Chapter 56: What Kind of Trash Dares to Act All High and Mighty

"Cash!"

Chen Dabao pulled out his bag directly.

"Very well, boss. This way, please, let's verify the cash over here!" The middle-aged man smiled broadly, led Chen Dabao to the counter, pulled out a bill counter, and began counting the money.

"Boss, I'll pack the Ganoderma for you!"

The clerk beside them stuffed the box into a bag. As soon as the middle-aged man finished counting the money and confirmed the amount was correct, he handed the bag to Chen Dabao.

Instead of leaving with the bag, Chen Dabao took the box back out, opened it for a quick look, and his expression instantly changed.

"Brother, what is the meaning of this?"

Chen Dabao's face turned cold as he stared fixedly at the clerk with sharp eyes.

As the saying goes among travelers and tradesmen, those in the transport, inn, and pawn businesses can be executed even if innocent. This was Chen Dabao's hard-earned street experience: when purchasing expensive goods, the moment an item leaves your line of sight, it must be thoroughly re-inspected.

Sure enough, his Blood Ganoderma had been swapped.

One person handled the packaging while the other distracted him—such a crude trick.

"Boss, what are you talking about?"

The clerk looked at Chen Dabao with a blank expression, acting as if he had no idea what Chen Dabao meant.

Hearing the commotion, the other staff members in the shop quietly closed in.

"You swapped my Blood Ganoderma for a common mushroom dyed to look like it. This piece isn't even worth a few hundred bucks. Give me the real Ganoderma!" Chen Dabao said with a frosty face.

"Boss, you picked this item yourself, and none of us touched it. Now that the cash and goods have been exchanged, don't go looking for trouble. Take your goods and get out of our shop!"

The smile vanished from the clerk's face as he offered a sneering, humorless grin.

"Brother, if you want to throw a tantrum, you picked the wrong place!"

"The deal is done, now get lost!"

"If you interfere with our business, don't blame us for being rude!"

Several nearby men glared menacingly, trying to intimidate Chen Dabao.

Seeing that Chen Dabao was dressed ordinarily, lacking any backing, and clearly a newcomer to the area, they didn't take him seriously at all.

In the herbal medicine business, without fraud and dirty tricks, how could anyone make a fortune?

"You brought this on yourselves!"

Chen Dabao didn't care about these small fries at all. With a swift kick, he smashed into the counter of Baozhilin. With a crisp *crack*, the counter overturned, and a box tumbled out.

Inside was the genuine Blood Ganoderma.

"Now the transaction is truly complete!"

Chen Dabao picked up the box, tossed the fake Ganoderma onto the counter, and turned to leave.

"Bastard, how dare you cause trouble in our Baozhilin! You've got a death wish!" The middle-aged man backed up two steps and roared, "Get the weapons!"

Several shop assistants pulled out steel pipes and wooden cudgels, surrounding Chen Dabao with hostile glares.

How could anyone get rich by running an honest business these days?

To get rich, one had to resort to tricks—passing off inferior goods as superior ones and fakes as genuine articles was something they did all the time. If they didn't make this punk leave behind over one hundred thousand, how could they afford wine and meat?

"With a scam shop like yours, do you even deserve to call yourselves Baozhilin?" Chen Dabao sneered with utter contempt.

"We call it Baozhilin not because we have Wong Fei-hung, but because our brothers can fight better than Wong Fei-hung. Make this punk leave the Blood Ganoderma behind and beat him out of here with clubs!"

The middle-aged man viciously issued his command.

Those running wholesale herbal medicine businesses were wealthy and powerful. They had long since greased the palms of the local industrial and commercial bureau and the police station, so even if trouble broke out, they could easily smooth it over.

If an ordinary person got the short end of the stick here, they had no choice but to swallow their pride and accept their bad luck.

Beat someone up? What's the big deal, as long as you don't kill them?

"Attack!"

At the middle-aged man's command, several assistants rushed toward Chen Dabao.

The clerk swung a wooden cudgel, aiming a blow straight at Chen Dabao's head.

"Courting death!"

Chen Dabao sidestepped, grabbed the clerk by the collar with one hand, dragged him forward, and flung him backward.

The clerk crashed hard into one of the assistants. The two collided and tumbled to the ground like gourds, unable to get back up for a long time.

"Damn it!"

A young man nearby was startled, not expecting Chen Dabao to have such skills. He hurriedly crept up behind Chen Dabao and swung a steel pipe toward the back of his head.

"You're asking for it!"

Chen Dabao let out a low roar, spun around abruptly, and delivered a fierce kick to the young man's torso. With a miserable scream, the young man was sent flying.

He crashed heavily into a medicine cabinet, flipping it over.

Before the assistant standing next to the young man could react, Chen Dabao backhanded him to the floor. The fellows wailed continuously; not a single one of them was a match for Chen Dabao even for a single round.

Wherever Chen Dabao went, people were sent tumbling in disorder. In the blink of an eye, the decent Baozhilin shop looked as though a hurricane had swept through, smashed to pieces.

"Stop, stop, stop hitting! My shop!"

The middle-aged man spun around in frantic panic. He hadn't expected Chen Dabao to be so formidable. Not only had he failed to keep the hundred-odd-thousand-dollar Blood Ganoderma, but countless display counters and precious herbs had also been smashed to smithereens.

The losses far exceeded one hundred thousand.

In no time at all, seven or eight clerks and assistants lay sprawled across the floor.

After dealing with these fellows, Chen Dabao grabbed the middle-aged man by the collar and asked mockingly, "Where is that brother of yours who can fight better than Wong Fei-hung?"

"Kid, don't get cocky. Master Ma is a stakeholder in this shop. If you've got the guts, don't leave—I'm going to fetch Master Ma!" the middle-aged man said, grinding his teeth in hatred.

This shop didn't belong to him alone; he was merely a minor shareholder, with several others holding stakes.

Among them, Ma Wei, known as Master Ma, was the local tyrant of the herbal medicine market. He kept quite a few thugs under his command, parading around every day in market management uniforms, though in reality, they were just a bunch of hooligans wearing a veneer of legitimacy.

"Fine, go call him!"

Chen Dabao released his grip with utter disdain, telling the middle-aged man to fetch reinforcements.

"You wait right here!"

Dropping a harsh threat, the middle-aged man scrambled away on all fours. Less than two minutes later, a burly, swaggering fellow with a cigarette hanging from his mouth rushed over, followed by twenty or thirty thugs in uniforms who swarmed the place like a swarm of bees.

Every single one of these twenty or thirty thugs brandished riot batons and steel pipes, exuding a menacing aura.

"Master Ma, it's this punk!"

As soon as the middle-aged man led them over, he pointed the finger at the leading brawny man. That man was none other than Ma Wei, the head of the herb market management office, who held absolute sway in this neighborhood.

By relying on selling inferior and fake goods, he had flourished and lined his pockets with wealth. As for fake medicine killing people, what did that have to do with him?

"Punk, you're the motherfucker causing trouble?"

Ma Wei stared at Chen Dabao with absolute contempt. He had thought some formidable overlord from out of town had come to cause trouble in the herb market, only to find it was just some bumpkin.

For a mere country bumpkin to dare cause trouble on his turf meant he was tired of living.

"Master Ma, it's him! Look at how he smashed our Baozhilin—the losses are at least one hundred thousand!" the middle-aged man cried out with a pained expression.

"Kid, pay up and apologize, and I'll let you walk out of here on your two feet!"

Ma Wei spat his cigarette onto the floor and shouted arrogantly.