Chapter 99: "Entrapment

Chapter 99: Chapter 99: "Entrapment

Twenty minutes later.

Master Chang, who had been anxiously waiting for Xiang Yi to get back to him, finally got the call.

"Master Chang, let me pick up where I left off this afternoon."

"It’s actually pretty straightforward — I kill the guy, then hand the evidence over to that friend of yours. Simple as that."

"You can follow the trail without worrying about anyone making a run for it, and dead men don’t exactly climb out of the ground to file complaints."

"..."

Master Chang was genuinely taken aback by Xiang Yi’s reasoning. He couldn’t help asking, "You’re sure there won’t be any blowback?"

"I don’t kill people without evidence. And honestly, this is still just me testing the waters — I could just as easily go heads-down and start dropping bodies without telling anyone anything, couldn’t I?"

"I’ve already sent you the evidence, Master Chang. Do me a favor and pass it along. I need to get moving."

The evidence spoke for itself. There was nothing more to say.

Master Chang flipped through the files while asking, "You’re afraid of the police too?"

"Not afraid of the police. I just don’t want unnecessary complications."

"Though if you’re asking what I actually worry about — Anka’s Abnormality Strategy Department must have Spiritual Ability Users, right?"

"Well... about that..." Master Chang hesitated for a moment, then finally said, "You don’t need to worry about them. My friend used to be with the Abnormality Strategy Department."

"He still carries some weight there. He knows your situation. As long as what you’re doing is justified, no Spiritual Ability User is going to come after you... unless..."

"Unless I kill the wrong person. That’s not going to happen."

Xiang Yi confirmed that all the files had been sent, then hung up.

Rather than finding somewhere safe in the city district to sit and wait, he went straight to his next target for the day — another low-level official from the Southeast City District.

One hour later.

Xiang Yi had just finished cutting off the fingers of the Deputy Minister of Population Affairs — the ones corrupted by Blood Crystal — when his terminal suddenly went off.

"Yeah?"

Master Chang’s voice came through: "All the evidence you sent has been accepted. Turns out you can still convict a dead man. I’ve forwarded you a copy of the processing documents — take a look and see if anything seems off."

"Got it."

Xiang Yi accepted the files and skimmed through them quickly.

Documents like these — dense, bureaucratic, packed with formulaic language — used to give him a headache. Now he could read through the whole thing in no time at all.

Xiang Yi’s expression went cold. He asked Master Chang, "Who was the lead on handling this case?"

"Wan Rong."

"Let me check... he’s not on my list."

"What do you mean?"

"Hold on a second, Master Chang."

Xiang Yi glanced over at the minor official beside him, who was still trying to recover from the searing pain. "Ready to talk now?" he asked.

The Deputy Minister nodded frantically and spilled everything he knew about the company — every last detail, like beans pouring out of an upended jar.

Once Xiang Yi had it all recorded, he sent the man on his way.

Then he picked Master Chang’s call back up.

Master Chang had heard everything through the line. He couldn’t follow all of it, but he could tell Xiang Yi had found the right target.

"So about what just happened..."

"When I passed you that first batch of leads," Xiang Yi explained, "I buried a trail inside it that pointed to someone else."

"Since they already dug up everything on the person I killed, there’s no reason they couldn’t have found the other guy too."

"Even if the government needs time to go through proper channels, at the very minimum they should’ve flagged it and brought him in for questioning, right?"

"But they didn’t. There’s not a single mention of that lead anywhere in the documents you sent me. All they pulled in were a few low-level lackeys connected to him."

"Whoever was in charge of this case is dirty. He’s not on my list, which means he’s probably tied into a whole other network."

Master Chang’s expression turned grave. What Xiang Yi just said carried some serious implications.

If it was true, the government had been infiltrated so thoroughly it was practically a sieve.

"What’s the department called again — the one that handles internal misconduct within the government?"

"The Special Internal Affairs Department."

"Master Chang, could you ask your friend to get Wan Rong out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for a meeting? Somewhere quiet would be ideal. I think I need to have a word with him."

"There’s too much the government can’t bring itself to do. So let me handle it."

"I’ll do the things they don’t have the guts to do. I’ll be the one they point fingers at."

"I want everyone who dares to work with Iron Shell Company — everyone who dares to come after me — to know that I will send them straight to hell."

"Or, if your friend isn’t willing, I can always forward the evidence from the person I just dealt with and let Wan Rong handle this one too. Just a bit more of a hassle, that’s all."

Central City District.

Anka Star Government.

Special Internal Affairs Department office.

The atmosphere in the office was suffocating.

Anka Star had been battered by problems from every direction lately, and no one in the entire government building was getting off on time — no one except the cleaning lady.

Wan Rong wore the same look of strained anxiety as everyone else.

But deep down, he was counting the days.

He knew better than anyone that the more tense things got on Anka Star, the closer everything was to total collapse.

And when that day came, he would be perfectly positioned to rise.

Still, the past couple of days had been unsettling.

Some lunatic had appeared out of nowhere.

Four kills over two nights — every single one of them an informant cultivated by Iron Shell Company.

Whoever this maniac was, they clearly had access to a substantial amount of intelligence. It made Wan Rong uneasy.

Worse, the lunatic had somehow gotten the dead men’s information passed up the chain to the higher-ups, which meant Wan Rong had to tread carefully every step of the way when handling the fallout.

He was terrified of accidentally exposing connections to others in his network, and equally terrified that fumbling the handling of an open-and-shut case would tip someone off to his own involvement.

Fortunately, it was over now. The leak hadn’t touched him. For the time being, he was safe.

As a precaution, he’d already told everyone in his network to go dark and keep a low profile for a while.

Stay hidden, stay alive.

His terminal buzzed.

Wan Rong glanced at the name on the screen and answered with a note of confusion. "Hello?"

"Oh — something you need to discuss in person? Can’t do it over the phone?"

"You think it’s not appropriate either, given the Abnormality Strategy Department’s reputation..." Wan Rong caught himself and quickly fell silent, casting a careful glance around the room.

Everyone else was buried in their own work. No one was paying the slightest attention to his call.

"Understood. I’ll head over now."

Wan Rong wrapped things up, said a quick goodbye to his colleagues at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and clocked out like it was any other evening.

He made his way to the parking structure, took his hover-car, and set down near the border between the Central City District and the Southeast City District.

There was a tea house there — one that by all rights shouldn’t have been open at this hour, and yet the lights were on.

A few people were still passing by outside, which settled his nerves just enough for him to step inside. Following the instructions from the call, he headed toward the stairs leading up to a private room on the second floor.

But something stopped him. He suddenly realized there was no one manning the tea house — not a single employee in sight. He hesitated.

He turned to leave.

Two people were standing in the doorway. He had no idea when they’d appeared.

"Well, hello there."

"Help—"

The word never made it out. Shi Tie grabbed him by the jaw and choked it back down his throat.

Wan Rong was hauled off the ground by Shi Tie and dragged into the empty tea house.