Book 3, Chapter 18: Lecture Materials

Chen Chuan stood at the border of the array and paid close attention to his second self’s changes. After waiting for around three minutes, he noticed the blurred out areas had suddenly stopped spreading, and his eyes lit up. Almost immediately, he walked over and unearthed the pit.

The mannequin inside had disappeared, and only the upper jaw was left.

I did it!

Chen Chuan bent down and picked up the upper jaw. The moment he touched it, he saw his second self blurring out badly.

As long as he didn’t touch it, he wouldn’t be affected.

This was exactly what Chen Chuan had wanted.

The problem was resolved. After Chen Chuan left with the upper jaw, the people wouldn’t be hurt by the mannequin anymore.

He put the upper jaw in his bag and left.

***

While Chen Chuan was in the run-down neighborhood dealing with the mannequin, Central City’s City Maintenance Department went to Gold Prawn’s headquarters.

They didn’t just clean up the site and put away the corpses, but also examined the traces left behind and gathered data to piece together what had happened.

After that, they would upload everything to Posuo for her to store in her database. If something like this happened again, she could compare the data.

But Wu Bei had completely deleted the biofield signal records. Another gang had also desecrated most of the Gold Prawn members’ corpses, so the City Maintenance Department members couldn’t accurately piece together what had happened.

Hence, they could only get the details from the people who arrived on-site later, but oral statements were based solely on what people saw and were subjective. According to the city’s rules, they couldn’t use their statements as primary sources of information, only as a reference, which greatly lowered their importance. When brought back, they would be stored in some remote corner of Posuo’s database.

Even so, the effects of the incident were still being felt. Gold Prawn had headquarters and an elite team. Aside from proper missions, they also had their own unauthorized mission channel. Aside from doing shady work for the upper-class, they also conducted illegal trades with certain gangs.

Yet such a group had been wiped out within a day. The keen-eyed reporters and news media outlets immediately rushed over to dig up information about the incident.

Gold Prawn had been bribing some important officials, but none of them offered any statements about this. Even the evidence of Gold Prawn members ever existing was wiped out later.

It was just as Chen Chuan had expected. Unless Gold Prawn’s interests were deeply intertwined with those of the powerful people or they were direct subordinates to these men, they wouldn’t step forward to show any support. The moment Gold Prawn was in trouble, they simply severed ties with them. They had plenty of people willing to work for them. If one group was gone, they could just get another group to do their shady work.

The incident caused quite a stir in the agent industry, but none of them thought that things were unfair for Gold Prawn, because they had always refused to obey the rules and played dirty. They had no morals whatsoever. Even some of the more ruthless agencies were unable to accept Gold Prawn’s way of doing things.

But because Gold Prawn mainly took up anomalous-event missions and did shady work in private, they didn’t have much overlap in business with the other agents, so no one criticized them. Despite that, none of the other agents pitied them when they were wiped out. They laughed at their demise instead.

***

With Xiao Man buried, Qi Gao went back home, and the first thing he did was to hide the bag of cash before falling headfirst onto his bed. When he woke up, it was already noon the next day.

He immediately saw the message his daughter had left for him in his Realm Pass, and he smiled.

He had known that he was going to be busy for a few days, so he had asked his uncle to take care of her. It seemed like she was having fun at his place.

Then, Qi Gao saw his contact interface flashing so rapidly that it made him dizzy. He got up and washed his face. At the same time, he checked who was calling him. He already knew

why

they were calling him, but he asked them about it anyway. “A’ji? What got you calling?”

“Did you know that Gold Prawn has been wiped out?” A’ji eagerly questioned him.

Qi Gao feigned ignorance. “Gold Prawn? Which Gold Prawn are we talking about?”

“There’s only one Gold Prawn! I’m talking about the agent group!” A’ji shouted.

“What? Them?” Qi Gao pretended to be shocked and skeptical.

“That’s right! Them! I bet you don’t know this, but their headquarters is a mess. Apparently, their implants and equipment were all stolen, and it was done so crudely that it’s clear the Moss Gang was behind it. They only picked the good implants and equipment. As for the cheap and worthless goods? They left them all behind.

“If it had been the bottom feeders, they wouldn’t have even left their corpses intact. The Moss Gang earned big without even doing anything. Why can’t I encounter such a thing?”

Qi Gao gasped, as appropriate for the situation. “Are you saying that the Moss Gang didn’t kill Gold Prawn, but still profited from the situation?”

He was being overly dramatic and wasn’t acting like he usually would, but A’ji was too excited and eager to gossip about the incident that he didn’t notice.

“Exactly. When the Moss Gang arrived, Gold Prawn was already wiped out. Heh. Jing Li had spent tons of money to develop his elites and might have even invested all his profit into them. If I had been the one to kill and rob them, I could retire tomorrow.”

Qi Gao felt a stab in his heart. Yes. That was a whole lot of money they had left behind.

Well, not that they could get it. One needed proper channels and a powerful background to sell stolen goods. Otherwise, they would just be trash in their hands, and one they couldn’t even throw away. In the end, they would just end up having to take care of those stolen goods.

Just then, with nervousness and excitement in his voice, he asked, “By the way, you haven’t told me who did it. Who was it?”

A’ji adopted an enigmatic tone and whispered, “I heard that it’s the government.”

“The government?” Shock appeared on Qi Gao’s face.

“Yes. That should be it. Did you know the City Defense’s security team left the moment they heard that Jing Li died? The way Gold Prawn was wiped out doesn’t seem like any company’s style. That means it could have only been done by a government agent.”

“That makes sense.” It was great that A’ji thought so. This way, he, and by extension, everyone else, wouldn’t connect the slaughter to Chen Chuan and the rest of them.

Qi Gao chatted for another ten minutes or so with A’ji before his friend ended the call. Then, he checked the contact interface for agents and found that they were all talking about this.

They were all directly or subtly displaying how impressed they were with the one who killed Gold Prawn and wondered just who the person was.

Since Qi Gao was part of the team, he felt a huge boost to his ego when he read the words of praise and amazement. But he couldn’t say anything about it, which felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

In the end, he decided to ignore it for his peace of mind and turned off the contact interface, then went to make brunch for himself. While cooking, he received a message from Chen Chuan asking him to count the cash in the bag.

“Got it,” Qi Gao shot back.

The feeling of being trusted filled his heart, and it drove him to check the bag of cash. There was one hundred thousand devs inside.

That was a huge sum of money. Qi Gao had known that there would be a lot, but not that much.

Without wasting another second, he contacted Chen Chuan and Wu Bei.

Wu Bei was curious. “Why did they keep so much cash around? Were they trying to buy something?”

“Could be. But they also took up a lot of private, shady work, for which payment couldn’t be transferred through the platform. Someone could have given them the money as a deposit,” Qi Gao said after thinking it over.

“We don’t have to care about how they got the money and what they were going to use it for. Since we’ve all contributed to the success of this operation, we should portion it among ourselves,” Chen Chuan said.

“Okay,” Wu Bei said after thinking it over. He wasn’t short of money, but he felt that the other two would find it hard to claim their share if he didn’t take any, so he should take some.

“Chen Chuan, Wu Bei, I won’t pretend to not want the money, because I do need it, but my contribution to the operation was minimal, so I’ll only take the amount equivalent to my contribution.” Qi Gao did not want to take what didn’t belong to him. He knew his place.

Chen Chuan did some mental calculations before saying, “I have a suggestion. Wu Bei, let’s each take twenty-five thousand devs. Mr. Qi, your share is five thousand devs. We’ll keep the rest as shared team funds, and I will now distribute twenty thousand devs from the shared funds to you, Mr. Qi. Get a new set of implants so that you can contribute more to the team in the future.”

“That’s right, Lao Qi. Your implants are too old. You should get a new set,” Wu Bei agreed.

Knowing that this was Chen Chuan and Wu Bei’s way of showing care for him, Qi Gao felt touched. He didn’t reject the offer and said earnestly, “Got it. I’ll get a new set later.”

Twenty thousand devs wasn’t enough for high-end implants, but if his goal was just to upgrade and expand the functions of his existing implants while buying solely civilian-grade implants, that amount of money was enough, provided he was careful with his budgeting. The most crucial part, however, was finding a reliable implant surgeon. That was the main way to maximize the use of his implants.

After ending the call, Chen Chuan cast a glance at the upper jaw on his table. With this supernatural being, he wouldn’t need any medicine for the time being.

Supernatural beings weren’t permanent existences. If they were unable to affect those around them, they disappeared as time passed.

That was why supernatural beings usually disappeared after everyone in their area of effect died.

Since Chen Chuan had his second self absorbing the damage for him, the supernatural being was trapped in a deserted environment. As time passed, it would disappear. Still, considering how powerful it had become, it should have no problems lasting for a few months in the upper jaw. Because of this, Chen Chuan was no longer in an urgent need of medicine.

He turned around and checked on the lecturer who had tried to contact him.

He hadn’t had time to reply earlier, but now, he should. After all, the man was a lecturer, and he had even sent Chen Chuan a message during the New Year holiday. It would be rude for him to not respond.

Chen Chuan located the message and hit the contact button attached to it. The call went through quickly, even though Chen Chuan had expected to have to wait for the person to answer.

“Mr. Wu? I’m Chen Chuan.”

“Yes, that’s me. Hello, Chen Chuan,” Wu Ruo, the lecturer, said in a deep voice.

“I read the information you sent me. Am I correct in understanding that you said you could help me improve upon my technique within a short time?” Chen Chuan asked.

“That’s true. I’ve guided more than three hundred students in the past, and you can find the records of that. I have a wealth of experience when it comes to teaching, so you can trust me on it,” Wu Ruo said firmly.

Chen Chuan pondered over this. The number of students a lecturer had taught before didn’t mean much, because good lecturers usually chose to focus on training up elites, which meant that they didn’t teach a lot of students. They focused on ensuring quality.

Politely, he asked, “What do you suggest, Wu Ruo?”

“I’ve read your information. You came from a small city. I’m not looking down on you for that, just stating the truth: Martial artists in small cities teach their students with outdated, traditional principles when it comes to techniques.

“But I have a manual here that can help you make up for your weaknesses and shortcomings, so you’ll definitely be able to pass the university’s test. The price for it isn’t high, and I can give you a discount. You can take a look.” He then sent the introduction over.

Chen Chuan gave it a cursory glance before saying politely, “Please let me go through it in detail first, Mr. Wu.”

***

On the other end of the call was a messy, dark room. A crazed-looking man with deep forehead lines stared at the scenery outside after the call ended while repeating, “He’ll come to me. He’ll come to me...”