Chapter 105: Off to a Good Place

Yang Zicang exhaled a nameless ghost fire from his chest and gut, saying:
“A desynchronized place—want to come? It’s wonderful here. Time is not deducted at the month’s end, and killing won’t cost you the target’s lifespan. As a result, conflicts are rare.”
{There’s actually such a fucking good place!}
The sound of beer being chugged came through.
{What god-tier place is that? Is it the end of this world? Are Zhao Anlong and the others going there?}
“Stop drinking. I still need you sober later.”
“Alright, alright, I won’t drink, but spit it out already—I’m itching with curiosity inside. Ah! Don’t look at me.”
Yang Zicang roared, “Who’s even looking at you?!”
He really wanted to tip over the guy’s bathtub.
“Where do all your food and drinks come from?” Yang Zicang steadied his chest and asked calmly.
“These are all consultation fees from headquarters. Not many people in the whole city get this treatment.”
Considering there were two to three thousand files in his box, this treatment wasn’t unreasonable.
Yang Zicang snorted coldly, “Do you know where headquarters gets their supplies?”
“Well… that would costs Sequence points. That’s A+ top secret.”
“Forget it. Get ready quickly; head to our C-level zone. I’ll pick you up there in a bit.”
Hearing Yang Zicang’s words, Luo Bin fell silent.
Sensing the hesitation on his end, as if hiding some unspoken difficulty.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, leaving the house is dangerous right now, buddy. Several people have already died. Liang Xi’s even got me locked out—hearts are treacherous.”
It seemed he was resentful over not being granted access to that area.
Yang Zicang snorted inwardly. This guy, who kept claiming trust above all else, had sold out intelligence about him without a second thought—who would let him in?
“What happened—is it Lu Bu?” Yang Zicang deliberately avoided that topic and asked.
{Anyway, a flash in the sky, and people on the ground are gone. Everyone’s panicked, all of them like startled birds. Now you want me to go out – I’m terrified I’ll get hit by one of these flashes. Boss Wang’s been cooped up with those guys the past couple of days, too scared to go out, nearly scratching his hair off. Lucky this month there’s Virtual Zero Sequence to make up for it.}
Indeed, Lü Bu had started his move. With Fangtian exposed, he was no longer hiding his power and had begun a major purge.
“I’ll come pick you up in a bit.”
After more than ten minutes, Yang Zicang, controlling the train, appeared in a forest of rare and valuable trees. He looked up at the sky and finally caught sight of the starlight.
But the calm sky had become a haven for death.
Yang Zicang did not go in to greet his companions. The train quickly became ethereal again, heading toward where Luo Bin was.
Amid the crowd of Boss Wang’s group gawking at him, Luo Bin was packing up supplies in large bags, looking like he was preparing to move.
“Where are you going?” Wang Yu’an couldn’t help but ask.
“My buddy’s coming to pick me up soon. Yu’an, life’s hard here.. I’m heading out to take shelter, maybe a little vacation on the side. I’ll be back after a while.”
“So you actually have a place to take shelter? Where is it?”
Luo Bin smiled without saying a word.
Wang Yu’an glanced at the people around them, walked over to Luo Bin, and said in a low voice, “How much for this info? Name your price.”
“Not selling today, sorry. This is top, top, top secret.”
As he walked back under Wang Chijian’s cold gaze, Wang Yu’an gave him an awkward smile and nodded, then sat down on a small wooden crate, rubbing his hands on his trouser knees.
Suddenly, a gust of wind swept through the confined space, and the roaring whistle of a subway train echoed around.
Boom! A train appeared abruptly, hovering in front of the stunned crowd of elderly, weak, sick, and disabled people.
The door opened, revealing Yang Zicang standing at the entrance. He wore a khaki coat, his face sharp as a knife, radiating an energetic spirit.
“That’s the Great God Yang.”
“This is Ma Chao’s ride.”
{I am Ma Chao.}
The evil demon’s voice rumbled through the hearts of these people, tremendously imposing.
{A ride is meant to be ridden. I am not one.}
Looking at the messy piles of bags on the ground, Yang Zicang jumped down silently and helped the burly man move them inside. At that moment, Wang Chijian and Wang Yu’an also came over to help, loading the supplies onto the train.
“So long, bros. See you in a while!” Luo Bin waved goodbye.
“Uh, Great God Yang, can you take us along too? It’s terrifying here right now.”
Yang Zicang shook his head: “Sorry, but I have limited spots each time I make the trip. Unless…”
“Unless what?” The others’ eyes lit up with hope.
Yang Zicang grinned and said, “Unless you become a member of the train crew, then you can stay on it forever. Then I can take you anywhere.”
At once, everyone thought of the legend about Ma Chao. They unconsciously stepped back two paces, shaking their heads in unison.
Now, even if they were allowed to board, these people wouldn’t dare set foot inside this train.
The train slowly started moving. Luo Bin, with a face full of delight and curiosity, looked around the carriage, nodding occasionally as if to say this place was really nice.
Yang Zicang stared at Luo Bin, who was sizing up the train back and forth, and chuckled:
“Don’t you still have that good brother of yours? I haven’t seen him around for a while.”
“Ah, oh, uh…”
“In such a dangerous time, it can’t be that he’s still out there gathering intel, can it?”
“Well, you know, with intelligence guys, you should stop prying into their whereabouts.”
Yang Zicang responded with a snort from his nose, his expression saying he saw through it but chose not to call it out.
Luo Bin plopped down onto a chair and said:
“So, tell me, what tricky problem drove you to find your old buddy this time?”
“The thing is…”
Yang Zicang recounted everything, going through all the events of the past few days, leaving out only the parts about the mercury refiner, the journalist, and his reputation.
The wider Luo Bin’s eyes grew as he listened, until finally he stared at the young man across from him as if he were listening to some epic tale.
“So, meaning, over there… you’re now a real big-shot maker?”
“Not bad. I guess you could say I inherited Ma Chao’s legacy. As long as you know the recipes and the production order, you can get the hang of one or two things pretty quickly too.”
“This is absolutely unbelievable.”
Luo Bin looked at the pile of supplies on the ground and suddenly couldn’t help but shiver.
“The beer I drank…”
“Yeah.”
“And these chips too…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Aah—aah—aah—!”
Luo Bin clutched his head, nearly puking.
“Why did I have to know all these truths?”
After a pause to collect himself, he began to organize YangZicang’s account, preparing for the upcoming intelligence gathering.
“Someone stole the little engine you made, got you chased away as a thief, and then someone else came to the trade zone, impersonating your assistant to sell it.”
“Right.”
“Then the thief yourself told you who the seller was, and revealed his own presence there as well, didn’t he?”
“Exactly, that’s how it went.”
“In terms of probability, the three thieves, no, the two thieves, plus you, all showing up there at the same time is extremely unlikely.”
“My being there was by chance. I guess the other two have known each other for a long time, trailing each other all the way there, happening upon me, the real owner coming to buy the Lost Memory Model inadvertently.”
Luo Bin nodded.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured too. After all, according to what you said, it’s the largest hub in a three-hundred-mile radius, and the only place with a big auction venue nearby. That’s the most logical spot to pawn off shoddy goods like hot goods’s worth — so, here’s the issue.”
“What is it?”
“Why did that so-called Zorro pretend to be your assistant?”
“Well…”
YangZicang vaguely felt that Zorro might have deliberately angered Shi Qian, showing an intimate knowledge of Shi Qian’s every move, even the true owner of what he stole which belonged to those wares..
After voicing this guess, Luo Bin thought for a moment and said:
“That idea you hit on time’s is a possibility you hit about too; feeding your guess — that Zorro meant to bloody our foe new. Based on your guess, I think Zorro is trying to make enemies for Shi Qian, also cutting off any potential collaboration for you with whom the opp like have worked etc”.
“If it’s about making enemies, then…”
YangZicang thought it over and considered It — felt could in indeed be involved target — come, exact possibility there,
Luo Bin chuckled: “You said it yourself, Shi Qian and he don’t see eye to eye. So if you hadn’t run into him, what do you think would have developed next?”
“If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have witnessed this today. At most, I’d later know there’s someone impersonating my assistant to sell things. By then, if I found out who the thief was, I’d easily link the seller and the thief as the same person.”
“Yeah, after a while, he’ll definitely leak the news about Shi Qian stealing the well engine. That way, he stirs up enemies for the other and pins the blame on him.”
Thinking it over like this, Zorro seems to have made messing with Shi Qian his top priority.
Those two have quite the grudge between them.
“By then, even if Shi Qian comes to explain, you wouldn’t quite believe him. Besides, as a thief known by Shi Qian’s name, it’s unlikely he’d travel that far just to look for you and explain—that would be too beneath him.”
“So based on that setup, in this contest of theirs, Zorro probably has the upper hand.”
Whether it’s the maneuver of stealing the engine a second time like a mantis stalking the cicada, or pinning the subsequent blame on the other, it shows Zorro has won this round.
“But hey, about Shi Qian—doesn’t his name sound like someone from the Xiongying Group? Belongs to our city?”
Yang Zicang had already thought of this issue. Not just Shi Qian, but even that guy with the Zorro alias is highly suspicious.
{The Xiongying Group once had a Shi Qian, before I was born.}
The train suddenly spoke.
“Oh?” Luo Bin grew curious and pressed the train for more.
{A long time ago—maybe seven or eight years ago, maybe ten—there appeared in the city a group of people who wanted to bring a peaceful life to humanity.}
{They established the Xiongying group, primarily differentiating individuals based on three classic works, while a small number of foreigners used characters from their own classics.}
“Classic works?”
{Because some of them had gained certain deep-level knowledge of this world, likely related to matters of heroes and legends, they chose these code names and named the organization “Xiongying.”}
So that’s it, Yang Zicang thought to himself.
{But due to the natural fragmentation of the human model, along with the instability of human emotions, the organization fell apart within a few years. A faction split off and established the Hunter Alliance.}
“Our Hunter Alliance—so it broke off from the Xiongying Group after all,” Luo Bin murmured.
The Xiongying Group originally represented all the elites of the city, regardless of faction.
“What happened next? And what does all this have to do with Shi Qian?” Yang Zicang asked the train.