The First Order

After the assistant named Fang Zhi left, it was as though nothing had happened between the two parties. Even if they did encounter each other later on, there was a tacit understanding to not mention the matter anymore.

To be honest, Li Ran had a drink too many last night, so she wasn’t too sure about what happened either. She could vaguely recall that something had happened, but everyone only told her that she had been knocked unconscious by the other party.

This made Li Ran a little unhappy. She had taken the initiative to go to the other party’s room, but he ended up knocking her unconscious? Was it because she lacked charm?

Meanwhile, Ren Xiaosu was no longer thinking about this matter. He was thinking about how he could help Zhou Yingxue complete this supposed concert tour mission.

Apart from this escort mission, Zhou Yingxue would have to complete another two missions before next spring in order to qualify for the Anjing House trials.

“Master, this escort mission will probably last until the end of the year. We already missed an A-rank mission while we were waiting for her arrival,” Zhou Yingxue complained. “With time so tight, what if there aren’t enough missions for us to do?”

Ren Xiaosu said helplessly, “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

The mistake of accepting this mission was indeed his fault.

Three days later, Assistant Fang Zhi suddenly came to inform them that the team was preparing to set off. Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue did not have any objections to that. They were just hoping that this group’s concert tour would progress as quickly as possible so they would not get delayed any further.

The concert tour group even arranged a special car for Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue. They had wanted to get a chauffeur for them too, but Zhou Yingxue rejected the offer.

She brought out a professional-looking, small black box that she used to examine the car carefully. Only upon confirming there was no surveillance equipment or GPS trackers on board did she feel at ease.

After all, she often discussed secrets with Ren Xiaosu, so it wouldn’t be too good if someone were to overhear them.

Before getting in the car, Ren Xiaosu and Li Ran bumped into each other again. Ren Xiaosu realized Li Ran deliberately walked past without looking at him. It was as if she had never met him before.

This felt like a silent declaration of war: “I’m not fucking interested in you. I went to your room that night purely because I was bestowing a favor upon you! To put it crudely, I was just patronizing you!”

Although neither of them said a word, Ren Xiaosu instantly understood what the other party meant.

The other staff were looking at Ren Xiaosu curiously. Many of them knew that Li Ran had drunk too much that night before going to look for Ren Xiaosu. Therefore, everyone’s eyes were on Ren Xiaosu, and some of them even wanted to ask him if anything had happened.

In short, Ren Xiaosu had suddenly become the focus of attention in the concert tour group because of this stupid matter.

After Zhou Yingxue got into the car, she leaned against the steering wheel and cackled for more than 10 minutes. It was only when Ren Xiaosu’s face had turned thunderous that she got a hold of herself.

She changed the topic and said, “Ahem, why would this concert tour group need to have over twenty vehicles in their entourage? They even have a semi-truck at the back of the group!”

“That’s carrying their speakers and musical instruments. I already looked at it,” Ren Xiaosu answered normally.

Zhou Yingxue was stunned. She did not even know when Ren Xiaosu had searched the entire concert tour group.

Ren Xiaosu looked at Zhou Yingxue and said, “You should’ve done that in advance. Don’t let your guard down just because you’re no longer working in intelligence.”

Zhou Yingxue replied weakly, “OK.”

The convoy set off. Their first stop would be the Zhou Consortium. This would require Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue to take extra caution as it could get very awkward if their identities were exposed.

The tour group had come from the Wang Consortium after their event there was completed, so the remaining tour locations were at the Zhou and the Kong Consortiums’ strongholds.

The tour group would kick off the next leg of the tour in the Zhou Consortium first, then move on to the Kong Consortium, and finally wrap it up in the Qinghe Group’s Luoyang City. Afterwards, they would return to the black market.

Fortunately, the tour group had no plans to go to the eight strongholds the Pyro Company controlled. Otherwise, it would get even more dangerous.

Honestly, Ren Xiaosu sometimes felt that the Central Plains was a safer place. As such, it would usually not be a problem even when traveling with so many people on a concert tour. For Li Ran and Fang Zhi to disallow Zhou Yingxue from interfering with their plans, it must also be because they were confident it would be safe.

In this tour group, there was also a ten-member combat squad protecting them. Although these people were dressed in casual clothes, their auras could not be concealed from Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue.

It could be seen that Li Ran did have the backing of someone important in the Wang Consortium. It was definitely not that simple.

And along the way, if the tour group were to encounter any danger, it would most likely be someone who wanted to take revenge on Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue. After all, the two of them were the most unstable elements in the group.

When the convoy passed by Luoyang City, they did not stop at all. Ren Xiaosu looked at Luoyang City from afar and felt that it looked no different from the other strongholds in the Central Plains.

Ren Xiaosu looked at the town outside the stronghold and sighed. “A lot of people in the black market often speak about how good the Qinghe Group is. But from the looks of it, they still differentiate between refugees and stronghold residents. Overall, the essence of being a consortium still remains.”

That wall was like a huge mountain that separated the refugees and stronghold residents.

But Zhou Yingxue explained, “It’s not like that at all. The reason so many people like the Qinghe Group is actually similar to why people in the Northwest like Fortress 178. It’s because the salary the Qinghe Group pays to refugees is very high and they give them pretty good benefits too. The Qinghe Group does not exploit them as the other consortiums do. After Xu Ke took over the reins at Qinghe Group 12 years ago, he tried to introduce changes to the system by tearing down the discrimination between the stronghold residents and refugees. He completely opened up the gates to everyone.”

“Then why did he close them again?” Ren Xiaosu wondered.

“The motivation was out of goodness, but the reality is that refugees from everywhere rushed over when they heard about the Qinghe Group’s policies. As a result, there was no one left in the surrounding strongholds and towns.” Zhou Yingxue explained, “This incident caused the Wang Consortium, Zhou Consortium, and Kong Consortium to send their people to the Qinghe Group to negotiate putting an end to the open-door policy. Moreover, the Qinghe Group was unable to accommodate all the refugees that had surged to their territory. So they closed their doors again and only increased the benefits of the refugees. However, they restricted the number of hires available.”

“So that’s what happened.” Ren Xiaosu nodded and said, “It’s really all thanks to their peers that they were seen in such good light. As long as one of the consortiums is willing to give the refugees better treatment, they instantly win the hearts of the people.”

The convoy continued heading south. But at the same time, unknown to Ren Xiaosu and Zhou Yingxue, Xu Zhi was currently headed towards the black market after their reorganization back at the Qinghe Group.

Xu Zhi’s father told him that if the mysterious youth and his maidservant were really important figures of the underworld, then they were most likely heading to the black market outside Luoyang City based on the route they took.

Hence, Xu Zhi headed straight for the black market without even bothering to attend his classes. He stayed put in the hotel lobby for over half a month without finding out anything before helplessly returning to Luoyang City.

That gorgeous figure kept reappearing in his mind as he tried forgetting it to no avail.