691 A Puff Of Smoke

"Please tell me you have some information about the north. I'm desperate to hear some actual news about it." Jin beckoned Hou Fei to follow him to the Dungeon Maker where they had enough privacy to talk about this.

"It would be bad if you actually heard anything about it yet. Considering how serious the government is suppressing every bit of information about this at the moment. It has reached a level where they have banned a few reporters who stumbled on this." Hou Fei said as he laid back on a chair and took a cigarette out.

"You mind?" Hou Fei asked, and Jin shook his head. "If you have heard any rumours about the monster horde, then they are right on the money."

"I've heard multiple rumours, but the scale of them is a bit frightening. For you guys to insist on using my untested portal devices to keep up the secrecy, kind of shows that you all must be more than just a little desperate."

"We are. In fact, we're also considering sending Demon Exorcists in the vicinity to take a closer look at the situation. While it falls in our jurisdiction to eliminate the threat, we have no idea how the hell they have managed to increase their numbers this quickly." Hou Fei took the first puff, and he felt his lungs finally relax.

"Hmm, it just so happens that I've sent out a small group of demon exorcists on my side to take a look at the situation. Technically, their mission is to check out something probably unrelated, but I suppose they could examine the problem and provide us with some perspective on it while on site." Jin suggested, and Hou Fei squinted his eyes.

"You have a group of demon exorcists under your command? That is… quite a surprise. They're an elite bunch of pricks who always undermine the military or police, thinking that they are the best of the best." Hou Fei complained, seemingly having had too many encounters with them to comfortably rely on them.

"So do you think they are all that bad?" Jin asked as he showed Hou Fei his own Demon Exorcist badge. Hou Fei laughed, but not in a funny way, probably to cover his disgust for his master.

"You joined them out of your own volition or was it forced upon you?" Hou Fei questioned back as if he had an inkling of what must have happened.

"Erm, Grandma Yuan made me joined her...after all-"

"Yeah, Big Sis Yuan can be a royal pain in the ass. She has ways to…'convince' us to her bidding." Hou Fei thought back on all the times and how he was roped into performing errands for her. Not always willingly and not always even being aware of it until he finished.

"There shouldn't be that much bad blood, considering you called her Big Sis...?" Jin suddenly recalled about the crumpled piece of paper that had been thrown into the Black Tortoise of the North. Perhaps, he could pry a little on the relationship between Ming and Yuan from Hou Fei through this conversation.

"Oh, you didn't know? Ming and Yuan were childhood friends… And guess what? This was actually supposed to be a secret which he leaked out when he was drunk. Considering that he isn't here anymore, I don't mind sharing it with you. Your old man Ming had been head over heels for her, but Big Sis Yuan never treated him as such. Hahaha! And Yuan never knew his feelings for her, as she always thought that he was behaving as her equal."

"You mean not a little bit?"

"I eventually got more out of Ming even though he obviously lied claiming it was just a short periodical moment that he had a crush on her. After which, he found the love of his life and Yuan became only a battle companion of the System." Hou Fei felt a little nostalgic over the whole conversation and decided to take another stick. Thankfully, the Dungeon Maker could make an impromptu ventilation system, so the place was not stuffed with smoke.

"Is Yuan married or something? What was Grandma like? Do you happen to have a picture of her?" Jin asked, and Hou Fei felt uncomfortable from the sudden bombardment of questions. He then realised that Jin knew nothing about his elders at all.

"Ahhh. I can't believe those two continued to be this secretive throughout their lives, even to the extent of misunderstanding each other at times. That's really their shared bad point." Hou Fei lamented as he flicked the burnt butt on a cigarette dish which the System had prepared.

"Tell you what, I will be happy to gossip about their private lives when we are less busy. For now, let's concentrate on the matter at hand." Hou Fei promised as he took out his phone and showed him an email. It contained a series of satellite images that showed how the Monster Horde was growing exponentially.

"We have a few private contractors that have reduced their numbers significantly, but a group of them can only do that much. If the horde is coming towards them, I trust that they can handle themselves. However, for some reason, this horde displays remarkable intelligence. After their first encounter, the private contractors were forced to search and hunt them down despite their growing numbers. It was just like they knew someone was out there to hurt them…" Hou Fei started his report despite the need to keep them secret. Besides, he believed Jin would learn about it sooner or later anyway.

"We have restricted the airspace above it in case of any flying creatures or those sorts but as of now there are no signs of this, yet we are remaining on alert. Though the border guards are on full alert, they have yet to increase their manpower unnecessarily." Hou Fei continued as he asked for his phone back.

"Also, the disaster committee had mandated that we will start our operation next week, so you are lucky that my troops and I will be free for the fight."

"Heh! If not for the portal device thing, you guys would have been travelling up north already." Jin countered Hou Fei's 'benevolent' behaviour.

"Aww shucks, can't you let me play a saint once in a while. I have always been the bad guy for quite a lot of stuff." Hou Fei sighed with a pleading tone.

"It comes with the position of a general, I guess."

"Props to your granddad for being so capable in raising a successor." Hou Fei grinned. He laid his head back on the chair and took his last puff before the cigarette died out.

"So, is it true, your portal device truly works? Or are you just using the System's magic to make it happen?"

"Yeah, it does work even without the aid of the System, but I have also placed a few failsafe methods just in case of people trying to sabotage or copy our designs. Oh yea, the System has been upgrading the activation key with the help of Kraft. Now we will know exactly who uses which portal device and when. You should warn them not to pry in too deeply into our secrets. I think you know how trigger happy Kraft can be, especially after being bored for a while..."

"Sounds like you are stricter than the government. But the big daddies will love you for such tracking information."

"No matter what they do, they can only control people up to a certain extent. It's more of the act itself than the actions it could perform. Besides, the failsafe key now acts more as a guarantee for me." Jin said as he typed a few things on the screen and showed Hou Fei.

"Ke Loong is the main honcho for this matter, and while I believe they should be contacting your Human Resources soon enough, this is what's going to happen," Jin explained to Hou Fei about the container trucks he was going to insert the portal instances in, and asked if there were any specifications that needed to be followed.

"Ah, I will get the biggest dimensions of the tanks, 3-tonners and other miscellaneous vehicles and get back to you asap so you do not have wasted your time remodifying the container trucks. Other than that, I believe your plan should be fine. I honestly hope that you won't get involved in this mess any more than you already, seeing that you have your hands full with other nonsense."

"I hope so too." Jin agreed. (Hardly believing it though)