The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

Niu Jiu was rendered speechless, his expression complex. After a long pause, he sighed, "What can we do? We're just a bunch of porters. With Boss Xie gone, the other small bosses have either run or surrendered. The remaining people can't possibly compete with the Three Tigers Gang."

Seeing Niu Jiu's dejected look, Lu Jing felt a little sympathetic. Thinking about the labor disputes he had seen in his previous life, he decided to point out a way for Niu Jiu and the other porters.

"The Three Tigers Gang's annexation of the Green Bamboo Gang is nothing more than expanding their power and increasing their wealth. They will definitely continue the business at the docks. If they really push you porters to the brink, no one will be able to make money for them in the future. I don't believe that Master Huang doesn't understand such a simple principle."

"But these new rules…" Niu Jiu hesitated.

"From the new rules, it can be seen that Master Huang definitely wants to adjust the original commission. There is no doubt about this. But how much he will adjust, I guess he himself may not have figured it out yet. After all, he used to run a gambling den and has limited understanding of the porter business."

"The reason for first proposing a set of new rules that are so harsh that they are unacceptable is, first, to intimidate you and test the bottom line of the porters. Second… it's probably to make you smoothly accept the next set of slightly better-looking conditions that don't seem so excessive, such as changing the commission from 90% to 80%, or changing the original 'no withdrawal allowed' to 'a one-time payment of a certain amount allows withdrawal'. Of course, the specific changes will depend on your reaction."

Hearing this, Niu Jiu's spirits lifted slightly. "Are you saying that if everyone can unite, we can still negotiate with the Three Tigers Gang?" However, halfway through his sentence, his expression dimmed again.

"No, it still won't work. You've been a porter before, so you should be clear about their temperaments. Even if they are temporarily angered by the new gang rules and gather together, the Three Tigers Gang has knives in their hands. As long as they scare the porters and kill a few troublemakers, the remaining people will become shrinking turtles again."

Niu Jiu sighed again, "Before, everyone felt that Boss Xie and the others charged too high a commission. Now that Master Huang has arrived, many people miss the days when Boss Xie was still here. The days ahead will probably become more and more difficult."

"It's definitely impossible for you to negotiate directly with the Three Tigers Gang," Lu Jing said. "Master Huang won't even meet with a group of you porters. So, you need to find someone to speak for you. This person should be from the martial arts world. Their martial arts don't have to be too high, but they must have a reputation in the Jianghu and preferably have some connection with the Green Bamboo Gang. Only then will Master Huang be willing to listen to them…"

Lu Jing saw Niu Jiu looking at him with hopeful eyes and shook his head, "I can't do it. I don't meet these requirements."

Hearing this, Niu Jiu's expression became distressed again, and he lamented, "Where can a group of porters like us find such a… highly skilled person?"

However, after listening to Lu Jing's analysis, he had a direction to work towards and felt a little hope in his heart.

Afterward, Lu Jing asked Niu Jiu to take the three people on the ground and his Green Bamboo Gang waist牌 (waist牌) back to Master Guo.

Unlike the life-and-death situation with Seven Heroes, Lu Jing was relatively restrained this time when facing the trouble caused by the three thugs from the Three Tigers Gang. He didn't kill them, but just broke their bones.

Zhang Sanfeng had warned him on the first day of his apprenticeship that if anyone came to bully him in the future, he should naturally fight back if he had the ability.

The Jianghu is a place where you earn respect based on your skills. If you're strong enough, people will naturally respect you.

Martial arts practitioners themselves all possess unique skills and are full of vigor. Conflicts and sparring are inevitable, but avoid making deadly enemies unless necessary. It's always better to have more friends than enemies.

Lu Jing also deeply agreed with this.

If Master Guo was a smart person, after seeing his three battered and bruised subordinates and hearing them describe the situation at the time, he should know that he had kicked a steel plate this time. If he really wanted to make money, then the cost of provoking Lu Jing again would obviously outweigh the benefits.

Of course, it could not be ruled out that Master Guo was not so smart, or that he was determined to use Lu Jing to establish authority among the other porters.

In the past, this matter would have really given Lu Jing a headache.

After all, there is no such thing as a thousand days of being a thief, but there is no way to guard against a thief for a thousand days. The Three Tigers Gang has a lot of power in Wujiang City, and who knows what kind of people they will send to continue to make trouble for him.

However, Lu Jing now had Amu, so he no longer had such worries.

When he was resting, he could ask Amu to stand guard for him. When he encountered small fries, Lu Jing would go out with his staff to harvest another wave of experience. And if he encountered a master he couldn't deal with, he could ask Amu to temporarily act as his mount.

With Amu's level of lightness skill, even if he was carrying him, unless he encountered a lightness skill master of Wei Zixian's level, he could basically escape.

Lu Jing now understood why the remnant soul in the book was determined to entrust Amu to him until he refused to accept the divine skill secret book, once again proving his "noble sentiments."

In terms of value, that internal energy cultivation method could not be compared with this little wooden training dummy at all. And if Amu fell into the hands of someone with ulterior motives, the harm it would cause would be far greater than a divine skill secret book.

After all, the remnant soul in the book had not been able to comprehend that cultivation method even after studying it for a lifetime, and it took him almost twenty years to reach the first-class realm. And Amu could not only help people practice martial arts moves, but its lightness skill was probably unmatched by anyone in the world.

In just a short moment, Lu Jing thought of many ways to use Amu to make money or increase its lethality, such as sending the little wooden training dummy to sneak into the bank vault to steal silver, or tying a small knife to its training dummy hand. With a little training, it could become a top killer that people in the Jianghu would talk about with fear.

But Lu Jing only glanced at Amu, who was happily playing with the broken pieces of porcelain on the ground, and dismissed all these thoughts.

He still felt that Amu was best in this innocent and carefree state.

Even an evil creature like the remnant soul in the book only asked Amu to help him deliver invitations and scare those Jianghu people. And at the last night banquet, even when he was in a desperate situation, he did not summon the little wooden training dummy.

Lu Jing certainly did not want to lead Amu astray, otherwise, as time went on, Amu would gradually degenerate into an evil creature like the remnant soul in the book. Not to mention whether Lu Jing would still be able to control it at that time, after a hundred years, when Lu Jing was no longer in the world, Amu would definitely not be able to help but wreak havoc on the world.

How many people would die because of it at that time? And if a master took action, it would be difficult for it to have a good end.

If there really was such a day, Lu Jing felt that he would not be able to rest in peace even in the afterlife.

If a child is not raised well, there may be certain social factors, but the parents are definitely to blame.