Lord of Prayer - Chapter 80 - 71: The Water is Deep, You Can’t Handle It
Chapter 80: Chapter 71: The Water is Deep, You Can’t Handle It
Early morning.
Zhou Chen returned from the cafeteria with breakfast. He handed Jiang Che her portion, then turned and sat on the sofa. Sipping a freshly squeezed vegetable juice, he opened the dark web chat and sent a message.
[I heard something happened at sea last night. There was a Level 5 Curse contamination outbreak. The Star Association is taking it very seriously, and I’ve been assigned to the investigation. Do you know the specifics?]
After sending the message, Birdman didn’t reply right away. Zhou Chen wasn’t in a hurry; he ate his breakfast while scrolling through videos.
In the meantime, Li Xiaoxiao sent him a good morning greeting along with a video of last night’s event.
He clicked on the video. On a stage flashing with lights, the view was filled with stunningly beautiful people with amazing figures, dancing provocatively to explosive music, drawing countless cheers and screams from the audience below.
Zhou Chen thought for a moment, then replied: “Nice dancing.”
[Thanks for the compliment~ *makes a heart gesture* ~ I have another event tonight. Can you come watch?]
[I have some things to do tonight, so I probably can’t make it.]
[Then… then we can at least have dinner together, right? It won’t take long.]
Li Xiaoxiao followed up with a teary-eyed emoji.
After a deliberate silence of over ten seconds, Zhou Chen typed:
[We’ll see. If I’m free, I’ll contact you beforehand.]
[Okay, okay! I’ll be waiting for your message~]
Zhou Chen let out a breath and looked up. “Li Xiaoxiao took the bait.”
“As expected.”
Jiang Che was eating a sandwich and scrolling on her phone, enjoying a rare moment of leisure. “What about Birdman?”
“No reply yet. I suspect Fu Qing probably pulled him in for a talk,” Zhou Chen guessed.
This was a critical time for Fu Qing to consolidate his control over Jinzhu City’s criminal underworld. To avoid attracting the Star Association’s attention, he had been working in the shadows, meticulously erasing his tracks and leaving no loose ends. But then Eternal Fire had to go and pull this huge stunt, giving the Star Association a reason to intervene and investigate…
’Fu Qing must be cursing up a storm right now,’ he thought.
And as Fu Qing’s trusted top henchman in charge of numerous smuggling operations, Birdman would definitely have to take some of the blame. He might even be severely reprimanded.
But for Birdman, being punished by Fu Qing probably wasn’t the biggest deal. The real disaster was that they had failed to ship the goods out and had accidentally caused such a huge commotion that it attracted the Star Association’s attention.
Of course, just as Jiang Che had said earlier, this might not be Eternal Fire’s real move. It could be a grand deception, a Blinding Technique. But they still had to be vigilant. Even if it was just bait, a High-Level source of contamination was not to be underestimated.
Just as Zhou Chen’s mind was wandering, his phone suddenly vibrated. A message from Birdman.
[You’d better stay out of this. I can find you a few small fry to hand over and close your case, but don’t dig any deeper. It won’t do you any good.]
He handed the phone to Jiang Che. “What do you think?”
’To him, it was a warning: This whole thing is way over your head, and you can’t handle it.’
Jiang Che stared at the screen, pondering for a few seconds. “It’s hard to say. There are two possibilities.
One, this matter truly involves ’that thing,’ which is why Birdman is saying this. He wants you to back off from the difficulty and not investigate further.
Two, this has nothing to do with ’that thing.’ Birdman’s words are a smokescreen. If you report this to the Star Association, they’ll have succeeded in diverting attention. If you don’t, they don’t lose anything.
Both are possible. We can’t jump to conclusions.”
“So we’re still just running in place…” Zhou Chen sighed.
“At least we can be certain this is related to Eternal Fire.”
Just then, Jiang Che stood up from her office chair, took her suit jacket from the coat rack, and put it on. “There’s going to be a review operation targeting Fu Qing next. I need to go and preside over it on-site. If all goes well, I should be back before your mission begins.”
“Can your body handle that?” Zhou Chen couldn’t help but frown.
She had worked a full day yesterday, then pulled an all-nighter handling work, getting less than two hours of sleep. Now she had to rush off to oversee a review, which would undoubtedly involve a mountain of trouble to deal with. And after that was over, she’d have to rush right back to direct his undercover mission…
Just thinking about it made Zhou Chen feel the strain. Not many ordinary people could withstand that kind of high-pressure work state; it could easily lead to sudden death from overwork.
“The Star Association provides medication and nutritional supplements. It’s not a big problem.” Jiang Che pulled a small vial of pills from the inner pocket of her suit jacket and showed it to him. “Just one of these guarantees eight hours of mental clarity. Ten minutes of sleep is enough to recalibrate all my bodily functions.”
“That amazing?” Zhou Chen was surprised.
“Five hundred thousand per pill,” Jiang Che added.
Zhou Chen was speechless. ’So it’s the power of money.’ He couldn’t help but remark:
“You’re really dedicated.”
“Yes. It would be nice if you could learn a thing or two from it,” Jiang Che said, giving him a deep look.
“…I’ll get to work right now.”
·
·
To prevent his boss from getting too disgusted with his frequent slacking, Zhou Chen agreed to Birdman’s terms. He would go arrest a few scapegoats to close the case and show that he wouldn’t be investigating the matter further.
Birdman was quite generous. He called them “small fry,” but they were actually minor leaders of several smuggling rings.
Following the intel and leads, Zhou Chen arrested them all and brought them back to the Star Association for interrogation. It wasn’t just the minor leaders who were out of luck; their entire smuggling rings were implicated. Within a few hours, the Star Association had completely eradicated them.
Another great achievement. His performance record was looking better and better.
As for the interrogation results, they naturally yielded not a single clue. The scapegoats only knew that the ship had always been secretly involved in smuggling; they knew nothing else.
In the evening, when the time was right, Zhou Chen accepted Li Xiaoxiao’s invitation to dinner.
The location was the recently opened “Whale Song Restaurant.”
Although the restaurant’s name sounded like it might be related to “Cyan Whale,” Jiang Che had previously investigated and confirmed that it had no connection to Eternal Fire. The similarity in name was purely a coincidence.
Inside a private room at the Whale Song Restaurant, elegant music played melodiously. The two sat facing each other, the table laden with all sorts of luxurious dishes. Even the red wine was from ’82—the New Calendar year 182, that is.
“Zhou Chen, I saw on the news that the murderer was sentenced to death. Were you the one who caught him?” Li Xiaoxiao asked curiously, batting her big eyes.
“Mhm,” Zhou Chen nodded. “It’s all in the past now. You don’t have to be afraid of him targeting you anymore.”
“But I heard that a lot of illegal Ascenders have been smuggled into Jinzhu these past two days. What if… what if I get targeted again?” At the mention of this, Li Xiaoxiao’s face filled with lingering fear. “If you hadn’t been there last time, I… I would have been in real trouble…”
“If you run into that kind of situation again, just give me a call. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
’Of course, when faced with an attack from an Ascender, an ordinary person would have basically zero chance to pull out their phone and call for help. But this was all an act, and you had to play the part completely,’ he thought.
“I just knew you would protect me,” Li Xiaoxiao said with a sweet smile.
After dinner.
At the entrance of the Whale Song Restaurant, Li Xiaoxiao suddenly linked her arm with Zhou Chen’s and started acting cute and clingy.
“Zhou Chen, let’s go for a walk after dinner, please? It’s not like we have anything else to do…”
Zhou Chen’s heart skipped a beat. ’Just as Jiang Che predicted. My final assessment is probably about to begin.’
