It was a sunny afternoon and on the streets, especially on the ones in or around the city center, people co and go undeterred by the scorching weather. So were trotting with quick steps to get into shops and large buildings that had air-conditioners. Hours ago, around lunchti, Fan Zheng and the others were part of this bunch.
"Boss Fu is already at the warehouse." Suddenly a voice rang.
A ragged, battered kid with several bruises on his young body looked up with a numb expression at the large man who just appeared in front, towering over him. He was one of those rare ones staying outside despite such hot weather. With dodgy eyes, he softly replied to the owner of the other voice, "... G-good day, Brother Duan. I-It's only and another kid in this area."
His greeting did not elicit anything more than a frown from the person.
"I get it. .Stop dawdling and go." The man simply said before moving towards another location, leaving an intimidated little boy.
The place was a populous and wide pedestrian overpass near a famous plaza. Zhan Rong stood still when she saw the large man speaking intimidatingly at the kid who had stopped running after escaping from an angry middle-aged woman. While holding an umbrella, she pursed her lips. Before she knew it, her eyes wandered around, but in a subtle way that wouldn't arouse suspicion.
'Sotis, I really don't know whether it's a blessing to have a good mory' she silently thought to herself.
Even though the girl did not look closely, her brain rembered it all. The ugly scenes and pictures that she wanted to take no part of, not because she was heartless, but because she was like any other normal people.
This was part of the reason why she loved touring and going to scenic places. She had a strong desire to engrave more beauty and positivity in her mind because she was the type who could retain everything perfectly. If she had to rember them all, because her childhood was full of ugliness and lacked warmth she wanted to bury everything using beautiful mories. Bury them deep that they wouldn't be able to surface.
However, right now Those expressions
'Children are supposed to be lovely, pure, and free-spirited. Supposed. Because I know there are people like born in unpleasant circumstances or families which they have no control of But this... Why the hell are they like this?'
Although Zhan Rong controlled her face properly, her eyes still darkened.
The area was not that large but it was very populated due to the number of malls and high-end establishnts scattered around. In such a place, kids and teenagers dressed poorly and with varying numbers of wounds loitered around, either begging or stealing. Shop owners and the police officers were always in a hurry to chase them away while normal passersby preffered to simply distance themselves.
Where did they all co from and how did they end up as slaves of syndicates?
Zhan Rong's face crumpled and she felt disgusted. She was actually not clueless because sotis, second-generation rich kids would gather up and chat about the shadow lurkers in the country that dabbled in businesses frowned upon by the majority. There was no need to enurate since they simply ventured into everything illegal. Even her powerful father would think thrice before ssing with those guys.
The kid who seed to be around 7 years in age looked down to hide his dirty face and lackluster eyes. Zhan Rong also looked down and swept her eyes to one side although she was watching secretly through her peripheral vision.
"Let's hurry." Another boy half a head taller went to the kid's side and led him down the stairs. This one had an odd expression that seed to have accepted their situation, a face only those who lost hope and crumbled under torture or pressure would have. "If he's in a good mood, we might not have to starve tonight."
The smaller kid hesitantly asked, "But it's that scary Uncle"
The two conversed in hushed whispers so Zhan Rong could no longer hear what they said next. A couple of monts later, she stopped pretending like she was checking sothing down the bridge and walked the opposite way.
...
Light exists because there would always be a need to illuminate sothing. Yet at the sa ti, because light creates a shadow, darkness also never fades. It just then beca part of common sense. That those two things never go without the other.
Yet she still couldn't help but hold a childish thought in her heart, 'How good would it be if all the bad stuff only happens to scummy people.'
As for Jiang Li, he believed that no matter the era, darkness always prevails, because regardless of what people do to vanquish it, it just never dies. It persisted to exist No, it didn't even have to make an effort, and this fact was the proof of its victory.
In the current one, even in TV programs that were supposed to show people the goodness in this world, a lot of sh*tty scenarios were purposely broadcasted for ratings. Producers and artists would say it was to make everything as realistic as possible and hardly would there be anyone who would be able to refute.
And the news how puzzling that there was always news about people getting killed, abused, or kidnapped!
Looking at the heavy atmosphere surrounding Zhan Rong, Jiang Li shook his head. 'Was I too extre for making her face sothing like this?'
Zhan Rong had to go sowhere the syndicate was active because Jiang Li could not really go far away from her. He had designated her, or rather, her necklace as his object of obsession. A ghost below the ghost king level just lacked the ability to roam around freely. They would easily tire without that certain item or person proving their existence nearby, and this was the case when he went to the villainess. He couldn't stay long since he was weak and Zhan Rong was miles away.
In all honesty, going here was pretty useless if the only objective was to simply check how syndicates operate. Zhan Rong was actually puzzled why 'the system' made her look for a populated area. The only reason she didn't ask was that she knew there would be no one to answer her.
However, if traffickers were the target, wouldn't it be obvious that they would be in rural or secluded places? With police officers patrolling everywhere in the central regions, it would be risky to transport people out even if catching lost kids would be quite easy. That was the opposite in the towns and suburbs so traffickers were more active there. So were truly kidnapping people, the rest, coercing parents or relatives to sell off their 'deadweights'. In the latter group, there were people really looking forward to the sale in order to ease their financial burdens or maybe it was to just get rid of relatives they disliked. Others were forced into a sky-high debt with their family as collateral.
Wasn't the kid Zhan Rong first saw earlier one such example? His na was Hao Bingwen. His father was an honest man at first, a young entrepreneur with a booming business in the courier industry. A malicious dude suddenly appeared out of nowhere and befriended him before introducing him to a casino where he eventually beca addicted to gambling. When the man ca to his senses, his company was already bankrupt, his wife and kid taken away. The man was nowhere to be seen from then on too, most likely seized by shady doctors since he was still young and had so precious and functional body parts.
Why were there people so unprincipled to bring misery to others? The list of answers could go on indefinitely.
'This dude's in a different line of business... But he should still have so contacts with one of the higher-ups.'
Jiang Li traveled through shadows to reach the guy called Brother Duan, a guy in his early thirties whose most striking feature was his cornrow hairstyle. Who knows which foreigner this man was idolizing. Jiang Li disappeared for a brief mont, phasing through the person's body. When he reappeared again, a phone was already in his hands, and its owner had no idea about it.
'Stealing is tiring. Dammit.' Shaking his head at his slightly fatigued body, Jiang Li fiddled with the gadget for a mont. He looked through so call logs and ssages before morizing a few numbers and nas.
When he was done, he put a curse on the item before dropping it near a policeman. The ghost then went away with a content face put on, proud to have left the problematic phone to the correct person who would save him the trouble of posting a lost and found case.
It was now ti to leave for a while and go after the real targets, to ss with the rats at the bottom ranks before slowly weeding out the ones at the top of that annoying organization.
...
anwhile...
Gu Mochou was not really in the sa city as the leads right now. Her cousin couldn't find where she was staying there so it was not him who dragged her away. The village also barely changed. However, she had to leave because she felt that one of the strongest female ghosts suddenly deserted the 'army'.
On the way to the town a couple of miles away from the forest, she ran into three unexpected people. Dressed in normal civilian clothing, with the only girl looking like a fashionable idol even, they walked into the hotel with head held high and strange eyes that seed to be unconsciously belittling the rest around them for being re mundane. Taoists. That was what they were called.
A smile ford on the villainess' lips. When was the last ti she saw her forr colleagues?
Had she been a girl with no hatred against those villagers, she might have considered joining a sect to have fun, thereby shocking everyone with her unprecedented genius and learning ability. She knew how to cultivate ninety percent of the Maoshan skills after all. The ones passing by just now would be her peers, and if she wanted, she could live every single day wowing them or making them jealous. Like what protagonists of reborn the comics and novels usually do.
How unfortunate that she couldn't be like that. Never once in her life did the fury in her heart settle down and it was hard to truly be carefree and happy with unsightly images of her pathetic, ruined previous self always haunting her.
'Oops, I'm seen.' The girl hurriedly lowered her head.
"That gorgeous girl is looking at ," one of the three, a boy, caught Gu Mochou's stares before she looked down and told his companions with an amused grin.
Nangong i casually gave the young lady seated on one of the sofas in the lobby a glance then replied. "She's really pretty. It looks like the girl is from a well-to-do family."
"Yes. Sister i, if I approach her, do you think she'd be willing to talk to ?"
"... I'm afraid even secular won would find you an oddball. Yan Li, forgive my bluntness, but you're making it obvious that you rarely see girls from large towns and cities."
The acting leader, Huo Bowen frowned at them and then sternly spoke. "You two, just stop focusing on random people. Rember that we only ca to the secular world to et Fan Zheng. Other things are of no importance."
At the ntion of the na, the faces of the two people did not really change, but their eyes beca weird.
"That Fan Zheng, hmm?"
They were people from spirit hunter clans and had so degree of superiority to other disciples picked up from outside. However, it didn't an that they don't acknowledge people not from known Daoist families as comrades. Their sense of superiority was from being ahead in knowledge for being taught at a young age. None of them were really an. It was just it was hard for them to like sobody always staying in the mundane world rarely visiting his master or interacting with fellow disciples in the sect.
Fan Zheng. He was that kind of person, unfilial and arrogant in their eyes. The simple but traditional mindset of these disciples made them have a bad impression of soone not even paying respects to his master every foundation anniversary. Not to ntion, Fan Zheng would tour around exorcising spirits to show off his abilities without first checking what kind of karma or backstory a ghost had.
While getting his room key from the receptionist, Yan Li, the other boy, grunted, "I don't want to et that entitled bastard. Look. He seems to only rember us when he's in a pinch. Why did he reach out this ti to us again?"
His two friends kept their silence for a while.
The girl, Nangong i no longer stared at Gu Mochou. Yet despite her unfavorable opinion on Fan Zheng, she spoke no ill-will against him and instead changed the topic.
"Leader. I saw so poor fellows needing our help to liberate them. I'm not tired anyway so may I walk around a bit? I promise to go back before midnight so I can catch so sleep and not be late for the train tomorrow."
Huo Bowen thought for a mont before nodding at the girl. "Fine. Just be careful. Don't stir trouble that will delay us. I'm sure it's not only who wants to go back as soon as possible."
"Thanks. I will keep your words in mind." She then stopped speaking and simply followed him into the elevator.
Gu Mochou, right then, raised her gaze from the phone in her hand. On the screen was her conversation with her mom who she was coaxing with cute intimate responses. New replies appeared, but she didn't see them because her eyes were curiously following those three eye-catching people.
She had no way of eavesdropping on their conversation since if she tried to command a ghost to go near them, they would only end up detected, or worse, purified. The lack of information and her curiosity about them made her wonder why they appear here. Should she go after them?
'Hmm. Forget it... She's here' The villainess turned her head to the door, her piercing gaze seemingly seeing sothing beyond that.
A mont later, the lady receptionist manning the front desk looked up in the direction of the waiting area. To her puzzlent, the pretty and elegant young girl was no longer there.
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