Driven by Circumstances X and X Left with No Choice

Qi Zhou appeared at the border between District One and District Five, then stepped into District One.

The streets here were exceptionally clean, with hardly any trash in sight. Houses stood in neat rows on both sides, and there were even shops with banners displayed on them.

Qi Zhou walked slowly toward his destination.

It was hard to imagine that District One and District Five were directly connected, with nothing visibly separating them, yet they were two utterly distinct worlds, as different as heaven and earth.

Looking at the houses with their white brick walls and red tile roofs, he thought, ...Social classes really are everywhere.

"Although the White Eagle Society operates in District Five and District Nine, its president, Suoerzite, still chooses to live in District One. After all, even breathing the same air as the lowlifes in District Five would disgust him beyond endurance."

Qi Zhou recalled what A-Wu had told him. "His residence is in the northwest corner of District One. You'll see it when you get there. There's no mistaking it."

"Suoerzite returns home every night. After nine the next morning, someone delivers the documents he needs to deal with to his residence. He doesn't go to the White Eagle Society until noon. So at two in the morning, he's sure to be home, and the security is at its weakest then."

"My personal recommendation: if you want to make a move, that's the best time."

"Suoerzite likes to have a drink before bed. If you can add a little something to it before he drinks it, whatever you want to do afterward won't be difficult at all."

Qi Zhou pinched the pill in his hand. It was no bigger than his little fingernail.

It was hard to believe that after committing "arson," he was about to move straight on to "poisoning."

Qi Zhou mocked himself. "At this rate, I'll spend the rest of my life in prison."

But as for the true identity of "A-Wu," who knew so much and could produce poison-

"Forget it. It doesn't matter."

At least for now, he could still be considered an "ally," even if they were only allies because their interests aligned.

Sometimes, "information" was worth far more than "force."

The moonlight was lovely tonight. The moon had climbed directly overhead, and it was nearly midnight.

Qi Zhou had also spotted Suoerzite's residence, the one A-Wu had told him about. It really was conspicuous: there wasn't a more luxurious building within a hundred meters.

A guard was dozing in the gatehouse, and others were hidden along the only route into the residence.

Qi Zhou didn't think it would be troublesome, though. As long as he used Gyo, he could see the ordinary people in hiding. Evidently, even in Meteor City, Nen users were rare; it wasn't as he had imagined, with even the gatekeepers using Nen.

But another possibility occurred to Qi Zhou.

If someone hiding in the shadows suppressed all his Nen, Qi Zhou wouldn't be able to see his Ten. What would he do then? And if someone maintaining Ten hid in a blind spot, where his eyes couldn't see him, what would he do?

Perhaps there were Nen techniques he hadn't mastered that would let him deal with those situations.

But that made it even more frightening the more he thought about it.

If there was a way for him to detect someone suppressing his Nen, then by the same token, even if he suppressed his own Nen, someone with that technique could detect him. How was he supposed to avoid that?

"Ahhh! This is so annoying! Why don't I have a teacher who can properly teach me everything?!"

"Everyone else who transmigrates has smooth sailing. I'm the only one who escaped the tiger's jaws just to land in the wolf's den. I finally managed to learn a new skill, but only learned half of it, and now I have to scrape by with an ability I barely understand. I'm so miserable, really."

"The only thing I probably have in common with other transmigrators is that villains really do come to give me experience-but compared to them, I'm more like the villain, aren't I..."

Qi Zhou let his thoughts wander, using them to relax.

Nothing was more heart-stopping than realizing, just as he was about to kill someone, that there were still so many things he didn't know how to do.

If he didn't relax, he felt his heart would go out of rhythm and finish him off before he could kill anyone else.

Still, thoughts aside, the job had to be done.

Qi Zhou pursed his lips.

The moonlight shifted as a dark cloud drifted across the sky, covering the moon and blocking its light.

Taking advantage of that moment of darkness, Qi Zhou suppressed his Nen and sprinted toward the luxurious residence.

Keeping his breathing subdued and channeling Nen into both feet, Qi Zhou moved with incredible speed. In an instant, he vaulted over the courtyard wall and landed inside.

Every guard he could spot was an ordinary person. So far, Qi Zhou hadn't seen any Nen experts-a good thing.

He had noticed that people who had learned Nen would unconsciously maintain it in a state of Ten unless they deliberately suppressed it.

The members of the Phantom Troupe were like that, as were the invited musicians who knew Nen that he had seen at Whale Manor.

It wasn't surprising, though. Nen was formed by gathering the aura that escaped from the body. Although he didn't know what that aura was, it had to be something good, so keeping hold of it made sense.

Qi Zhou circled the residence to scout it out and found quite a few openings. In the end, he chose to enter through the second floor, where there were the fewest people and which might also be closest to Suoerzite.

A window on the second floor was open. Standing beneath it, Qi Zhou drew a breath and leaped up to the outside wall of the second floor, clinging to it like a gecko. Just as he was about to slip through the open window, he heard two people talking:

"Does the master have any instructions?"

"Just prepare it as usual."

"All right, understood. I'll bring it over as soon as it's ready."

After the conversation ended, he heard one person's light footsteps. After about ten steps, he heard slightly heavier footsteps going upstairs.

Meanwhile, from a room on the left came the exceedingly faint clink of glassware.

Qi Zhou slipped through the window and into the hallway. The window didn't face a room, but a long corridor connecting all the rooms on the second floor.

Qi Zhou steadied himself and looked around. Seeing no movement, he quietly and nimbly made his way toward the room where he had heard the sound.

"...It's a cocktail room."

Qi Zhou hid behind the door and glanced into the room.

A bartender stood in front of an enormous liquor cabinet that stretched from floor to ceiling. He took several bottles of liquor and other things from it and set them on the workbench behind him.

The bartender then went to a freezer and took out a small bottle of crimson liquid. He brought it back to the workbench and began mixing a drink.

He moved quickly, adding various bases and ingredients to a shaker one after another, including the liquid from the small bottle. After that, the bartender took hold of the shaker, shook it for about five minutes, and gently poured the liquid into a glass.

As the blood-red liquid flowed into the glass, an indescribable smell wafted out.

Qi Zhou caught the sweet, metallic scent unique to fresh blood, and his pupils contracted.

-The bottle had contained blood.