Chapter 0 “Prologue Part 1”
In the middle of March this year, unexpected news dropped into the media like a bomb – the king of thieves, Gold Happy, has finally been apprehended in Ningchuan City!
Usually such an arrest wouldn’t raise any headlines in a second-tiered city that’s lacking both in economic development and tourist attractions. However, in the 1990s, this Gold Happy directly plopped this once unknown backwater of a city onto the map with his miscreant deeds, thus earning him the title “King of Thieves”.
Then using the city as the base of operations, the three neighboring provinces soon came under attack by this thief. Whether it be the hundreds of cities across the provinces or countless villages and towns in the rural areas, there’s not a single place this Gold Happy or his students haven’t touched in the coming years. In the end, whether it be the side of light or dark, none wanted to provoke the ire of this unlucky star upon themselves for the period.
But true to his name, Gold Happy does have a thievery standard that others don’t have. For one thing, he only goes after the big fish in the pond and none of the small fries.
Take Ningchuan City for example where everything started for him. He had hit all the wealthy mansions there, and of the most affluent, that honor belonged to Mr. Lin, a commercial giant that created his wealth in the early eighties and amassed quite the antique collection in the process. Without exaggeration, the treasures in this business tycoon’s safe equated to a quarter of the entire city’s wealth. That’s how rich he was.
To safeguard these appallingly valuable artifacts in his collection, Mr. Lin did what anyone of his status would do and constructed a hidden vault inside his suburban villa. Then through continuous improvement with modern technology, the safe had grown into a national treasury with no possibility of theft.
Yet, it was precisely this “high-tech” vault that ended up failing when Gold Happy struck.
This incident happened back in the earlier years of the 1980s where all sixty pieces of cultural artifacts were stolen from the Ling Family’s vault. Of the most priceless would be the Falling Leaf Golden Buddha Statue, with an estimated value of three hundred million dollars. A genuine treasure.
After the sensational news dropped that year, that’s when Ningchuan City exploded across the headlines and brought this unknown backwater to the mind of the populous. It also created the mythical legend of Gold Happy being untouchable, thus earning him that title everyone knew in this modern age.
This was all great no matter how one looked at it. A master of his craft, a thief uncatchable by the authorities, feared across the lawless bunch, there’s not one who didn’t know Gold Happy’s name during that era. However, the guy was much more mediocre in nature with an average face, average body size, and average shape. Furthermore, he only knew three types of Kungfu – move fast, lockpicking fast, and running away quickly.
Okay, calling his abilities “Kungfu” was an exaggeration. It’s more like Gold Happy had some outstanding lifestyle skills that are above the norm. Nevertheless, it’s more than enough to give him a name, this was especially true regarding his second skill – lockpicking. That was a genuine talent that left the police at a loss on what to do.