Daily life of a cultivation judge

Chapter 887 Green Dragon General Store

Wu Mingli subtly clenched and unclenched his fists as his gaze fell on Duan Hu briefly before it went back to Yang Qing.

"Because of how fulfilled he looked when doing it, and how chivalrous he made the posting seem to be, I too at some point in life had entertained the thought of following in the same path and becoming a guardsman.

Our home was a constant hub of smiles of gratitude from our neighbors and those who my father had helped in one way or another both when he was on duty or off duty. Something I took great pride in at the time.." Wu Mingli paused as he smiled bitterly whilst shaking his head at his naivety from back then.

When trouble struck them back then, he desperately tried to go to those neighbors and those who owed his father a debt of gratitude, in the hopes that they would help the man they owed that debt to, but the moment trouble hit, their home turned from the king's palace into a beggar's cesspit that everyone did all they could to avoid.

All the empty promises they had made back then to his father turned into nothing more than smoke in the air when they were called on it.

His mother had warned him of that possibility, but the young him thought they were true friends, true companions who would remember what their father had done for them and do so in kind when he needed them.

They didn't and the young Wu Mingli back then, got heartbroken, bitter, resentful, and hated them for it, but the him right now, after maturing a bit, he could understand and almost empathize with the choice those people made back then.

What he was asking of them back then was no different than him asking them to throw themselves in front of a monstrous consuming fire that had the potential of dragging not only them but also everyone they were associated with.

It had been selfish of him to ask and to expect them to answer, which was something that took quite some time for him to understand and admit to himself.

Even if he understood and accepted their actions back then, if something were to happen to them and they came to him for help, he would not help them. It would not matter whether whatever they needed help with was something difficult to achieve or something that he could do easily with a flip of a hand, he would reject them all the same.

People who only ate with you when the table was full and deserted you when it was empty were not a company he wished to keep or associate with.

He admired his father's sense of selfless responsibility, but no matter how much he admired him, he did not want to be like him when it came to being selfless. His assistance and sentiment were restricted to those who mattered to him. Those were the ones he would raise his sword for, but to strangers, he would be no more different than a spectator in their affairs.

Pulling his thoughts back, Wu Mingli continued.

"It was in the commission of his duties as city guardsman of Spring Plum City that another tragedy struck him.

During one of his patrols, he came across an altercation between a store clerk and the teenage son of one of our neighbors.

The store clerk in question was the store clerk of one of the most famous and powerful shops in the city, the Green Dragon General Store.."as he mentioned the store, killing intent flashed in his eyes before he quickly contained it.

"The general store in question was famous for dealing in all kinds of wares both common or rare. It was hard for someone to miss anything if one went to look be it potions, pills, talismans, formation templates, cultivation arts, weapons, everyday artifacts, appraisal commissions.

It was a one-stop shop for whatever you needed which was what made it so frequented and famous both within and outside the city. Well, that was one of the reasons, with the other and more significant reason for its success being its identity as a subsidiary of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion.

Its background and prestige left it revered and feared throughout the city, even by the City Lord himself and the noble families settled within the city.

Just like other prominent cities around the Red Maple Empire, the Spring Plum City did not have any shortage of subsidiaries of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, but even among them, the Green Dragon General Store was considered head and shoulders above the rest. Their repute was to the extent they were respected and feared even more than the City Lord or the noble families settled within the city.

With such a reputation hanging above them, you can only imagine what those associated with the store were like. They saw themselves no different than princes, and all within the city as their subjects.

It was to the point that even a mere store clerk could act with impunity without fear of any retaliation whatsoever, which was what should have happened that fateful day had my father not intervened.

One of the store clerks of that store by the name of Ding Xiaoli ended up in a dispute with the son of one of our neighbors by the name of Li Fei.

Li Fei had been looking for a miasma-purifying butterfly hibiscus to help cure his mother from the miasma poisoning she had gotten on the job working on a commission for the Green Dragon General Store.

Their family wasn't well off to the point that they could afford a sky-grade herb like the miasma-purifying butterfly hibiscus. The Green Dragon General Store had refused to cater for the medication under the guises that Li Fei's mother wasn't a direct employee of the store, along with other excuses the store used to welch out of taking accountability for her state.

Desperate, Li Fei's father and three of his brothers decided to try their luck at delving into forests and searching out ruins in the hopes they could find the solution to their predicament in those places leaving Li Fei and his two sisters to care for their mother in the meantime."

Wu Mingli silently charted his meditation mantra to quel the boiling emotions within him.