Chapter 153: The Head-Splitting Monster

When Chen Chuan reached the square, he took a detour and went to a phone booth to call Cheng Zitong. He hung up after three rings.

There was no need for him to wait for Cheng Zitong to answer the call; his mentor would know what this meant.

If he included his journey here and back, the time he took for the unrestricted defense permit was around six days. That time... should be convincing enough, right?

Cheng Zitong should be able to accept that and not freak out.

Just like before, Chen Chuan bought some newspapers and fiction magazines from the train station. Since he had calculated his time down to a tee before he came, the speaker soon announced that his train had arrived at the station. He got through the ticket inspection and boarded the train.

Once again, he only got a seat and no bed. Chen Chuan placed his belongings on the luggage rack. Faint scuttling noise came from within it.

It came from the combat spider in his luggage.

If he wanted to use it, he had to feed his blood to it to verify himself as the owner, which he had done over the past three days in the hostel with Lao Feng’s guidance. All he needed to do to use it now was to awaken it through a special method.

In order for the combat spider to not go on an indiscriminate killing spree, Chen Chuan could control it through a series of gestures and voice controls. After being shown a command, the combat spider would remember it and carry out its orders without a fault. But Lionfist’s gang hadn’t had the patience to train it and never taught the combat spider any commands.

Chen Chuan believed that an uncontrollable weapon was no weapon, so after the spider recognized him as its owner, he spent the next three days teaching it all the necessary gestures and commands. To achieve that, he sacrificed a can of calorie- and nutrient-dense food.

Since there were no enemies around, the combat spider couldn’t show off its abilities and was unable to use up its energy. It remained active even in sleep mode.

Chen Chuan patted his luggage bag, and the scuttling stopped.

Then, he sat down and started thinking about what he was going to do next.

He had managed to get the unrestricted defense permit in no time. The test took less than ten days. After he went back, no one except for Cheng Zitong and Gao Ming would know anything.

After all, the length of time he had been absent wasn’t enough for the test. To put it in perspective, a Class C permit test usually took a month, while a Class B permit test took a few months. For example, if Chen Chuan had arrived a week later, Lionfist’s gang would have left for the Chaotic Land, and he would have been forced to follow them. Things would have been much more troublesome and taken a lot longer.

He would have had to spend a lot of time and effort to look for the gang. He may have even needed to get in touch with the local forces of power, and after getting rid of his targets, he would have had to think about how to get out. It would have been impossible for him to complete his test in less than a few months.

The current situation was the perfect cover for him.

The Foreign Affairs Department could hide the fact that they had given him evaluation points for a year, but people could still see it on the record. The permit was different, though. As long as Chen Chuan didn’t publicize it, no one was going to know about it, because the local forces of power in Yangzhi City were not strong enough to check the files of the National Examination Committee.

Even if they noticed that he got evaluation points and became wary of him, they would use methods that worked against those without the unrestricted defense permit to attempt to crush him. This would give Chen Chuan plenty of room to maneuver.

He had just entered the Second Limit, so his strength was growing daily. The more time he got to improve without anyone bothering him, the better prepared he would be for the fight.

It was almost June, so in another month, the summer break would start. After it, a new batch of freshmen would join the university, and Chen Chuan would become a sophomore. He needed to get even stronger for that. With his achievement of getting a Class B unrestricted defense permit during his freshman year, he could fight for the right to go to Central City.

He believed what Cheng Zitong, He Xiaoxing, and Lei Guangcheng had told him—that he could only understand the world in its entirety after going to Central City.

He looked at the passing scenery outside.

Chen Chuan was determined to go to Central City.

After sucking in a deep breath, he took out two tubes of nutritional paste from his pocket and ate them. Then, he started regulating his breathing.

As the train rushed forward and time passed, the sky turned dark. While listening to the rhythmic grind of the train wheels against the railway, Chen Chuan shut his eyes to rest.

After a long time passed, he opened his eyes and saw the sun rising on the horizon ahead of the train. The golden rays landed on him like a warm blanket.

He looked ahead. When he left for the wilderness, the sunlight had sent him off, and when he returned, he went running back into its arms.

At around noon, the train arrived at the train station in Uptown Wharf City. Chen Chuan walked out and took a moment to observe the city. After all, he had been unable to do so when he was leaving for the test.

Uptown Wharf City was an intermodal transport hub for land and water transport, and he had heard that the food here was great. So, Chen Chuan decided to head to the city and have a meal. He also bought some of the local specialties to bring back to Cheng Zitong. After walking around, he took the long-distance passenger train and headed back to Yangzhi City.

After a little over five hours, Chen Chuan finally returned to Yangzhi City at 8:30 p.m.

When he got out of the train and planted his feet on solid ground, he finally felt at ease. He might have been gone for only a few days, but this was home.

When he arrived at their agreed meeting point, Cheng Zitong wasn’t there. Chen Chuan guessed he was still on his way.

He might have finished the test a little too quickly.

After some thinking, he decided against going back to the university. If he didn’t match his story with that of Cheng Zitong, there were bound to be flaws in their lie. He couldn’t go back home either, so he decided to look for a place to wait.

He was in the south of the city, which was quite close to Ren Shu’s company, so Chen Chuan decided to go to the company.

Ren Shu had told him that the company had received enough evaluation points to advance a rank. Some new old files in the Department of Administrative Affairs were now open to the company, and they had been added to the company’s database. Chen Chuan hadn’t had the time to look, so he might as well use this chance to look through them.

Ever since he completed the mission with the Flying Head Cult, the company had moved out of the training hall and into a recently built five-storey building. Apparently, one of the partners’ family members had specifically built it for him to set up his company, so he offered it up as their office.

When Chen Chuan got close, he saw the lights still on in the office.

Gangs were active at this hour. Sometimes, he saw gang members on motorbikes charging by. Some of them had burning cans and firecrackers trailing behind them. They shouted and yelled like maniacs, causing a lot of noise. Some of them were drunk or high, because they looked really excited.

The Blood Scars Gang occupied the south of the city, so they were all members. When some of them saw Chen Chuan walking alone, they decided to cause trouble and started calling out to their fellow gang members. They surrounded him, but were not in a hurry to attack him; they wanted to toy with him first.

Chen Chuan kept walking forward as if he didn’t see the commotion.

A group of security guards dressed in uniforms ran over from the company and aimed their crossbows and lightweight shields at the gang members.

The security guards had paid the fees to the Constabulary to obtain temporary weapons permits. If the two sides fought, the winner would be up in the air. However, if they got into a conflict, the Constabulary would immediately mobilize their forces, and things would blow out of proportion.

At this point, even if some of the lackeys were not thinking straight due to the drugs and alcohol in their systems, their leaders knew what was at stake. They immediately called their men back, spat in the direction of the security guards, and left with loud roars from their engines.

The security guards ran over to Chen Chuan, and the captain asked in concern, “Are you alright, Mr. Chen?”

The security guard in charge of the night shift piped up beside the captain, “Who do you think Mr. Chen is? He can take down supernatural beings and is an elite student of Martial Valor University. He just didn’t want to fight with those gang members. Otherwise, they’d all be dead or lying unconscious on the ground.”

“True,” the captain agreed.

“Has it been like this every day?” Chen Chuan asked while watching the gang members leave.

“Not really. They’ve only begun doing this eight days ago. Apparently, some leaders of the Blood Scars Gang were murdered, but they can’t figure out who the murderer is, so how could they be calm? They harass everyone on the streets,” the captain answered.

“Thank you for your hard work, then,” Chen Chuan said with a nod. He then turned to the patrol leader. “Buy some supper for your group. My treat.”

“Alright, Mr. Chen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chen!”

When Chen Chuan walked into the company with the patrol leader leading the way, two of the security guards whispered behind them.

“Mr. Chen always travels around with the boss, so I thought he’s really arrogant, but he’s actually quite friendly, huh?”

“Heh. You don’t understand. Only those who are truly strong can act this way. Those who aren’t try to show off that they’re capable.”

“Only people like him can be considered to be living with dignity.”

“I can’t even be jealous. He’s a student of Martial Valor University who became an expert at such a young age. How can we possibly compare? Think about what you were doing twenty years ago.”

“I might be unable to, but my son can. Once I earn enough money, I’ll send him to Martial Valor University, get him to marry your daughter, and get a cute grandson. Then, my life will be complete.”

“What did you just say?”

“I’m just... going to see whether they’ve bought supper yet.”

***

After Chen Chuan walked into the company, he went straight to the archive room. Ren Shu and his business partners weren’t around, but Chen Chuan had the keys.

Soon after he started looking around, the patrol leader came in and placed a warm drink on the table. “Mr. Chen, we’ve prepared hot water and a room for you.”

“Thank you,” Chen Chuan said gratefully.

“It’s no problem at all,” the security guard quickly said. When he saw that Chen Chuan’s attention was on the files, he left the room as quietly as he could and even shut the door gently.

Chen Chuan looked through the missions that had been recently assigned to the company. Among them, he noticed a request letter for a mission that had been sent to the company but hadn’t been accepted yet. It was a mission to retrieve an item from an evil cult.

Isn’t this the mission Min Lan told me about?

he thought.

Had the client also sent a mission request to his company? They really went out of their way to involve all the agent companies possible.

Their company mainly dealt with supernatural beings, which were a different thing from evil cults. Not that clients were often able to tell the difference.

Then again, based on what Min Lan said, the agent companies were equally unable to tell the difference...

Chen Chuan did a quick read through before setting the letter aside. The next mission file caught his attention. It was related to a supernatural being, and a famous one at that: The Head-Splitting Monster.

The urban legend of the Head-Splitting Monster had spread far and wide through Yangzhi City. It didn’t pick its victims indiscriminately, and even the rich and powerful were unable to fend against it, so the commoners loved it.

Chen Chuan had learned about the Head-Splitting Monster’s recent victims just moments ago.

All three of them were leaders of the Blood Scars Gang.

In a short ten days, three leaders died, as if the Head-Splitting Monster was deliberately targeting them. It was no wonder the Blood Scars Gang was agitated.

After reading through the file, Chen Chuan gave it some thought before setting it aside and reading the other mission files.