"Heh... Uncle Chu, really, this little business... it's a trivial matter." Wei Zhao felt he was happy these days; every day someone cared about him. So this, then, was what an ordinary person's life was like?

"A trivial matter? You call this trivial? What you're about to face is an overseas gang!" Gu Pengzhan said gravely. "They're nothing like the petty thugs in this country. They're a pack of desperadoes, and they have firearms and ammunition. If anything happens to you, how am I to answer to Old Master Lin? Even my own father would never let me off!"

Wei Zhao had no idea how old man Wei back home had talked things over with Gu Pengzhan, but from the look of him, Gu Pengzhan seemed not to know what Wei Zhao had done in his day. Never mind a gang boss — even generals of small nations with their private armies, even mercenary captains, had been sent on their final journey by Wei Zhao often enough...

"Uncle Chu, if you know the old man in my family, then you should know... what I have to do really is a small thing..." Wei Zhao explained with a bitter smile.

"All right, I believe you." Only after hearing this did Gu Pengzhan nod. "As for the plane ticket, just call Uncle Qing directly and have him take care of it for you. I must go back now. Since Xie Guangbo won't be standing on Jin Gubang's side any longer, I need to rework my plans — see how best to deal with Jin Gubang."

"Very well. Take care, Uncle Chu." Wei Zhao rose and saw Gu Pengzhan to the door.

Gu Pengzhan waved a hand, exchanged a few parting words with Gu Mengyao, and left the villa.

It was already late. Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu locked the villa's front door, switched off the television, and went yawning upstairs to bed. Wei Zhao sat down at the computer and logged into his phone's mailbox.

As expected, Xie Guangbo had already gathered all of his son's information and sent it to Wei Zhao.

Xie Guangbo's son was named Xie Jinbiao, nineteen years old this year, a student studying abroad. Yet he had now been taken to a remote little town called Blue City.

It was a border town in a small country, and because of its geographical position, law and order there were a complete shambles. The whole town was practically controlled by the local gangs, and that was where Xie Jinbiao had been hauled off to.

And precisely because the town was entirely under gang control, the gang known as the Aqua Blue Gang seemed not to fear revealing their whereabouts to Xie Guangbo at all, nor the place where Xie Jinbiao was being held.

For they reckoned that Xie Guangbo's influence could never reach this far. Even the other gangs nearby would give the Aqua Blue Gang a measure of face, and would not lightly cross the line onto their turf.

Of course, even if Xie Guangbo truly came here looking for someone, the Aqua Blue Gang's leader did not believe he had the means. Once you entered Blue City, whether you lived or died was for the Aqua Blue Gang to say.

The Aqua Blue Gang's headquarters stood in Blue Castle, within Blue City. The castle had a history to it; it had once belonged to the master of this town — a certain great family in the days of its glory. But that was all in the past. Several decades ago, that family offended a formidable existence and was wiped out, root and branch...

It had been a family of immense power; the commercial and political authority of the former Blue City had rested wholly in its hands. So when the family was destroyed, the place fell into a period of chaos.

Some years later, Blue City was seized by the Aqua Blue Gang, and only then did it gradually regain its former order. But a petty gang could never compare with that vast family of old, and so Blue City's economy went into free fall. The Aqua Blue Gang had no choice but to use drugs, gambling, and other such lures to draw tourists from out of town to squander their money here.

Reading the material Xie Guangbo had sent him, Wei Zhao wore a strange smile. Blue City? Blue Castle? The names felt so familiar... According to his master — the killer — he had once wiped out a trash family; but whether they had lived in Blue Castle, Wei Zhao could not clearly recall...

Wei Zhao telephoned Uncle Qing and asked him to book a plane ticket for the following evening. Going and coming back, it should take no more than two days, so it ought not to interfere with attending the Kang family's birthday banquet that weekend.

Wei Zhao found it rather marvellous: the Liu family worked with astonishing speed. Money ready first thing in the morning? Little did he know that Old Master Liu Zhenhu was the pillar of the Liu family; whatever the sum, the old master had to be saved first.

"Grandpa Guan, I understand. I'll be over in a little while," Wei Zhao said. "Let them wait."

Guan Xuemin agreed with a smile, hung up, and relayed Wei Zhao's words to Liu Tianyi. Yet Liu Tianyi was not in the least offended. That was how big men were; what did it matter if he waited a while?

Had Wei Zhao come rushing over the instant he heard the money was ready, Liu Tianyi might even have suspected him of being a swindler. As it was, Wei Zhao's indifferent air struck Liu Tianyi as entirely normal.

A hundred million — had it been any other ordinary youth, he might have been utterly at a loss. What an enormous sum it was! But Wei Zhao had named a hundred million as though it were nothing at all. So Liu Tianyi grew all the more convinced that Wei Zhao was fully confident of curing the old man's illness, and that this was why he dared to name such a price.

Liu Tianyi had Wu Huiru prepare to wake the old master, and at the same time contacted his subordinates to ready the transfer with all speed. If Wei Zhao arrived and the transfer was still not prepared, and Wei Zhao stormed off in a rage, that would be no fun at all.

Wei Zhao set down his phone and rose to go to the kitchen to fix some food. He ate breakfast every day in any case, and always brought a portion back for Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu along the way. Thinking about it, these two girls were rather pitiable: their parents were busy with work out of town, and ordinarily no one looked after them. In their final year of high school, they studied late into the night, badly starved of sleep — what sort of life for young ladies was that?

Clever as they both were, on the single-plank bridge of the college entrance exam there was no shortage of clever people. In the end it came down to who had prepared and reviewed most thoroughly; good marks could not be won on cleverness alone.

This, too, was something Wei Zhao greatly admired in them. Even if they sat out the college entrance exam, with Gu Pengzhan's influence he could easily find them a fine university. Yet the two of them meant to earn good results through their own efforts — a fundamental difference from that good-for-nothing Zhong Yongliang, who did nothing but eat and wait to die.

So, the capable taking on the greater burden, Wei Zhao did not mind seeing to breakfast for these two girls...

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