A man left the Regional Security Department, transferred through several portals, and arrived at a parking lot. He got into a car that had been waiting for him and drove away.
Half an hour later.
The car entered an upscale residential complex.
It stopped beneath one of the high-rises. The man got out, went upstairs, and knocked.
A girl whose skin seemed to glow opened the door.
When she saw who it was, the girl cheerfully ushered him inside.
In the living room, a middle-aged man sitting on the sofa poured tea and handed it to him. "Thanks for your hard work, Xiao Liu. How did it go?"
Xiao Liu took the teacup respectfully with both hands. His expression was grave as he replied, "It's a little tricky, President Cheng. Someone's putting pressure on them. We don't have the influence to get him released."
President Cheng glanced at the girl beside him, who was carrying over a plate of fruit, and asked in bewilderment, "Someone's putting pressure on them over something this minor? Is this a movie? What kind of person would go to such lengths to target a student from The Academy?"
"Dad!" The girl pouted in protest. "Senior is so amazing. Of course there are lots of bad people who want to come after him!"
"No matter how amazing he is, he's still just a student." President Cheng took a casual sip of tea.
The girl stuffed an orange segment into his mouth, stopping him from saying anything more bad about "Senior."
"Xiao Yi, you've been sticking up for him a lot lately, haven't you?" President Cheng said with a smile as he chewed the orange. "He did you a favor, sure, but it's not like you have to repay him by marrying him. Have you fallen for him?"
"Yes." The girl nodded without hesitation. "I really like him. He seems so mysterious and special!"
President Cheng froze for a moment.
But then the girl's expression shifted, turning a little sad. "Still, he doesn't seem to like me. No, that's not it. He seems like he doesn't like me in that way—as a girl. Maybe he only sees me as family, like a little sister he can't help worrying about?"
At that, the girl's eyes suddenly lit up. She looked up at President Cheng and asked, "Dad! Have you been keeping a love child from Mom? Could he be my brother?"
"???" President Cheng nearly spat out the tea and orange juice in his mouth. He hurriedly set his teacup on the coffee table, then scolded her with an exasperated laugh. "What nonsense are you talking about?"
As he watched the father and daughter chat as if no one else were there,
Xiao Liu sipped his tea, hesitated for a moment, then couldn't help interrupting. "President Cheng, the ones putting on the pressure are Tiansheng!"
President Cheng turned to look at him. "Which Tiansheng?"
"Tiansheng Group," Xiao Liu said. "The one ranked in the top three."
"Are you sure?" President Cheng's expression gradually turned serious.
Xiao Liu nodded. "Yes. They've barely bothered to hide it."
President Cheng furrowed his brow and lightly tapped his chin with his thumb knuckle as he pondered. "Tiansheng is really going after a student so openly and brazenly? Was the person who died the Tiansheng boss's own son? No, if that were the case, Tower Climbers would be the ones coming to arrest him, not the guards."
The girl cheered from the side. "See? I told you Senior was amazing!"
President Cheng gave her a wry look. "You silly girl, and you're proud of him? Your Senior is probably in serious trouble!"
The girl asked curiously, "Then is there anything we can do?"
President Cheng thought for a moment, then sighed. "Our family's company is nothing special. If it were an ordinary murder case, we might be able to get him released by putting in some effort and paying people off. But if the other side is Tiansheng Group... If we insist on getting him out, they'll crush us."
"Okay, then." The girl peeled off an orange segment and popped it into her mouth. With her cheeks puffed out, she said, "We did our best. The rest is up to Senior to figure out!"
President Cheng looked at her in puzzlement. "From the way you're talking, you don't seem worried at all?"
"I told you Senior was amazing." The girl's eyes were full of confidence. "I believe he'll find a way!"
"Clang!"
The heavy iron door slammed shut.
The guards moved Wang Wen from the interrogation room to a holding cell.
The charges were "suspected murder and attempted assault on a guard."
"Hey, hey, come back and talk it over! That last charge really is a false accusation!" Wang Wen reached through the bars and waved helplessly. "I'm a light sleeper and I get really cranky when I wake up. This was all a misunderstanding! If you have to, just say I was sleepwalking!"
No one turned around.
The others were tired and getting ready to go home and sleep.
As for the head guard, he'd genuinely been frightened. Deep down, he didn't dare get too close to Wang Wen.
His current situation was awkward.
He couldn't release Wang Wen easily because of the orders from above.
But he didn't dare interrogate him, either.
So for now, he could only lock him up and see if leaving him there overnight would make him talk.
It was really just a desperate gamble.
For many people who were good at adapting, spending one simple night in a cell would hardly be a hardship. If Wang Wen wasn't broken by the next day, then the one who would be broken was him.
They'd had Wang Wen in custody all day and gotten nothing out of him. If the higher-ups found out, he'd be stuck with a charge of incompetence, at the very least.
As a matter of fact,
Wang Wen was even more adaptable than most.
The next morning, once the sky was bright,
the head guard arrived at the holding cell with bloodshot eyes and his heart in his throat.
Instead, he found Wang Wen full of energy, loudly protesting his innocence.
The head guard felt his heart shatter.
He took off his hat and rubbed his disheveled hair. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and his face was full of misery.
Anyone who didn't know better would have thought he was the one who'd spent the night in the cell.
Seeing how haggard he looked, Wang Wen said sympathetically, "You didn't have to go to all this trouble. What do the people above you want? Tell me. Maybe I can agree to it."
The head guard looked at him through bloodshot eyes. "They want to know how you managed to take on fifteen people by yourself."
"See? You should've said so earlier!" Wang Wen said, looking as if that was exactly what he'd expected. "The secret to taking on fifteen people is simple: a rare item from the 200th floor of the World Tower, an Earth-Shaking Talisman. Those weak, useless thugs were no match for it. Fifteen of them—or even fifteen more—would all go down just the same."
The head guard's expression changed abruptly. "You're a Tower Climber who's reached the 200th floor?"
"No." Wang Wen shook his head. "I've never entered the tower, but my parents were Tower Climbers. Before they died in the World Tower, they left me some items to protect myself."
"Tower Climbers..."
The head guard seemed to deflate like a balloon.
His shoulders slumped, and he repeated with a bitter smile, "Ha. Tower Climbers."
Suddenly,
he jerked his head up, his eyes bloodshot, and shouted at Wang Wen through the iron door, "So what if you're a Tower Climber! The law applies equally to everyone! Tower Climbers who kill have to pay with their lives, too!"
"No." Wang Wen shook his head again. "You don't get to decide what happens to Tower Climbers."
"What did you say?!" The head guard slammed both hands against the iron door with a bang, anger surging through him.
"All right, all right. How about this? I know there's another batch of Earth-Shaking Talismans on the 200th floor—around fifty of them." Wang Wen waved a hand. "Bring me paper and a pen. I'll write down what I know, and you can take it back to your bosses. That's big enough news to let you hold your head high, right?"
"What?" The head guard stared at him, dazed. "Fifty items from the 200th floor of the World Tower? Your parents left you information that valuable?"
Wang Wen waved his hand idly, recalling the past. "Yeah. I'm their only son. Who else would they leave it to?"
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