Chapter 137: Speedrunning the Second Round of Illusory Realm Trials
The assistant was just an ordinary mortal. He couldn't hold out against the Soul-Pulling Technique for long, and before much time had passed he had given up everything he knew.
Their group were bandits from the Daqing Mountain outside the city.
The assistant went by the name Han Laosi, and served as the group's silver-tongued liaison, one of the four pillars and eight posts of the bandit hierarchy, tasked with talking his way into people's money.
The pork shop owner, Zheng Laohai, had originally been the big chief of their mountain stronghold.
He had once been a figure of considerable renown on the outlaw road, but for reasons nobody could determine, he had vanished without a word three years ago, leaving the entire group leaderless and sending it into a steady decline.
After much deliberation, the remaining members concluded that the chief had almost certainly pulled off some large score behind everyone's backs, decided to keep the silver for himself rather than share it with his brothers, and quietly retired.
Only recently had they tracked down the former chief's whereabouts, and discovered he had changed his name and come to the county seat to slaughter pigs.
The brothers put their heads together and agreed this couldn't stand. They had to bring the chief back. Without him at the helm, their outfit simply couldn't get anywhere, stuck between too big for small work and too small for big work, and it was driving everyone mad.
So the whole group came down from the mountain, hoping to persuade the chief to change his mind. And if persuasion truly failed, at the very least they needed him to hand over whatever silver he had kept for himself back then, so it could be divided among the brothers.