Exploitation

I knew that idiot was unreliable.

He'd been acting all high and mighty before. It was my fault for expecting anything from him.

Zhou You simply looked at Luo Liangde, who was bound hand and foot, and sighed helplessly.

"Brother Luo, how come after just a few days apart, you've ended up like this?"

Luo Liangde had been gagged with a rag again. Seeing Zhou You take his time, he could only whimper anxiously.

The man in the heavy coat looked amused. With a wave of his hand, one of the thugs stepped forward and removed the rag from Luo Liangde's mouth.

The moment he could speak, Luo Liangde immediately put on a bold front.

"Brother, brother, save me! I already told them those two deaths had nothing to do with me. Those two went crazy on their own and insisted on provoking the aberrations—it had nothing to do with me... You have to vouch for me and make them let me go!"

It had to be said, Luo Liangde really was clever.

Even with his face swollen and bruised from the beating, even with the clothes he had only recently bought reduced to rags, he could still lie with such vigor without changing expression.

And it was not just a lie. In that single short sentence, he had already laid out exactly how Zhou You should coordinate their story.

Yet the man in the heavy coat remained smiling.

This fellow seemed completely unangered—on the television nearby, the mayor's bill was still being replayed, but he acted as though he had not noticed at all. He picked up a cigar from the table, expertly clipped the end, and put it in his mouth.

One of his underlings immediately stepped up to light it for him.

After taking a deep drag,