There was a small seam at the side of the metal door of the rubbish chute through which sounds from outside could slip in. Trapped in the "historical remains," Xu Lin stuck close to that seam, holding his breath and focusing his attention as he got a handle on what was happening outside.

His disciple had really been caught. He heard a man shout, "Take this one away first... You guys should give him something to cover up. Everyone else, continue to search. Xiao-Yu, if you don't have anything else, you should follow them back for now. If we can't catch our target, you're responsible for preparing the materials to declare him a wanted criminal."

Xu Lin gripped his fists so tightly there was a sound.

All these years, life was getting harder and harder in the big city. Just a moment of carelessness and they would be reported and arrested. Didn't Paradise get overturned completely just last year? They could only keep changing their area of operations to various small places. Xu Lin felt that he would soon be going to the old and poor marginal regions to join the elections and become the village secretary!

Because of this trend, the quality of disciples and followers they recruited were naturally also getting more and more worrying.

Xu Lin boasted that he had obtained the true teachings of Wan Mu Chun. Wan Mu Chun's martial arts weren't the same type as those where a person shattered rocks with their chests, it was entirely about technique. Without some ingenuity, one would not be able to master it. For example, in his group of disciples that Gan Qing had defeated singlehandedly, each of them was a dumb as a donkey and even had to first draw lines as a draft before putting their knives to work. At a glance, one would think that they wanted to tattoo a large azure dragon on the person's neck.

There were only a handful of disciples that Xu Lin would not be ashamed to bring out. The ones that could work with him in tacit understanding, who could assist him with sneak attacks, were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, only one among the tens of thousands.

Now, great. His feather and horn were broken just like that!

No matter how he thought about it, it was making him lose his head. Right at that moment, a woman's voice carried over from far away. "...Yes, that's my home."

One of his eyes twitched. Zhang Meizhen!

"...I don't know. I have a tenant living there… maybe she offended someone."

"Today? Today, a few old friends whom I have not been in contact with for a long time suddenly came over to look for me and said that there would be people coming tonight… Fortunately, those people were all non-locals, they're not familiar with Yanning so they used their cabs... The person who passed the message? I can say who it is… it's just that… the cab they drive isn't a proper licensed one. Will I cause trouble for them if I say it?"

"My tenant said that she can resolve it herself and asked me to go out for a while to avoid the trouble. She guaranteed that there will be no issues and even settled the rent in advance and prepared to move out. I was afraid that something would happen to her since she's just a young woman so I called the police… You guys didn't see her either? Oh, then it looks like she escaped in time. It's good for her to stay low. There are all sorts of people nowadays."

On Xu Lin's neck, a thick vein was pounding fiercely.

That explained everything.

He thought, the reason why Travellers' Sect could solemnly swear that Zhang Meizhen wasn't there was entirely because she knew what was going on and had left on purpose. All that intelligence about Wan Mu Chun getting food delivery at such-and-such time had entirely been made up by those few Travellers' Sect ruffians!

In total, Gan Qing had made her move twice. Once was when she followed Xiang Xiaoman and overthrew the Xu clan's Chun division that had been operating in Yanning. The other time, she pursued them to the rural tourism chalet where Paradise conducted their illegal cult preaching. Both times, she couldn't really be considered to have exposed herself because after the incidents, those people who could tell where she came from were all arrested by the police. Furthermore, the news about Wan Mu Chun being in Yanning had clearly come from Travellers' Sect!

Travellers' Sect, that bunch of shit-stirrers, stuck their heads into this business and worked for both sides. Wang Jiusheng truly embodied the saying "having a single unique skill is better than having thousands of common ones." He could depend on "dragging others into the mud to cover his own ass and borrowing a knife to commit murder" to survive his entire life.

Borrowing Beggars' Sect to tear down Zhang Meizhen, borrowing Yang Ping to be his own shield, borrowing Wan Mu Chun's blade to make Wei Huan and his own sect destroy each other, and even plot to have Yang Ping kill Wei Xiao with his own hands.

And now, Wei Xiao's disciple had crawled out of hell to take revenge. Coincidentally, Travellers' Sect's might was weak, so without even thinking, Wang Jiusheng was directly pushing their Xu clan forward.

Wang. Jiu. Sheng!

The police searched the area fruitlessly for over two hours before finally dispersing. Xu Lin squatted until both his legs were numb but at last he had what he wanted. He climbed back up the rubbish chute and under the cover of the predawn darkness, he slipped out again through the sixth floor and melted silently into the night.

The incense smell on his body from 1003 seemed to have latched on to his very bones, lingering around him, refusing to let him go. Even after half a night in the rubbish chute, it had not dissipated the least bit. Unfortunately, Xu Lin's nose was already numb now and he did not notice it.

Just like that, emitting a fragrant scent and cursing Wang Jiusheng, he ran back to look for his accomplices.

The criminal police Miao Feng entered the interrogation room. Inside, Yang Ping heard someone coming in but showed no reaction and just sat there without even looking up. A thin layer of skin wrapped over his bones, the bluish veins appearing to be floating on the skin. His eyes were sunken, looking like a pair of wrinkled jujubes that even appeared rather chewy.

Other criminals had a pair of handcuffs on them. Yang Ping was more special. After he was discharged from the hospital, he had forced open one pair of steel handcuffs. He was truly a dangerous person and hence, he obtained preferential treatment and was under multiple layers of locks.

Captain Miao had met Yang Qing and Yang Yifan before. Of the two of them, one had an elegance and poise beyond ordinary mortals, the other had an extraordinary aura. No matter how he tried, he could not imagine how a person like this could be wedged between the two generations of grandfather and granddaughter.

"I heard that you refuse to cooperate with the investigation, do not admit to taking drugs, and also do not admit to committing murder?"

Yang Ping rotated his eyeballs towards him for a while, then let out a cold smile that showed his yellowed teeth. "What drug did I take, did the lab test say? Who did I kill, do you guys have proof?"

Captain Miao replied without changing his expression, "Indeed we do."

Yang Ping was stunned.

"Your old friend, Tian Zhanpeng, and more than ten other people have collectively identified you as being involved in the death of a person called Wei Changsheng, also formerly known as Wei Xiao. Their confessions have already been through repeated verifications." As Captain Miao spoke, he took out a file from under his arm. "We also gathered these things."

As he spoke, he slid out the items in the file. They were none other than the stack of mysterious photos Gan Qing had once received.

Yang Ping sat up abruptly. "What's this?"

Who took these photos?

Yang Ping widened a pair of eyes that resembled ping-pong balls. Those people whom he had dragged into the matter to be his witnesses were all in the photos. They were living their lives peacefully and wouldn't betray themselves for no reason. In that case… who else knew about what happened at Mudpool Backlane?

"This was given to us by a public-spirited member of the public. I, too, would like to know," Captain Miao leaned his body forward slightly. "What are these? Oh, speaking of these mysterious photos, there's another very interesting thing. Those friends of yours who identified you all think that these photos were taken by you."

"Bullsh-"

"Because they also received a letter. We got our hands on it too." Captain Miao smiled. "Would you like to know what was written in it? How about I read it out to you?"

Yang Ping sat in a daze for a while. Suddenly, his eye twitched like it was spasming. "Wang. Jiu. Sheng!"

On a small holiday island in the Pacific Ocean, Wang Jiusheng startled awake. Black spots appeared in his vision and he hurriedly fumbled his way to the bedside table, grabbing some pills and throwing them into his mouth along with the half glass of water that remained from before he went to sleep. Done, he pushed his pillow aside and fell back with his neck stretched out. He lay down like a corpse gone cold, staring stiffly at the ceiling, groaning as he waited for his heart palpitations to pass.

He was taking more and more sleeping pills, and they were becoming more and more ineffective. When it was time to dream, he still dreamed. It was just that his mind was fuzzy in his dreams and he forgot them the moment he opened his eyes. The only thing that remained was that kind of feeling like his chest was being flattened by someone sitting on it.

One side of the hotel room had large floor-to-ceiling glass windows. A swimming pool was connected outside. When the night wind blew, the shadowy trees swayed and from where he was lying in the room, he could hear the sound of the distant waves. But these fine and dense static noises did not bring him any peace. The moment Wang Jiusheng closed his eyes, he felt that his surroundings were filled with whispers, like the empty room was crowded with humans.

Those who died deserved deaths, those who died unjust deaths, those whose spirits still lingered.

Suddenly, his phone rang. Wang Jiusheng startled and grabbed it. "Hello?"

The number he had been using had already been discontinued and was left behind in China. Only a few of his trusted people knew his new number and it was used to control the situation in Yanning.

Wang Jiusheng had lived through a crackdown once. In the 80s, during the time when they clashed with Beggars' Sect and people died in a fire, there was a round of severe unrest in Travellers' Sect. But when the storm was over, wasn't he still able to summon wind and rain as he wished? Not only had he usurped Zhang Meizhen's position, he had even taken the chance to wash his sect clean of their dirty past and had his own business. He had climbed to his current position step by step.

Fortune and disaster were two sides of the same coin, no one could dictate them. Wang Jiusheng had been through so many great storms in his life and every incident had seemed to be an opportunity for him.

He believed that this time would be no different.

He initially wanted to leave temporarily to stay out of the storm and hadn't gone far, planning to return to China once things calmed down a little. But who would have thought that not only was the storm showing no signs of abating, it was even getting bigger. His people dropped out of contact one by one and now, the number of people who knew this phone number was getting fewer. It made Wang Jiusheng feel a kind of terror like he had been abandoned on the island and he was almost hoping for someone to call him.

"President Wang," the voice on the phone said urgently, "she's starting to take action with her Red Bat Token."

"...Who?"

"Zhang Meizhen. Recently, our people were taken away by the police every other day to be investigated. The areas where our cabs work all have police squatting there, the shops everywhere are having their licenses checked and the ones without licenses are sealed off immediately. There are quite a lot of rumours going around the sect. People are saying that your wife and children moved out of the country long ago and that you're definitely not planning to come back or planning to care about whether we live or die. Zhang Meizhen took the chance to contact a bunch of the sect's old fools in other parts of the country. They are discussing throwing you out of Travellers' Sect."

In the past thirty years, Wang Jiusheng had always thought of Travellers' Sect as his private property. For a moment, he could not comprehend that line "throwing you out of Travellers' Sect."

He asked like he was dreaming, "What?"

"It's true. Right now, everyone's alarmed and worried. Quite a few people are swaying. The old hag even contacted Beggars' Sect Yang Qing. That little brat from the Yu family sent out an Alliance Leader's Command to gather everyone at the end of the month. He said it's to straighten out the over thirty years of feuding between the two sects. That's right… they even found a bunch of lawyers from somewhere, saying that they want to check our accounts and to check… check your accounts. They also said that you have hidden the truth about Futongda for so many years. It's clearly our Travellers' Sect property but now it bears the surname Wang…"

Wang Jiusheng shot up like a revived corpse.

"When are you coming back? If you don't show yourself, our brothers really won't know whose surname to follow, North Branch Master!"

Wang Jiusheng's heart rate that was slowing down under the effects of drugs started to pound wildly again. He sucked in a breath of cold air in shock and thought that he understood everything now. That old hag who was fated to bring disaster to everyone around her had lived alone for so many years. Why had she suddenly wanted to get a tenant? How could it be such a coincidence, the tenant she got was none other than the Wan Mu Chun disciple who had been freed from prison?

After all this fuss, it turned out that they were waiting for him.

It was all a sinister plot.

Wang Jiusheng was thinking that she had purposely used Wan Mu Chun as bait to lure him into the trap, colluded with Beggars' Sect's Yang Qing and forced him to leave the country to dodge the disaster, all for the sake of seizing the fruits of his more than thirty years of sweat and blood.

"What about that Wan Mu Chun?" Wang Jiusheng asked. "The thing I told you guys to do, is it done?"

The other side of the call was silent for a while. "Yes, this is the second thing I was just about to tell you. It should… be done."

Wang Jiusheng said angrily, "What do you mean 'should'!"

"I didn't see it with my own eyes. That day, two people from the Xu clan went. One escaped while the other fell into the police's hands. Our brother who got in touch with them can't be contacted now. Just think about it, if they did not succeed, why would the police go there for no reason?"

"What's going on with the police? Any news from the Xu clan?"

"President Wang, the news from them is that just barely after you used them as a knife to eliminate Wan Mu Chun, you called the police on them. In the future, they will never again exist in harmony with you."

"Bullshit. What the fuck does the police have to do with me…"

When he said that, his voice suddenly paused. Wang Jiusheng lifted his head. "What did you say just now? Is that exactly what the Xu clan said? Saying that I used them… to eliminate Wan Mu Chun."

"Yes."

After hearing that, Wang Jiusheng fell into a long silence. He stood up and walked to the full-length window, pushing the curtains open and looking out into the beach in the distance.

To be safe, he knew that he should be more prudent and not return to China at this point when the storm was the fiercest. He had made a point of being prudent throughout his life, of making his kill in a single strike.

However…

Zhang Meizhen was the former North Branch Master. Thirty years after all that matter of right and wrong, there were still old fools in Travellers' Sect who acknowledged her. The people Wang Jiusheng could contact now were getting fewer. This time, for the sake of eliminating Wan Mu Chun completely, he had acted in haste and incurred dissatisfaction from that group of shit-stirrers from the Xu clan… Was he going to have to stay on this little rundown island, alone and helpless, and watch someone seize the fruits of his life's blood and sweat while he was unable to do anything?

His subordinate on the other end of the call fell into silence with him, then stammered, "President Wang, to be honest with you… there are economic crime investigators coming to Futongda everyday. I don't even dare go to the office recently. What should we do? Everyone's waiting for your instructions…"

Wang Jiusheng closed his eyes.

Even if he never returned to China again for the rest of his life and handed over all those things submissively to Zhang Meizhen, his overseas assets were enough for him to live out his old age without worries.

Then, why should he?

The ruckus this time was so large. Travellers' Sect was a joke of a thing, here today and gone tomorrow. Who knew what would happen to it in the future? If he was magnanimous this one time, he might be able to escape from trouble just in time.

He thought, When a person has had their moment of glory and has once been powerful enough to summon wind and rain, what else do they lack in their life?

Wang Jiusheng's eyes snapped open. "Book a flight for me. I'm going back."

However, greed was a terminal illness without hope or cure.

In a small two-storey house in the outskirts of Yanning, Xu Lin's back was soaked through with cold sweat. Downstairs, his accomplices were asleep and dead to the world but he didn't dare make a single noise.

Moonlight shone through the window. The barely visible fishing lines twisted and wound around him, trapping him in a small spot. The most lethal one was stretched right across his throat. It felt as though this joke of a thing would slit his throat even if all he did was swallow his saliva.

Other than that, there was also a razor blade at the side of his neck.

"Did you think that Paoding Jieniu is merely about drawing a curve with a little knife? Who taught you that? The barrier to entry to the profession of killers is not that low, you know, dage." The person holding his life in their hands sniffed his body and fished his phone out of his hands. "Can you really not smell it yourself?"

Xu Lin moved his eyes in terror, not daring to make a sound.

"However, I do need to thank you for 'eliminating' me." Gan Qing thought for a while, then slowly lifted the razor blade. "In the first place, it was Travellers' Sect's Wang Jiusheng that made use of you guys. We'll trick him into coming back and I'll help you guys vent your anger on him, how about that?"

Xu Lin was just about to feel relieved. "You…"

Before he could finish speaking, there was a pain on the back of his neck. His vision darkened and he fell towards the fishing lines.

Shit. A final thought flashed past Xu Lin's mind. I'm going to be cut up into eight pieces!

And then, those fishing lines turned out to be only hanging loosely. The instant Xu Lin fell on them, they bent limply around him, wrapping him like a spindle.

From downstairs came the sound of the door being slammed open. "Police! Someone reported that you guys are hiding wanted criminals!"

"Boo." Gan Qing slipped nimbly out the window.

She passed through the streets of the suburb that were bustling yet strangely giving off a touch of desolation, and got on the last bus of the day that had stopped right at that moment. She pushed up the cap that was hiding her face, fished out her phone, and sent a WeChat sticker that said: Ok.

The other party replied in seconds: Explain.

Gan Qing, "..."

She again pushed up the brim of the cap that had fallen down. Seeing that there was no one around her, she connected her earphones and replied softly with a voice message. "Xu Lin was taken away. I was the one who called the police. I didn't injure anyone and I'm also uninjured. I didn't show my face. The tactic I used was to give him a scare… Right now, the Xu clan knows that they were used by Wang Jiusheng. He no longer has this ally."

Yu Lanchuan's voice sounded in the earphones. "Got it. What did you eat this afternoon?"

Gan Qing was dumbstruck. She thought that there must be something wrong with her earphones. "What?"

"What did you eat this afternoon?" Yu Lanchuan repeated. "Where did you sleep yesterday night?"

Gan Qing said in resignation, "Do I even have to ask for instructions and make reports on what I ate and drank and where I slept, Alliance Leader?"

"Nonsense. If you end up giving yourself stomach problems, doesn't that count as an injury? You might as well get stabbed, the recovery is faster!" Yu Lanchuan pressed for an answer. "Hurry up and answer!"

"Don't rush me, let me think…"

"Inability to remember what you ate in the afternoon is one of the signs of early stage dementia. You're already at this point and you still haven't prepared old-age insurance for yourself! Still being so wild!"

Gan Qing rested her head against the window. The swaying beams of the street lights wandered back and forth in the bus, and amidst the rocking, they seemed to vaguely condense into the feeling of serenity and tranquility of the long years of a wandering existence.