Chapter 195 - 194: Rest Assured, Leave It to Me...
Chapter 195: Chapter 194: Rest Assured, Leave It to Me...
CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!
With Li Youtao’s permission, Wu Chen didn’t stand on ceremony. He turned and walked toward the group of Linwei Garrison guards at the entrance.
With every step he took, the crisp sound of his boots on the stone tiles was like a death knell, making the hearts of the gathered guards pound and their legs tremble uncontrollably.
They were clearly terrified.
After all, there was a high chance they wouldn’t return from this. They would become cannon fodder for the young master before them, a sacrifice for him to earn merits.
Anyone in their shoes would find it impossible to remain composed.
"..."
Wu Chen took in the expressions of the guards. His own face remained impassive, but he sighed inwardly with a sense of helplessness.
He had woken up on the road, fleeing the famine in Qingzhou. His winding journey to Cangwu City had covered nearly a thousand miles.
He had encountered plenty of danger along the way, yet he had always been the first to charge into the fray, leading from the front. He had never used the lives of others to earn merits, nor had he ever harmed an innocent person.
So how had he ended up in a situation where no one trusted him?
However, Wu Chen knew he couldn’t blame them.
If anyone was to blame, it was those who came before, who had ruined the environment, gotten rich and promoted, and then just up and left. They left behind a total mess for their successors to bear the consequences and clean up.
And if the successors weren’t willing to clean up the mess, they’d be accused of just giving up...
It was truly infuriating.
’If it weren’t for the fact that Li Qi has his own duties, standing guard at the wanted board by the city wall, I wouldn’t want to choose any of you either!’
Wu Chen glanced at the men, grumbling to himself.
But right now, he really did need a Linwei Garrison guard to act as a witness.
A witness to him taking down this Northern Barbarian spy with his own, genuine strength.
Ordinarily, Wu Chen couldn’t be bothered to prove his strength to others, nor did he like to do things in a high-profile manner.
But being in the Demon Suppression Bureau, his hand was often forced.
He could well imagine that even if he went alone and brought back the fugitive Northern Barbarian spy, everyone would just attribute his success to the lingering influence of a non-existent family backing, rather than his actual abilities.
To ensure he could smoothly accept Level A missions in the Demon Suppression Bureau later on, Wu Chen had no choice but to resort to the cliché of staging this tedious public display of power.
"You’ll do."
Wu Chen stopped in front of the guards and nodded his chin toward one of them.
The light instantly drained from the chosen man’s eyes. His body began to tremble as if Wu Chen had sucked out his very soul, leaving only an empty shell behind.
As soon as Wu Chen made his choice, whispers broke out among the other guards:
"He picked Zhou Hu! I knew it!"
"It must be because Zhou Hu blocked his path and provoked him earlier! Even though nothing happened, that scion still held a grudge!"
"Brother Hu, don’t you worry. I’ll be here... your wife will be fine..."
"..."
The crowd was a clamor of voices. Although many showed sympathy, even more were sighing in relief, and some even wore strange looks of excitement.
Wu Chen rubbed his brow. What a mess!
"Let’s go."
Wu Chen didn’t plan to delay. Now that he had accepted the mission, the sooner he completed it, the better.
Hearing this, the guards at the entrance immediately cleared a path for him.
Wu Chen strode out of the Linwei Garrison, not bothering to hurry Zhou Hu, who was still standing frozen in place.
Watching the young man’s departing figure, the chosen Zhou Hu knew there was no escaping his fate.
"If I die, I die. I’m going all in!"
He gritted his teeth, suppressed his panic, and shot a glare at the man who’d just offered to "take care of" his wife. Then he broke into a trot to catch up to Wu Chen, falling in behind him in silence.
Regardless of the outcome, this was at least an Upper Grade B mission. Even if he died, the Demon Suppression Bureau would provide decent support for his wife and child.
Zhou Hu comforted himself with this thought, and his mood improved considerably.
...
"Do you want to go back and see your wife?"
As they walked out of the Demon Suppression Bureau, Wu Chen looked at Zhou Hu, who was trailing half a step behind him with his head down, completely devoid of the imposing air he’d had when they first met. Wu Chen teased him:
"This mission could keep you away from home for a few days. Don’t you need to take care of some... personal business?"
"There’s no need."
Zhou Hu shook his head and glanced at the bright sky. "It’s only noon. My shift isn’t over yet."
"My wife is a sharp woman. If I go back to see her now, she’ll definitely guess I’m heading out on a dangerous mission. She and our kid will just worry for no reason."
"I’ll just wait until my shift would normally end, then go home and tell them I’ll be busy for a few days."
"That way, it won’t seem rushed, and they’ll be less worried."
Seeing how earnestly Zhou Hu replied, Wu Chen let his smile fade and stopped joking.
They walked until they reached a rather luxurious inn in Cangwu City.
It was a property owned by the Jiang Clan Commerce Association.
Wu Chen followed the waiter upstairs to a private room. After ordering more than a dozen dishes in one go, he sighed softly and thought to himself:
’As expected, it’s not like I can just randomly run into that barbarian spy.’
They had walked several streets at least, and his hand had never stopped moving, constantly rubbing the stone that could sense Barbarian Race bloodlines.
Unfortunately, the stone hadn’t reacted at all, which meant they hadn’t come across any Barbarian Race spies on their way from the Demon Suppression Bureau.
Wu Chen wasn’t worried about it; this kind of mission was time-consuming by nature, after all.
In fact, he was more worried that the Barbarian Race spy *would* run into him.
Wu Chen glanced at the panel where he was still allocating points.
It showed that he was currently only at the Ninth Layer of the Blood Coagulation Realm.
If he encountered the Barbarian Race spy today, he wasn’t familiar with their methods, so it was possible they might have a way to escape again.
But if they met tomorrow, after he finished allocating points to his last Blood Coagulation Realm Cultivation Technique, that Barbarian Race spy would be facing a Leakless Realm expert.
So, the longer this dragged on, the worse it would be for the Barbarian Race spy.
"Go on and eat. We need to have our fill before we can continue the search for our fugitive barbarian."
As the waiter placed the steaming hot food and wine on the table, Wu Chen gestured for Zhou Hu not to hold back. The cost of this meal was nothing to him now.
Zhou Hu stared with a pained expression at the table laden with delicacies worth several hundred silver.
Normally, he wouldn’t even get a chance to smell such food, but now he had no appetite. The chopsticks in his hand felt as heavy as a mountain, impossible to move even an inch.
Looking at all the food, he felt like he was staring at his last meal.
"Whether you believe in my strength or look down on me, you still have to eat, right?" Wu Chen said lightly.
Hearing this, Zhou Hu figured he had a point. Since death was inevitable, he might as well die on a full stomach.
With that thought, his heart relaxed. He snatched up his chopsticks and began to eat and drink with abandon.
A short while later, they had eaten and drunk their fill, and the plates and cups were empty.
Wu Chen watched Zhou Hu, who was now full, content, and leaning back comfortably, before finally asking:
"Did you participate in the Demon Suppression Bureau’s city-wide search for the Barbarian Race spies before? What do you know about them? Tell me everything in detail."
Li Youtao had been vague about the mission earlier, and Wu Chen now needed to assess the Barbarian Race spy’s strength.
He also wanted to know what happened during the Demon Suppression Bureau’s capture operation and why one of them got away.
He needed to understand the general situation to better judge where the spy might currently be.
That way, he could waste less time.
"Reporting to you, Sir. During the previous search for the Barbarian Race spies, all of us Linwei Garrison guards were under the command of the Captains."
"As for the abilities of these Barbarian Race spies, they’re actually not that impressive. Otherwise, there’s no way we could have killed two of them in a single sweep."
Zhou Hu’s face was flushed from the wine, his earlier timidity gone. He wiped the grease from his mouth, let out a drunken hiccup, and began to speak more freely:
"But that’s only for a Golden Eagle Captain. If you and I were to encounter one of these Barbarian Race spies, Sir, we’d still have to be careful."
"It’s not that I don’t believe in your strength, Sir, but these members of the Barbarian Race have a kind of Secret Pattern on their bodies. In an emergency, they can activate it to explosively increase their realm and strength for a short time."
"That’s the most difficult thing about these barbarian infiltrators."
"Is that so."
Wu Chen nodded. Zhou Hu’s words gave him a new understanding of the Northern Barbarians from outside Qingzhou’s walls.
Then, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes, and his interest was piqued:
"A Secret Pattern? An explosive increase in strength for a short time?"