“Do you know what kind of thing can kill without leaving a trace?”
Meanwhile, at the barbecue restaurant just a street away, Zhang Yu suddenly sneezed, and the barbecue skewer in his mouth viciously scraped against his inner cheek.
“Damn it, who is cursing behind my back!”
Zhang Yu cried out in pain and began to cough fitfully. The lackey beside him hurriedly handed him a can of beer and eagerly pulled the tab for him: “Yu-ge, are you alright?”
This lackey happened to be the very person who had given Duan Xiyan quite a fright on the roof of the science building earlier.
Zhang Yu took the beer and gulped it down. The stinging liquid rushed over the wound left by the bamboo skewer, and Zhang Yu’s face instantly twisted into a scowl. Managing to swallow the gulp of alcohol at last, he bared his teeth and cuffed the lackey on the head: “Go get me a can of cola.”
The lackey felt aggrieved from the hit, but he did not dare show it, so he vented his frustration elsewhere, loudly shouting at the owner: “Get a can of cola, make it quick!”
“Heh.” A light chuckle came from across the table, inexplicably making Zhang Yu feel as though the other person was watching children play house.
He immediately reined in his temper, pushed the plate of skewers on the table toward the other person, and asked, “Big Brother, I really cannot swallow this anger. I have to teach those two kids a lesson. Give me some suggestions.”
“Those two kids” naturally referred to Duan Xiyan and Wu Hu.
Normally, mindful of the backgrounds of those two, Zhang Yu always gave them a wide berth, and he considered his surface-level politeness to be passable. A while ago, when Wu Hu asked him to borrow connections, he had even helped out readily, never expecting those two to stab him in the back and sell him out right after.
Thinking of the beating he had received after returning home last night, Zhang Yu felt his teeth itch with hatred.
The school demerit did not bother him much, as his family would find a way to get it wiped clean anyway. But after returning home, not only did he get beaten because of this matter, his allowance card was also frozen. All of this had to be blamed on those two idiots, Duan Xiyan and Wu Hu, for spilling the beans about stealing the monthly exam answers.
Ptooey! Give them an inch and they really thought they were school thugs. What a joke!
Of course, angry as Zhang Yu was, he still maintained a certain level of reason. His family also did business, and although their field had little to do with the Duan and Wu families, he still needed to exercise caution and gauge the boundaries properly. That was why he had eagerly invited “Big Brother,” an expert in these matters, to the barbecue restaurant.
“Big Brother,” known in the streets as “Great Sage,” looked every bit like his name with his sharp, monkey-like features and colorful tattoos winding up his lean arms.
His tattooed sleeves were quite unique. While other social big shots favored green dragons and white tigers, he was different, sporting a fully armored Great Sage Equalling Heaven tattooed on each of his arms.
Great Sage leisurely picked up a skewer of roasted pork belly. The freshly grilled pork belly was golden, crispy, and impatiently oozing sizzling oil: “What suggestions? Suggestion that you think it over carefully again?”
This was already the third time Great Sage had told him to think it over carefully. Instead of cooling down Zhang Yu’s temper, it only burned even more fiercely, and a faint impatience began to grow in his heart: “Big Brother, I tossed and turned all night without sleeping. This matter really cannot be let go.”
“Actually, I have long disliked the two of them. Help me come up with an idea on how to fix them.”
Great Sage put down the skewers and sighed: “Fine, since the two of them offended my brother, as the older brother I cannot just ignore it. It is just that I have already confirmed with you repeatedly, and you said you had thought it through. Then whatever consequences this matter brings, you will have to take responsibility yourself.”
Great Sage spoke very slowly, dragging out his tone. Zhang Yu had been very anxious at first, but being stalled like this, and finally hearing the words “take responsibility yourself,” he began to hesitate a little in his heart.
“Big Brother, you also know the backgrounds of their two families. I do not want any results where both sides get hurt,” Zhang Yu buttered up Great Sage. “I remember you said before that Rinzishi’s white-collar world belongs to those big families, while the underworld belongs to you. Since you are so awesome, you must have plenty of ways.”
A mouthful of beer got stuck in Great Sage’s throat, and he almost spat it out. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at the clear, overflowing stupidity in Zhang Yu’s eyes, feeling temporarily speechless.
If he were really that awesome, could this kid have hooked up with him? And what underworld and white-collar worlds, did the police eat for a living? You could brag like that, but you could not actually believe it.
Fortunately, what Zhang Yu was asking about today was just petty squabbling between kids, so his persona could still hold up. After all, finding a long-term meal ticket who was as rich and foolish as Zhang Yu was not easy, and this kid had given him plenty of perks just to call him “brother” in the streets.
So Great Sage had a second thought. Glancing inadvertently at the lackey who had just returned with the cola, an idea struck him. However, instead of blurting it out immediately, he put on a profound look and sold a mystery: “Do you know what kind of thing can kill without leaving a trace?”
Kill without leaving a trace? Zhang Yu grew excited, perking up his ears and gazing eagerly at Great Sage.
Great Sage raised two fingers, waved them halfway across Zhang Yu’s vision, and finally tapped them twice against his own lips: “Public opinion.”
“Brilliant, truly brilliant!” Zhang Yu’s eyes lit up as if suddenly enlightened. At that moment, in his eyes, the Great Sage on Big Brother’s tattooed sleeve looked awe-inspiring, as if a genuine deity had descended from the heavens.
“Big Brother, let me toast you a drink!” In his excitement, Zhang Yu grabbed the cola can from his lackey’s hand, ready to raise a toast, but realizing it was cola instead of beer, he unhappily kicked the lackey again: “Tsk, I am trying to propose a toast here, why are you handing me cola? Total mood killer.”
The lunch break at Rinzishi No. 1 High School lasted for over two hours. Students living on campus were required to return to the dormitories for a nap, but there was no uniform requirement for day students like Duan Xiyan and Wu Hu.
The school did arrange nap beds for day students. If they could not make it home at noon and still needed to nap, they could pay a bed fee every semester to use them.
Although their two families were not far from the school, making the round trip every noon was troublesome after all, and neither of them wanted to nap in the school dorms. Thus, the two families put their heads together and bought apartments near the school, which happened to be right across the hall from each other.
This arrangement not only made noon breaks convenient for the two kids but also prepared them for the pressing study life of senior year.
However, the original owner and Wu Hu did not usually hang out there much. Having managed to get a bit of free time, using it to sleep would be such a waste, what sleep could not possibly be caught up on during class time?
“What are we doing now?” Stepping out of the Top Scholar Building, Wu Hu still had a toothpick dangling from his mouth.
Having just eaten his fill, Duan Xiyan exuded an air of languid laziness from head to toe. The series of bizarre experiences that morning had also drained his spirit, and right now he just wanted to find a place to sleep soundly.
“Go play ball? Or play games?”
Hearing “play ball,” Duan Xiyan’s eyes lit up slightly. Adolescent boys seemed to love playing ball; in his past life, his cousin frequently posted photos of himself playing ball with good buddies on social media. But because of his physical condition, he could never engage in strenuous exercise, so he had never tried it.
He was curious, but since he did not know how and considering the possibility of giving himself away, he could only let it go for now. Still, his energy had been stirred up by those two words, so he said, “Let us play games instead.”
Ten minutes later, Duan Xiyan followed Wu Hu into Neko Cyber Cafe behind the school.
Since it primarily catered to students, this internet cafe was predictably far from legitimate, and its location was deeply hidden, requiring several turns through narrow alleys to reach.
Entering an internet cafe for the first time, Duan Xiyan was hit full in the face by the smell of smoke and frowned uncomfortably.
“Boss, log us on.” Wu Hu familiarly took two ID cards from the owner and led Duan Xiyan deeper inside to find a relatively clean spot to sit down.
“Hey, I seem to have quite the affinity with this guy, I keep getting his ID.” Wu Hu lowered his head to check the info on one ID card while handing the other to Duan Xiyan.
Duan Xiyan looked at the card in his hand, which displayed the identity information of a strange man. He felt somewhat puzzled, why use someone else’s ID card?
Before he could voice his doubt, Wu Hu was already operating his computer, leaving Duan Xiyan to quickly watch Wu Hu’s actions and punch the numbers from the ID card into the computer the same way.
The account logged in successfully, the computer connected to the internet, and a “Welcome” prompt popped up on the desktop.
Duan Xiyan suddenly understood. It was likely because only the information on the ID cards in the boss’s possession was entered into the cafe’s computer system that the computers could be unlocked.
Yet he still had one more question: “Where do all these ID cards in the boss’s hands come from?” Weren’t ID cards very personal and important documents?
“Collected through underground channels, I guess. I do not know either,” Wu Hu replied nonchalantly, already wearing his headphones and diving into his game.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, he pulled down half his headphones and turned his head: “Oh right, Xi-ge, you wouldn’t even have reminded me if I hadn’t thought of it. You are already an adult, you can log on with your own ID.”
Duan Xiyan nodded in sudden realization, and the logic clicked into place. It turned out only an adult’s ID card information could be used to log in successfully.
The business at Neko Cyber Cafe was quite good during the lunch break. Several more groups of people walked in one after another after Duan Xiyan and his friend, and some even had the audacity not to take off their school uniforms.
Duan Xiyan was experiencing host-machine gaming for the first time and did not quite know how to play. Once the initial novelty wore off, his interest waned, and seeing Wu Hu completely immersed in slaughtering opponents nearby, he just kept playing casually on and off, not even bothering to wear his headphones.
“Holy shit.” An exclamation suddenly came from a workstation not far away, blending into the background of clacking keyboards and shouting battle cries without drawing much notice, but the very next sentence precisely struck Duan Xiyan’s nervous system.
“This Duan family young master plays things way too wild.”
The person next to him asked: “How is he bullying that poor wretch this time?”
“Probably not. I just saw it on the forum. It seems to say he was caught doing that kind of thing with an Omega in the classroom by someone else.”
“Whoa, super explosive? Are there pictures, let me see.”
On the Rinzishi No. 1 High School anonymous forum, a new post published ten minutes ago had already shot up to the trending recommendations list:
[SHOCKING! A certain rich-kid Alpha actually openly does this kind of thing with an Omega classmate in the classroom!]