Chapter 3#

Shadow in the Dark#

Because of this little interlude, there was a delay of five or six minutes compared to the original plan. When Chu Xun returned to the explosion site in the building next door, the panicked and confused guests had already fled the smoke-filled scene. The elevators were stopped, and crowds were crowding down the stairs from various passages.

Chu Xun bumped into Lu Shishi at the corner of a staircase.

Both of them were extremely wretched, messy, and in a sorry state.

Lu Shishi was still in shock. She looked up: “Boss Chu, your… what happened to your face?”

One lens of Chu Xun’s glasses was shattered, the frame sat crookedly on the bridge of his nose, and his right cheek was swollen. His skin was naturally fair, so the bruise appeared pink, with tiny beads of blood surfacing.

Chu Xun’s mouth twitched as he covered his face: “Something fell from the roof and hit me. Hit me.”

Lu Shishi herself wasn’t much better. Her long hair, which had been coiled up, was half-loose, a large clump of glittery hair falling from her forehead and covering half her face, revealing the truth—the shiny black bun on top of her head was all hair extensions. Her skirt hem had several holes burned by sparks, and her high heels were gone.

Lu Shishi was originally ashamed to show this appearance to anyone, but seeing Chu Xun’s state—face and body covered in dirt, hair messy, dust mixed with hot sweat, looking miserable and wretched, like he had just been beaten up—she immediately felt relieved. A feeling of empathy and mutual pity for a fellow sufferer on the escape route arose spontaneously.

A group of people, chased by thick smoke, fled from the top floor to the first floor, running wildly.

Lu Shishi’s skirt was too big, making her run slowly. Chu Xun was simply even slower than her, panting and stumbling, tripping over his own feet, yet he still gentlemanly held her skirt hem from behind all the way. The two supported each other. Lu Shishi couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of favor and admiration for Second Young Master Chu.

Seeing that they were almost at the first-floor lobby, the crowd pushed and shoved. Lu Shishi was tripped by someone next to her and fell forward onto her knees.

Behind her, Chu Xun accidentally stepped on her skirt, tripped over his own feet, and also knelt down for the lady.

Lu Shishi fell forward with her buttocks sticking up. With Chu Xun kneeling, and the woman in front arching back, her ample buttocks smacked right into Chu Xun’s face…

“Mmph…”

Chu Xun couldn’t even make a sound before being smothered by the huge dark shadow. His straight nose had no chance to resist, forced into intimate contact with Lu Shishi’s butt crack…

Fuck…

Women who sing bel canto and folk songs generally have full figures, curvy front and back, carrying their own bellows in front and a fleshy big butt behind. Chu Xun was so aggrieved he couldn’t speak, cursing in his heart. He grabbed a broken wooden stick from the ground and smacked Lu Shishi’s buttocks right in front of his eyes heavily!

Lu Shishi was just about to get up when her fragrant buttocks were hit. She covered them and twisted back in surprise: “You, hit me?”

Chu Xun adjusted his glasses, pointed at the ceiling, and defended himself innocently: “From the roof, a… a stick fell down… and hit you…”

Outside the building was a sea of people, surrounded by police cars, ambulances, and TV station interview vans. Reporters from various stations held microphones, chasing disheveled hotel guests.

The auction was operated by several well-known large companies and had been hyped up in the media beforehand. No one expected such an accident. No one died at the scene, but several important guests sitting in the front seats bidding were injured—hit by debris, burned, choked by smoke—and were carried out on stretchers.

Hou Yiqun, with his long arms and legs, fled very fast, only getting a few small cuts on his head, face, and body from explosion debris.

Young Master Hou was now standing in front of an ambulance, pacing back and forth irritably. He snatched an oxygen tank from a nurse, shoved the oxygen tube into his nose, and took a few deep breaths, trying to dilute the stifled anger in his lungs.

Hou Yiqun roared at the person on the phone: “Damn it, the thing is destroyed! Who the fuck thought the lamp on the roof could fall down? It’s burned, all burned black, burned into a piece of scrap copper and rotten iron!”

“It’s fine, I didn’t lose anything… The British and the Takasaki family are the ones who lost. Those two groups are fighting right now.”

“Hmph, anyway, the goods weren’t real. It’s good that it burned. The real one is still in my hands. Let those two groups fight.”

Hou Yiqun sneered, grinding his teeth.

He couldn’t earn the commission from this deal, but the genuine Yuanmingyuan bronze dragon head remained in his hands. The dragon head smashed and burned black on the rostrum was an extremely realistic fake, swapped out early on to fool the Japanese buyer. Young Master Hou started his career smuggling cultural relics and prided himself on being a big expert in the circle. In this trade of living off national treasures with huge profits and no capital, who could compare to even a finger of his in terms of business shrewdness?

This time the fake was destroyed. The British couldn’t explain themselves, and the Japanese were relentless. Young Master Hou just had to profit from the middle; he didn’t care about those two groups fighting. He might as well keep this dragon head for his private collection, hang it on the wall at home, and use it as an antique coat rack for Master Hou. How prestigious.

The person on the phone stammered, sounding like they were crying: “Boss, we, we… something happened here too. The goods, goods…”

Hou Yiqun asked: “What happened to you?”

The person on the phone said: “The dragon head is lost. Just lost. Don’t know what happened. We were all watching, but it really disappeared… Boss, what do we do…”

Hou Yiqun turned pale with fright, mouth agape, unable to speak.

Lost…

Lost?!

His face turned from red to white, from white to green, until it was completely black, his expression gloomy and cold.

The subordinate asked on the phone: “Boss, should we call the police?”

Hou Yiqun cursed loudly: “Call the police my ass! Call the police and let everyone know the thing up for auction was fake, and I lost the real one?! You useless trash.”

Hou Yiqun wasn’t stupid. The real goods disappearing in an instant meant it was stolen.

He understood immediately.

This was a setup. While he was plotting against others on stage, someone was plotting against him behind the scenes.

The lightning and smoke filling the auction hall half an hour ago was no accident at all. Someone destroyed the fake dragon head and stole the real one at the same time, incidentally screwing him over, making the profit he, the middleman, had in hand fly away, and he also lost face and was left in a bind. Moreover, he couldn’t call the police or dare to make a noise; he had to swallow this loss completely.

Hou Yiqun was flustered and exasperated, looking around blankly, and caught sight of the person standing next to another ambulance across the parking lot.

Lu Shishi, with disheveled hair and ruined makeup, sporting a pair of panda eyes and a messy skirt, barely held her chest up to maintain her poise as she complained to her agent and assistant.

Huo Huanhuan was also not far away. Her gown was short, and her legs were agile; she fled particularly fast at the critical moment and had run out long ago. At this moment, Huo Huanhuan and her assistant were standing in front of the Grand Hyatt Hotel building. Huo Huanhuan, draped in a down jacket, had restyled her hair, touched up her makeup, applied red lipstick, and was posing in various postures with the smoking top floor as the background, preparing to send pictures back to the country immediately.

The most miserable one was Second Young Master Chu, left alone by the roadside. Second Young Master Chu was wrapped in a blanket over his wrinkled shirt and trousers, his face injured, two cotton balls stuffed in his nose, standing shivering on the curb, accepting routine questioning from two police officers. This person was already skinny and small; huddled like this, he looked even more frail and wretched.

Hou Yiqun stared at Chu Xun from a distance, snorted, his gaze disdainful. The one surnamed Chu obviously didn’t get off well either, look at that pathetic state. He had three parts fear of Chu Xun in his heart, disliking how this person was always dangling around as an eyesore, and seven parts disdain. The one surnamed Chu was nothing more than this, relying on a good-looking pretty face to make a living, sweet-talking, very good at social niceties, hanging out with women all day, hugging left and right, a playboy, actually having no real ability.

When his gaze swept over Chu Xun, his heart moved accidentally, but on second thought, he felt it was unlikely.

Who dared to plot against Master Hou behind his back, screwing me over?

Master Hou would crush him to death.

Hou Yiqun swept back and forth, his gaze returning to Chu Xun, squinting his eyes and looking him up and down. That slightly pale thin face, small waist, a pair of long legs, really looked not bad, quite flavorful… Young Master Hou chuckled lightly, subconsciously licking his lips, feeling that Little Second Chu was also quite interesting.

Chu Xun blew in the cold wind by the street for a while, dusty and faced, legs weak, and was finally driven back to his hotel by the police.

He lived in the Hilton not far from the city center, an old hotel with a history of a hundred years. The corridors were quiet, and the corner walls were decorated with brass sculpture wall lamps.

He stepped into the room, the blanket slipping from his shoulders. Back against the door, legs weak, he slowly bent down, covered his face with his hands, and finally let out a long breath.

Really tired.

Chu Xun squatted down, sat on the carpet, legs wide open, sat blankly by the door for a while, his limbs extremely exhausted and painful. He forced himself to stand up, didn’t even turn on the hallway and living room lights, went straight into the bathroom, turned on the small wall light, and his face was reflected in the mirror.

He threw away the bloody cotton balls in his nostrils, dipped a towel in warm water, washed his face several times, sniffed everywhere, still feeling a strong smell of blood on his hands and body, the resentment of someone who had been drenched in dog blood.

A sound came from the dim hallway.

Chu Xun stretched his neck to look in the mirror, his shirt open at the chest, examining the small wound on his shoulder. He didn’t turn his head, just glanced with the corner of his eye.

Someone gently picked the door lock from the outside with a tool. With a soft click, the lock turned open.

A tall and thin black shadow flashed in, and the door closed quickly.

Chu Xun didn’t look back, nor did he pay attention, continuing to lift his chin to look at his chest and shoulders, rotating his neck one hundred and eighty degrees.

The black shadow didn’t make a sound either, entering the room silently, footsteps extremely light, without turning on the light. Carrying a long gun on his shoulder, the barrel straight, blurred light and shadow hit the wall. The person and the gun seemed to merge into one, equally thin, straight, cold, and sharp, bringing in a wisp of cold air from the late night.

The shadow pressed his body against the wall in the dark, carefully checking the entire room, every wall, every corner, every piece of furniture, chandelier, table lamp, bedside table, under the bed; even stepping on the sofa armrest, climbing on the wall, checking the seams of the ceiling in the four corners of the room.

“Clean?” Chu Xun asked.

“Clean.” The other party answered, voice steady.

The guardian in the dark put down the long gun on his shoulder, slowly paced to the bathroom door, looking at Chu Xun at eye level. The dim halo of the wall lamp reflected a handsome face with sharp edges.

“Chuanwu, got the goods?” Chu Xun asked.

“Mm.” Chuanwu nodded slightly.

“I saw the one surnamed Hou going crazy from a street away. I knew you got it done, neat.” Chu Xun turned his face, eyes bright, a trace of contempt for the one surnamed Hou appearing at the corner of his mouth.

Huo Chuanwu saw the injury on Chu Xun’s face at a glance, frowning tightly: “What happened to your face?”

Chu Xun hummed: “What happened to the face?”

Chuanwu: “…Bleeding.”

Chu Xun turned his face, sporting half a bruise, looking at the person coldly: “Look again, what’s on my face?”

Chuanwu was stunned for a moment, secretly swallowing saliva. Chu Xun’s face was long and thin, exquisite, eyes narrow and long, but always flashing with an elusive light, carrying a certain faint threat and desire to dominate.

Chu Xun pointed at himself: “What is on my face?”

“It’s all that person’s brains.”

Chu Xun widened his narrow eyes: “You just blasted it all over my face!”

Hearing him say this, Huo Chuanwu felt relieved instead. Fuck, didn’t Master Huo just spray you with a face full of blood?

Chuanwu said softly: “I only fired when I heard you say ‘death’.”

The implication was, Second Master, you gave the order yourself. I pulled the trigger on command. Who are you blaming for this?

And you gave me the middle finger…

Chu Xun nodded: “I told you to blast him. Did you aim in the right direction?”

Chu Xun was relentless. While wiping vigorously with a towel, rubbing his pale face pink, almost rubbing off a layer of tender skin, he mumbled: “If you shot straight, the brains would spray on the wall. You sniped him diagonally from the back of the head, so the blood sprayed right on my face, didn’t it? The two eyeballs were like fucking fountains, popping out, and then ‘whoosh’, exploded. Scared me to death…”

Huo Chuanwu’s originally cold face had no expression, but hearing Chu Xun say this, the corner of his mouth couldn’t hold back a trace of a smile, which disappeared in a flash.

Spraying your face is getting off lightly. I watched you for hours from half a kilometer away. Dressed up handsome and dashing, beaming with joy. Which part of your hands and feet was idle all night?

Chu Xun glanced sideways at him: “Smile again?”

“You did it on purpose?!”

Huo Chuanwu stopped smiling, leaning his shoulder against the door frame, hands in pockets, eyes scanning the wall…

Chuanwu was the same height as Chu Xun. When dressed, their figures were similar. Short, spiky crew cut, hard hair, temples and back of the head shaved to reveal a pale green scalp. The whole person exuded a metallic hardness. Pitch-black sword eyebrows slanted into the bronze-tanned hairline skin.

If Chu Xun was soft—knead him and he’d wish he could change into a different shape immediately, always elusive, with a thousand appearances, a hundred tempers, and smooth in all dealings—then Huo Chuanwu was hard. Always one face, one temperament. This person never changed, yet he was still hard to see through.

Second Master Chu felt he couldn’t see through him.