White Eagle Society X Infiltration X Plan

Having formed a temporary alliance, the two began discussing what to do next.

"Just like I said, we start with the White Eagle Society," A-Wu said. "But before that, we need to figure out roughly how often the poison in your body acts up, so I can make sure I'm not too far away when you can't move."

"...Yeah."

Qi Zhou lowered his head to look at his arm and reached out to touch the blood-red line on his wrist.

Noah didn't seem to be affected, but Qi Zhou didn't want to bring Noah out to endure an episode in his place. Getting poisoned was entirely his own fault, so how could he let Noah take the hit for him again?

Besides, his heart ached for "Noah." He could hardly imagine what the child must have gone through to remain completely impassive in the face of that degree of pain.

A-Wu dug a hole beneath the bed, pulled out a bundle, and slung it over his back. Then he said to Qi Zhou, "Let's go to your place. Mine isn't safe anymore."

"Oh, right." He tapped his forehead. "There's also Kerien, who knows about you."

"He sent people to kill you, but none of them came back. His boss went to kill you too, and he didn't come back either."

"He knows too much, so he has to die." A-Wu smiled, though the smile didn't reach his eyes. "I can give you information on how to deal with him for free. Consider it payment for all the help you've given me."

Qi Zhou was curious. "Go on?"

Kerien was the man who had treated Qi Zhou like livestock to be slaughtered just after he escaped from the Phantom Troupe, only for Qi Zhou to blast off his arm.

"It's simple. He doesn't have a single man left under him. We only need to spread that information around a little, and we won't even have to do it ourselves," A-Wu said quietly. "Even if he doesn't die, he won't have the time or energy to worry about you anymore. Don't worry."

Qi Zhou stared at A-Wu in silence for a moment, then asked quietly, "...Can I ask who you really are?"

"Even if I told you, you wouldn't know me," A-Wu said scornfully, but he answered anyway. "My full name is Wu Eros. Do you know it?"

Qi Zhou shook his head blankly. He only knew "Russia."

A-Wu's face darkened.

When they reached the garbage mountain in District Nine, Qi Zhou and A-Wu quickly built a nest out of garbage themselves and crawled inside.

The two sat on opposite sides, each training his own Nen.

Some time after night fell, Qi Zhou felt a trace of sharp pain slowly seep through his bone marrow and into his whole body.

He began to tremble slightly, but he clenched his teeth tightly and made no sound.

On the other side, A-Wu seemed to notice something was wrong with Qi Zhou and opened his eyes to look at him.

Qi Zhou noticed his gaze, opened his eyes, and forced a smile at him before shaking his head.

A-Wu nodded and closed his eyes again.

Time stretched out endlessly. Cold sweat soaked his clothes again and again, and by the end, Qi Zhou could hardly tell whether he was awake or had already passed out.

Only when the first glimmer of dawn emerged from beneath the horizon, faintly lighting the edge of the sky, did he get a moment's respite and become a little more lucid.

He felt the intense, dull pain slowly recede from his body. In his daze, he had the illusion that he had crawled back from hell.

"About three hours and change, no more than four."

Once Qi Zhou was awake, A-Wu said, "It started at around one in the morning. Shortly afterward, the mark on your arm began spreading upward. By my calculations, you have roughly three months to find a suppressant."

"Couldn't you wait until I've caught my breath before giving me bad news like that...?" Qi Zhou glared at him irritably.

A-Wu's face was expressionless. "No. I'm not the one in pain."

Qi Zhou cursed irritably, then stood and moved around to loosen his stiff limbs. "All right, then-what's the plan today?"

"As for you..." A-Wu thought for a moment. "First, you need to find someone named Wennide.

His voice turned cold. "I have someone to deal with too."

Qi Zhou stopped mid-stretch and asked warily, "Who are you going to deal with now?"

"It's not a question of who I'm going to deal with now. They're the ones who keep coming to cause me trouble," A-Wu corrected Qi Zhou's mistake seriously. "Don't ask. You wouldn't know even if I told you. Tsk, can you focus on your own business first?"

He glanced to the side, casually snapped a needle off something in the garbage behind him, infused it with Nen, and drew a map of District Five on the ground.

Qi Zhou looked at the guy who had only just learned Nen yet already knew how to coat an object in it and use it. He admitted he was jealous again.

"The White Eagle Society's headquarters are here. Before, they could hold their ground in District Five thanks to two Nen users, Kelirui and Suoerzite-"

A-Wu looked up at Qi Zhou and snapped, "Hey, snap out of it!"

"...Now their president and hall master are both gone, and the vice president only ever echoed the former president. He doesn't have Nen, so he can't keep the hall masters and bosses under him in line."

"The White Eagle Society has lost its two strongest fighters, and the society as a whole can't keep its outside operations under control either. With trouble both inside and out, if these people don't want their home base taken, they should, in theory, gather at headquarters and start arguing over who to elect as the new president."

"The person you're looking for is named Wennide. He has yellow hair and gray eyes, and he's about 1.7 meters tall. His distinguishing feature is a scar about two inches long on his face."

"He's ambitious and timid, and when he gets greedy, he forgets he could lose his head. He probably won't enter the contest himself, but he definitely won't be content to remain a boss."

"Most importantly, he and Kerien served under the same hall master, and that hall master-"

Qi Zhou's eyes widened. Thinking of something, he guessed, "Was it the man named Kelirui who came to kill me that night, but I killed him instead?"

"That's right, the hall master you killed." A-Wu nodded.

"The territory under a hall master's control is only so big. The minor bosses under him usually have terrible relationships because they compete for resources. So go tell him that Kerien, who lost an arm, has no men left."

"The reason you're telling him this is that you want to join the White Eagle Society through him, invest in him, and then get free Stock Solution."

Hearing that, Qi Zhou clapped his hands. "Drag him into it? So we take the blame together?"

"If he's willing, it won't matter even if he later suspects you killed all of Kerien's men. After all, in a gang, you're not allowed to kill each other, at least not openly. Once he kills Kerien, it can only be a secret between the two of you, and he'll help you cover it up."

"If he doesn't..." A-Wu pondered. "It's unlikely, but if it really happens..."

A-Wu said expressionlessly, "You'll just have to kill him."

Qi Zhou fell silent.

After a while, he said softly, "Let's do something else. If he doesn't provoke me, I won't kill him."

A-Wu froze at Qi Zhou's words, a puzzled look appearing in his eyes. "...? What did you say?"

Qi Zhou spoke slowly. "Unless someone attacks me first or intends to kill me, I'll never take the initiative to attack an uninvolved person."

"He's different from Suoerzite. He never even knew I existed."

A-Wu looked Qi Zhou up and down after he said that. "Are you sick in the head?"

Qi Zhou: "..."

A-Wu's face said, Are you an idiot? He demanded, "Do you have to wait until someone comes and stabs you before you fight back? I don't see the point. Isn't it better to nip a threat in the bud? If he doesn't do it, he'll not only be useless to you, he'll also get in your way. Wouldn't killing a guy like that have every benefit and no downside?"

"Ah... how do I explain this...?" Qi Zhou thought it over and realized he had no way to explain it. He could only scratch his head. "Forget it. Just assume I'm sick in the head."

He spoke slowly, emphasizing every word, resolute: "I don't want to kill someone who hasn't provoked me first."

A-Wu: "..."

A-Wu shouted angrily, "Then go die! See if I care!"

Qi Zhou: "..."

After a long silence, A-Wu spoke irritably:

"If he doesn't do it, call him spineless and show him your Nen Ability. Tell him that if he misses this chance, he'll be stuck where he is for the rest of his life."

"In Meteor City, hiding your strength is far more important than finding a target to stand in front of you." A-Wu's face turned livid with anger. "I really don't understand. You could solve the problem once and for all by killing him, but instead you have to expose your strength to fix it afterward-forget it. If you don't want to kill him, this is the only way."

"Hehehe~" Qi Zhou said, "Thanks!"

"You won't need me to teach you what to do after that, will you?" The sight of Qi Zhou's grinning face made A-Wu angry. He simply couldn't accept that the ally he had chosen had something wrong with his head.

"Ah, after that, I help him get the hall master's position. After all, the hall master above him is gone. By that point, even if he knows I killed the hall master, there's nothing he can do. It benefits him, so he won't get bored and blab about it. Even if he tells the patrol squad, they won't give him more than a hall master's position."

Qi Zhou's gaze sharpened slightly. "Besides, I can also help him become vice president-or even president."

A-Wu waved a hand. "If you know what to do, then hurry up and get lost. I don't want to talk to someone who's sick in the head."

"Eheh~ eheh~" Qi Zhou gave two awkward laughs and stood up. "Thanks, Boss Wu."

He walked out of the garbage nest and headed in the direction A-Wu had marked on the map for him.

"...Remember to get your ass back here before midnight. I don't want to waste time collecting your corpse."

A-Wu's voice came from the garbage nest behind him.

Qi Zhou smiled, turned back, and called, "Got it~!"

[Eros] In later Greek mythology, Eros was the youngest son born of Aphrodite and Ares's affair. He was depicted as a mischievous little boy holding a bow and arrows, with bare feet and a pair of little wings. Later, Eros's image changed to that of a handsome young man.