t even recognize a lot of the streets anymore. When did that street start looking like that? Shame. There used to be a tavern there that I rather liked.”

“What the hell do you want!”

The Rat King snapped out of his distant memories. His squinting eyes once more forced themselves into a vicious glare as he watched the old man before him casually reminiscing about the past.

“So what if you really are Old Ghost? You’ve already died once. You’re no longer the gang ruler you were. You have nothing now!”

“Yes, I have nothing now. Sam, you know very well—ten years is a long time. Long enough to turn a fierce warrior into a bent, stooped old man, and long enough to topple a painstakingly constructed tower. The most troublesome part is... I might not have another ten years left.”

“So...”

Old Ghost slowly turned his head. That hideous face bore a faintly eerie smile as he locked eyes with the Rat King and spoke slowly:

“I’ve come to take back what’s mine, Sam.”

“What’s yours?”

The Rat King’s cheek twitched. His finger tightened on the trigger as he rasped:

“There’s nothing of yours here! Crawl back into your grave!”

“There is. Of course there is. Isn’t it right here?”

Old Ghost stooped to pick up the box from the floor, carefully tidied it, and, as if he did not see the repeating crossbow that could fire at any moment, gently placed the box into Sam’s palm.

“It’s right there in your choice, isn’t it? Everything... is up to you.”

“You want me to rejoin your banner?”

The Rat King finally understood Old Ghost’s meaning.

“You want me to become your dog again?”

“Heh, ‘dog’ sounds so unpleasant, doesn’t it? Sam, you’re different now. You’re no longer just qualified to be my dog. You can become my ally, my companion... even my brother.”

Old Ghost spoke with zeal:

“Look, Sam. You won’t have to be bound by those childish rules. You’ll gain so much more! Forbidden drugs are only the first step. Your eyes shouldn’t be fixed just on what’s in front of you...”

“Shut up!”

The Rat King suddenly flung the box away, letting the expensive powder be swept into the night wind. He pressed the repeating crossbow hard against Old Ghost’s forehead and shouted harshly:

“You think a few pretty words can make everything I’ve built fall right into your hands? Old Ghost, I admit it—back then you really did have that qualification. But this isn’t ten years ago! And you’re not the Old Ghost from ten years ago! You’re just a stray cur now!”

“Heh, yes, I’m not the Old Ghost from ten years ago. I’m old, and I did once lose everything.”

Old Ghost’s expression smoothed out. It was as if he could not feel the sharp bolt that had already pierced his skin. He let out a cold laugh.

“But... Sam, aren’t you overestimating yourself a bit? Who gave you the courage to talk to me like this? Your current status? Or that laughable, childish, ridiculous ‘Dark Emperor’ you people keep talking about?”

The Rat King’s face changed. He seemed to suddenly realize something and jerked his head toward his guards, who still could not draw their weapons.

The subordinates saw Sam’s look and hurriedly pulled out the communication stones, trying to send a danger warning to the troops encircling the shore.

But... no matter how they adjusted the frequency, the other end of the stones remained silent.

All sound had vanished. Only the sound of water flowing outside the boat remained.

It was as if they had suddenly been cast into a truly isolated skiff. No matter how they shouted, they would not receive the slightest reply.