I Just Won't Play by the Book - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Senior Brother’s Nagging
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

‘There’s really people who fall for this…’ Jiang Beiran thought to himself.
On the roof, Jiang Beiran held his hand to his forehead and wore a resigned expression.
The incident Fang Qiuyao encountered was a relatively common scam in this world, and people knew it as the “crying woman of the night” scheme.
Those in the industry of scamming could be said to best understand the principle of treating each person differently according to their social status and background. They had ways to scam little girls and ways to scam old ladies.
And in the Land of the Black Dragon with many sects and heroes, the scammers had another target group that Jiang Beiran had never heard of before he crossed over.
It was the heroines.
Passionate girls like Fang Qiuyao who had just entered society and wanted to uphold justice were never in the minority. And to deal with this target group, a variety of scams naturally came into being.
For example, the “crying woman of the night” was one such scam. To put it simply, it involved getting an old woman to lie on the ground, then cry hard until a newbie heroine like Fang Qiuyao came to the rescue.
In Jiang Beiran’s eyes, the level of idiocy involved in such a scam was on par with the modern-day scam where one claimed, “I am Qin Shi Huang, pay me money.” However, from time to time some young heroines fell for the scam.
Now Jiang Beiran had even witnessed it personally. He really didn’t know whether to say that Fang Qiuyao was naive or really dumb.
But still, as previously mentioned, Jiang Beiran did not dislike girls like Fang Qiuyao because actually, she wasn’t really at fault. It was society as a whole that was at fault.
Tightening his mask, Jiang Beiran leaped nimbly across the roofs, following Fang Qiuyao across them all.
After making a few turns into some alleys, the old woman, supported by Fang Qiuyao, came to a compound with cabbages planted within. She went to a hut and rapped on the door hard, saying, “Open the door! You, evil daughter-in-law, come out!”
“Why are you knocking? You want to kill someone in the middle of the night, is that it?” a voice replied.
Shortly after, the door was opened with a bang and a fierce woman rushed out and shouted.
As soon as she saw the woman’s repulsive face, Fang Qiuyao was in high spirits and decided that the woman was definitely a bad person!
“Evil woman! Don’t you dare act wildly! I am here today to seek justice for the old lady!” she said.
When the woman heard Fang Qiuyao’s voice, she was obviously surprised and looked towards her carefully. Only then did she realize that a lady was standing behind the old woman.
‘Strange… I didn’t even notice her when I first came out. I was wondering why the old woman was blindly shouting the secret code for no reason,’ the woman thought to herself.
But although she felt that it was strange, the women still managed to quickly react and said to Fang Qiuyao, “Who are you!? How dare you stick your nose in my business!”
Seeing that the woman was very fierce, Fang Qiuyao’s rather violent temper immediately flared, and she pulled her Sword of White Rainbow out with a clang.
“Ah! How dare you draw your sword? Come on, stab me here,” the woman said as she approached Fang Qiuyao without fear.
Fang Qiuyao, who had always been able to intimidate people by drawing her sword, had never seen such a situation before. She didn’t know what to do for a moment and took two steps backward instead.
Seeing that the situation had come to a standstill, a man quickly approached, acting as a peacemaker, and said, “Eh, let’s talk in a civilized manner, let’s talk in a civilized manner. Heroine, quick, withdraw your sword.” He then said to the old woman, “Mother, what’s wrong with you this time around?”
“What’s wrong with me? You can’t protect me, so can’t I find someone to do me justice?” she replied.
At that moment, a voice suddenly rang out from the hut next to hers, “What’s with all the noise?! Can’t you let people sleep!?”
The man quickly said, “Sorry, sorry. We will go back to the house immediately.”
Having said this, he put his palms together and kept pleading to the three women beside him, “Ladies, let’s go inside to talk, okay? Let’s not make fools of ourselves outside in front of other people.”
The old woman first snorted after hearing this, then looked at Fang Qiuyao and said, “Miss Fang, why don’t we go inside and talk about it? After all, dirty laundry should not be aired in public.”
Fang Qiuyao, who didn’t know what to do with the fierce woman, took this opportunity to put away her sword and nodded. “Okay. Initially, I only wanted to reason politely anyway. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Heh, you are bold indeed,” the fierce woman said as she rolled her eyes at Fang Qiuyao.
But the male host pulled the fierce woman back towards their room in a timely manner, speaking as he did so. “Go in and talk, go in and talk,” he said.
Seeing the fierce woman getting pulled back into the room, Fang Qiuyao stepped forward to support the old woman by the arm and said, “Come, Ma’am. I’ll help you inside.”
“Alright.” The old woman nodded with a relieved look.
After Fang Qiuyao helped the old woman into the room, the male host poked his head out from inside and observed the surroundings for a while before finally closing the door.
‘It seems like this stronghold is not small…’
Jiang Beiran lamented in his heart as he looked over the large courtyard from the roof.
The “crying woman of the night” scam was usually run in a group. Since there was a group of them, the other residents of the courtyard naturally wouldn’t be good people.
‘Eh? There’s even a Mystic? This Luoxia Town really has hidden talents. How is there actually such a capable person among a gang of crooks?’ he thought to himself.
At the start, Jiang Beiran knew what pretty much all the functions were of very straightforward attributes like Strength, Physique, and Agility. However, the attribute of Mind really puzzled him, and after performing many experiments, he still didn’t know what it was for.
But later on, after the attribute points of Mind became higher and higher, Jiang Beiran finally gradually came to learn its function.
First, Jiang Beiran could exert mental pressure towards a target, so that the target would fear him.
Second, he could use his mental power to search up all cultivators within a certain area and know what level they were.
It could be said that both functions were very useful.
Inside the hut at that moment, Fang Qiuyao had righteously reasoned with the fierce woman for a while. However, the fierce woman continued to speak aggressively and use very vulgar words, causing Fang Qiuyao’s face to redden.
“You..!”
Fang Qiuyao, who was once again rendered speechless, was about to stand up when she found that her legs felt a bit weak.
‘What’s going on!?’ Fang Qiuyao frowned and suddenly remembered something that the wimpy Brother had reminded them of in a nagging manner while they were descending the mountain.
“If you feel a sudden weakness in your legs, don’t think too much. Hurry up and use your remaining strength to run hard, because there’s a 99 percent chance of you having been drugged. If you don’t run, prepare to die,” he had told them.
‘But I didn’t smell anything strange, eh?’ she thought to herself.
The more Fang Qiuyao thought about it, the dizzier her head felt. Gradually she felt as though she was losing sensation in her upper body.
‘This is bad!’
Knowing that she had encountered a situation that the wimpy Brother had mentioned, Fang Qiuyao suddenly stood up!