Arrangements

Hiring mercenaries who were expert fighters was a simple matter. Wang Yiyang had only to give the order, and his subordinates took care of the rest.

As head of the Security Department, he naturally had two deputy security ministers to assist him.

Both were top-tier elites under his chip's control. They obeyed his every command and wouldn't dare defy him.

Once he'd given the order, all that remained was to wait.

Wang Yiyang had nothing to do for the moment, and he didn't want to go check on things in person and risk exposing his identity.

So he decided to keep looking at houses.

Aside from the tangled mess that came with keeping his identity hidden, his everyday life was still quite ordinary.

He had lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant because the food at the big restaurants wasn't good.

After lunch, he kept looking at houses. He was dressed head to toe in cheap clothes that cost less than four hundred yuan altogether, so nobody at the real estate center went out of their way to greet him.

That saved him the trouble of having to humor anyone.

What Wang Yiyang hated most was people chattering away beside him while he was shopping. It was noisy and annoying as hell.

He looked around until after three in the afternoon, when he finally settled on a residential complex that he found relatively satisfactory.

That's right—not a villa, but a residential complex.

A large, single-floor apartment in the complex.

Unlike the other prospective buyers, Wang Yiyang strolled around the model display without drawing attention to himself, inspecting it carefully. Then he joined a few other visitors for a look around the complex.

During the tour, he replied to An Yuxi, who had asked him about the tricky parts of choosing digital products.

The woman seemed to share his keen interest in high-end digital products. Thinking he might as well share what he knew for free, Wang Yiyang casually explained some basic concepts to her.

After checking out the grounds, he headed straight to the sales center to put down a deposit on the apartment.

As soon as he walked in, his phone suddenly started ringing again.

Wang Yiyang took it out and checked the number. It was a distant uncle on his mother's side.

Many of his mother's relatives lived in the countryside. Compared with other rural residents, though, Wang Yiyang's uncles and aunts had done rather well for themselves.

Not in terms of making money, but in their studies and academic achievements, where they were relatively outstanding.

They were also very well-mannered and educated.

So Wang Yiyang's family was happy to keep in touch with these distant relatives.

Over time, they'd actually become closer to those relatives than to the ones who lived nearby.

At least, they were on better terms with them than with his father's other relatives.

Wang Yiyang found an empty chair in the sales center and answered the call.

"Hello? Uncle? How have you been feeling lately? Don't work yourself too hard on those construction jobs." He had a pretty good relationship with this uncle.

His uncle, Xue Hui, was in his forties and worked as a building contractor in several counties near Yingxing City.

His monthly income was unpredictable. Some months he made money; others, he actually took a loss.

Construction had become increasingly difficult over the past few years. The government had issued a number of new regulations requiring construction crews to ensure their materials met various new standards.

There were also strict rules governing where they could buy their supplies.

As a result, many suppliers had lost their business because the inspections were too stringent.

With his cost-effective supply channels gone, Xue Hui's competitiveness had taken a serious hit.

That had made life harder for contractors like him.

Wang Yiyang didn't know much about the business. He only knew that his uncle had treated him well when he was a child.

So whenever there was something he could do to help, he was happy to lend a hand.

But back then, his own income had been so meager that there hadn't been much he could do.

"There's something I need to trouble you with, Yiyang." A weary middle-aged man sighed on the other end of the line.

"Ruihua School is holding a parents' meeting the day after tomorrow. I can't get away, and your aunt has something urgent to deal with too. So I may have to ask you to go for us again."

Ruihua's full name was Xue Ruihua. She was his uncle's biological daughter and was now in middle school.

As for her grades, well, that was hard to say. She also had a fiery temper and was quite disobedient.

Wang Yiyang had gone to a few parents' meetings for her before, so he was familiar with the routine.

He checked the date and figured he should be free in two days. A deputy minister was handling Mantis, and several teams were keeping watch over the martial arts hall.

So there shouldn't be any major problems.

"Sure. Send me the exact time and anything I need to know, and I'll go." Wang Yiyang agreed casually.

A parents' meeting would take no more than an afternoon. He could just find a seat and play on his phone, and it wouldn't stop him from monitoring and directing things elsewhere.

"Sorry for the trouble, Yiyang. You're doing us a huge favor," his uncle said with a laugh.

"It's nothing. No big deal."

Wang Yiyang smiled and hung up.

"Sir, are you looking at apartments? Would you like me to show you around?" A staff member finally noticed him and came over to ask.

Wang Yiyang paused, then pointed to one of the buildings on the model display.

"Take me to have a look at that building. Do you have any apartments on the fifth floor or below?"

He was pointing to one of the complex's luxury, single-floor apartment buildings.

Each floor of the building held one large apartment. The building had twelve floors, so it had only twelve residents in total.

At twenty thousand yuan per square meter, an apartment of over five hundred square meters would cost at least ten million.

The staff member kept a straight face. She dealt with people who wanted to look at apartments like this all the time.

Most of them only looked and never bought, or just came to gawk.

"As for this building..." She pulled out her phone to check. "The fourth floor hasn't been sold yet. Would you like to see it now?"

"Let's go now." Wang Yiyang had no time to waste.

He stood up and quickly followed the saleswoman to view the apartment in person. Once he was sure he liked it, he started haggling with her.

The saleswoman was experienced. Seeing that Wang Yiyang was keen to buy but still hesitant and picky, she quietly messaged a colleague, asking them to pretend to be another prospective buyer interested in the same apartment. She wanted to make it seem as if he'd lose his chance if he didn't decide quickly.

She kept talking up how popular the building's apartments were, while repeatedly calling her colleague and pretending to make excuses to keep the other "buyer" waiting.

Watching her work, Wang Yiyang felt tired on her behalf.

But it wasn't easy making a living in her line of work. If the sale went through, the commission on an apartment worth over ten million yuan would be at least ten thousand. It was only natural for her to be eager.

Still, all those tricks were pointless.

After a long while, she brought over several people who might or might not have been the manager, supervisor, and general manager. They offered him a pile of discounts and gifts, and he finally paid a deposit.

By the time Wang Yiyang left the sales center, it was already dark.

He checked the latest reports from the martial arts hall again, as well as the operation against the Mantis organization in Yingxing City.

Only after confirming that there were no new problems did he let himself relax.

The group had used its connections to put every known member of Mantis on the wanted list.

The Security Department's intelligence network was now focusing its efforts on finding out why an assassination organization like Mantis had targeted the Yuekong Martial Arts Hall.

After checking his unread messages, Wang Yiyang looked around. Before he knew it, he'd reached a district filled with bars and KTVs.

Sounds of singing and music, some pleasant and some not, poured from both sides of the street. He frowned slightly.

The air grew cooler as night fell.

A gust of wind swept over him, bringing a faint chill.

"All I can do is wait for the martial arts hall's results. In the meantime, I should make what preparations I can." Wang Yiyang tugged at his collar and buttoned it up.

"Judging from the interrogation results so far, the person who targeted the Yuekong Martial Arts Hall...

"The guy named Dada didn't know the details. He'd only been ordered to assist Zhong Can."

Wang Yiyang walked on slowly.

Two pretty women dressed to the nines stepped into a bar ahead. They wore dark qipaos that showed off their long, fair legs, and clicked across the threshold in high heels.

The music inside the bar was deafening, completely at odds with the women's style of dress.

Yet from a distance, Wang Yiyang saw a strange harmony in the scene.

He passed the bar, and the music gradually faded behind him.

At a convenience store by the roadside, he bought a cup of hot chocolate and sipped it as he walked.

"That means Zhong Can is probably one of the few who knows the truth. The other possibility is someone in Mantis's inner circle.

"We caught quite a few Mantis members during the earlier raid. Now we just have to see if we can get any information out of them."

"Meow..."

A black stray cat sat atop a fire hydrant by the roadside. It turned its small head to look at Wang Yiyang, then leaped lightly to the ground and disappeared behind a trash can into an alley.

Wang Yiyang paused, then continued on.

"So what can I do to prepare in advance as an ordinary person?"

He asked himself.

"My hidden identity is as one of Mister's shadow directors. But as head of the Security Department, I'm now beset by problems both inside and out, and there isn't much power I can bring to bear.

"So the best approach is to go straight to Zhong Can and get information about Mantis's target."

But every time he considered it, he felt uneasy.

Deep down, he had a vague sense that Zhong Can would be far more troublesome than the martial arts experts he'd hunted down before.

Besides, he still wasn't sure that Zhong Can had been the one who slaughtered everyone at the martial arts hall.

Could someone else have done it?

Beep, beep.

A red car at the roadside kept honking impatiently, urging the driver in front to move along.

Wang Yiyang glanced at the female driver inside, who reeked of alcohol. Then he turned and headed to the right.

There was a crossroads here. Turning right led to a street lined with food stalls.

People came and went along the street. Steam billowed from the shops on either side, carrying mouthwatering aromas.

Grilled fish, skewers, grilled vegetables, fried rice, fried noodles, rice noodles, all kinds of desserts and drinks—you could find just about any snack you could think of here.

Wang Yiyang stood at the entrance to the food street, beside the shutter of a closed video store. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

After a brief pause, the call connected almost immediately.