Crash!
A bolt of ghostly white lightning ripped through the ink-black rain clouds above Jinling, and deafening thunder seemed ready to split the entire old antique street in two.
“You little punk, think you can get away with this? The rules of Tianyuan Pawnshop are my rules! Who do you think you are, ruining my business?”
In the torrential rain, several burly men viciously beat a skinny young man in a narrow, gloomy dead-end alley. Muddy water mixed with blood and trickled across the blue-gray flagstones.
“Cough… cough, cough…” Chu Qingyun curled up on the ground, both hands locked over his head. Every breath tasted thick with blood. He felt that at least three ribs were broken, and his internal organs churned violently as if in a pot of boiling water.
“Zhou the Bloodsucker… That Xuande burner… It’s obviously a fake from the late Qing dynasty. The ‘De’ character in the base mark is missing a stroke, and the copper’s been mixed with zinc! You want me to certify it as an authentic Ming Xuande piece and use it to scam that coal boss from out of town. That would ruin the reputation of Jinling’s antique trade! I, Chu Qingyun, will never do something so vile!” With blood staining his teeth, Chu Qingyun glared at the middle-aged man standing nearby beneath a black umbrella.
The man wore an exquisitely tailored Tang suit, and a fine, vivid-green jadeite ring encircled his thumb. He was Zhou Dafu, owner of Tianyuan Pawnshop and a notorious, ruthless crook in Jinling’s antique trade, known to everyone as “Zhou the Bloodsucker.”
