Han Xiao felt the car stop. Someone pushed him out, and he stood alone in the breeze for a while before hearing the car roar away. Only then did he remove the black hood and look around. He was at an intersection a few streets away from the repair shop.
Several bright moons hung in the sky.
"So much secrecy," Han Xiao muttered, curling his lip.
Having essentially accomplished his goal, Han Xiao strolled along, humming a tune. Before long, he reached the repair shop and found the lights still on inside. Oh no, he thought. He had been gone for three days, and Lü Qian was probably worried sick.
As soon as he entered, he saw Lü Qian pacing back and forth, her face full of worry.
Lü Qian's expression darkened, and she immediately rushed over to scold him. "Why are you only coming back now?! Do you know how worried I was? You're a stranger to this city, and I thought something had happened to you. I almost called the police!"
Knowing he was in the wrong, Han Xiao simply stared at her with dead-fish eyes, looking like a dead pig that feared no boiling water.
"Where on earth did you go?"
"For a walk."
Lü Qian flew into a rage. "Can't you come up with a more believable excuse?"
"I think it's pretty believable..."
"Yesterday, I saw a news report about a shootout at Kro Junkyard. I thought something had happened to you."
So that was why Lü Qian had been worried. Han Xiao listened to her lengthy scolding without the slightest impatience. Instead, warmth filled his heart.
It wasn't easy to find someone who cared about him.
But Old Man Lü shattered that feeling in an instant.
"I thought you wouldn't make it back alive. What a disappointment."
"Heh."
Damn old man!
After scolding him at length, Lü Qian finally vented her frustration. She gritted her teeth and said, pained by the expense, "I'll buy you a phone in a few days. Don't disappear out of contact again... The cost comes out of your wages."
"No need. I already have a phone." Han Xiao took out the black phone.
The Thirteenth Bureau had said he couldn't give the number to anyone else?
Not listening, not listening. A turtle's chanting scriptures.
Old Man Lü's eyes flashed. He pulled Han Xiao aside and asked with a frown, "That's an encrypted phone from the Thirteenth Bureau. Did you join them?"
"Oh, you know your stuff." Han Xiao gave him a perfunctory compliment.
"Hmph. Since you've joined the Thirteenth Bureau, why are you still working at my shop? Get lost."
"If anyone's getting lost, it's you. I'm not going anywhere."
"Why, you little brat! How dare you talk to me like that? Could you have some ulterior motive for staying at my shop..."
Old Man Lü was furious, but his expression suddenly changed. He stared fixedly at Han Xiao and enunciated every word. "You haven't taken a fancy to my granddaughter, have you?!"
"You've got the wrong idea!" Han Xiao suddenly had a bad feeling.
Old Man Lü's expression changed several times. In the space of a second, he went through hostility, contemplation, relief, excitement, appraisal, satisfaction, gratification, benevolence, and more. It was even more astonishing than Sichuan opera face-changing, and the way he looked at Han Xiao as though he were his future grandson-in-law sent a chill down Han Xiao's spine.
Wait, this isn't how the script goes!
"Little Han, my Little Qian isn't getting any younger. How about... you?"
Han Xiao's face stiffened. "Old Man Lü, as the saying goes, a forcibly twisted melon isn't sweet."
"If you don't twist it, you won't even get a melon. That useless son of mine, his only contribution was giving me a granddaughter. Our family needs another generation, so put some effort in and give me a great-grandson too."
Who's part of "our family" with you? Don't stir up trouble for me!
"Heh, you young people should love with passion. How can you take things so slowly? I can only help you this far." Old Man Lü patted Han Xiao on the shoulder with a profoundly mysterious look and strolled away, leaving Han Xiao in disarray.
Old folks eager to hold a baby are terrifying!
Han Xiao turned around to find Lü Qian standing behind him, though he didn't know when she had arrived. Her eyes glistened as though tears might fall at any moment, and she stared straight at him, lips pressed together without a word.
"If I said this was a misunderstanding, would you believe me?"
"Y-you jerk." Lü Qian covered her bright red face, turned, and ran upstairs, her footsteps pounding.
Well, looks like she doesn't believe me.
Looking utterly pained, Han Xiao slapped a hand over his forehead.
Today's events were just too uncanny.
Luo Xuan had been restless for the past few days, worried that Han Xiao would join the Logistics Department and affect his standing.
Finally, Luo Xuan couldn't hold back any longer and went to ask the department head about Han Xiao's background.
"His detailed information is classified." The head of the Logistics Department was a potbellied, jolly-looking man with a perpetual smile. He looked around, saw that no one was nearby, and lowered his voice. "All I can tell you is that he's joined the Thirteenth Bureau."
Luo Xuan felt his heart skip a beat. He asked nervously, "Will he join the Logistics Department or the Research and Development Department?"
If Han Xiao joined the Logistics Department, he could suppress him. If Han Xiao joined the Research and Development Department, he and Tu Shu would be unable to reach him.
The head of the Logistics Department shook his head. "Neither. He was specially recruited into the Secret Operations Department. He'll be reporting there in a few days."
Caught completely off guard, Luo Xuan was dumbfounded by the news.
The man wasn't coming to the Logistics Department to play with him at all. How the hell was he supposed to suppress him now?!
He had worked diligently for years and still wasn't qualified to join the Secret Operations Department, yet that mysterious fellow professional who had gotten the better of him had been specially recruited on his very first day. Someone else had quietly beaten him to the Secret Operations Department position he had always sought, and Luo Xuan nearly burst with anger.
This isn't fair!
A week after the shootout at Klo Scrap Station, the bosses of West Capital's other six districts gathered to discuss a major recent development: the Seventh District's territory had lost its master, and Raccoon Cat had vanished into thin air.
Through various channels, the other bosses had learned a few fragments: Raccoon Cat's disappearance was actually connected to the immensely powerful Thirteenth Bureau. All the bosses were shocked.
What had Raccoon Cat done to provoke such a behemoth?
The boss of the Second District, who was more or less the leader among them and had called the meeting, spoke gravely. "Raccoon Cat is missing. He offended someone he shouldn't have, and I doubt we'll ever see him again."
The assembled bosses felt a certain sorrow at the fate of one of their own. For all their imposing airs outside, they all knew that the Thirteenth Bureau could make any one of them disappear from the world forever at any time. Their underground forces couldn't make the slightest ripple.
West Capital was a national capital, after all. Though they appeared successful, they were really just rats living on scraps in dark corners. They weren't even as well off as the arms dealers and information brokers doing business in the slums, who all had powerful backers. The bosses were nothing more than tools in the hands of Stardragon's high officials. The day they became inconvenient to use, a single word could spell their deaths.
"Who will take over the Seventh District's territory?"
The bosses exchanged looks, but no one spoke.
Taking over the territory should have sparked a scramble for a new share of the profits. Yet no one spoke up, not because they didn't covet Raccoon Cat's territory, but because the situation remained unclear. In their eyes, the Seventh District had become a dragon's pool and tiger's den. Who knew whether they might get into trouble like Raccoon Cat?
The Second District boss looked around and said gravely, "None of you want to take over?"
Everyone remained silent.
"Fine. Then we'll wait for a newcomer to rise to power." The Second District boss remained expressionless.
With the Seventh District's gray areas left without a master, a bloody struggle was inevitable. Some of the "clever people" Raccoon Cat had kept under his thumb would see a chance to move up.
But the bosses weren't willing to give a newcomer a chance. They would stand by and watch coldly, waiting for some "ambitious" cannon fodder to scout ahead and find out what was happening in the Seventh District. Only then would the assembled bosses make their move, using their deeply rooted, intertwined forces to eliminate the rising newcomer and divide the Seventh District's territory among themselves.
Having one fewer person to share their existing pie was naturally a good thing. They would never allow a new boss to truly become their equal.
Han Xiao spent a few days at the repair shop, persistently wheedled an advance on his first month's wages, and ordered a batch of materials from the Thirteenth Bureau.
A dark red bullet lay quietly in Han Xiao's palm, its tip engraved with a flame-shaped pattern.
[High Combustion Ammunition: Upon hitting a target, sets an area three meters in diameter ablaze, causing continuous burn damage]
The description was simple, but Han Xiao knew the actual effect was much stronger than it suggested.
High Combustion Bullet worked by filling the bullet with a highly flammable, adhesive gas as an incendiary agent. Its ignition conditions were simpler than those of armor-piercing incendiary rounds: it could ignite spontaneously without any combustible material. It was a special-purpose bullet designed specifically for burning. The gas had to be collected through a chemical reaction and mixed with another inert gas in the correct ratio to keep it from burning. Using gas as an incendiary agent made it harder to extract than liquid or granular agents. Once the bullet was opened, the flammable gas could briefly burn itself out even in a vacuum, making it inherently secure against disclosure.
The blueprint contained strict experimental steps for refining the gas. He hadn't yet learned the energy branch's [Basic Biochemistry], so he didn't understand the principles, but he only had to follow the instructions.
The ammunition could be made in various calibers, from handgun rounds to sniper rounds. It was also easy to manufacture, highly practical, and had a wider market. Over the past few days, he had made several dozen High Combustion Bullets in his spare time.
Han Xiao had also used better-quality steel to forge a folding combat knife. It weighed 5.3 pounds, was 0.65 meters long, and had a 0.12-meter handle when folded. Its melee attack power was 13-19. The whole knife was glossy black, with segmented folding patterns along the blade and a right-angled tip, like a craft knife. This kind of beginner melee weapon wasn't very useful to him, but making one was better than nothing.
He used the experience from making High Combustion Bullets and a folding combat knife to raise [Basic Mechanical Affinity] to level four.
[Basic Mechanical Affinity] maxed out at level five and still needed fifteen thousand experience. [Basic Shooting] was currently level eight and needed forty-five thousand experience to reach max level. With another sixty thousand experience, he could gain two more potential points.
Every country possessed different advanced knowledge, which it kept secret. One use for it was to attract powerful independent supers. Planet Aquamarine had class knowledge for only three main classes: the Esper Class, Pugilist Class, and Mechanic Class.
No beginner planet possessed knowledge for all five main classes. The class inclination questionnaire players took at the start determined which type of beginner planet the system would assign them to.
For example, on a beginner planet with an ancient setting, could you really make machinery?
Well, actually, it was possible.
But you had to hammer, forge, and smelt everything by hand. Without lathes or equipment to help, anything you wanted to make had to be handmade. Many things couldn't be made at all, the raw materials were inadequate, and efficiency was outrageously low.
The advanced knowledge held by the Thirteenth Bureau happened to include the Mechanic Class's armament branch. It was available only to those with high clearance; one needed at least a [Respect] relationship to browse it, and that would take too long.
Han Xiao thought to himself that if he wanted advanced knowledge quickly, he would have to seize an opportunity and take an unconventional approach. His advancement mission would have to be handled through the Thirteenth Bureau.
There was no opportunity at present, so he could only wait.
Han Xiao hadn't forgotten the repair shop's orders, either. They hardly counted as work to him and were very easy.
For the past few days, Lü Qian had been avoiding him everywhere. She didn't dare look Han Xiao in the eye and would flee red-faced after exchanging only a few words, leaving him feeling helpless.
It's all Old Man Lü's fault!
And that old baldy is still laughing over there. Come over here if you've got the guts, and I'll show you a big treasure.
Lü Qian's feelings toward Han Xiao were complicated. More than once, she had asked herself, Do I dislike Han Xiao? The answer was no.
But do I like Han Xiao? The answer was also no. It certainly wasn't romantic affection; "admiration" would be a more accurate description.
But if she explicitly rejected Han Xiao, would he quit in a fit of anger? Lü Qian couldn't bear to lose such a good (cheap) assistant.
And so Lü Qian remained deeply conflicted, avoiding Han Xiao for fear that he would demand a direct answer. Her heart was in turmoil, as though she were tossing a coin. What should I do if he confesses?
Leaving Lü Qian to wrestle with her own dilemma, Han Xiao's phone rang.
Feng Jun had sent a message: "Your credentials have been approved. Report in today."
"Finally."
Han Xiao's eyes flashed.