But when Light Nostrade saw Neon lying motionless on Nue's back as though she were dead, he froze.
In that instant, he seemed convinced that his daughter was dead!
Neon was the cornerstone of the Nostrade Family. Without her fortune-telling ability, the family would be reduced to what it had once been.
No, the people he had suppressed on his climb to the top would repay him a hundred, a thousand times over once he fell on hard times.
"It's over. It's all over!" Light Nostrade muttered, already collapsing to the ground.
Qiao Lun looked at Light Nostrade with utter contempt.
Earlier, Light Nostrade and Neon had shared an affectionate exchange, but now it seemed his fatherly love for her amounted to little.
"She's not dead. What's over?" Qiao Lun simply grabbed Neon off Nue's back and tossed her toward Light Nostrade.
Before Light Nostrade could react, Dalzollene caught Neon.
"She's warm. She really isn't dead!" Dalzollene looked at Light Nostrade in delighted surprise.
Light Nostrade's expression changed rapidly, his devastation turning to excitement and joy. He scrambled up and rushed over to Neon to check for himself.
"She really isn't dead. She really isn't dead! Thank goodness, thank goodness! Hahahaha..."
The middle-aged man had experienced a tremendous rise and fall in an instant. As he laughed, his eyes rolled back, and he toppled backward.
Dalzollene hurriedly took the Nostrade father and daughter back to the hotel, while Qiao Lun and Kurapika also entered the hotel from the rooftop.
"With Shalnark dead, the Phantom Troupe's investigative capabilities will take a major hit, but we still need to be careful." Qiao Lun sat down in the hotel restaurant and cautioned Dalzollene, who had hurried back, while waiting for food to replenish his strength.
As for Kurapika, he had taken Pakunoda into a room.
Qiao Lun did not want to know what Kurapika would ask Pakunoda. He only cared whether she really was still useful.
And the key to judging that lay with Melody's team, which had been responsible for watching the Phantom Troupe's movements all along.
However, from the time they withdrew until now, Melody's group had sent back no information. This left him somewhat worried that the Phantom Troupe had discovered them.
"Don't worry," Dalzollene said confidently. "Once the boss wakes up, we'll probably be leaving Yorknew City."
Qiao Lun nodded. This did not particularly surprise him.
The Nostrade Family had come to Yorknew City partly because Light Nostrade wanted to use the trip to build connections with more mafia bosses, and partly because Neon really did want quite a few things from the underground auction.
It would be nonsense to say Light Nostrade had no love for Neon at all. It was just that, at present, that love probably did not outweigh her importance to the family.
Kurapika reappeared in the restaurant, with Pakunoda following behind him.
There was blood at the corner of Pakunoda's mouth, presumably from Kurapika hitting her. Qiao Lun just did not know what she had said to make Kurapika choose to strike her.
"Gon sent me a message," Kurapika said as soon as he sat down opposite Qiao Lun. "After we left, the Phantom Troupe still went after the mafia's collection, but something strange happened.
"While Gon and the others were watching, the Phantom Troupe's members were clearly still investigating where the collection was, yet the mafia's Ten Dons unilaterally announced that Chrollo, the leader of the Phantom Troupe, was dead.
"Then they even held the auction. Every item that should have been stolen was auctioned off, and the Phantom Troupe's bodies were found out in the wilderness. Seven in total, not one missing."
When Qiao Lun heard this information, he understood what had happened.
Although Illumi had not gone to assassinate the Ten Dons, they had all died anyway. And even without Illumi, someone among the Ten Dons had still announced the mafia's victory.
As for the auction, Kortopi had probably copied the entire collection.
In other words, everything auctioned off had been fake. The Phantom Troupe had already taken the originals.
Finally, the supposed bodies were merely copies Kortopi had made to allow the Phantom Troupe to make a clean getaway.
Living people were not easy to copy, but copying corpses was quite simple for Kortopi.
However, Qiao Lun was more concerned with a signal this news conveyed. He looked up at Pakunoda, who stood behind Kurapika, bound in chains.
"You've been abandoned."
No one had expected Qiao Lun to suddenly say something like that to Pakunoda.
Pakunoda remained expressionless. In fact, she inwardly felt relieved.
Her contact with Kurapika had already made it clear to Pakunoda that his abilities had been created entirely to target the Phantom Troupe.
It could be said that every one of those chains was especially effective against the Phantom Troupe.
With the unfathomable Qiao Lun and Neon, who could tell fortunes and foresee the future, added to the mix, unless they could find a countermeasure, Chrollo keeping the others here would only lead to more losses for the Phantom Troupe. They would pose no threat to the other side at all.
So retreating was the right choice, and the most levelheaded one.
As for what would happen to her after the Phantom Troupe withdrew, Pakunoda had been prepared to face death from the moment she was captured.
In fact, if she were not still bound by the chains, she probably would have already chosen suicide.
"You don't seem surprised at all." Looking at Pakunoda's calm expression, Qiao Lun could not help acknowledging her resolve.
Pakunoda had no intention of speaking.
Qiao Lun stopped looking at her and turned to Kurapika instead. "Have Melody and the others withdraw. If they keep tracking and observing them, they might bring trouble down on themselves."
"I know, but Melody and the others want to check the Phantom Troupe's bodies first. Then they'll come back," Kurapika said.
Qiao Lun was slightly puzzled. "Did Melody's group lose them along the way?"
"Yes." Kurapika nodded. "After the Phantom Troupe left the Semetary Building, Melody and the others didn't dare risk following them any farther. Watching through the building's surveillance cameras was fine before, but the surveillance was actually out in the open. Melody was worried the Phantom Troupe would ambush anyone tracking them, so she didn't take the others out of the building."
"A very smart move," Qiao Lun praised.
Given the makeup of Melody's team, if the Phantom Troupe really had spotted them outside the building, there was no telling how many would have escaped. In fact, the most likely outcome was that they would all have been wiped out.
"Did Hisoka get away?" Qiao Lun asked another question that interested him somewhat.
Had the Phantom Troupe arrived a little later, Qiao Lun would have killed the winner outright once Hisoka and Chrollo settled their fight.
But now it seemed very likely that Chrollo had anticipated this long ago and deliberately drawn out the battle.
The basis for that judgment was the choice Franklin had made the instant he appeared outside the eighteenth-floor restaurant: blasting apart the restaurant doors and exposing everything inside.
Under those circumstances, with the Phantom Troupe holding the numerical advantage, Chrollo had already put himself in an unbeatable position.
So throughout this encounter, Chrollo had only needed to do two things: defend and stall.
Qiao Lun thought back carefully and understood in an instant.
Chrollo had probably known from the moment his fight with Hisoka became a one-on-one duel, and he confirmed that Qiao Lun would not intervene, that he did not need to win this one-on-one fight-and, more importantly, that he must not win.