Chapter 17

Translator: Lordbluefire

Night gradually fell and the autumn wind swept across the capital’s bridge. Right now, Qing Chen stretched his body as he ran, and the wind would blow his clothes back.

Perhaps it was because his mental state was different, but he felt like…

The shackles that his family and environment had placed on him were slowly being unlocked.

Qing Chen ran faster and faster.

Occasionally, some people on the bridge would turn around to look at him. Everyone could feel his inexplicable youthfulness, which was impulsive and rich.

Yinrun Central Garden was one of the most expensive districts in Luo City. It was also a famous district where wealthy people lived.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising for Huang Jixian to live here since he was a rich second-generation heir.

The security here was relatively strict. One needed to swipe their card to enter and leave.

Because of it, Qing Chen went around to the back entrance to see if there was a way in.

However, before he could figure out how to enter, he saw six men in black suits walking out of the small path at the back entrance of the district.

These people were upright and looked as sharp as bayonets.

As they walked, their six footsteps were in unison. The time they took to raise their feet was identical, and the distance of their steps was as if it had been measured with a ruler.

Wait a minute… Qing Chen was stunned. It was because he saw that these six men were holding a young man… Huang Jixian!

Huang Jixian seemed to be in a daze, his mouth mumbling strange words like ‘prison’, ‘mechanical’, ‘monsters’…

They quickly boarded the two black off-road vehicles outside the back entrance. One of them seemed to have sensed something and turned his head to look in Qing Chen’s direction from the front passenger seat.

Qing Chen immediately turned his head and played with his phone as if nothing was wrong.

Luckily, the other party seemed to not be paying him much heed. The two black vehicles sped off in the night.

As for Qing Chen, he stood outside the small district’s entrance, looking at his phone and not saying a word.

Who were those people?

Why did they take Huang Jixian away?

Was it because he was a transmigrator?

It must be because of this. Qing Chen didn’t believe in coincidences.

He then turned to head home.

On the way back, he pondered about the identities of the men in black. However, he gradually noticed that something was amiss.

A young man in a black sweatshirt had been secretly following him for five streets.

There was a strange sense of familiarity… He had seen this person before.

Suddenly, Qing Chen felt all the muscles on his body tensing up. The invisible sense of pressure was corroding his sense of security

It was as if he had been targeted by a wild beast.

He recalled that when he had met the men in black at the back entrance of Yinrun Central Garden, this guy had been looking at his phone not far away. However, his finger had not moved to scroll the screen at all.

Qing Chen couldn’t analyze everything he had seen down to every minute and every second. However, he could draw out his memories.

At the thought of this, Qing Chen pretended to pick up his phone casually and stood on the spot to make a call. “Hello? I’ll be home later for dinner…”

His cap hid his face in the shadows.

After he stopped, the young man in a black sweatshirt continued to walk past him without stopping.

Qing Chen locked his gaze on the other party from the corner of his eyes. However, the latter didn’t turn back a single time.

This made Qing Chen feel a little puzzled. For a moment, he thought that he had been thinking too much.

On the busy street, the man in the black sweatshirt quickly disappeared from sight, so Qing Chen hung up the call and continued to walk forward.

Thankfully, Qing Chen had changed out of his uniform and put on a cap after he reached home. Otherwise, this man would have known that he was a student from the Luo City Foreign Language School just from his uniform.

However, before Qing Chen could relax, he noticed another familiar face appearing at the next juncture in front of the traffic lights. This person was amongst the crowd waiting for the green light.

It was someone he had seen at the Yinrun Central Garden’s front entrance.

It wasn’t a coincidence.

It was a cross-tailing.

Each person who was in charge of the tailing would only do so for a journey. They’d have to make sure that they were like any other passersby and not be discovered. If the target were to stop, the tail would continue forward as if nothing was wrong. Another member would then come to fill up the gap from the back.

This was one of the most secure ways of tailing.

Qing Chen was very thankful that he had read many miscellaneous books of all kinds.

He finally understood that when the man on the off-road vehicle saw him, he was already targeted.

More than six of them had gone there, with some of them hidden in the dark.

Was this some kind of secret organization? They were so well-trained and also paid so much attention to matters concerning transmigrators.

Qing Chen suddenly felt that he might not be the first batch of transmigrators. He might be from the second or even third batch.

Otherwise, even if someone were to find out about transmigrators today, they wouldn’t be able to react so quickly on the day itself.

These people came prepared.

The young man’s black pupils were dark and deep. In the surroundings, there was someone doing night jogging on the sidewalks, an uncle selling tanghulu* at the roadside, a beautiful lady striding in high heels, and the flicking brightness and shadows next to the yellow street lamp.

He recalled every single detail and reminded himself that he mustn’t make a mistake.

There were 12 more seconds before the green light.

The man in the black sweatshirt who had passed by Qing Chen earlier was likely to have made a detour to the road behind him, preparing to fill up the gap for the next cross-tailing.

Taking into consideration that the man would have to pass by Wangchunmen Street, Zhenghe Road, and Kaiyuan Boulevard, at the rate of an adult man’s running, he’d need at most ten minutes to get into position.

Hence, if Qing Chen wished to break free from their tailing…

Now was the time!

The green light lit up and the tail was about to cross the road when Qing Chen suddenly turned around and walked away.

The tail continued to cross the road as if nothing happened. He said in a soft voice, “The target didn’t cross the road. He turned back. How quickly can you reach your position?”

He looked like he was mumbling to himself. However, if one took a closer look, they’d be able to notice a translucent earphone in his left ear.

“This won’t work. I’ll need another two minutes before I can get into the tailing position.”

In that instant, the tail who was crossing the road noticed something amiss. He suddenly turned back to look for Qing Chen’s figure but couldn’t see a trace of that young man anymore.

“We’ve lost him.” The tail who was at the road juncture sighed.

The young man in the black sweatshirt who was running at full speed in the distance smiled and replied, “This is so embarrassing. We’ve lost track of him even with two people tailing after him.”

“You’re the one who insisted on keeping an eye on him.”

The young man smiled and said, “Then do you want to make a guess if he noticed that we were tailing after him?”

The voice rang out from his earphone. “I’m certain that he has noticed us. He’s an expert.”

The young man in the black sweatshirt gave it some thought before saying, “That young man looks to be just 17 or 18 years old. He might still be in high school. If he really noticed that we were tailing him, he was too incredible. Moreover, did you realize? He dealt with things very naturally. When he first stopped to make a call, I didn’t know that he had noticed me. Otherwise, I’d have taken him under control at that time.”

“I’m very curious why you suddenly had the thought of tailing him. We have quite a lot of assignments today and there isn’t a need for us to waste our time on a passerby.”

“It wasn’t a decision made in the spur of the moment. It’s just that when the team leader and the others escorted target #009 out, I noticed he averted Boss’s gaze.”

Footnotes:

[1] Tanghulu, also called bingtanghulu, is a traditional Northern Chinese candied fruit snack.