Wangshu
South District Three. Old Industrial Park.
Wangshu squatted on the second-floor platform of an abandoned factory building, slowly fanning himself as his ivory-ribbed folding fan spun around his fingertips. Five guards of the Banyan Gathering squatted behind him, holding their breath and not even daring to blink.
Not because they were nervous—but because their leader seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood today.
Wangshu's mood was indeed very good. In the warehouse of this old industrial park lay two whole unopened crates of anesthetics, enough to last the Banyan Gathering for half a year. More importantly, he had bought the tip about this batch of goods from an information broker for the price of a single B-grade crystal core; flipping them would fetch at least ten B-grade crystal cores. The profit margin on this deal would shut those old geezers in the council up for at least three months.
"Leader, the zombies in the storage area have been cleared out," the guard captain lowered his voice. "The supplies are being loaded. We expect to evacuate in ten minutes."
"Tell them to handle them gently. Anesthetics come in glass bottles; every broken bottle is one less. If too many break, my heart will break too."
His voice was warm and smiling, his tone light, as if he were instructing the kitchen to heat a pot of tea. But the guard captain tensed up—having followed the leader for two years, he knew all too well that the sweeter the smile, the deeper the underlying meaning.
"Yes."
Wangshu tucked away his folding fan and was about to head downstairs to inspect the goods when he suddenly paused.
His peach-blossom eyes narrowed slightly, and the vermilion tear mole at the corner of his left eye flashed with a hint of dark red under the sunlight.
"Hold on."
His perception was giving him a warning. Not zombies—ability users. Two of them. Very strong.
Wangshu's Mirror Shadow ability wasn't top-tier in combat, but when it came to detection and disguise, perhaps only Huo Qingyu's electromagnetic perception could rival him in the entire apocalypse. His eyes were like a precise scalpel, capable of finding that priceless crack within a torrent of information. Right now, the edge of his perception network had captured two vastly different energy fluctuations.
One was violent and sharp, like thunder brewing in the clouds, unreservedly ostentatious.
The other was steady and scorching, like the eternal sacred flame in a church's sanctuary lamp, reserved yet full of overwhelming pressure.
Standing in the shadows of the second floor, he slowly unfurled his folding fan, covering the lower half of his face.
"Interesting. This trip out today comes with a free show."
On the main road of the industrial park, two groups of people were in a standoff.
On one side were the guards of the Light of Hope, in uniform white uniforms, guns slightly raised, standing as precisely as a textbook illustration. The leader had long hair cascading like moonlight, with not a single trace of extra emotion in his pale gold eyes.
On the other side was Raven's assault team, scattered in twos and threes behind the ruins. Though seemingly casual, every angle they held locked down all possible lines of fire from the opposing side. Huo Qingyu stood at the very front, hands in his pockets, his smile so bright it didn't look at all like he was being pointed at with guns.
"So, Huo Qingyu," Yue Hemian's voice was as cold as a block of ice measured with a ruler, "what is your answer?"
"Answer?" Huo Qingyu tilted his head, looking innocent. "I thought we were just chatting. Chairman Yue, you're just too serious. Even chatting sounds like you're passing judgment. Relax a bit, it's not like you'll lose a piece of flesh."
Veins bulged on the forehead of Ling Su, the adjutant of the Light of Hope. He counted in his heart—this was the third time today Leader Huo had interrupted formal negotiations with completely irrelevant talk.
Yet Yue Hemian showed no change in expression. He merely raised his hand slightly, signaling the guards behind him not to act rashly, and continued in that flat, unfluctuating tone: "The subject of this negotiation is—your side, at 7:32 this morning, without permission, collected a total of three crates of antibiotics from the eastern suburb storage area, which has already been classified under the jurisdiction of the Light of Hope. According to Article 17 of the 'Survivor Zone Resource Management Regulations', this batch of supplies should be temporarily impounded and reviewed by our side. You have delayed for three whole hours, Huo Qingyu. My patience has its limits."
"Limits? Wow, Chairman Yue, you actually admit you have limits? That doesn't sound like you."
"Huo Qingyu."
"Yue Hemian."
Lightning and light, freedom and order—two S-grade ability users stared at each other across less than twenty meters of ruins. The air was thick with the burnt smell of static electricity and the unique crisp scent of flowing sacred light, as the two forces clashed silently, neither willing to yield an inch.
Just then, a light chuckle drifted down from the second floor of the adjacent factory building.
"Oh my. In the middle of the day, with the sun beating down so hard, why aren't the two leaders finding a cool place to sit down and drink tea, instead of putting on a full-blown martial show here in the ruins?"
An ivory folding fan emerged from the shadows of the second floor. The fan unfurled, the peony pattern on it looking nearly bewitching in the sunlight. Then, the owner of the fan slowly stepped out, his dark hair casually held up by a green jade hairpin, a few blue-black strands draping over the side of his face, accentuating that face carved like mutton-fat jade. A pair of peach-blossom eyes curved in a half-smile, the tear mole at the corner of his left eye flushing slightly red in the sunlight, three parts warmth, seven parts shrewdness.
"Wangshu," Huo Qingyu was the first to call out his name, his tone carrying surprise as well as amusement. "Your nose is sharper than a zombie's. This place isn't exactly close to the Banyan Gathering. What are you doing here?"
"Leader Huo, you make it sound as if I, Wangshu, can only stay in the market counting money," Wangshu said, fanning himself as he walked down the stairs, his steps light as if strolling in his own backyard. "I'm also a living person who needs to eat. Isn't it normal for me to come out and look for supplies? On the other hand, the two of you—"
His gaze swept back and forth between Huo Qingyu and Yue Hemian, his smile deepening.
"With this lineup, are you planning to start a war here? That works out perfectly. I have some top-grade wound medicine prepared, which happens to sell for a good price. If both of you end up wounded, I might even sell a few more portions."
"You certainly know how to do business," Lin Mumu snorted, her hand never leaving the hilt of her blade.
"Vice Captain Lin flatters me," Wangshu nodded slightly to her, his smile so sincere it was hard to tell if it was sarcastic. "But the highest realm of business is not taking advantage of a crisis, but making sure nobody has to resort to robbery. So—I have a small suggestion. I wonder if the two leaders would be willing to do me the honor of listening?"
Yue Hemian's expression didn't change, but he didn't interrupt Wangshu. In Yue Hemian's social interactions, this already constituted 'giving a considerable degree of respect.'
Huo Qingyu crossed his arms, chin slightly raised: "Go ahead, let's see what kind of story you can spin."
Wangshu didn't speak immediately. He walked into the open space between the two sides, standing precisely at the midpoint of the line connecting Yue Hemian and Huo Qingyu. This positioning was extremely subtle—not leaning toward either side, yet simultaneously maintaining a distance from both that was just right and didn't cross any boundaries.
The fan spun elegantly around his fingertips, then snapped shut with a click, pointing in the direction of the warehouse.
"I arrived at this industrial park first. My people are currently loading the supplies in the warehouse onto our trucks. This means, according to the rule of 'first come, first served,' this place now belongs to my temporary jurisdiction." He tilted his head to look at Yue Hemian, his smile as gentle as water. "Chairman Yue, you are the most rule-abiding person. So let me be so bold as to ask—are the Light of Hope and the Raven currently standing on my territory, arguing over another batch of supplies right in front of my face?"
Yue Hemian fell silent for a moment.
"This place indeed has not been incorporated into the Light of Hope's jurisdiction."
"Well, then that settles it." Wangshu unfurled his folding fan, covering half of his face, leaving only a pair of smiling peach-blossom eyes curved above the fan. "On my territory, both of you are guests. As the host, how could I let my guests fight?"
Lin Mumu couldn't help but speak up: "You've been beating around the bush for so long, what exactly are you trying to say?"
"My point is—" Wangshu closed his fan, placing his hands behind his back as he looked up at the sky, his tone as light as if discussing what to have for lunch today. "How about this? According to the news I received, there are three crates of antibiotics. One crate goes to the Light of Hope, one crate goes to the Raven, and the last crate—stays with me. After all, I did act as a mediator for free; I have to collect some fee for my hard work, don't I?"
The air fell quiet for two seconds.
Ling Su's face changed: "This is a dispute between our two sides. On what grounds does the Banyan Gathering take a cut?"
"On what grounds? On the grounds that I am standing here and you haven't started fighting yet." Wangshu's smile didn't fade in the slightest, but those peach-blossom eyes opened slightly, revealing an unusual glint. "On the grounds that I happen to be a merchant, and merchants are best at turning disputes into business. On the grounds that a single sentence from me can make Chairman Yue acknowledge the rule of first-come-first-served, and on the grounds that my friendship with Leader Huo is worth a crate of antibiotics—oh, Leader Huo, wouldn't you say so?"
Huo Qingyu stared at him for three seconds, then threw his head back and laughed aloud.
His laughter echoed over the ruins, ripping a hole in the tense air. Everyone holding a weapon froze—laughing like this at a time like this was simply not taking the standoff seriously. But this was Huo Qingyu, so nothing he did was considered strange.
"Wangshu, oh Wangshu, you really are the best at getting something for nothing that I've ever met." Huo Qingyu laughed his fill, raising a hand to wipe away a tear that didn't exist at the corner of his eye. "You didn't spend a single cent, yet you managed to squeeze half a crate out of each of us. This calculation of yours is even better-looking than the peony on your fan."
"Leader Huo overpraises me. This little cleverness of mine is nothing compared to your feat of stalling Chairman Yue for three hours with three hundred nonsense sentences."
Yue Hemian lowered his gaze, his eyelashes casting faint shadows on his cheeks. He was calculating.
A three-hour standoff ending with both sides taking a step back would be a loss of prestige for the Light of Hope. But if the Banyan Gathering's face was added to the equation—framing the concession as a favor to a third party—then the nature of it would be completely different. What Wangshu offered was a way down, gilded with gold, and with profit waiting at the bottom. And this way down happened to save him from having to admit a concession in front of Huo Qingyu.
"Very well. The Light of Hope accepts the Banyan Gathering's mediation plan. But on one condition—the use of these antibiotics must be reported to the Banyan Gathering. They must not enter the black market, nor be resold to unverified third parties."
"Deal," Huo Qingyu shrugged. "We in the Raven were going to use that crate of medicine ourselves anyway. Though, Chairman Yue, you even want to track the whereabouts of a single crate of medicine to the very end. Doesn't living like that get tiring?"
Yue Hemian did not answer this question. He simply turned around, the white hem of his coat tracing a sharp arc amidst the ruins.
"Ling Su, go to the warehouse to retrieve the goods. Then return to headquarters."
"Yes."
The Light of Hope's squad began to pack up. Huo Qingyu also gestured to Lin Mumu, letting her take people to receive the Raven's share.
Only two people were left on the ruins.
No, three—Wangshu was standing not far away, gently waving his folding fan, looking at Yue Hemian's departing back with a beaming smile.
"Chairman Yue," his voice was very quiet, so quiet that only Yue Hemian could hear it. "Your right hand has been clenched for a full twenty minutes. You can let go now."
Yue Hemian's steps paused for a fraction of a second. Then he continued forward without looking back.
Wangshu watched that speck of white disappear at the end of the ruins, lightly tapping his folding fan against his palm.
"Sigh, both of them are so dishonest." His tone carried a hint of lamentation that only he could understand. "Fortunately, I am a merchant. A merchant doesn't need to be honest, as long as they can balance the books."
Huo Qingyu walked over to his side, looking down at this man who was half a head shorter than himself.
"I heard what you just said."
"Oh? What did Leader Huo hear?" Wangshu tilted his face up, his peach-blossom eyes curving into two crescent moons.
"The sentence you said to Yue Hemian."
"That was meant for Chairman Yue, not for you. Eavesdropping on others isn't a good habit."
Huo Qingyu didn't argue. He just looked at Wangshu's smile—that forever-exquisite, picture-perfect smile, so beautiful under the sunlight that it seemed almost unreal, yet making it impossible to see any genuine emotion.
"Wangshu. You spend all year balancing other people's books. Have you ever balanced your own?"
"My own books?"
"Yeah." Huo Qingyu uncharacteristically dropped his playful tone. "You helped me, and you helped him. You didn't actually need that crate you took for yourself—you knew from the start that with my and Yue Hemian's temperaments, as long as you stood up and said 'each take a step back', we would both give each other a way down. That crate of medicine was a price you deliberately added for yourself. Just so both of us would feel we owed you a favor."
The fan froze in mid-air.
Then it resumed its gentle swaying.
"Leader Huo, sometimes you are just too smart, which actually makes you quite unlikable."
"Being likable has never been my specialty."
The two stared at each other in silence. The controller of the thunderstorm and the manipulator of mirror shadows, the wind of the ruins and the fox of the market. One never played by the rules, the other toyed with all rules in the palm of his hand.
"Next time you come to the Banyan Gathering, I'll buy you a drink," Wangshu broke the silence first, tapping Huo Qingyu's shoulder lightly with his folding fan. "But bring money."
"Since when do you buy people drinks?"
"Starting today." Wangshu turned around, his dark hair lifting in the wind, the ends of his hair brushing past the back of Huo Qingyu's hand, light as a feather. "After all, being seen through by Leader Huo once is a day worth commemorating."
The guard captain had finished loading the anesthetics. Wangshu stepped onto the back seat of the jeep, leaning half his body out amidst the roar of the starting engine, waving his fan at Huo Qingyu.
"Farewell. Next time there's a good deal, remember to look for me first."
The back of the car kicked up a cloud of dust, quickly vanishing at the end of the ruins.Please log in to continue the conversation.