Dacians from a Foreign Land

The two returned to the hotel, traveling through the night.

As they stepped into the dingy elevator, Xiao Qi's heart began to race.

Every so often, she would sneak a glance at Xue Ming's profile. The young man always had that cold, unreadable expression, as if he were constantly lost in thought, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

Come to think of it, she was actually sharing a room with Xue Ming tonight?

The thought made Xiao Qi panic again. She felt her cheeks heat up, becoming burning hot.

Jiang Xueming didn't notice the attendant's unusual behavior beside him. Before reaching their room, he deliberately paused for about ten seconds in front of every guest's door on the entire floor.

His superhuman senses could hear the movements inside the rooms through the walls. He scanned all the residents on the same floor, confirming he didn't hear any strange conversations, no metallic clinking, and no characteristics of a Pangolin Hunter—only then did he confidently open his own room door.

After they returned to the room, Xue Ming first turned on all the lights, searched every corner of the room, and finally locked the door.

When the chain lock was secured, Xiao Qi suddenly felt that the enclosed space was filled with an ambiguous atmosphere.

Clutching her clothes, she ran to the bathroom, trembling like a startled rabbit, and stammered, "I'm going to change."

Xue Ming nodded and replied, "Thanks. I need to change into some casual clothes too."

In front of the bright washbasin, Xiao Qi saw her own flushed face in the mirror. She suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed, not knowing what she was afraid of.

Perhaps this is the difference between simple lust and serious love that Sister Yangchun told me about?

She took out a set of pajamas from her handbag. She had even bought some cheap and pretty personal items on Taobao earlier, like disposable underwear. It wasn't that she wanted to show them off to anyone, she just thought they were really nice.

She let out a long sigh, patted her burning cheeks, and stared blankly at her reflection. Through the thin curtain of the privacy window beside her, she could vaguely see Mr. Xue Ming changing by the bed.

Just a hazy, dreamlike, half-hidden shadow made her heart beat faster.

She needed to cool herself down, so she shouted, "Wait! I'm going to take a shower!"

"Okay," Jiang Xueming replied concisely.

Immediately after, Xiao Qi rushed into the bathroom.

That privacy window seemed to have a magical pull; her eyes couldn't look away.

Her mind was like a Volga car speeding onto a ring road, and the hot water from the shower couldn't extinguish the wild fantasies in her heart.

She clumsily stretched her waist in the bathroom, wondering—could Xue Ming also see her shadow through this thin curtain in the mist?

She was both scared and expectant, two complex emotions intertwined. Following the graceful poses of Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe posters in her mind, she tried to tame her limbs, attempting to leave her own graceful and ethereal shadow on that curtain.

Just a few breaths later.

She heard the sound of tape being torn.

She saw Xue Ming's figure up close on the window curtain.

By the time she came to her senses and looked at the small, love-filled window with a blank, heartbroken expression.

Strips of bright yellow tape had completely sealed the window.

Xiao Qi's heart was a mix of emotions; it felt so strange!

If you said she was disappointed, it wasn't that much, but she inexplicably felt much more at ease.

She heard Xue Ming call from outside the door.

"Brother Qi, are you showering?"

"Yes."

"Did you forget a step?"

"What step?"

"I didn't hear you unzip your pants, unbuckle your belt, or unhook your bra straps. Did you forget to take off your clothes?"

Xiao Qi looked down—

—She had indeed rushed into the bathroom without taking anything off.

"Oh, oh, oh! No wonder I felt like the shower wasn't refreshing."

Jiang Xueming covered his face, feeling that there was something wrong with his attendant. Taking a shower without undressing was not something an ordinary person would do.

Just now, he saw Xiao Qi's shadow by the bathroom curtain, flailing around without making a sound, and thought she was possessed or having a cramp.

He also remembered the difference between men and women, and it felt awkward to have this window, so he sealed it with tape.

Jiang Xueming turned on the air conditioning and the TV, turning up the volume. It was as if he was telling the residents passing by outside the door that the people in this room were not asleep yet.

The bathroom door creaked open.

Xiao Qi, wearing loose long-sleeved pajamas, rushed back into the room clutching her handbag, a guilty look on her face, as if afraid her underwear would be seen.

She leaped onto the bed and pulled the covers over her head.

"I'm sleeping!"

"Okay." Jiang Xueming sat on the adjacent bed, with no intention of sleeping. "I'll wake you at four in the morning to take over the night watch. I can't sleep for long. We'll leave before eight in the morning. First, we'll pick up Bailu from the milk tea shop, then go to the paper shop to greet Mr. Chen and ask him about that bag of ghost money."

Brother Qi felt so conflicted. She hoped something would happen, but she was also afraid of something going wrong.

Her hair was still wet, and she didn't have time to fix it, making her feel uncomfortable all over.

She rolled her eyes. A while later, she heard a cooking show start on TV, along with the sound of Xue Ming sparsely taking notes.

Was Xue Ming still learning to cook?

She finally straightened up, like a living corpse climbing out of a coffin.

Jiang Xueming asked, "What's wrong?"

"You go to sleep first. I took a nap in the car during the day, so I'm not sleepy at all at this hour. I need to blow-dry my hair," Xiao Qi said seriously.

"I'll help you," Xue Ming put away his notes and got a hairdryer from the bathroom, explaining, "I feel very insecure when I sleep. If enemies were to attack while you're blow-drying your hair, it would be a dangerous situation."

Xiao Qi looked confused. "Huh?"

"Did I say something wrong?" Jiang Xueming turned on the hairdryer and tested the temperature with the back of his hand. "Bathrooms are generally high-incidence locations for homicides. People are most relaxed when they're showering or using the toilet. That's when they're most vulnerable."

Xiao Qi thought about it seriously. "That actually makes sense."

Jiang Xueming gently stroked Xiao Qi's hair, soothing him. "In old Japan, ninjas would squat in toilets for days, assassinating people from underneath."

"Ew!" Xiao Qi made a face like an old man looking at a phone. "That's so disgusting!"

"That's why I'm helping you dry your hair. You keep a close watch while I sleep," Xue Ming said, and then began to seriously tend to Xiao Qi's hair.

Xiao Qi could feel Xue Ming's fingers tracing his hairline from front to back, the pressure just right. Xue Ming's hands were like a warm comb.

Warm air flowed from his neck to his earlobes. She started to daydream again, a mischievous smile playing on her lips, and asked playfully.

"Mr. Xue Ming, have you, by any chance, blow-dried other girls' hair before?"

"When Bailu was little, she liked to roll around in the mud like a wild dog," Jiang Xueming said casually. "After washing her, I'd comb her hair, otherwise she'd easily catch a cold from the wind. Your hair is much better than hers."

"Oh," Xiao Qi felt the hands massaging and combing the back of his head were full of affection, making him inexplicably feel at ease and very sleepy.

Ten minutes later.

Jiang Xueming put away the hairdryer, sighing, "Good, I didn't see any gray hairs."

Xiao Qi remained motionless, his head tilted against the headboard, fast asleep. His sleeping posture was rather unsightly, his mouth open, drooling on the pillow.

There were also those little sleep-mumbles.

"Yes, yes, hold me tighter. Ah, yes, yes..."

Jiang Xueming's face darkened. He pulled the blanket over Xiao Qi. He had planned to take turns keeping watch and use the latter half of the night to study Mud Truck Driving Techniques, but now he could only learn a few more dishes.

Five in the morning--

--Jiang Xueming had deliberately given Xiao Qi an extra hour of sleep. But the attendant showed no signs of waking up.

His face grim, he took out a megaphone and shouted at the sleeping Xiao Qi.

"Wake up!"

Xiao Qi jolted upright, as if dead, and then, seeing Jiang Xueming, snapped back to reality.

"Oh, oh, oh! Shift change, shift change!"

Jiang Xueming said nothing, gazing at the darkest part of the sky before sunrise outside the window, and silently closed his eyes.

Xiao Qi sat on the bed, bored, scratching his head. He recalled the feeling of Xue Ming combing his hair and chuckled again.

"Can't be helped, it was just too good for sleeping."

He got off the bed stealthily, like Jerry in Tom and Jerry preparing to do something mischievous. After waiting a few minutes and confirming that Xue Ming was only breathing evenly and showing no signs of turning over.

He tiptoed to Xue Ming's bed.

He squatted quietly at the edge of the bed, curiously observing Jiang Xueming's sleeping posture. He wanted to get closer, to see more clearly in the warm hotel light.

It was the first time he had seen Xue Ming's expression while deeply asleep.

That look of completely letting down his guard, his brows completely relaxed, as if he had nothing to worry about, as if he had cast everything aside.

He suppressed the ecstasy in his heart, afraid of letting out a laugh that would destroy everything, and wanted to sneak a kiss.

At that very moment.

Jiang Xueming opened his eyes.

Just like in the cartoons.

Xue Ming didn't speak, and Xiao Qi didn't speak either.

He returned the way he came, stepping precisely on the footprints on the carpet.

Xiao Qi sat back on his own bed, muttering, "Damn it, how is this guy so sharp..."

Six in the morning.

At Nanyuan Airport, a strange foreigner disembarked from a flight.

He wore the long clothes of an underground station passenger. In the hot summer, he didn't care about the sweat, his face expressionless, like a soulless assassin.

He was tall, about three and a half feet wide at the shoulders, around 1.9 meters tall, with a broad back and a sturdy build, and a thick beard on his face.

He came from Romania, a native Dacian, and had come to Hengyin Pingyang for one reason only.

Find Jiang Xueming, obtain the Panacea, and ideally, interrogate him for the contents of the passenger log.

His name is Jason Megan, a station passenger who wants to become one of the Armadillo Hunters.

Despite the language barrier, he managed to book a flight ticket with the help of a dictionary and phone translation, understanding only half of it. However, these difficulties couldn't stop his desire to join the criminal underworld.

Just as he was communicating with the ground crew in broken Romaji-accented Chinese under the scorching 35-degree Celsius heat, pointing at the Chinese characters on his phone and anxiously showing his passport.

The young lady at the airport customer service center, with a troubled expression, communicated fluently in English, calming Mr. Megan's emotions and calling for two security guards.

Upon seeing the security personnel approach, Megan's heart began to panic.

"Jiang Xueming! I--find--Jiang Xueming!"

He enunciated each word, pointing at the Chinese characters in his notebook and reciting the Mandarin he had practiced many times. In his other hand, clutching Euros, he added, "Money! I--have money! Jiang Xueming!"

"Stop with the damn Jiang Xueming. Where did he come from?" one of the security guards grumbled.

The customer service lady said, "He's from Romania, transferring through Bucharest to fly southwest to Nanyuan. He just got off the plane and is already looking for someone, in a hurry, and unreasonable, this bearded guy."

The other security guard brandished his baton.

"Take him to quarantine!"

Mr. Megan tried to struggle, but even the strongest fists are no match for four hands. He was fitted with a mask by security guards who arrived later.

"Wuwuwu! Wuwu!"

And so, this future rising star of the underworld checked into a quarantine hotel.