Cooperation

Manager Sha escorted Chen Xu to the entrance of the Martial Pavilion, his brows slightly furrowed.

"Why is it so noisy outside? This has made Vice Pavilion Master Chen witness an unsightly scene."

"Chief Manager Sha, you finally came out." A guard jogged up to him.

"That woman has been kneeling at the Martial Pavilion entrance. We can't exactly drive her away, but she's got us worried sick."

"Kneeling? Why is she kneeling there?" Manager Sha looked puzzled. What era was this? She was still pulling this stunt? If she had a grievance, shouldn't she go to the Public Security Office?

The woman kneeling before the Martial Pavilion wore a faded cloth shirt washed nearly white. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were lifeless.

When she saw more people emerge from the Martial Pavilion, her vacant eyes shifted slightly. The instant she recognized Manager Sha, she sprang up and rushed over, clutching his leg as she wept bitterly.

"For the sake of my daughter having accompanied you before, please help my poor daughter, who died with her eyes still open! I beg you!"

The moment the woman spoke, the surrounding crowd's mocking, contemptuous gazes converged on him. Manager Sha's face turned green. "Ma'am, please don't talk nonsense. I've never seen your daughter. How could there be any talk of her accompanying me?"

"My daughter's name was Lan Lianyu."

Manager Sha's voice abruptly caught in his throat. The image of a certain girl surfaced in his mind—the first victim among the five vicious cases.

As for their relationship, one was willing to strike, the other willing to take it. Those who knew, knew.

Giving the guards beside him a look, Manager Sha forced a smile. "Ma'am, the Martial Pavilion is a public place. It doesn't look good for you to make a scene here, does it? Let's talk somewhere else."

"No! I want to make this clear right here... What are you doing? Let go of me!"

"This woman has disrupted public order at the Martial Pavilion." After tossing out those words, Manager Sha gave Chen Xu an apologetic look and followed two guards as they forcibly dragged the woman away.

Watching Manager Sha leave, Chen Xu was preparing to depart from the Martial Pavilion and take the Abyss Rail back to Jinning Commandery from Peace Prefecture City when the phone in his pocket began to vibrate.

Who could it be? Ling Xiangshan, Yan Feng, or perhaps Master Cheng?

Taking it out, he saw an unfamiliar number.

He pressed the answer button.

"Forgive the sudden interruption. Hello, is this Mr. Chen, Vice Pavilion Master Chen?"

The voice on the other end sounded quite young. Chen Xu guessed the caller was not over thirty.

"What is it?" Chen Xu's tone was calm, without the slightest fluctuation.

"There are some matters I'd like to discuss with you. If you're interested, could we meet at eight tonight in the underground parking garage of East District Tianfeng Building?"

Chen Xu was just about to hang up when the caller added, "I heard you are devoted to martial arts, so I have prepared a copy of the [Steel Bone Skill]. As long as you come, whether our discussion succeeds or not, it will be yours. I'll wait there for an hour."

With that, the caller hung up first.

On the other end of the call, the young man set down his phone and respectfully said to the man in gold insignia seated at the head, "Minister Nie, I've contacted him. What if he doesn't come tonight?"

"Based on his performance at the Nie Family today, as well as Mengyin's description of him, the odds of him not coming are very low." A faint smile curled across Minister Nie's lips, as if everything lay within his grasp.

"Taking things from my Nie Family and doing a few things for my Nie Family—shouldn't that be only natural?"

Tianfeng Building, underground parking garage.

Chen Xu had casually "borrowed" a security uniform, and his whole body had already shrunk into the form of a gaunt young man standing five foot seven.

Though he did not believe this fellow who had mysteriously sought him out for a discussion could threaten him, he had still changed his appearance first out of caution, intending to play things by ear.

Not coming was out of the question. Even without martial arts manuals, he had to find out where these people had gotten his number.

The pitch-black underground parking garage carried an added air of horror.

Holding a flashlight, Chen Xu swaggered through the garage while posing as a patrolling security guard.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

More than a dozen men in black suits suddenly sprang out from every direction in the garage, pouncing on Chen Xu like wolves and tigers.

They seemed utterly unconcerned with Chen Xu's disguised identity as a security guard, intent on putting him to death.

His body swayed. No one saw how Chen Xu moved, yet the dozen or so men in black suits were sent flying even faster than they had come, their life and death unknown.

Clap, clap, clap, clap.

A burst of applause echoed through the empty underground parking garage. An elderly man in a crisp military uniform stepped out slowly and stopped before Chen Xu.

"Vice Pavilion Master Chen, stop using that crude bone-shrinking disguise with no technique to it. It may fool most ordinary people and Martial Artists, but it cannot fool this minister." After Nie Renxiong emerged, another seven or eight uniformed men and women immediately closed in on Chen Xu from every direction.

"Old Master Nie?" Chen Xu remembered this elderly man whom he had met once during the day.

"So you were the one looking for Chen?"

Before his words had even faded, Chen Xu took one step over thirty feet and arrived before the old man, smashing down a fist.

"You have tested Chen's strength, but Chen has yet to weigh your measure."

The blast of air raised by his fist directly hurled several soldiers nearest the old man away.

"Good!" Nie Renxiong neither dodged nor retreated. Planting his feet firmly, he threw a punch head-on.

His military uniform exploded apart, revealing powerful muscles.

The ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern around the two of them, and shattered stones shot in every direction.

The remaining soldiers could not keep their footing at all. They involuntarily collapsed onto the ground, deep shock flashing through their eyes.

"The minister was forced back in a direct clash!"

A shallow trench nearly thirty feet long had been plowed into the ground. Nie Renxiong slowly withdrew his fist.

"From age to age, the land brings forth gifted men; each leads the way for several hundred years."

He could not help sighing inwardly. According to Chen Xu's Martial Pavilion records from Jinning Commandery, directly retrieved through his authority as minister, this young man was not even eighteen yet, was he? And he already possessed such strength.

Even if they fought to the death and he unleashed his own [Martial Form], he did not dare guarantee that he would be the one left alive in the end.

From this moment onward, he no longer regarded Chen Xu as an ordinary deputy pavilion master of a commandery city, but as a martial powerhouse capable of standing on equal footing with him.

"This old man is Nie Renxiong. I was the one who had a subordinate call Vice Pavilion Master Chen this afternoon."

His gaze fell upon the young soldier sitting on the ground. "Give the [Steel Bone Skill] to Vice Pavilion Master Chen, and add five portions of Refining Liquid as compensation for the disturbance."

"Yes." The young soldier immediately got to his feet. After saluting, he jogged to a vehicle, opened the trunk, and began searching through it.

Since they were being so sensible, Chen Xu naturally would not erupt with his full strength and continue fighting to the death. To him, that would be nothing but a waste of energy and stamina.

Only after the compensation was delivered into Chen Xu's hands did Nie Renxiong speak. "Vice Pavilion Master Chen should be in great need of martial arts manuals and cultivation resources, correct? This old man has a mutually beneficial proposal that can ensure Vice Pavilion Master Chen receives ample martial arts manuals and resources. What do you say?"

"Minister Nie, speak plainly." Chen Xu restored himself to his usual six-foot-three appearance, making several soldiers' eyelids twitch.

They could not imagine just how profound one's martial cultivation had to be to change one's form so effortlessly.