The Reason

The man signaled the others to stop. Coming over to the bar counter alone, he sat down beside Chen Chuan. Glancing at the ice water in Chen Chuan's hand, he said apologetically, "Old Huang doesn't know how to treat guests. My apologies." He instructed the bartender, "Switch it to a hot drink." The bartender promptly and deftly served a steaming hot drink instead. The man said, "I'm the owner here, surname Ai. The person you're looking for..." He probed cautiously, "...is he a friend of yours, sir?" Chen Chuan said, "You could say that." Mr. Ai looked at him. "Since you came all the way here, sir, we naturally must give you face. But I should make something clear: grabbing him really had little to do with us. We hold no grudge against your friend either. Someone just instructed us to do this, and since we rely on others to make a living, we didn't have much choice, did we?" Chen Chuan looked at him. "You seem quite frank, Mr. Ai." Mr. Ai shrugged. "It can't be helped. I know who you are, sir. We still need to do business here, and we don't want to make an enemy of you." He gestured toward the back. "Bring him out." Two subordinates nearby immediately walked into the inner rooms of the bar. A few minutes later, they returned supporting a man by the arms. The man hung his head, exuding the reek of blood and other foul odors, with visible injuries scattered across his body. When an enforcer waiting beside him lifted his face, it was bruised black and blue, with dried blood caked at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Moreover, he seemed to have been drugged with something; he was completely dazed and instinctively flinched from the bright lights. Chen Chuan looked at him. Despite the facial swelling, he could roughly recognize that the man matched the photograph Old Qi had sent him. Mr. Ai said to the man, "Hao Zhuo, your friend is here." The man called Hao Zhuo struggled to open his eyes. He peered at the people in front of him and muttered, "Who... who is it? Who's my friend?" He didn't know Chen Chuan at all, which seemed to contradict Chen Chuan's claim that they were friends. But Mr. Ai showed no change in expression and said courteously to Chen Chuan, "As you see, sir, here he is. Hao Zhuo suffered a bit of rough handling, but it's all superficial flesh wounds. We'll cover his medical expenses." With that, he tapped his boundary credential and transferred a sum of money over to Chen Chuan. Chen Chuan did not accept it, merely saying, "In that case, I'll take him with me. Mr. Ai, thank you for your cooperation." He stood up. Without minding the filth on Hao Zhuo, he pulled the man away from the enforcers and easily guided him toward the exit. "Please wait," Mr. Ai called from behind. "Sir, you can take him, but... could you give us an explanation to account for this?" Chen Chuan glanced back at him. Mr. Ai hurriedly raised his hands. "Don't misunderstand, I mean that kind of explanation..." He spread his hands, gesturing around the room. "After all, you're taking the man, but we need to put on a show of having put up resistance." Chen Chuan gave him a look without answering. Yet as he passed the decorative wall in the center of the room, he reached out and struck it with a fist. With a thunderous crash, the entire wall shattered into pieces, sending masonry, bricks, and mounted decorations raining across the floor. Mr. Ai and the enforcers all blanched, gulping hard. Immediately afterward, however, they noticed something exposed within the decorative wall: a statue of unknown origin. Even sitting down, it stood roughly a meter tall, sporting a pair of horns on its head and a hideous countenance. The corners of its mouth curled upward all the way to its eyes, resembling a smile, yet it looked intensely chilling. Seeing the statue, Mr. Ai's expression changed sharply, and he rose to his feet. Taking cue from his reaction, the enforcers grew tense as well, gripping their weapons tightly. Chen Chuan paid them no heed. He simply gave the statue a casual pat. The entire statue burst apart on the spot, leaving only the head relatively intact. It fell, rolling into the center of the bar to mingle with the flickering crimson lights. At the same time, the Second Self displayed a pronounced tremor of blurring and fading. He cast a glance aside and dropped a sentence: "There's your explanation." With that, he continued supporting Hao Zhuo toward the exit. At a gesture from Mr. Ai, the gang members at the entrance hurried to pull open the heavy doors for him. Watching him leave, an enforcer asked Mr. Ai, "Boss, we're really just going to let him walk out with the guy like that?" Mr. Ai snapped irritably, "What else do you want to do? That's an enforcement officer from the Disposal Bureau! If you've got a death wish, go ahead, but I still want to live a few more years." "What if the people down below demand the man...?" Mr. Ai said, "Why do you think I asked for something to show them? But..." He took off his sunglasses and stared at the severed head of the statue. "When did this thing get in there? Who put it inside?" The enforcers exchanged glances and shook their heads. They had been hired by the boss, and the bar had already been open when they arrived. If even the boss didn't know, how could they possibly know? Mr. Ai suddenly felt a wave of unease—whether it was just his imagination or not, he couldn't tell. He instructed, "Toss this thing out back." Pausing for a moment, he added, "Far out back." *** Chen Chuan walked out with Hao Zhuo. The man remained in a stupor the whole way; once laid across the back seat of the car, he fell sound asleep. Chen Chuan checked him against his boundary credential and asked, "Old Qi, can you confirm it's him?" Old Qi said, "That's him!" Chen Chuan said, "I'll bring him back right away and get the details sorted out." After driving back with him, Chen Chuan brought him to the lodgings Old Qi had originally arranged for Hao Zhuo. Old Qi inspected his injuries and said with a touch of relief, "Though they beat him pretty badly, at least no bones or sinews are broken. They just dosed him with some hallucinogenic drug." He fetched a syringe and jabbed it into Hao Zhuo's neck. A moment later, Hao Zhuo began coughing and croaked, "Water... give me water..." Old Qi poured him a cup of water, which he gulped down greedily. After catching his breath for a moment, he began groaning in pain again, so Old Qi tossed him a painkiller. Only after swallowing it did he finally settle down. After a while, having recovered some of his strength, he looked at Old Qi. "Old Qi, you got someone to rescue me?" Old Qi snapped, "You think I wanted to rescue you? Those people came after me! What the hell did you do?" Hao Zhuo coughed. "Old Qi, your brother dragged you into this mess. I'm sorry, brother. But it wasn't what I wanted either! I told them it had nothing to do with you, but they wouldn't believe me." "What on earth did you do? Make it clear to me today." "Well..." Hao Zhuo hesitated, glancing at Chen Chuan sitting on the sofa nearby. Old Qi said, "He's one of us. Otherwise, how do you think you got out of there?" Hao Zhuo said, "I can tell—he's a big shot. Damn, Old Qi, you've really got connections. When did you get to know..." "Are you going to talk or not?" Old Qi said impatiently. "If you don't talk, I'll dump you right here and you can fend for yourself." "Alright, alright, I'll talk, I'll talk, okay...?" Hao Zhuo came clean. The matter was actually straightforward: he was a warehouse keeper for a gang down in the Lower District, primarily handling esoteric cult materials. Occasionally, he would find ways to skim off odds and ends to sell on the side for extra cash; that was where the materials he sold to Old Qi had come from. As for who bought them or what they were used for, he never cared. The trouble was that not long ago, the gang's upper echelon came around. During inventory, they discovered a significant shortage and demanded it be tracked down and retrieved. Sensing disaster, he had fled up to the Upper District. He grumbled, "I don't even know why they made such a big fuss over such a tiny amount, going so far as to chase me all the way to the Upper District. Tons of warehouse keepers skim from their stock! I only took scraps, barely a fraction of a fraction. Why the hell are they targeting me alone?" Old Qi muttered, "Something's off. Those materials aren't worth much money. Besides, do they really think that after all this time, they could still track them down?" "Exactly! I can't wrap my head around it either. Are those scraps even worth what they paid to hire enforcers and the gas to come up here?" Old Qi cursed, "Damn it, could they have lost something else and made you the scapegoat?" "Fuck, that might actually be it." Chen Chuan spoke up then. "That bar is likely connected to the Plague Gang. Is this batch of goods related to them?" "Old Ai is with the Plague Gang?" Hao Zhuo froze, his face changing instantly. Panic setting in, he stammered, "Then I really can't stay in the Lower District anymore! Old Qi, you've got to help me out. Help me find another place to stay. Don't worry, I won't short you a single penny." Old Qi snapped irritably, "This fucking isn't about money!" Chen Chuan pondered for a moment and said, "The Plague Gang has its own biotechnology. They might not necessarily be framing you. It's very possible that the batch of materials you sold had something wrong with it, which is why they're trying to retrieve it." Hao Zhuo turned it over in his mind. "That actually makes some sense... but I've sold so much. Aside from a few regulars, I have no idea where the rest of the materials went!" Chen Chuan said, "Old Qi, you two should move to a different place for now. The authorities up here keep a close watch on the Plague Gang, so it's not a place they can easily raid in person. That's why they didn't act themselves and hired local help instead. Don't panic over this either. I have some business to attend to soon, so lay low for now, and I'll deal with it once I return." Wu Bei spoke up at that moment over the line: "Leave this to me, Brother Chen. I'll find them a place." Old Qi hesitated. "I don't mind moving, but I'm worried it might disrupt Xiaoqi's schooling..." Chen Chuan said, "Qiqi is in middle school, right?" "Yes. Her first year, at a private middle school." Chen Chuan considered this. The corporations under Convergence Boundary also invested in various private schools, so he immediately contacted Yan Yi. After confirming the arrangements, he said to Old Qi, "I'll have someone arrange a school transfer for your daughter. The new school won't be any worse than her current middle school, and someone will handle everything for you so your destination won't be exposed." Old Qi was overjoyed. "That would be wonderful!" He said gratefully, "Thank you, Brother Chen." Hao Zhuo looked at Old Qi with envy, thinking to himself that Old Qi's friend was seriously impressive, wondering if he could latch onto this golden thigh as well. Once Chen Chuan had arranged everything here, he exchanged a few more words with Old Qi and left directly upon seeing there was nothing else to attend to. He knew Hao Zhuo might still be holding things back, but the entire affair was a tangled mess to begin with. He had no desire to unravel it right now. Better to let the two lay low for a while; if further issues arose later, he could deal with them after completing his defense assignment.