Seeing this, Renee said nothing more about it and glanced at her watch.

�It�s getting late now,� she said, �and your pawnshop is going to open soon, so can you take me to your boss now? You made me a promise, you know.�

�A gentleman always delivers on his promise. I gave you my word, so I�ll naturally take you to him. Follow me��

After finishing his sentence, Chase strode forward with his long legs and led the way. His green coat billowed under the silvery moonlight, accentuating his graceful figure. It was as if he was a character who stepped out of the old poems, where men were not just handsome and powerful, but graceful and delicate.

Renee was about to follow him but suddenly remembered something when she saw the silk handkerchief in her hand.

�That�s right! I was going to ask the old man where he got this handkerchief from!" But as she turned around, not only was the old man gone, his whole stall along with all his wares had vanished into thin air�

Renee found it weird, but because she still had an important business to attend to, she had to leave the matter there.

With Chase leading her, she passed through the whole of Water Dock unimpeded and finally arrived at the center of the downstream zone, where Carmine Pawnshop proudly stood.

�So this is the legendary Carmine Pawnshop?� asked Renee as she stood at the door. She looked up at the gilt letters proclaiming its name on the door plaque and very bluntly commented, �It looks so� ordinary!�

From the outside, the pawnshop looked like any other mansion. It just looked too �normal� and not at all befitting the �lawless land of heinous crimes� reputation that Water Dock had garnered over time. In fact, it looked too simple and clean if anything.

Renee found it hard to believe that such a mundane building had been hiding priceless treasures from all over the world that inspired great fear and trepidation in the hearts of many!

�What did you expect?� Chase turned around and smiled gently. �Carmine Pawnshop has always been an ordinary place. It was you people who have elevated it into a powerful, godlike establishment� or should I say, twisted it into an evil lair of demons. The truth is, this place is not at all as terrifying as it�s rumored. At the end of the day, we�re just another pawn shop like any other.�

�You say that,� argued Renee, �but you still accept everything under the sun, whether legal or not. You�d accept it as long as it�s worth good money, wouldn�t you? I hear that you�d even let people pawn their own lives-a deed sinister enough that befits your reputation.�

What was truly frightening about Carmine Pawnshop was that no legal rules applied there. If anyone wanted to pawn something valuable in exchange for the life of an enemy, as long as Carmine Pawnshop deemed their offering worthy enough, they wouldn�t hesitate to kill to get it, which was a horrifying thing!

�The way you put it,� said Chase, �it�s as though Carmine Pawnshop is some purgatory. In truth, as our boss has mentioned before, this place is more like a charity hall than hell.�

�What?�

�Think about it. In your most desperate times when you have nowhere else to turn to, you bring the most valuable thing in your life here to solve the most pressing problem in your life. As long as you gain enough strength to pay the agreed price later, you can always get that most valuable thing in your life back. If you can�t get it back, then it means that thing that you pawned wasn�t really the most valuable thing in your life, since you didn�t strive enough to earn back what you lost. You can�t blame Carmine Pawnshop for being cruel or unfair, don�t you think that makes sense?�

�Well��

Renee stroked her chin, thinking that what the man just said did make some sense. After all, it was precisely for this reason that she decided to make this deal with Carmine Pawnshop, confident that she�d one day gain enough strength to get back the most valuable thing in her life!

�You�re back, Mr. Cheever!� JrNovels.com