In a split second, Han Dongsheng and his female colleague made and broke eye contact.

Han Dongsheng was shocked to the core. Just yesterday, the woman had posted in her WeChat Moments to help gather votes for her mother-in-law's square dancing group!

The female colleague was no less shocked than him. She looked at Han Dongsheng's getup, then at Liang-ge's appearance; for a moment, she could not tell whose taste was more hardcore!

A thousand words turned into a single phrase in that eye contact: I never would have imagined...

Sure enough, colleagues were the strangers a person was most familiar with.

Liang-ge was a professional hoodlum, and professional hoodlums were typically experts at reading between the lines and understanding body language, otherwise it would be easy for them to fail at playing their roles and end up being cut down. Even though Han Dongsheng and the woman had only made eye contact for a very brief while, he had still caught that unique atmosphere that disappeared as soon as it appeared.

"Why?" Liang-ge immediately asked in suspicion. "Someone you know?"

Han Dongsheng regained his wits. His back was covered in cold sweat and he quickly pretended that he had been caught furtively staring at someone of the opposite sex and was embarassed. He shook his head, his face and ears red from the awkwardness.

The female colleague played along. She put on a frosty and serious face, and went directly to the reception counter without even looking at Han Dongsheng.

Liang-ge frowned. He stared at the woman's retreating back all the way until she walked out of the guest house's entrance.

Right now, Han Dongsheng was already a little apprehensive and he suspected that he might have exposed himself somehow. He took the room key and called out to Liang-ge. "Thank you, brother. How about I… treat you to a meal?"

Liang-ge jutted his chin at the woman's back, a smile that was not quite a smile on his face. "Why, you like that type?"

Han Dongsheng waved his hand in a fluster. "No, no… She looked at me first, that's why I looked at her. I didn't dare look too long… I have a wife and a child, I…"

He was nervous and flustered, and looked totally like a village bumpkin with a guilty conscience.

Liang-ge turned his head back around and looked at Han Dongsheng thoughtfully. Then, he smiled. "That's enough, I didn't say anything anyway. I won't delay you from resting today. You just got to Yanning. Take a rest. When you've rested enough, you can familiarise yourself with the surroundings first. Look for your Liang-ge if there's any problem. I'll bring you out for drinks in another couple of days, and introduce you to a few people."

Han Dongsheng eagerly agreed.

Liang-ge patted him on the shoulder and swaggered off without a care. Han Dongsheng finally relaxed and felt that he could consider himself to have cleared this round. In his heart, he was rather glad—if they weren't coincidentally in this kind of awkward place, he might have been exposed.

Meanwhile, once he was out the door, Liang-ge's face immediately dropped the pretense and he twisted his head around to look back. He made a phone call. "A woman just came out of No. 113 Courtyard. Not tall, permed wavy hair down to the shoulders, wearing a long down jacket, white colour. Who picked her up?"

Murderers killed in their own territory but those having affairs would want nothing more than to run to a faraway corner of the world to have them.

A place like this where love hotels gathered was a place that, other than the nearby poor students, was usually only visited by guests from afar. Hence, there were usually a lot of unlicensed cabs waiting in the back lane to pick up passengers. They weren't ordinary unlicensed cabs, they all belonged to Travellers' Sect. And once the unlicensed cabs staked their claim on a spot and gathered there, the proper legal cabs wouldn't go there much. Bad money drives out good, so the customers also had no choice.

The woman wearing a white down jacket got into an unlicensed cab at random and gave the driver an address. Her soul was still scattered in all directions and she fidgeted restlessly in her seat for five minutes, keeping everything in until she really could not keep it in anymore, and took out her phone to call her lover, "I need to tell you something. Ai… I'm not thinking of you, behave yourself! I don't know what I should do now… You left first just now, didn't you? I went to check out and you wouldn't believe who I bumped into…"

Once she started to pour her thoughts out, she could not stop. She was agitated and scared, and at the same time, also had a little excitement of having peeked at someone's secret. She did not realise at all that the driver was looking at her through the rearview mirror and was quietly recording her with his phone.

After listening to the audio recording his subordinate had sent him, Liang-ge curled his lips viciously and spat out the cigarette butt in his mouth. It landed over two meters away. He could not hold back his rage. "Motherfucker—I was just saying that I felt something wrong with that asshole when we were in the car! The way he looked out the window was not right!"

When someone came to a place from another part of the country, they would always be unable to resist looking out the car window. What they would look at were the buildings and the streets, hence when they looked out, their gaze would linger very long.

This "non-local with the surname Zhang" who held the Five Bats Token put on a very good act. During the entire journey, he had been restless in his seat and he didn't forget to look "curiously" out the window. But his gaze was very short; he always looked back after just a glance. At first, Liang-ge had even thought that he was being cautious.

Now, it seemed like he wasn't a non-local at all. That was why the sights of Yanning were something familiar to him that he ignored. When he looked out the window, he was looking at the road signs and road names!

"Hunt geese every year and one day you'll nearly have your eyes pecked out by a goose!" Liang-ge's anger turned his face ferocious. "So they're pulling tricks on me!"

Yan Hao usually didn't look people directly in the eye and as time went by, he became a little face-blind. Bearing a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, his only choice was to carefully cling to the outside of the guest house windows and peek through them room by room. It was currently near noon and there weren't many guests in the guest house. When there were occasionally people in the room, they were mostly getting ready to check out.

When he had checked up to the fifth floor, he saw Han Dongsheng. Han Dongsheng had lit a cigarette and opened the window under the pretense of letting the smoke out. He nodded furtively at Yan Hao.

The person they wanted should be in this building.

Yan Hao's eyes gleamed. Like a light and graceful large bird, he continued to circle upwards.

Han Dongsheng looked at his retreating figure and felt rather emotional. He thought enviously, How nice it is to be young.

Even if a young person didn't have major accomplishments in their life, at the very least their footsteps were light and graceful. Any baggage they carried could be put down at any time and they could then fly to a higher place. Middle-aged people could not do the same; what they carried on their backs had sunk into their flesh and binded to their bones. No matter how heavy it was, they could not put it down.

Han Dongsheng was at the moment in the bandits' den. Yet, for no reason, there was joy in his heart. At the very least, he could quietly finish smoking a cigarette here, he didn't have a whole pile of trifling office matters behind him and there was also no wife shrieking at him in rage.

He inhaled a mouthful of the northwest wind together with the cigarette smoke and choked until his throat hurt. Then, he felt that by thinking this way, he was doing wrong by his workplace and his wife.

He had picked his workplace himself. Back then, he had slaughtered his way out from the humongous thousands-strong civil exam army and finally got the posting. It had been no easier than chasing the girl of his dreams. He could still remember the day he received the notification that his application had been accepted, how he could not wait to inform all his close friends beside him, how Zhou Beibei—still his girlfriend at that time—was so happy that she leaped for joy.

His wife was the wife he had pursued and married himself. The first time he received a reply from her during university, the ticket stubs from the first movie they watched together, their light-as-air footsteps as they left the Bureau of Civil Affairs, the birth of their son Han Zhou… Every joy in his life seemed to have been brought by her.

At that time, he had just grown up, and was greedy and arrogant. He felt that his strength was endless and that he could carry a hundred people on his back. He couldn't wait to fly, to rush forward madly, to bear his new family on his shoulders and fly forward with his feet barely touching the ground.

But a year in Yanning had four seasons rolling through. After the spring where tens of thousands of living things bloomed, there was the cruel and stiflingly hot peak of summer.

He thought, self-deprecating, Maybe I've gone past my "best before" date.

Right then, Han Dongsheng heard a light sound coming from upstairs. Yan Hao seemed to have slid down a bit. Han Dongsheng's nerves tensed up again. Following the direction where the sound was coming from, he abruptly pushed his window open, just in time to catch Yan Hao who was sliding down.

The tip of Yan Hao's foot tapped lightly against the opened window. With that push, he grabbed desperately onto the pipe on the wall, his face and ears completely red. In the middle of the day, there was a couple on the sixth floor who were already embracing and devouring each other without waiting for lunch. They had even thought that they were high up enough and had not closed the curtains!

Tang Qian Yan was so startled that he nearly became a little bird with a broken wing.

Han Dongsheng gave him a confused look: What's the matter?

Yan Hao felt that what he was doing was rather immoral. He looked at Han Dongsheng hesitatingly, then looked at the window upstairs: Should I really do it?

Han Dongsheng was not very familiar with him and could not decipher Yan Hao's complex and indescribable gaze. He thought Yan Hao had seen someone suspicious.

This was very possible. Downstairs was for renting by the hour, upstairs for hiding people. Separate the two and they could avoid having too many people and too many prying eyes.

Hence, Han Dongsheng solemnly gave Yan Hao a thumbs-up and pointed upwards: Good job, go confirm again!

Yan Hao, "..."

All right then.

He squeezed his eyes shut, preparing to sacrifice himself for an honourable cause, his mind reciting the unique physical characteristics of the Qigong Master—a robustly square face, slightly drooping left eyelid, a mole on the side of his nose!

Then, he gritted his teeth and climbed upwards again.

Who would have guessed that halfway through their unrestrained activity, the two "wild and passionate" people on the sixth floor had perhaps felt that the room was a little bright. While taking off his thermal underwear, the man walked over to close the curtains. He had just taken off one sleeve when he made direct eye contact with Yan Hao who had popped up once again!

Both of them were simultaneously shocked.

"Fuck, there's a pervert!" the man in the room shouted.

"Ahhh!" Yan Hao screamed.

Bright yellow thermals… No, square face, drooping eyelid and the mole!

Yan Hao shouted, "It's him!"

Han Dongsheng reacted immediately and notified Yu Lanchuan, Yu Yan and the rest. "Room 609!"

The qigong master clad in yellow thermals regained his senses. He felt that his pure jade-like body had been dirtied and erupted in rage. He swept his hand back to grab the ashtray, opened the window and threw it out.

Yan Hao twisted himself into a pretzel in midair. He dodged the ashtray but not the ashes scattering in the air, and choked until tears covered his face.

Han Dongsheng threw the window open with both hands and leaped out to help. Who knew that the moment he looked down, he felt dizzy, his heart started thumping wildly, and he felt like his blood pressure was nearing 180.

Yan Hao shouted, "He's escaping!"

Han Dongsheng resolutely gave up on the flight route. He turned and charged towards the staircase nearest to him, ran upstairs and collided directly with the qigong master who had a mole on his nose—in his panic, the master was not picky with his escape route. One sleeve of his thermal shirt was still dangling free, revealing one side of his waist.

Han Dongsheng glanced at the master's prosperous waist—good, unexpectedly, this man also had a surplus of fatty belly meat overflowing above the waist band. For a moment, Han Dongsheng was confident. He reached back and grabbed the railing. With a whoosh, his entire body swept out, his leg drawing a perfect circle.

The master leaped up nimbly but didn't take into account that he was wearing slippers on his feet. One plastic slipper slipped loose. Flustered, he hopped up a couple of steps on one leg, then lifted his leg and stomped down.

Han Dongsheng acted first and pushed his leg with a palm. His plump hand looked soft but when he pushed it out, it seemed to carry the strength of wind and lightning. Forced to take this blow, the master's leg turned suddenly numb from the force. He staggered and fell backwards, his hands flailing to grab hold of the railing.

The master's expression turned to one of shock. "Where are you from!"

Han Dongsheng didn't reply his question and only said mildly, "Didn't you claim that you are capable of striking a bull from the other side of the mountain? Where are your godly powers?"

"Fuck, the cops again!" The master was angered to the core. He struck a fierce fighting pose and prepared to release his energy, his mouth bellowing. "Hoooaaa—ha!"

Right after that, something smashed towards Han Dongsheng's face. Han Dongsheng couldn't immediately see what it was and he raised his elbow to block, only to realise that it was a plastic slipper. Both of the master's plastic slippers had flown out with his "magic powers" and there was no longer anything on his feet to bind him. He took the chance to slide down the staircase railing.

Han Dongsheng acted quickly and grabbed the back of his collar. Who would have guessed that in the next second, the weight in his hand lightened. The "master" was indeed a "master" and had some skills—he had taken off his clothes at lightning speed, left his yellow thermals in his opponent's hand, and, naked as a cicada that had shed its shell, slid to the bottom of this flight of stairs where he scissored his two bare feet and charged downstairs!

This person's "miraculous egg-laying skills" was total bullshit but when he ran, he was actually a match for Yan Hao. The master was extremely experienced in running for his life. His feet seemed to not touch the ground; a light tap in the middle of every flight of stairs and he could abruptly leap to the bottom, like an elastic ball exerting all its strength. In a blink of the eye, he had shaken off Han Dongsheng.

It looked like not being able to run was not something that could be entirely blamed on fatty meat.

Ultimately, a person's pair of legs was the culmination of generations of use.

Right then, Yu Yan and his colleague arrived. The moment the two police officers entered, they headed straight for the stairs, planning to block the master that was "bouncing" down. However, the master's tonnage was clear to be seen and the inertia from his fast movement was not a small matter. When he saw that there were people ahead of him, he did not slow down at all and instead, collided directly with the two officers.

Before Yu Yan could take out his police baton, his vision blacked out and his entire body was sent flying by the collision. His lungs were nearly flattened. With an oof, he expelled both breath and saliva, and sprayed the master's face.

The master continued to sprint forward as though he had met no resistance at all, and was even spitting all the while.

In pain, Yu Yan clutched his ribs that had been crushed together. "...'ck your grandpa!"

Right at that moment, he heard a fwop. A mop suddenly swung out, striking at the master's stomach like a viper. The master could not slow down in time. He grabbed the railing and leaped up, but the heavy mop handle followed him like a shadow, sweeping up to hit directly and heavily at his kneecap.

The master didn't even yell, his features scrunched into a ball and with a crash, he rolled down the stairs. Before he could lift his head, the mop swung down and stopped right at his throat.

It was a sword technique!

"Ai, be good." Yu Lanchuan pushed his glasses up and looked up to glance at Yu Yan. "Grandpa's here."

Yu Yan, "..."

Even though they were allies, right now and right here, he really wanted an internal strife.

Yu Lanchuan said, "Hurry up and put the cuffs on this guy here, he's really an eyesore!"

Yu Yan climbed up laboriously and hobbled over while digging out a pair of handcuffs. He cuffed the "master." "Run, go on and continue running!"

The master's kneecap might have been shattered by Yu Lanchuan. He hugged his knee and rolled on the ground, crying from the pain. There was no way he could stand.

Yu Yan panted harsh breaths, his eyes flicking towards Yu Lanchuan. "Hey, Master Lan, help me…"

But what he saw was Yu Lanchuan throwing the mop aside with a face of distaste, then taking out a scented wet wipe from his pocket to wipe his hands. He was already standing two meters away, cold and aloof, and had no intentions at all of helping.

Fortunately, the other young police officer and Han Dongsheng arrived at this time. Working together, the three of them exerted all their strength and lifted the wailing master.

"Thank you, thank you," Yu Yan shook Han Dongsheng's hand gratefully. "You are a good son-in-law of the nation, we-"

Before he could finish speaking, he saw Yan Hao rush down from upstairs with a face of alarm. "L-Lots of people"

Yu Yan asked, "Lots of people what?"

The more he panicked, the more Yan Hao was unable to speak clearly. His face red from the effort, he pointed downstairs. "Travellers' Sect! Lots of people! Tens of them! They brought people and are ch-charging in!"

Before he could finish speaking, the clamour of voices could be heard from downstairs.

"Block the door!"

"This way!"

The cement floor started to tremble along with the voices. Very quickly, the jumbled sound of footsteps could be heard.

Yu Yan said in disbelief, "In broad daylight, they are openly attacking the police?"

Yu Lanchuan was very calm. "How much backup do you have?"

"Not a lot. I didn't know if I would be able to find this guy," Yu Yan said. "I only called a few colleagues from the station. They probably won't be of much use… Alliance Leader, what should we do?"

Yu Lanchuan sighed. He took off his glasses and slipped it into the inner pocket of his casual jacket, then rolled up his sleeves.

For a moment, Yu Yan was rather touched. He had known Yu Lanchuan for so many years but this was the first time he was getting a taste of the bearing and composure of Yu Lanchuan as the descendant of the Seven Secret Arts of Han Jiang.

Yu Yan said, "The mop handle isn't easy to wield, use my police baton!"

"Didn't you bring your brain along with you when you left the house?" What Yu Yan saw was the "supremely elegant" Alliance Leader Yu leaping forward as though there were wild dogs on his heels, passing ahead of Yu Yan. "Run, what are you waiting for!"

Yu Yan, "..."

The cuffed "master" wailed, "Help!"

Yu Yan said, "Yu Lanchuan! Can you show off your coolness from start to end for once in your life!"

Right then, outside the small guest house that was surrounded by hoodlums, the police officers' colleagues were staring, dumbstruck.

A young lady who looked like a passerby walked past and took a glance. "What's going on? Should we call the police?"

"We are… the police…"

"Then, shouldn't you hurry up and call more people?"

"Right, right, right! Hurry up! Get reinforcements! Where is the law? Young lady, please stay away… Hey! What are you doing!"

They saw the lady who had just suggested that they call the police take out a cloth strip from somewhere. One end held in her mouth, she wrapped the other end around her right hand as she walked. She turned her head to smile at the police, then sprinted over to the guest house!