Yang Qiaoxi led Sun Hang and the other two on foot through a narrow alley, then cut straight through the middle of a nearly collapsed stadium. Amid the broken walls and rubble were numerous passages supported by rebar and steel beams. These clearly had not formed naturally when the structure collapsed, but had been excavated through the ruins by people afterward.
The passages bore obvious signs of reinforcement. Steel beams of vastly different ages had been spliced together, their welds ugly but sturdy enough. Some cracks in the ground were covered with heavy steel plates, while others had been filled with cement. A hundred-yuan bill was wedged into a crack between broken bricks. Sun Hang pulled it out and discovered it was actually an advertising card with a banknote design printed on the back.
"Xinhong Freelance Hunter Agency, your best partner in launching a great enterprise! For details, call 137XXXXXXXX."
The last eight digits of the phone number on the card were already hard to make out, as was the face of the bikini-clad beauty in the background. If not for the text, it would have looked exactly like one of those sleazy little cards often slipped through the doors of cheap inns and hotels.
"Xinhong?" Yang Qiaoxi glanced sideways at the card in Sun Hang's hand. "It went out of business half a year ago. They said the owner wasn't very honest in business—he often quoted hunters one price and employers another, pocketing a markup several times higher than the agency fee. After people found out, the agency owner was tricked into Yumen and killed... though some said he was forcibly taken there."
"I'm more inclined to believe the latter," Sun Hang said. "No matter how stupid someone is, they can't be stupid to that extent."
"You never know."