This sneaky figure wore a peaked cap pulled very low, carrying a document folder. He walked strangely—he could have walked straight out of the company, but instead took several turns.
Lin Chuan felt this person was a bit strange. Ignoring the two pretty receptionists trying to make him stay, he followed the man in the peaked cap out of the company.
It was rush hour, and the streets were bustling with people coming and going.
Lin Chuan followed far behind the man in the peaked cap. Once he locked onto him with his true qi, he wasn't afraid of losing him.
After twisting and turning for about twenty minutes, the man in the peaked cap entered a hotel.
Lin Chuan looked up and saw the hotel's name was Yage Hotel.
The man in the peaked cap entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevator. Guided by the true qi, Lin Chuan took the stairs to Room 2305 on the twenty-third floor.
Collecting his thoughts and calming his mind, the true qi inside his body began to boil rapidly, channeling into every single cell.
All kinds of faint sounds rushed into Lin Chuan's ears like a tide.
The night wind blew outside the window, making one sound against the walls and another against the glass.
Vehicles roared past on the street below, different speeds producing different sounds.
In some room, goodness knows who was working out, making the mattress creak, accompanied by clapping sounds and the muffled, suppressed groans of a woman.
Lin Chuan thought to himself that they must be practicing some kind of martial arts technique. Ignoring these strange sounds, Lin Chuan focused his attention on Room 2305.
It sounded like the man in the peaked cap was making a call; the clicking sounds of buttons echoed.
The initial sounds were a bit muffled, but quickly became clear.
"Young Master Cheng, I've got it."
These were the words spoken by the man in the peaked cap from earlier. Although he couldn't see him, everything around him was under his control.
"Well done! You didn't leave any traces behind, did you?"
A low, slightly magnetic voice came from the other end of the phone.
"None. I copied all the data on the spot, and at the same time I cut the power to the surveillance cameras. I can be sure no traces were left."
"Good! As long as I get this document, coupled with the poison in her body, when her drug addiction acts up later, she'll have no choice but to let me toy with her like a bitch!"
Hearing this, Lin Chuan finally figured out how the poison in Su Qingxue's body had come about.
As long as he captured these two people, presumably Su Qingxue's fatal tribulation could be eliminated, right?
Just as the man in the peaked cap inside the room hung up the phone, Lin Chuan kicked the door open. The lock instantly snapped off the door frame and slammed into the wall.
The man in the peaked cap was completely dumbfounded, staring at the suddenly burst-open doorway. In that exact instant, Lin Chuan rushed in.
"Who the hell are you? What do you want?"
the man in the peaked cap demanded angrily.
Before his words even faded, a sharp pain struck his stomach. Immediately afterward, his feet left the ground, his entire body folding like a shrimp before he slammed hard against the wall.
"My name is Lin Chuan. Who were you just talking to on the phone, and what did you do to Su Qingxue?"
To prevent the other party from counterattacking, Lin Chuan decided to make him lose his combat effectiveness so it would be easier to squeeze some information out of his mouth later.
The man in the peaked cap violently spat out some sour liquid, vomiting nonstop. Lin Chuan's punch just now had almost dislodged his internal organs.
At that moment, breathing was extremely difficult, and his consciousness was somewhat hazy.
Lin Chuan scratched his head, looked at his own fist, and figured he had used the bare minimum of force.
He stepped forward, grabbed the man in the peaked cap by the collar, and hauled him up from the floor. "Hey, wake up. Answer my question quickly, and I'll answer yours."
But the man in the peaked cap was already rolling his eyes and had clearly passed out cold. With no other choice, Lin Chuan had to channel a stream of true qi into his body.
Before long, the man in the peaked cap slowly woke up. Seeing Lin Chuan standing before him, he gave a violent start of terror.
"Big Brother, who are you? What on earth do you want?"
Lin Chuan frowned and repeated his earlier question.
Hearing this, terror surfaced in the eyes of the man in the peaked cap, and he shook his head repeatedly. "No! I can't talk. If I talk, I'll meet a terrible end."
Lin Chuan kicked the back of the man's knee, and he dropped heavily to his knees with a thud.
"But if you don't talk, I'll be very troubled. I want to protect Su Qingxue, and you guys want to hurt her. That makes you my enemies, and enemies of mine meet a terrible end."
Overcome by pain, the man in the peaked cap let out a miserable cry, raised his head, and stared fixedly at Lin Chuan. "The people behind me have massive influence! If you're ready to bear his wrath, then go ahead and make your move!"
Lin Chuan backhanded the man across the face with a crisp smack. The man's head jerked violently to the side as several teeth flew out.
"Ah!! Murder! Help!"
The man in the peaked cap shrieked miserably, hoping to use this to attract others' attention, but Lin Chuan had no intention of stopping him, letting him scream at the top of his lungs.
This room had already been sealed off by his Qimen magic array; outside sounds couldn't get in, and inside sounds couldn't get out.
His senior brothers and sisters had said that if you want to extract information from your enemies, you must make foolproof preparations.
When the man in the peaked cap had screamed until his voice was hoarse and there wasn't the slightest reaction from outside, he finally grew a bit scared.
"Done screaming?" Lin Chuan stood up and walked toward the man in the peaked cap.
"Don't... let's talk..."
Slap!
Lin Chuan delivered another backhand blow. The man's head jerked to the side again, sending several more teeth flying. Blood gushed from his mouth, a truly gruesome sight.
"If you still won't talk, I'll break your fingers. A senior brother of mine told me that the ten fingers are linked to the heart, and breaking your fingers hurts a lot."
The man in the peaked cap was on the verge of tears.
"Big Brother, who on earth are you?"
"I'm Lin Chuan."
Slap!
"I wasn't asking your name."
Slap!
"You've asked me several questions already, and you haven't answered a single one of mine!"
"That's not the point, okay!"
Slap!
"Stop! I'll talk!"
The man in the peaked cap wept. He finally understood that the young man in front of him was an absolute blockhead; if he didn't talk, he might actually be beaten to death right here.
Anyway, empty words left no proof, so he could spin whatever story he liked, and this blockhead wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Just as he was thinking this, Lin Chuan stepped right up and snapped one of his fingers backward.
"Ah!!!"
Watching his index finger bend backward at a ninety-degree angle, the man let out a heaven-shattering roar.
Lin Chuan was starting to get annoyed as well.
"Don't even think about lying to me! I can tell whether your eyes are lying or not!"
With snot, tears, and cold sweat covering his face from the agony, the man in the peaked cap dared not entertain any other thoughts and blurted out hastily:
"Big Brother, Grandfather, don't do it! I'll talk, I'll talk! The person on the phone with me just now was Fourth Young Master Cheng. He told me to copy and steal a bidding proposal from Zhongshang Entertainment."
"That bidding proposal concerns a very important strategic investment for Zhongshang Entertainment. If it fails, Zhongshang Entertainment will instantly plunge into heavy debt. By then, Fourth Young Master Cheng can use this to suppress Zhongshang Entertainment and force President Su to submit."
The man in the peaked cap spilled the whole story in one breath, not daring to lie even a fraction. This Taoist priest was simply too freaky; it was as if he could read whatever was on his mind.
Lin Chuan frowned after listening. He didn't understand any of this business stuff at all, but it was definitely something harmful to Su Qingxue.
And was this Fourth Young Master Cheng the same Young Master Cheng mentioned by that gang of motorcyclists who had tried to kidnap Su Qingxue earlier?
"What about that poison you mentioned?"
"This..."
The man in the peaked cap hesitated for a moment, but seeing Lin Chuan glance at his fingers again, he shivered all over and spoke without waiting to hesitate:
"That poison is a new type of drug codenamed Water Lily. Generally, the early reaction is a sudden collapse without any detectable cause. After a period of time, when the drug addiction acts up, the victim feels agonizing pain worse than death. Fourth Young Master Cheng wants to use this new drug to completely control President Su, and thereby control all of Zhongshang Entertainment."
Lin Chuan nodded in sudden enlightenment, then his eyes lit up as if he had suddenly thought of something.
He pulled the phone Yu Binglan had given him out of his pack and hit the record button.
"Come on, do me a favor and say what you just said all over again."
He had just learned how to use the video recording function when Yu Binglan taught him how to play with the phone earlier, and it came in handy right now.
He didn't understand the business stuff, but he only needed to take this back for Su Qingxue to listen to, which would also clear up the previous misunderstanding—he really had been detoxifying Su Qingxue.
This was killing two birds with one stone!
Lin Chuan hit the record button and aimed the camera at the man in the peaked cap.
"All right, you can start now."
The man in the peaked cap didn't want to speak, but under Lin Chuan's tyrannical might, he had no choice but to repeat word-for-word what he had just said.
After saving the recorded file, Lin Chuan nodded with satisfaction, then delivered a karate chop to the back of the man's neck, knocking him out cold.
Only then did he leave in high spirits, constantly marveling at how useful cell phones really were.
To prevent another taxi incident like today's, Lin Chuan decided to walk back. Anyway, he had memorized the route when Yu Binglan drove him there.
With his speed, he should be a bit faster than a car anyway.
It was nighttime, and the night in Lvteng City was more vibrant than the day, with even more people around.
Amidst the bustling crowds, a blurred afterimage constantly wove through the people. His speed was lightning-fast, yet he didn't bump into a single person.
Everyone who passed by just felt a gust of wind blow past and paid it no mind.
Ten-odd minutes later, Lin Chuan returned to the police station he had been to earlier. The station was still brightly lit, with police cars frequently driving out.
Following his memory from the trip over, Lin Chuan spent another ten minutes making his way back to Yunjin Orient.
Having run over twenty kilometers in one breath, Lin Chuan only had a light sheen of sweat on his forehead and his breathing was slightly accelerated.
He passed through the gates of Yunjin Orient. The security guards didn't stop him because someone as handsome as him wearing a full set of Taoist robes was simply too memorable.
Lin Chuan made his way all the way to Building 3, 18th Floor, and knocked on the door of the right-hand apartment.
Before long, footsteps sounded. It clearly wasn't Mother Wang; although they had only met today, Lin Chuan had already memorized the sound of Mother Wang's footsteps.
Since it wasn't Mother Wang, it could only be Su Qingxue.
For some reason, Lin Chuan suddenly felt a bit flustered. The image of Su Qingxue looking at him with tear-filled eyes flashed through his mind once more.
Subconsciously touching the phone in his pack, Lin Chuan calmed down slightly. As long as he showed Su Qingxue the video on the phone, the misunderstanding should be cleared up.
The door opened.
The cold, pretty face he had imagined didn't appear. Instead, a smiling Su Qingxue grabbed his hand and naturally hooked her arm through his.
Lin Chuan's brain completely short-circuited. In that single instant, he had thought of ten thousand possibilities, but Su Qingxue reacting this way was the one thing he never could have anticipated.
Linking her arm through Lin Chuan's, Su Qingxue smiled and said, "Lin Chuan, why did it take you so long to get back?"
Before he could even react, he saw a young man walk out of the living room wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie.
His hair was combed meticulously, and his features weren't bad—exquisite facial structures that easily qualified him as quite a handsome guy. However, the gaze he currently directed at Lin Chuan carried a trace of gloom.
"My name is Cheng Xiao. Very nice to meet you, Mr. Lin!"