Kitajima Maki froze for a moment. "Who's back?"
She couldn't think of any man in Area 11 who could make her secretary so flustered, stripped of his usual composure.
Hayakawa Kazuma took a deep breath, suppressing the heartbeat pounding in his chest, and said quietly, "Hokkaido... that man from Machine City."
He lowered his voice as if afraid someone might hear him. He didn't even dare say the man's name.
At some point, that name had become taboo for the Area 11 government. No one dared speak it.
"Hokkaido... Machine City..."
Kitajima Maki immediately realized who he meant, and her thoughts stalled for a few seconds too.
Then she sprang to her feet, tossed aside the documents in her hands, and strode out of her office. "Notify the other two Aces to return at once."
The secretary wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief and hurried after her.
This was supposed to be highly confidential information, but no one should expect a bloated bureaucracy and a feudal political system to take secrecy seriously, especially during a sudden crisis.
In less than half an hour, the news had spread through every level of the government. Fear and unease were rapidly taking hold.
No one knew why that man had suddenly come back.
Hadn't the two sides already made peace?
Fang Cheng had no idea his return had thrown the Area 11 government into chaos. Even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared.
After settling in at the Yuguang Family's home, he took off his clothes and went into the bathroom to soak in the tub.
At his current level of strength, he didn't need to eat or bathe. But he'd kept up these two pleasurable habits all the same; skipping them for even a day made him feel