Gamble X Cover-up X Likes Jiang Ye

At those words, the shack fell silent for a moment.

Jiang Ye looked away from the head in the corner and back at Gray Beak's bowed head.

He rapidly gathered and sorted the scattered thoughts in his mind, pressing them into a single, clear line.

He knew what he had done.

Killing the Dawn Society's messenger was like turning a card faceup on the board of power that was Meteor City.

The Rust Remains Alliance had no intention of negotiating, yielding, or bowing its head to anyone.

But Bo Tong had to die.

Jiang Ye ran through that judgment three times, and each time he reached the same conclusion.

The moment Bo Tong walked into the tin shack, he was there for more than delivering a message.

His arrogance, his threats, and his claim that "the entire Rust Remains Alliance will be destroyed" all carried a weight that went beyond his role as a messenger.

Those weren't his own words.

Jiang Ye had seen too many people delivering messages for others in Meteor City.

A messenger truly acting under orders would keep a low profile, speak respectfully, and leave himself a way out.

A messenger knew he was only the mouthpiece, and the real killing blow lay behind him.

But Bo Tong was different.

From the moment he entered, he had been provoking them, belittling them, and testing their limits.

Everything he said was not "Nubia hopes," but "Chairman Nubia needs you to come immediately."

That wording itself carried the force of an order.

It was more as if someone had told him beforehand:

Go to District 13 and force that vagrant out!

Jiang Ye could almost picture the scene.

Nubia stood at the head of the long table in the old bank conference hall at the Dawn Society's headquarters and said to Bo Tong:

"Go to District 13 and make him afraid."

He was gambling.

Gambling that a twelve-year-old vagrant's legs would turn to jelly at the mere mention of the Dawn Society.

Gambling that a newly assembled force like the Rust Remains Alliance couldn't withstand a threat, and that Jiang Ye would choose to bow his head before death, just like everyone else in Meteor City.

If Jiang Ye went to the Fifth District, what awaited him would never be a negotiating table.

It would be a trap!

Once he went through that bulletproof steel door, he wouldn't come back out.

So Bo Tong had to die.

If he died here, the news would stop here, and it would take at least a few days for the Dawn Society to realize something was wrong.

That gap was the Rust Remains Alliance's most precious buffer.

Once Jiang Ye had thought it all through, he slowly spoke.

"Take care of the scene."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the shack could hear him clearly.

"Keep the news contained and develop at full speed."

Iron Wall raised his head, his Adam's apple bobbing, but said nothing.

Jiang Ye looked away from Gray Beak, swept his gaze over Iron Wall and Shattered Eye's faces, and continued.

"The Dawn Society's headquarters is in the Fifth District."

"If they want to come to District 13 and attack us..."

"They'll be courting death!"

At those words, understanding gradually dawned in Iron Wall's eyes.

"On our own turf, are we really going to let someone else beat us?"

Jiang Ye's voice was steady, but beneath that steadiness was a certainty Iron Wall knew extremely well.

As he understood it, the alliance leader only became like this when he was confident of success!

"Since they want to wait for me to come over, they can just keep waiting."

He turned his head, looking out the window at the hazy gray daylight.

"Wait until..."

Half his face was concealed by the shadow of the tin shack, while the other half was lit by the gray-white light filtering through the gaps. The sharply divided light and shadow made the contours of his twelve-year-old face look somewhat unreal.

"Until I go there myself."

"And make that sick cat called Nubia kneel before me."

"Then hear what he has to say."

As those words fell in the shack, wind poured through the gaps in the tin walls, stirring the edges of the rags in the corner.

The three men almost stopped breathing at the same moment, their hearts racing in astonishment at his resolve.

Iron Wall was the first to react.

He didn't press for details or question him, and didn't even spare another glance at the head in the corner.

He simply dropped to one knee and pressed his right fist to his chest.

"Yes!"

Gray Beak and Shattered Eye followed almost at the same time.

The three men knelt before Jiang Ye, their postures even more earnest than last time.

Jiang Ye said nothing more.

He merely waved a hand, signaling them to get to work.

Iron Wall was the first to rise, turning toward Bo Tong's corpse.

He bent down gently, making no unnecessary noise, as if handling an old parcel that had already been opened.

Gray Beak picked up the dagger from the ground and joined Iron Wall.

Shattered Eye stood at the doorway and glanced outside. After making sure no one was approaching, he stepped aside and pulled the door shut, hiding everything in the shack behind the sheet-metal door.

The cleanup went quickly.

Bo Tong's clothes were stripped off and burned, the charred scraps and ashes mixed into a pile of waste in a corner of the camp.

The head and torso were disposed of separately.

Iron Wall carried the torso behind a group of abandoned old shipping containers north of the camp, where there was a shallow pit they usually used for food waste.

Gray Beak wrapped the head in an old cloth, stuffed it into an iron bucket, covered it with pieces of scrap iron, and buried it beneath a pile of discarded rebar at the edge of the scrap area.

The whole process took no more than twenty minutes.

After all, Meteor City itself was a place for disposing of garbage.

When Iron Wall returned, he was clutching a remnant of Bo Tong's dark gray uniform jacket.

He had already torn off the shoulder insignia and burned it. The fabric was charred and curled, with only half a cuff still showing its original gray.

He tossed the scrap into the bonfire at the center of camp and watched it burn to ash.

No one asked about it.

Iron Wall hadn't made a fuss when Bo Tong arrived.

In Meteor City, a messenger's visit usually meant one of two things.

Either he had come to deliver an ultimatum or to discuss cooperation.

Iron Wall hadn't been sure which it was, so he hadn't let anyone gather to watch, leaving Bo Tong to wait alone in the shack.

Looking back, that decision had saved the Rust Remains Alliance.

Few people had seen Bo Tong to begin with. The sentries on the outskirts of camp had only seen Iron Wall lead a man in a gray jacket into the shack. No one knew who was beneath that jacket, where he had come from, or what he was there to do.

The first thing Gray Beak did after returning was find the sentries who had witnessed Bo Tong enter and tell them:

"That was the gang's new bookkeeper. He came by this morning to coordinate the supplies and left once he was done."

Since Gray Beak himself was in charge of personnel, no one asked any further questions.

In Meteor City, not asking about things one shouldn't ask was an instinctive kind of survival wisdom.

Jiang Ye had already left the shack while Iron Wall and Gray Beak were taking care of the scene.

As if nothing had happened, he crossed the camp toward the open ground.

The morning wind rushed down his collar, carrying the smell of rust and dust.

He walked at an unhurried pace, his footsteps crunching softly on the gravel.

When he reached the edge of the open ground, Bago was already squatting beside a pile of scrap metal, waiting.

At the sight of Jiang Ye, Bago raised his eyes from above his knees. Once he confirmed who it was, he stood up and brushed the dust off his backside.

"Alliance leader, you're finally here."

Bago's voice held a restrained note of something close to glee.

He liked Jiang Ye.