Sister Wu immediately agreed: “That’s right!”
“But I’m not hurt…”
Xing Tian pressed down on Ye Yang’s shoulder, cutting him off. “Have you forgotten Boss Long’s true form? Though the Suan Ni prefers stillness, it is still one of the dharma-protecting auspicious beasts. How could it let something like this slide?”
Of course Ye Yang hadn’t forgotten. But weren’t they supposed to prioritize the mission?
Boss Long, however, gave Ye Yang no chance to speak.
Boss Long: “Is there surveillance at the scene?”
Xing Tian: “There’s a camera in that alley, but it’s broken.”
Boss Long nodded. “That’s fine. It can be working.”
Then he turned to Ye Yang. “Come with me. Don’t say a word—just follow my lead.”
…
Soon, Boss Long took the freshly obtained surveillance footage and brought Ye Yang to the police station to file a report. He gave a concise but complete account of the incident and directly provided the name of the follower who had thrown the punch.
With the footage, the matter was clear: the other party had instigated the trouble, while Ye Yang and Xing Tian had not fought back at any point. Once responsibility was established, the police quickly located the man who had hit Ye Yang that night.
Ye Yang started to stand up, but Boss Long pressed him back into his chair. “You stay here.”
Then he looked at a female officer sitting nearby. “Please look after him. Thank you.”
The officer quickly nodded. Though Ye Yang’s ID showed he was in his mid-twenties, his chubby, round baby face made him look endearing enough as it was.
In the surveillance video, he looked completely small and helpless, surrounded by that group of people and then punched across the way! Who wouldn’t feel for him?
Ye Yang strictly followed Boss Long’s instruction, sitting quietly without speaking. To the female officer, he looked like a pitiful little thing. In truth, he was just spacing out, thinking about how the man’s name was Shen Liu—actually quite a nice-sounding name.
Through the closed door, he couldn’t see anything, but his sharp hearing picked up every word of the conversation outside.
Shen Liu was acting tough, with an “I’m not afraid of anything, what can you do to me?” attitude.
Boss Long ignored him completely and simply requested a medical evaluation from the police. Then he took Ye Yang and left.
Back at the company, Ye Yang suddenly realized something. “Weren’t we going for a medical evaluation? Why are we back? What about Shen Liu?”
Boss Long waved a hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Just go about your business.” With that, he returned to his office.
Ye Yang was completely confused, but Xing Tian understood. “Seems like Boss Long wants to teach the guy who hit you a lesson.”
They couldn’t actually go for a medical evaluation—Ye Yang had no injuries, nor did they need any proof. The only purpose was to leave Shen Liu hanging.
Soon, the police called. Boss Long’s response was a single sentence: “Ye Yang was hit in the head. He’s dizzy and needs to rest today. We’ll come in tomorrow.”
The next day, Ye Yang followed Boss Long back to the police station.
This time, he finally saw Shen Liu again. But Shen Liu had completely lost his earlier arrogance. It turned out that because they hadn’t returned the day before, Shen Liu hadn’t been able to leave either—he had been held there for a full day and night.
Ye Yang whipped his head around to look at Boss Long, eyes shining. So that was it! Boss Long was amazing!
A flicker of amusement passed through Boss Long’s eyes, quickly replaced by his usual calm.
Inside the mediation room, Boss Long reminded Ye Yang again not to say a word. Ye Yang nodded like a pecking chicken.
After being locked up for a day, Shen Liu was completely deflated—unshaven, staring blankly. When he saw Boss Long and Ye Yang enter, he immediately stood up, hunched over in a lowly posture. “Just name your price. Really, I’ll accept anything.”
Boss Long pulled Ye Yang down to sit and didn’t respond.
Shen Liu grew anxious. “What do you want from me, then?”
Boss Long tapped the table and finally acknowledged him. “First, apologize to him.” He pointed at Ye Yang.
“Second, our position has been the same from the start: we do not accept mediation.”
With that, he stood up and led Ye Yang out.
The rest of the process was lightning fast. The involved party, Ye Yang himself, didn’t even know exactly what was said. Somehow, Shen Liu ended up apologizing with a ninety-degree bow and paying a considerable sum in compensation.
Back at the company, Boss Long finally explained things to Ye Yang.
Ye Yang had already looked up Shen Liu’s information earlier, but he had looked up too many people and hadn’t made the connection. After reviewing the file, Boss Long immediately zeroed in on the man’s weak point.
Although Shen Liu was addicted to gambling and had lost several family properties in a row, he had always stayed within the law—never even set foot in a police station. It was only after falling into debt that he let himself go and grew increasingly irritable.
But he cared deeply about his son. No matter how desperate he got from gambling losses, he never touched the apartment he had bought early for his son’s future marriage.
He had thought hitting someone was no big deal. But after being detained for a day and given some legal education by the police, he finally started getting scared—afraid that this would affect his son’s future.
If the other party firmly refuses mediation, he will likely end up with a criminal record. In that case, his son, who is currently in college, won’t be able to take the civil service exam, and other job opportunities may also be affected.
“The police will definitely try everything to get us to mediate, and in the end, mediation will probably happen. But we can at least show an attitude of not accepting it. Leaving yesterday was meant to reinforce that stance. Only then will Shen Liu be truly frightened.”
“If we had agreed to mediation from the start, Shen Liu would have acted with impunity. Now that he’s scared, he’ll cherish the chance to mediate.”
“In the end, we used some common negotiation tactics. The compensation he gave is likely the highest amount he can afford.”
Ye Yang only half understood, but that didn’t stop him from being dazzled by Boss Long’s prowess. “Amazing… As expected of Boss Long!”
Sister Wu gave Ye Yang a firm pat on the back. “This is crucial knowledge for surviving in the human world. Remember it well—don’t let yourself get bullied again!”
Ye Yang clenched his fist tightly. “Yeah!”
Cat Teacher, who happened to be passing by to mooch some incense, tilted her head and looked at them with utter confusion. “…What exactly are you all so fired up about…”
·
With that little episode smoothly resolved, Ye Yang turned his attention back to the mutual aid society case.
The man who had hit Ye Yang had gone to the police station, so naturally, the police learned about his involvement in the mutual aid society. As expected, after looking into it, they concluded that while the society was strange, it wasn’t breaking any laws.
Their investigation had dragged on for so long with so much difficulty, and Ye Yang had even suffered a “work-related injury.” For once, Sister Wu had taken an interest in their case.
But after reading through half the materials, she grew impatient. Then she read Ye Yang and Xing Tian’s undercover reports and grew even more puzzled. “Most of those followers look like gamblers—not many are well-educated, and the overall quality is low. Yet not a single one has revealed what they saw in that small church?”
“And neither before you went in nor after you came out did anyone tell you any rules about not disclosing anything.”
She closed the file, tossed it onto Ye Yang’s desk, and concluded, “This makes no sense at all.”
“Among those followers, there must be plenty of braggarts. They’ve definitely talked about it—people just didn’t believe them.” Chi Lian, drawing on his shallow understanding of humans, analyzed earnestly. “And since not just anyone can get into that church, others can’t see it for themselves, so naturally they don’t believe it.”
“Don’t underestimate human curiosity.” Xing Tian, with his vast experience, disagreed with Chi Lian’s view. “Some people are willing to risk their lives just to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. A man and a woman standing at the entrance of a small church aren’t going to scare off anyone determined to find out what’s inside.”
Ye Yang racked his brain. “So the so-called Cult Leader must have some way to prevent those who’ve entered and seen him from revealing what happens inside.”
“Maybe a powerful binding?” Chi Lian suggested. As he spoke, he took the coffee Sister Wu handed him, got scalded, let out a silent scream, and quickly put the cup down to shake his hand vigorously.
Sister Wu, oblivious, continued her spirited talk. “If you ask me, you guys are being too cautious. Why make it so complicated? Let me tell you a way. Little Ye Ye, talk to your advisor and ask him to help.”
“That won’t work.”
“That’s not appropriate.”
“We can’t do that.”
Sister Wu pouted in boredom. She knew it wasn’t feasible, but these three were way too blunt about it—rejecting her so firmly. How boring.
Ye Yang, still clueless, explained, “Sister Wu, Professor Shen is my advisor, sure, but our instructional relationship ended long ago. At best, we’re friends now. According to YCG regulations, and also…”
“Alright, alright, as if I didn’t know that. Fine, you guys carry on. I’ve got things to do.” Sister Wu quickly cut him off and made her getaway.
Xing Tian watched Sister Wu leave, then turned to Chi Lian and continued with the matter at hand. “You mentioned a powerful binding earlier?”
Chi Lian nodded. “Like a spiritual contract, a blood curse, something along those lines.”
“Definitely not.” Ye Yang had personally attended the underground gathering of the mutual aid society. He was certain none of those things were present.
Whether it was a spiritual contract, a blood curse, or a blood pact, all of them would require spiritual power, demonic power, or even magical power. Ye Yang’s perception was sharper than most demons—there was no way he wouldn’t have sensed it.
With so many humans gathered together, not to mention every single one being bound by a blood pact—even if only one person had been, he could have picked them out.
From start to finish, Ye Yang had only sensed faint traces of spiritual energy leaking from the glowing mass surrounding the Cult Leader and the lotus pond beneath him.
Xing Tian offered his view: “There’s another possibility: these people are keeping quiet voluntarily.”
“As you saw, most of those followers are gamblers. Gamblers are greedier and more unrealistic than the average person. After witnessing supernatural phenomena and bizarre gatherings, and seeing others change their luck and get rich, if they want to become those lucky few themselves, keeping quiet about things that most people wouldn’t believe anyway isn’t that hard.”
Xing Tian had spent countless years in the human world—he had even watched humanity evolve and develop from ancient times to the present. Even without deliberate observation, he understood humans very well.
“Moreover, gamblers have very little credibility with their family and friends. Even if they did talk, others would likely see it as delusions born of their desperation to win money.”
“As things stand, there must still be something between the mutual aid society and its followers that we don’t know.”
Ye Yang had never encountered such a complicated case before. It was a tangled mess he couldn’t make sense of. He couldn’t help but rub his face vigorously. “Ugh, this is so hard. This mission is really, really hard…”
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