Chapter 25 Gong Shengjie’s Offer

Lu Tianzi subconsciously frowned upon hearing about the meeting with Gong Shengjie, and that slight change in expression did not escape Ye Xiangyuan's eyes.

"Are you all right?" Ye Xiangyuan asked in concern.

Lu Tianzi shot a awkward glance at Ye Xiangyuan before nodded awkwardly.

Now he understood why Uncle Ye sounded so hesitant when mentioning this.

Earlier, Ye Xiangyuan had insisted on joining them for the meeting, only to be rejected by Lu Tianzi.

At that time she had not even bothered to hide her anger about being left out. To mention the meeting right now, they truly risked provoking the hornet's nest once again.

But this matter had slipped Uncle Ye's mind earlier. When he finally remembered, it was already dinner time. Uncle Ye knew that Lu Tianzi always locked himself in the room after dinner, not wanting to be disturbed.

So Uncle Ye had no other choice but to remind him now when his daughter was still present.

Ye Xiangyuan naturally understood that Lu Tianzi still had not changed his mind, and she did not want to ruin the celebratory mood at the moment either. She simply turned back to her food, no longer continuing the conversation.

This allowed both Uncle Ye and Lu Tianzi to let out a sigh of relief.

Even so, the originally festive mood in the house had cooled by quite a bit. Lu Tianzi quickly finished up his meal before returning to his room to cultivate.

Time passed quickly when a martial artist was cultivating. In fact at higher realms, weeks or even months could pass in a single meditation session. In the blink of an eye, morning had already arrived in Ivory Rock City.

After having breakfast, Lu Tianzi spent his time reading through Uncle Ye's books. After spending the entire morning just on reading, Lu Tianzi could roughly gauge that he would be able to finish all the books in just two more days.

After which, he would truly have an incredibly strong foundation in the field of herbalism, and could even be called an expert in his own right!

"Ah Zhan, Elder Huo is here!" Uncle Ye called out from outside.

"I'm coming!"

Lu Tianzi kept away the books and walked out to see Elder Huo waiting outside the house.

"Elder Huo!" Lu Tianzi clasped his fists towards the elderly man in greeting. "Thank you for the help once again."

"Haha! This is nothing!" Elder Huo waved it off casually. "Let us go, we definitely don't want to be late for the meeting!"

While Lu Tianzi was grateful for their help, he knew that saying anymore would only make things awkward. Thus he would not continue harping on the matter either, choosing to silently remember their goodwill in his heart.

This might seem to be a ridiculously unnecessary matter for him, but Lu Tianzi understood that to these people with identities as workers, getting involved with someone directly related to a District Head was probably a nerve wrecking matter.

That was especially the case for Uncle Ye, who had no connections to friends in positions of power like Elder Huo did.

If Gong Shengjie managed to convince his father, it would be far too easy for Gong Tiesha to make life difficult for Uncle Ye!

But of course, that was only if Gong Tiesha was the type of person who acted indiscriminately in favour of his son.

---

Eternal Spring Hall was the most prestigious restaurant in the Workers District.

The food there was prepared by only the best of chefs, famed to satisfy even the fussiest of palates. The waitresses there were all young and pretty, their presence alone was able to stimulate the customers' saliva glands even before the food was served.

Up on the second level were individual rooms that provided customers the privacy from any prying eyes. However, the exorbitant prices for booking these rooms also implied that they were only catered to the higher echelons of society.

On this day, the meeting with Gong Shengjie was set to be in one of these rooms. Neither Elder Huo nor Uncle Ye would have been able to come up with such money, so the cost was naturally borne by Gong Shengjie.

This arrangement was also suggested by Gong Shengjie himself, likely as a way to demonstrate his position of superiority.

When Lu Tianzi pushed the door open and entered along with Uncle Ye and Elder Huo, Gong Shengjie was already seated comfortably within the room, calmly sipping on fine tea. A group of men stood at attention behind him, obviously subordinates whom he had brought along.

"You have come," Gong Shengjie exclaimed without even looking up from his cup of tea, his tone calm and indifferent.

"I hope I am not late," Lu Tianzi answered politely before moving to sit across the table from Gong Shengjie, his eyes quickly scanning the other men in the room.

But that was when Lu Tianzi realised something strange.

Those men… why did they look so familiar?

Seeing Lu Tianzi's gaze sweep past them, the men tensed up immediately, each of them already breaking out in cold sweat.

A few days ago when Lu Tianzi was returning to Uncle Ye's house from the marketplace, he had been ambushed by 10 men in a quiet alley. And these men were the exact people who had tried to ambush Lu Tianzi!

Right now, rather than the arrogance in them when they first tried to attack Lu Tianzi, each of them looked to be nervous beyond compare!

Lu Tianzi was not the only one who noticed it either.

Their nervous expressions were so obvious that even Uncle Ye and Elder Huo were perplexed by what they were seeing. But Lu Tianzi was the only one among them who understood the reason why.

At this moment, Lu Tianzi finally realised that Hu Yuanbo had never noticed his presence after he returned to the city.

The whole ambush incident was Gong Shengjie's idea, and these were all his subordinates!

No wonder they were so weak!

Now everything made sense!

Lu Tianzi felt extremely annoyed at the moment. To think that he almost abandoned the safety of the city just because of this person who could do nothing but rely on the name of his District Head father!

He could only be thankful that he did not follow through with his plan of leaving in the end!

If Lu Tianzi could recognise these men, they naturally could recognise Lu Tianzi as well. But even without that, they already beforehand that the person Gong Shengjie was meeting today was the exact same person who had beaten them up before.

As his subordinates, they had naturally told Gong Shengjie of this matter. However, Gong Shengjie had still insisted on coming for this meeting. Being his subordinates, they could not possibly say no.

Thus they could only grit their teeth and show up no matter how reluctant they were.

There was only silence after Lu Tianzi sat down at the table.

Despite his subordinates' anxiousness, Gong Shengjie continued to busy himself with his cup of tea, not speaking another word.

Gong Shengjie was not an idiot.

He knew that if all his subordinates together had lost to this inhumanly powerful worker named Zhanyuan, then even with himself included, his side was definitely still inferior strength wise.

But he was not worried.

Based on the sole fact that the other party had pulled strings in order to arrange this meeting, he already knew that they were still wary of him. After all, there was more to him than the strength of his subordinates.

For Gong Shengjie, his background was the thing that others feared the most!

He was the son of District Head Gong Tiesha, the top figure of the Workers District!

That was one of the four men who stood at the very top of Ivory Rock City, beneath only City Lord Hu himself!

Who in the world would have the guts or any other part of the human anatomy to risk offending him?

Even though Gong Shengjie usually did not enjoy being known only as Gong Tiesha's son, this identity came into good use during times like this.

Protected by his identity, there were few matters that could daunt Gong Shengjie!

Stifled by the deafening silence, Elder Huo and Uncle Ye felt incrementally uneasy, and started making silent gestures to Lu Tianzi, hinting him to make the first move.

But to their horror, Lu Tianzi failed to act in the way that they had agreed upon before coming.

Lu Tianzi had initially been prepared to take the initiative to apologise at this meeting. To him, it was not a big issue to suffer a small loss like this as long as he could get this troublemaker off his back.

However, the situation had changed.

From the moment Lu Tianzi realised that Gong Shengjie had already plotted against him before, Lu Tianzi had abandoned all thoughts of taking a deferential approach.

If Lu Tianzi did not possess sufficient strength to protect himself, then suffering a serious beating under their hands would have been the least of his worries!

Who knew where they would have drawn the line during the beating?

Or if they would ever draw the line?

If Gong Shengjie had already tried to resort to such vicious means in order to get rid of him, then Lu Tianzi was sure that Gong Shengjie would not let him off easily if he were to show any signs of weakness now.

Since Gong Shengjie should have already learnt about Lu Tianzi's strength from his subordinates, then Lu Tianzi intended to ride on this point and take a much stronger approach.

That was the only way to handle someone like Gong Shengjie who bullied the weak!

Still, he had to be careful not to overstep Gong Shengjie's bottom line. If he were to bring in his father, then things would truly get out of hand.

"Your men are pretty cute," Lu Tianzi faked a grin as he commented.

Gong Shengjie frowned immediately.

That definitely was not the attitude that he was expecting from Lu Tianzi.

"Zhanyuan eh?" Gong Shengjie eyed him suspiciously. "Just who are you?"

With his connections, it was not difficult to obtain the name of this new stranger. After all, Uncle Ye's wife had quite a good relationship with her neighbours.

However, Gong Shengjie was doubtful that such a powerful character would be a mere nobody. To be able to beat all his men, that was already on the level of at least an Intermediate Essence Building realm martial artist!

"I am just another peaceful worker in the city," Lu Tianzi leaned back comfortably in his chair as he confidently matched eye contact with Gong Shengjie. "But that might change if forced by unseen circumstances."

At this moment, Uncle Ye was extremely worried by the arrogant attitude that Lu Tianzi had chosen to take. On the other hand, Elder Huo started to gain an inkling of the events that had transpired.

Elder Huo already knew that the young man possessed an incredible cultivation realm. By relying on his understanding about Gong Shengjie's personality as well as the subtle nuancing behind their words, the looks on Gong Shengjie's subordinates' faces already gave more than enough information for Elder Huo to pass his judgement.

Things had already gone way off from what they originally planned. So Elder Huo could only sigh helplessly as he sat back and watched.

Gong Shengjie hesitated as his thoughts raced, before deciding to steer the conversation in another direction, "What's the deal between you and Xiangyuan?"

"He has nothing to do with my Yuan'er!" Uncle Ye suddenly cut in, his anxiety promptly overcame by his possessiveness over his precious daughter.

"Is that true?" Gong Shengjie persisted as he observed Lu Tianzi's every reaction.

"Uncle Ye is right. I only treat Ye Xiangyuan as an elder sister," Lu Tianzi nodded.

"Elder sister? Elder…?" Gong Shengjie could not help but raise an eyebrow in surprise.

Even though martial artists would usually look younger than their age, that was something that only held true for adults. Since Lu Tianzi was still so young, the toned muscles on his body actually made him look more mature than his age.

Gong Shengjie never expected that Lu Tianzi was actually younger than Ye Xiangyuan.

The citizens in Ivory Rock City were relatively conservative in their mentalities. Most males would only be interested in someone who was younger than them, and most females would similarly only be interested in someone who was older than them.

Thus the sole fact that Lu Tianzi was younger than Ye Xiangyuan actually took a huge load off Gong Shengjie's mind.

Gong Shengjie was an extremely prideful person. He might be able to accept it if Ye Xiangyuan was not interested in him. However, he would not be able to accept Ye Xiangyuan choosing someone else over him unless the other person was truly much better!

Coupled with Uncle Ye's confirmation that the two had nothing to do with each other, Gong Shengjie's animosity towards Lu Tianzi had suddenly reduced by a dramatic amount.

"Yes, elder sister. What about it?" Lu Tianzi reiterated.

Bang-!

Uncle Ye and many of Gong Shengjie's subordinates jumped in shock as Gong Shengjie suddenly slammed his palm onto the table.

"Hahaha!" Gong Shengjie suddenly burst out in laughter as he suddenly rose to his feet, clasping his cup of tea towards Lu Tianzi.

"I, Gong Shengjie, apologise for my past rudeness towards Brother Zhanyuan, hopefully Brother Zhanyuan does not hold it against me! I shall punish myself by drinking up this cup of tea in place of wine!"

Lu Tianzi's eyes narrowed in surprise at Gong Shengjie's sudden change in attitude, watching as the latter finished the cup of tea in one gulp.

Since when did he suddenly become brothers with this guy?

It was not just him who was thinking that either.

Uncle Ye, Elder Huo, as well as all of Gong Shengjie's subordinates standing behind felt like they were imagining things.

The arrogant Gong Shengjie was actually taking on such a friendly attitude towards a mere worker?

Even if this Zhanyuan was relatively strong, did he truly deserve such a treatment?

"If Brother Zhanyuan does not mind, then I would like to befriend you as buddies!" Gong Shengjie exclaimed with an amiable smile on his face as though nothing negative had ever happened between them.

"If Brother Zhanyuan is willing to work with me, then I will make sure that I will not mistreat Brother Zhanyuan in the future when I take over my father's position as District Head of Workers District! When that happened, you will be my right hand man, able to command a level of prestige unparalleled within Ivory Rock City!"