Meals Included!

Inside the refrigerated truck disguised as a cold-chain transport vehicle, Huai Shi sat restlessly, looking around. The people sitting beside him all seemed strangely familiar.

At last, it clicked. He pointed at the person across from him. "Hey, were you the one who stuck a needle in my neck last time?"

The person across from him raised his eyes and glanced at him, apparently not wanting to respond. He could not even be bothered to throw him a dog.

The grim, chilling air of escorting a death-row prisoner made Huai Shi exceptionally uneasy.

"Reporting in, I need to use the bathroom..."

The soldier across from him raised a hand and pointed to a bucket in the corner of the compartment.

"I need to take a dump!"

The soldier still pointed at the bucket without moving. Number one or number two, it was all the same.

In the swaying compartment, Huai Shi's expression twitched. He tried to lean as far back as possible, away from the bucket... and prayed that whatever was inside would not splash out!

Soon, he came to his senses. "Wait, that's not right! Those bastards have seen our faces! How are we supposed to investigate? Wouldn't we be delivering ourselves right to their door the moment we walked in?"

Liu Dongli pulled two things resembling face masks from his coat and tossed one to him.

"Polymer plastic mask."

Ding!

Huai Shi supplied the sound effect in his own mind: Acquired legendary item: Human Skin Mask x1.

He curiously examined the thing in his hand, then grew curious again. Fine, he had been sent here, but why had Liu Dongli come along looking so listless too?

"Sentence reduction." Liu Dongli crossed his legs and smoked. "Once this job is done, I'll be free. From then on, fish will leap in the vast sea and birds will fly in the high sky."

In the silence, Huai Shi gave him a pitying look. "...You do know that in movies, anyone who says that is guaranteed to die on their final mission, right?"

"..."

"You might not care after having your fun and dying, but I haven't lived enough yet. I'm still a virgin, and I haven't even escaped poverty or gotten rich. Isn't that a little too cruel?"

"Relax, relax."

Liu Dongli patted his shoulder and gestured with the cigarette between his fingers. "The mission's simple. Sneak in, get information, and if possible, blend into the scene and take that bastard down on the spot, with the evidence right there. If anything happens, set off the alarm, and more than a hundred tough guys with guns will come in to save you. What the hell are you scared of?"

"..." Huai Shi looked around at the circle of burly men and felt a little more reassured. "Do they have experience rescuing hostages? They didn't even bring a negotiator."

"Ahaha, don't worry."

Liu Dongli chuckled. "The Special Affairs Department's Ascender suppression force never negotiates. They solve the kidnappers and hostages together. So, have you picked out your box yet? I recommend the one with cranes on it. It looks classy..."

Huai Shi rolled his eyes.

There was truly no hope left.

At four thirty in the afternoon, the truck stopped behind a butcher shop in Old Pond Town. At the owner's shout, the two men, disguised as delivery workers, emerged from the inner compartment and carried two sides of pork into the shop.

The meat was real, the shop was real, and even the truck was real. If anyone looked it up, they could even find its registration number on the transport company's website.

They had merely temporarily replaced the truck scheduled to make that delivery today.

After delivering the goods, the driver used dinner as an excuse to leave the truck parked there. Once he had walked Huai Shi and Liu Dongli some distance away, he sat in a restaurant looking at porn, casually waving to indicate that the two of them were free to act on their own.

"What the hell do we do now?"

Huai Shi looked around, completely bewildered. Liu Dongli merely patted his shoulder. "Stay right here and don't wander off. I'll go buy you an orange tree."

With that, he flicked his hair and walked into the street, where he grabbed an old lady and started chatting with her.

Whether his gigolo talents were simply too outstanding or his charm was too astonishing, before long they were calling each other big sis and little bro. The old lady beamed from ear to ear and led the young man away to who knew where.

Huai Shi was left standing there alone, a black man question mark.

The three great questions of life filled his mind. He had no idea what he was supposed to do.

If you wanted me to infiltrate, you had to tell me how to infiltrate! What was this supposed to mean, just throwing me here?

Huai Shi covered his face when he heard the flutter of wings. A Crow landed on the wall.

Before he could even feel surprised, Crow's voice sounded in his mind: Don't speak. You have a listening device on you.

What the hell?

Huai Shi's eyes widened.

"Idiot, little bro, you're under surveillance." Crow sighed. "It's not really your fault. That young girl's instincts are absurdly sharp. Honestly, your identity is a little suspicious too. If I'd known, I wouldn't have suggested you work with the Astronomical Society. After all, I'm still on the run right now..."

What the hell?!

Huai Shi's eyes widened.

"On the run." Crow looked at him in confusion. "Ah, I'm a fugitive wanted by the Astronomical Society. I'm pretty high up on the list too. Didn't I tell you?"

Tell me my ass!

Well, now we were screwed. Me, the double agent; you, the fugitive; and this bunch of lunatics running superstitious scams—we'd all been wrapped up together.

When the time came, I'd go to prison, you'd get shot, and those guys would get sentenced. Everyone had a bright future ahead of them.

"Don't panic. She still can't be sure, can she? Otherwise, she wouldn't have let you out in hopes that you'd expose yourself. Listen to your big sister: this trip will be dangerous, but you'll come through safely."

Huai Shi rolled his eyes. He had completely given up on the useless teammates around him.

Please, just let me queue solo.

He sighed, unwilling to deal with this utterly black-hearted bird anymore, and got up to wander through the streets. Everywhere he looked was an ordinary, unremarkable scene.

Yet it carried an air of decay.

The streets were full of old people, with few young people in sight. They had probably all gone out to work?

That was understandable. New Sea's economy had been sluggish lately. Besides, the last time it had been considered a major metropolis was seventy or eighty years ago. The fact that it had decayed for so long and still remained on the map was already a miracle.

Any ambitious young people had likely gone to Yanjing, Jinling, or Yangzhou to work. Rumor had it that the newly appointed cabinet planned to vigorously develop the coastal economy, though how could that compare to the inland environment?

At this point, Huai Shi simply tossed the infiltration mission out of his mind and strolled through the streets with his hands tucked into his pockets.

The slanting afternoon sun shone over the earth, warming his body.

In a daze, Huai Shi seemed to see the entire town swaying like a reflection in water. Countless black shadows emerged from the sky, but the strange hallucination quickly vanished and everything returned to normal.

All that remained was cold sweat and waves of dread.

There really was something wrong with this place, wasn't there?

"The target has begun moving."

Along with the surveillance report, everyone in the temporary Command Center inside a huge truck outside town perked up, put on their headsets, and looked toward the screens.

Besides feeds from surveillance cameras throughout town, the enlarged image in the center showed Huai Shi, wandering around with nothing to do.

During the long silence, everyone watched Huai Shi walk here and browse there, drifting around like an idle loafer with nothing better to do.

No matter how they looked at him, he did not seem to be infiltrating anything. He even seemed to shudder as though he had seen a ghost.

Compared to Liu Dongli, who was thriving on the other end and had already infiltrated the old ladies' friendship circle, Huai Shi was blatantly slacking off. There was not even the slightest sign that he was suspicious.

Just as everyone gradually became speechless, another report came from the front. "The target has begun to contac—"

Before the speaker could finish, the report abruptly stopped.

On the screen, Huai Shi ran into a convenience store and used his undercover pay to buy a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He even splurged on a five-yuan ice cream bar.

Then he squatted on the sunlit steps and happily slurped it down.

The aura of a salted fish with nine hundred percent salinity hit them right in the face...

This guy was beyond saving, wasn't he?

Even Ai Qing's eternally calm expression twitched. She began sincerely reflecting: was there something wrong with her for suspecting that such a salted fish was hiding something?

How had that once enthusiastic, lively child become like this after only a few years apart?

Could it only be said that time's chainsaw was truly a work of supernatural craftsmanship?

Seeing Huai Shi devote his limited time to infinite slacking, the people in the Command Center had no idea what to say. Some looked toward Ai Qing, wanting to ask whether they should urge him along, but Ai Qing did not say a word from start to finish.

Forget it. One more of him made no difference, and one less made no difference either.

There were countless tasks to handle now. Not only did they need to investigate Old Pond Town's social connections in just a few hours, they also had to retrieve old surveillance footage and search for clues.

The deep scanner had already entered the field and was being installed under tight security. They had no time to waste on a salted fish.

Amid the bustle, the listening device on Huai Shi picked up a distant shout. "That young man! Yes, you! Come here, come here."

On the screen, Huai Shi was called over with a baffled expression by a group of old men pushing handcarts.

"Yes, you! Whose kid are you? Come give us a hand!"

Huai Shi stood there in a daze for a long time, sucking on the wooden stick left from his ice cream. He seemed to finally remember that he was supposed to be an undercover operative, and reluctantly went to help the old men push the cart and unload goods. After finally getting the handcart into a courtyard near the boundary, he was ordered to carry a pile of battered gongs, drums, opera costumes, and colorful robes off the cart and sort them into place.

It seemed some sort of private performance was being held in the courtyard. A group of dark-skinned old men sat on the ground, chatting excitedly. Others played cards around a table, while someone had set up a pot of boiling water in the corner. All they lacked were a few tables for a feast.

It looked like there might be food?

Huai Shi's eyes lit up.

The foot he had already half stepped out with pulled back in.

Infiltration was impossible. He would never infiltrate in this life. He might as well stay inside and peacefully mooch a meal. He did not need extra meat; unlimited rice would do.

Yet Huai Shi waited and waited without seeing any sign that the cafeteria was serving food. Then he saw the seven or eight old men sitting together pick up their battered gongs, pipa, and suona, and begin playing some sort of Errenzhuan tune.

When he noticed a strange audience member watching, the old man playing the suona in the middle became even more energetic. After blowing out a long passage, he proudly waved the instrument at Huai Shi, as if saying, See how awesome I am, kid? Hurry up and admire me...

Huai Shi felt nothing. He gave a dry clap, and even wanted to laugh a little.

If he had brought his instrument today, he would have shown this old man what ABRSM Grade Eight performance level meant... Not to mention that after combining it with meditation, his cello playing had become unbelievably expressive. If he put in some effort, he could make the man's cow cry.

Unexpectedly, the old men got even more fired up. They played one passage after another at Huai Shi, spittle from the suona flying several meters. They had even hooked it up to a subwoofer using some unknown black technology, nearly shaking Huai Shi's molars loose.

After they finished, they raised their chins at Huai Shi in challenge.

"Young man, how about giving us a tune?"

"Fine, I'll show you old gentlemen what I can do today."

Huai Shi curled his lip. It seemed reality would not allow him to keep a low profile any longer.

He casually rummaged through the pile of broken instruments and found an erhu that could still be played. Crossing one leg over the other, he ignored all thoughts of staying low-key or infiltrating. The moment he started, he launched into a mashup of Horse Racing, Moon Reflected in the First Spring, Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites, Above the Moon, and Pomp and Circumstance.

Limited by the instrument, many parts were so out of tune they were unbearable. Huai Shi could only imitate that freak Paganini and try to play an entire piece on one string. Yet when he finished the mashup and opened his eyes, he found a dense crowd of heads in front of him.

The old men who had been playing cards, chatting, smoking, and performing had somehow all gathered together. They pointed at him, their expressions solemn and serious.

I'm screwed.

Huai Shi's heart tightened. Had I been exposed?

Several old men discussed something among themselves. The one in the middle examined Huai Shi with a puzzled expression. "Where did this young man come from? Why haven't I seen him before?"

"I... I'm new... here to work!"

Huai Shi instinctively stood up, ready to run. "I'll leave now, I'll leave now..."

"Don't rush."

The old man grabbed Huai Shi's shoulder and grinned with sheer delight, like someone trapped in a toilet who had just seen a person bringing toilet paper. "That bastard Li Lao San got diarrhea and didn't come. Our Gospel Class is short one person who can play the erhu today. Come to the church's cultural performance with us tonight. Forty yuan per show, and dinner's included. How about it?"

Church?

Cultural performance?

Wait, had he infiltrated their inner circle this quickly?

Huai Shi looked completely dumbfounded.

He had instinctively wanted to refuse, but remembering that he was still under surveillance, he could only grit his teeth in grief and nod.

"Fine!"

He paused, then stated his condition. "But I eat first!"

As the chill down the back of his head suddenly grew stronger and stronger, Huai Shi could almost imagine tangible death crawling behind him with a vicious grin.

But what did that have to do with him being a cold, merciless producer of negative energy?

He would fill his stomach first, then worry about heading to his death!

Waaah, it's so painful not being able to write anything for such a long time...