Night hung low, and only the faint, cold glow of the screen at his fingertips illuminated Li Shunchen's impassive face beneath the shadows of the trees.
At that very moment, in a luxury apartment on the other side of Tokyo.
Mei Mei had just finished a day of settling intelligence accounts. Swirling a glass of red wine, she looked at the unexpected encrypted message on her phone, a rare flicker of bewilderment and surprise crossing her ever-calculating eyes.
At this point, her cooperation with Li Shunchen remained limited to basic business and monetary transactions, such as his earlier commission to learn the New Shadow Style. They were nowhere near the point of laying their cards on the table with each other.
Li Shunchen's sudden, overstepping request, explicitly asking for a private means of directly contacting the current leader of the Time Vessel Association, genuinely struck her as rather baffling.
After all, information about the core figures of a deeply entrenched behemoth like the Time Vessel Association was not so easily accessed.
Yet when Mei Mei's gaze swept over the long string of digits attached to the message-the additional payment large enough to drive the vast majority of Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers wild-her slightly furrowed brows immediately relaxed.
Her red lips curved into an alluring smile. After briefly weighing things up, she made her decision.
Rather than investigate her employer's true intentions, she preferred to trust those cold, enchanting numbers in her account.
Her pale fingers tapped the screen, sending Li Shunchen a crisp, decisive reply.
Meanwhile, the battered flip phone in Li Shunchen's right hand gave a dull vibration.
It was a message from Shiu Kong, the underground black-market broker, concisely reporting the progress of negotiations over the Star Plasma Vessel bounty.
"The Time Vessel Association has started to budge.