"Old Liu was the kind of person who sometimes had the mannerisms of an old scholar."
Wu Ganglie walked ahead. The cold, silent light stretched his shadow across the floor as he slowly spoke, his calm voice echoing through the narrow stairwell. "When something happened, he never liked explaining it clearly. He always had to leave something behind for you to figure out yourself."
He scratched his head and sighed. "Lao Li could often keep up with his pace, but I couldn't. That old bastard used to make fun of me all the time."
"You've been friends for so many years. It's normal for Councilor Liu to joke around with you."
He Ao followed behind Wu Ganglie down the stairs and spoke softly.
"Hahaha, everyone says the future belongs to you young people." Wu Ganglie smiled at that. "You're much better at talking than we were when we were young."
He waved a hand. "Old Liu was an arrogant scholar, always talking big. At first, whatever he did, he kept a cold face, like someone owed him two million. Lao Li, on the other hand—you look at him now and he seems pretty leader-like, but he learned all that over the years. At the beginning, he was just a quiet lump. He couldn't do anything but mess around with his Transcendent materials."
He continued slowly down the stairs, his footsteps making crisp sounds against the steps.
"When we first formed the Research Institute, there were only a few of us. Back then, we were just a mutual aid group.
"Things were chaotic then. Lots of people gained Transcendent abilities and started committing crimes however they pleased, even robbing others of their belongings.
"Several groups valued Lao Li's ability to research Transcendent Items and wanted to recruit him. When soft methods