Action 2

Wang Yiyang rubbed his tired forehead, went to the bathroom, rinsed off quickly, drank his ginger and brown sugar water, then went straight to bed.

He had only been asleep for a few hours when a heavy thud suddenly jolted him awake in the middle of the night.

Wang Yiyang had always been a light sleeper. The slightest disturbance could make him spring out of bed.

And that sound had been especially jarring in the dead of night.

"What's going on?" he mumbled sleepily, opening his eyes and sitting up.

Bang!!

Before he had fully woken up, another dull thud came from downstairs.

Wang Yiyang picked up his phone and frowned at the time: 3:31.

Outside the window, it was pitch-black. Apart from the occasional bark, not a sound could be heard.

Bang!

Another thud followed, a little softer this time.

Wang Yiyang got dressed, put on his shoes, and pulled a metal baseball bat he kept for emergencies out of his wardrobe.

He didn't keep it for playing baseball, but for self-defense.

Carrying the bat and taking his keys, Wang Yiyang headed downstairs, annoyed.

He saw that the security door to Unit 303 was shut tight. Several burly men were swearing as they kicked it hard, over and over.

Several sheets of printer paper were stuck beside the door. In rough, blood-red lettering, they read: "Pay your debts! If you don't, your whole family will die! Pay up! Die, die, die!"

One of the men had a paint sprayer and was spraying all over the wall beside the door.

The burly men noticed someone coming downstairs and glared at Wang Yiyang, but didn't bother with him. After kicking the door a few more times, they gathered their things and left.

Wang Yiyang glanced at Unit 303's door. The metal panel had been kicked inward and dented.

He'd heard people came by to demand payment from the residents downstairs all the time, but this was the worst incident yet.

They'd come in the middle of the night to kick and pound on the door.

It seemed the debt was bigger than ever.

The burly men left, cursing as they went.

Wang Yiyang turned to head back to bed.

Then he thought he heard a faint sob from the shadowy corner beside the electrical cabinet at the far end of the stairwell.

The buildings in Green Tree Home had a different layout from other apartment blocks.

The stairwells were rectangular, with recessed alcoves on either side for meter boxes and network cabinets.

The motion-activated stairwell lights were broken, and it was the middle of the night. Only a little moonlight came in, making it hard to see.

So both ends of the stairwell were pitch-black blind spots.

The people who had just been pounding on the door were in Unit 303, at one end.

The crying Wang Yiyang heard came from Unit 301, at the other.

"Who's there?" He tightened his grip on the baseball bat and called out.

The crying stopped at once. Then a tear-streaked, pretty face appeared from behind the meter box.

It was Li Ran.

The little girl from Unit 301 downstairs.

"Brother Yangyang..." Li Ran stepped out, covered in dust. Her once-white dance costume was smudged with black grime from the meter box.

"Why are you still out here so late?!" Wang Yiyang asked in surprise. "Where's your mom?"

Li Ran only cried and didn't answer. But she clutched her backpack so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale.

It was only three or four degrees outside in the stairwell in the middle of the night. Li Ran wore nothing but a thin dance skirt and tights. Her cheeks were red with cold, and her body trembled slightly.

Who knew how long she'd been waiting in the stairwell?

"Have you been waiting here the whole time?" Wang Yiyang asked, frowning again.

"Mm..." This time Li Ran answered, but her voice was so faint it was almost a whisper. He wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been listening carefully.

Wang Yiyang was at a loss. He went downstairs and looked through the peephole of Li Ran's door. It was pitch-black inside.

He knocked on the door.

There was no sound from within.

"They haven't come back..." Li Ran murmured beside him.

"Where did they go? They just left you alone in the stairwell?" Wang Yiyang frowned.

"My mom... went to find my dad..." Li Ran lowered her head, her voice so soft it seemed to come from somewhere far away.

Wang Yiyang thought it over. It was the middle of the night, and it wouldn't be appropriate to invite a young girl into the home of a single man.

"Wait here." He hurried upstairs, brought down a bowl of freshly heated ginger and brown sugar water, then grabbed a blanket and came back down.

"Here. Careful, it's hot. Drink this, then wrap yourself up in the blanket. Make sure you don't get sick."

Li Ran looked at the ginger and brown sugar water he held out to her. Warm steam rose from it, filling her with an indescribable sense of comfort and warmth.

She looked up at Wang Yiyang, who was holding a red blanket. Suddenly, the tears she'd been holding back began streaming down her face again.

She didn't sob aloud. She simply took the bowl, wiped her tears with her sleeve, and began drinking quietly.

Perhaps afraid of taking up too much of Wang Yiyang's time, Li Ran drank quickly. Once she'd finished, she handed the bowl back to him and carefully draped the blanket over her shoulders.

"Brother Yangyang, go back to bed. I'm fine. I called my mom, and she said she'll be here soon." The drink seemed to have calmed her down.

"Okay. Come upstairs if you need anything. Do you want me to call a locksmith so you can get inside first?" Wang Yiyang asked.

"No... no need." Li Ran shook her head. She hadn't brought her ID, and the locksmith wouldn't open the door without it.

She urged Wang Yiyang several more times to go back to bed, saying she was fine and would be able to go home soon.

Wang Yiyang had only meant to do a good deed. Since she said she was fine, whether she meant it or not, he couldn't stay there any longer.

So he went back inside, closed the door, took off his clothes, and went back to bed.

The next morning, he woke up at seven thirty.

He got up, washed, and changed, then checked his phone for calls and messages from the night before.

There were no calls, but there were plenty of texts, all spam and advertisements.

After clearing the junk, Wang Yiyang opened Feixun.

Feixun was one of the most widely used chat apps in the Federation and neighboring countries. These days, people preferred it to texting.

Feixun was free, while each text message cost five cents.

Its icon was a small blue cloud.

As soon as he opened the app, a flood of unread messages appeared.

There were messages from Wang Dongning, Xie Xiaodan, An Yuxi, and other college classmates, along with unread messages from all kinds of group chats.

Wang Yiyang quickly went through them.

'Yangyang, what happened yesterday? What did that slick-haired guy want when he took you out? Tell me privately. I swear I won't let it slip—not even to my wife!' —Wang Dongning.

'Heh heh heh.' —Wang Yiyang.

Wang Dongning could keep a secret for three days at most. That was what repeated tests had shown.

'Brother Yang, don't hesitate to ask if you need anything. If there's something I can do, I won't say no!' —Xie Xiaodan.

'Thanks. It's nothing, don't worry.' —Wang Yiyang.

Next were An Yuxi's messages.

Wang Yiyang opened them and paused.

The first message from An Yuxi was a picture.

It showed a news article about the latest research breakthrough in portable multifunctional musical instruments.

Below it, An Yuxi had typed:

'Tsk, what a shame I didn't get to check out the digital expo last time. Did you go?'

She liked digital products too?

Wang Yiyang blinked. He'd never heard that before, but he wasn't close with An Yuxi, so perhaps he'd simply never known.

He casually replied, 'I went, but it wasn't as good as the previous expo. A lot of the new products had different shells, but the core components were unchanged.'

After replying, he checked his encrypted messages. Jian had already dealt with Dada.

A human life had disappeared just like that, quietly and without a trace.

Wang Yiyang felt unsettled, but he knew he'd keep encountering more situations like this in the future.

Since he couldn't resist, he could only adapt.

The encrypted messages also included intelligence from his hometown, Guixi Town.

A highly capable operative named Catherine was now in charge of the situation there.

Wang Yiyang had deployed three squads to the area, all elite operatives.

Each squad had ten people. Together, they could easily destroy a small terrorist base and slaughter an armed group of over a hundred.

Yet here, the three squads were being used only to protect Wang Xinlong at the Yuekong Martial Arts Hall and investigate the forces behind Dada and Zhong Can.

Wang Yiyang went through all the reports and intelligence he'd received, then organized them.

If he really were the capable Security Minister from his memories, or a director at Mister, he might already have easily found a lead pointing to the person behind Dada.

But Wang Yiyang was just an ordinary office worker. He could turn the problem over and over in his mind and still couldn't find a clue.

After thinking for a long time without getting anywhere, Wang Yiyang could only tell the squad to secretly keep his grandfather, Wang Xinlong, safe.

Then he decided to start with several Mantis hideouts Dada had revealed.

Since he couldn't get any more leads, he'd take direct action.

Of course, that didn't mean storming in with armed force.

Times had changed. With ready-made forces at his disposal, Wang Yiyang wasn't stupid enough to go head-to-head with the enemy himself.

After a moment's thought, he quickly found a name in his contacts and called.

Beep... beep...

After two short tones, the other person picked up.

"Hello. What are your instructions?" The voice on the other end sounded like that of a middle-aged man around fifty. It was low and resonant.

A voice like that would normally have carried an air of authority and solemnity, but over the phone, he didn't give Wang Yiyang that impression at all.

Instead, he sounded extremely cautious.

"Have the person in charge in Yingxing City cooperate with the operation here," Wang Yiyang ordered, his voice low.

"Understood. I'll give the order right away," the man replied promptly.

"Don't reveal our connection while cooperating. Also, we may need to deploy armed forces to put down the opposition if necessary," Wang Yiyang added.

"Understood. I can issue the orders to mobilize a small armed force myself. Don't worry."

"All right. Do your job properly. This mission is worth a hundred contribution points. Don't let me down."

"Yes!" The man's enthusiasm soared. It seemed that the mention of contribution points had excited him.

After hanging up, Wang Yiyang let out a breath.

This was the power at his disposal under his hidden identity...

It was also the private force he'd built up over the past few years as Security Minister.

Contribution points were the group's internal system for evaluating value, but the person on the other end of the phone was one of the higher-ups he'd truly brought under his control using chip technology.

"And then there's the K-Crystal Serum..." Wang Yiyang felt as if his mind were a mess of tangled information.

In the end, he decided not to think about it. If he sent people to probe the several hideouts Dada had revealed, he'd find out more about the enemy.

By the time he'd dealt with the messages, it was almost ten.

He put on his coat, changed his shoes, and left. He tried pressing the elevator button again.

There was still no response. The elevator clearly hadn't been repaired yet.

Wang Yiyang sighed and had no choice but to walk downstairs again.

But when he reached the stairwell landing, he saw Li Ran once more.

Wrapped in the blanket, the girl sat at her door with her head tilted, fast asleep.