A Web of Secrets and a Fiery Silence

“Young Master Mo… Manager Wang has confessed that he was instructed by someone.”

“Instructed him? Is that truly the case?”

Having seen Bai Xia safely home, Mo Bai found himself walking alone along a secluded park path late into the night, a phone pressed to his ear. The moonlight cast his shadow long and slender before him. From the other end of the line, Chu Feng’s voice, tinged with a distinct weariness, occasionally filtered through, leading Mo Bai to an unavoidable realization: this affair was far more intricate than it initially appeared.

‘Could there truly be someone else pulling the strings?’

Mo Bai found himself utterly perplexed. How could his seemingly ordinary deskmate become the target of such individuals? If it were merely driven by avarice for Bai Xia’s beauty, Mo Bai struggled to grasp the logic.

‘It’s akin to someone suddenly stepping out with two hundred million, leading everyone to believe they’re about to embark on a monumental business venture, only for them to squander it on chasing women. Far from being impressed, people would simply conclude they were insane.’

‘But… who precisely would set their sights on Bai Xia?’

“Can you ascertain the identity of the person behind this?” Mo Bai’s voice plummeted, instantly becoming as frigid as tempered ice. Even Chu Feng, on the other end of the line, sensed a subtle shift in his demeanor.

‘This eldest young master of the Mo family appears to harbor a deep concern for that girl,’ Chu Feng mused. ‘Could it be that the white-haired girl possesses some concealed identity?’

Time was too short for Chu Feng to dwell on such thoughts, yet the current situation remained unchanged: they had yet to extract any truly useful information from Manager Wang. At best, they had learned that someone had paid him to abduct the white-haired girl. As for the bank account used for the transfer, tracing it would prove difficult in the immediate future.

Indeed, merely compelling Manager Wang to speak had required considerable effort, ultimately necessitating the intervention of a transcendent who employed a control technique to finally loosen his tongue.

“Young Master Mo, for the time being… we’ve hit a dead end,” Chu Feng admitted, a hint of helplessness in his tone. “Some of these transactions involved cash, and tracking cash flow requires visiting banks to verify the serial numbers of individual banknotes—a process that is exceedingly cumbersome.”

“Cumbersome or not, it must be investigated. I am convinced this matter is far from simple.” Mo Bai halted his steps, the moonlight carving a stark, handsome shadow across his profile. His long, slender fingers unconsciously stroked the edge of his phone, his voice imbued with an undeniable, commanding pressure.

For reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, he harbored a persistent feeling that this entire affair might unravel a profound, hidden secret.

Terminating the call, Mo Bai slipped his phone back into his pocket. A sharp, cold glint flickered in the depths of his eyes as he surveyed the silent park. If Bai Xia’s identity truly concealed some secret, then he was even more resolved not to let those individuals succeed in their machinations.

‘For now… I’ll just head home.’

****

“Speak! Who precisely sent you?!”

Within the depths of the Sword-Wielding Agency’s headquarters, late into the night, Chu Feng’s stern visage was reflected in the one-way mirror of a specialized interrogation room. His gaze was fixed on the corpulent man secured to a restraint chair, as he relentlessly pressed for answers in a sharp, commanding tone. Beside him, a man with gold-rimmed spectacles held his right hand aloft, from which faint, pale blue patterns of mental manipulation shimmered. These ethereal patterns glowed subtly, attempting to seize control of the man’s mind, to compel him to divulge the identity of his true instigator.

Yet, despite their efforts, the man remained utterly unresponsive, his eyes vacant and his body slumped limply in the chair. His limbs twitched sporadically, and his lips fumbled out garbled, unintelligible sounds. It was as if an unseen force had locked away his memories, forbidding him from uttering anything that might expose the puppet master.

“Boss… what course of action should we take? Do we intensify the mental control?” The man’s gaze, directed at Chu Feng, was laced with a discernible hesitation.

Under the current circumstances, it was clear that no further information would be extracted without escalating the intensity of the mental manipulation. However, the very resistance they encountered suggested that increasing the control carried significant risks. Should the adversary have placed some form of protective restriction upon this man, then pushing further would undoubtedly be akin to courting disaster.

“Sigh… what a mess. I hardly fancy hearing any sudden noises in the dead of night.” Chu Feng rubbed his temples, a headache beginning to throb. “What about the bank? Have they yielded any information?”

“Uh… perhaps, Boss, it’s best you see for yourself.” The man offered his phone to Chu Feng. The message on the screen indicated that not only had the cash portion of the funds arrived through a myriad of obscure channels, but even the transferred amounts appeared to originate from entirely legitimate sources. Consequently, the bank was, for the time being, utterly incapable of unearthing anything of value.

‘This is utterly preposterous…’

Gazing at the message displayed on the phone, Chu Feng found it inherently unbelievable. He was, after all, on the cusp of becoming a team captain, and his experience with investigations was considerable. Yet, cases like the present one, where every trace had been meticulously erased, leaving no discernible flaw, were exceedingly rare.

Such cases either never surfaced, or when they did, they proved exceptionally thorny, invariably entangling them in matters of immense gravity.

He had initially believed they had merely apprehended a girl who, lacking official identification, had unauthorizedly used her supernatural abilities to cause harm. Instead, this single incident had unraveled a labyrinth of complications. Not only had the opposing party executed their plan flawlessly, but even the esteemed eldest young master of the Mo family had become involved. ‘Just what, then, was the true identity of that white-haired girl…?’

“Damn it, this is truly uncanny!” He irritably massaged his temples, the harsh glare of the interrogation room’s incandescent lights painting his eyes with a web of crimson.

He had been toiling here for nearly a full day, having barely eaten or rested, all in a futile attempt to pry open the lips of this obstinate, corpulent man.

He stared intently at the foaming man behind the one-way mirror, then abruptly delivered a furious kick to the wall, a raw expression of his mounting frustration.

‘To gamble? Preposterous. The stakes are simply too high.’

He had witnessed potent restrictions before, capable of instantly transforming a living person into a volatile bomb. He harbored no desire to awaken in a hospital bed the following morning.

“What do we do now…?” The bespectacled man, having deactivated his ability, sank into a nearby seat.

“There’s nothing more to be done. Let’s rest for now; just ensure he’s properly secured.” Chu Feng wearily kneaded his brow, his patience with the unyielding man utterly depleted.

With matters having reached such an impasse, truthfully, there was little further assistance they could offer. It would be more prudent for them to seek some much-needed rest.

Late into the night, the Sword-Wielding Agency building, now vacant of its usual bustle, was left with only perimeter guards maintaining their vigil. Chu Feng, having finished his shift, sat in his car. He rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, and drew a deep, contemplative breath, the cherry of the cigarette flickering erratically in the encroaching darkness. Then, in the very next moment—

“BOOM—!”

Before he could even register it, a violent explosion ripped through the building. A colossal inferno instantly engulfed one entire side, sending a scorching wave of heat washing over him. Shards of shattered glass, mingled with debris, rained down like shrapnel upon his windshield, and the violent tremors of the car’s frame jolted Chu Feng profoundly.

“Damn it, no way!” His eyes fixed on the epicenter of the blast, Chu Feng violently shoved open his car door and surged towards the burning edifice.

The thunderous explosion had also roused the nearby fire department and police. Piercing sirens tore through the night sky, their alternating red and blue lights casting the surrounding streets in an eerie, spectral glow, transforming them into a veritable ghost town. Yet, at this critical juncture, Chu Feng was oblivious to such trivialities. He completely disregarded the frantic pleas of the security guards attempting to restrain him, hurtling towards the building. Reaching the vicinity of the interrogation room, his heart, which had been suspended in desperate hope, finally plummeted into despair as he witnessed the charred, broken remnants engulfed in a raging sea of fire.

‘Murder to silence… What profound secret could possibly necessitate such extreme measures?’

‘To save anyone? That’s unequivocally out of the question. Given this inferno, it’s likely nothing but ash remains.’ He even found himself feeling a perverse sense of relief for having left the building so promptly. An explosion of such magnitude, he reflected, might well have claimed even him, a transcendent nearing the fourth-tier, preventing him from ever seeing the dawn.

‘Wasn’t this supposed to be a minor case? Where in the world have I been dragged into? Am I even still in this country…?’