Book 4, Chapter 242: The Bodies In The Icy Plains

After having lunch at Cheng Zitong’s place, Chen Chuan left.

When he stepped outside, the warmth from the sun was just right. Birds sang on the branches. This time, he didn’t hide himself as he walked to the exit.

On the way, he saw two old men sitting by a stone table. Each of them had a teapot. While they chatted, they squinted as they basked in the sun.

When they saw Chen Chuan walk past, they were so stunned that their eyes flew wide open.

Chen Chuan nodded at them. “Happy New Year, Sirs.”

The two old men stood up and said, “Yes! Happy New Year!”

Even after Chen Chuan left, they remained stunned. After a while, one of them said excitedly, “Did you see that, Lao Qian?”

“I did, and stop smacking me, Lao He! You’re going to break these old bones!” The other old man quickly stepped a little further away.

Lao He grabbed his beard and said brightly, “That’s a martial arts master, and he just wished us a Happy New Year! I can die happy now, haha!”

Lao Qian nodded.

Unlike regular people, the retired lecturers of Martial Valor University knew just what martial arts masters represented. To them, the director of the Defense Bureau was high and all, but that was about it. Plenty of people could get to that position. But martial arts masters? This wasn’t a limit everyone could get to.

A martial arts master’s position in a martial artist’s heart was irreplaceable.

It was only when the two old men could no longer see Chen Chuan that they looked at each other and grinned. Now, they could boast about it for the entire New Year. No. They could boast about it for the rest of their lives.

Lao He took a look behind him. “He came out of Mr. Cheng’s house, didn’t he? Mr. Cheng really struck gold taking in this mentee. Did you hear? Mr. Cheng once went to Lao Qiao’s house to get his mentee a saber manual, but Lao Qiao said that while he could give it, Mr. Cheng’s mentee would have to become his disciple’s lackey. Heh. He must be feeling so embarrassed now.”

“Definitely. Why do you think Lao Qiao went to Central City with his disciple in such a hurry last year? It was to save his dignity. He’s probably still thinking about how to get it back.”

“I heard about that. Honestly, why is Lao Qiao competing with Mr. Cheng? They studied under the same master. They could have just talked to each other.”

“Don’t you understand? They’re not competing. They’re fighting over who took the right path, so neither of them can back down.”

“I’ll say it, then. Lao Qiao needs to give up on the fight. His disciple will never be able to reach the height Mr. Cheng’s mentee has reached. It’s not embarrassing to admit defeat, anyway.”

“Admit defeat? There’s no way he’ll do that. But hiding is one way to do things. ‘As long as I don’t see it, I haven’t lost!’ Isn’t that right?”

While they were talking, they suddenly saw cars coming over.

Lao He took a look. “Huh? Isn’t that Director He’s car? Is he here to visit someone for the New Year? Are pigs flying? The Resolution Department usually only sends a few officers to go through the motions. Why is he here today?”

Just then, they thought of something and exchanged meaningful looks. It was common knowledge that He Fen was power-hungry, so it was clear just whose ass he had come to kiss.

However, they couldn’t blame He Fen for that. He simply wanted to get promoted.

When Chen Chuan left, he also saw the motorcade and its owner, but he had no interest in running into them, so he walked along the path leading to the dorms.

One of the students staying there had just finished training and was sitting by a window drinking water. By complete chance, he looked down, and his expression froze.

Then, he jumped in excitement. “Senior Chen! It’s Senior Chen!”

When he started to shout, Chen Chuan turned around to look at him. He smiled and gave the student a nod, which made the youth so excited that he started vibrating while trying to wave.

A moment later, Chen Chuan vanished from sight, and he ran out of his room. He didn’t even take the elevator but ran down the stairs. When he got outside, he looked around for a bit, but Chen Chuan was no longer around, and he felt a little sad.

But after standing around for a while, he became excited again and ran to the public phone under the dorm. Once he grabbed the phone receiver, he dialed a number and asked eagerly, “Guess who I saw today?”

***

After Chen Chuan left the university, he spent the rest of his time in the city meeting old friends.

Most of them became reserved and treated him like a stranger after learning about his current status, only Ding Jiao treated him the same as before.

In Ding Jiao’s words, “Who cares what position you have? You’re still the same Chen Chuan I know. You were my best friend, and you will always be my best friend.”

Chen Chuan told him that his family was going to move away, and Ding Jiao immediately felt sad. In the past, even after Chen Chuan moved to Central City, he would come back once a year, but once his family moved away, he was unlikely to go back again.

Chen Chuan gave Ding Jiao his private telephone number and telegraph frequency before telling him to call him if anything happened. If Ding Jiao ever wanted to go to Central City, all he needed to do was give Chen Chuan a heads-up, and he would arrange it. At the end, he also promised to come back. No matter what, this was his hometown, and his old house was still here. He had to come back to visit it.

***

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Chen Chuan had started making arrangements for his family to move to Central City. However, while he was doing this, Zhu Xian called him and asked him to go to the Department of Administrative Affairs. A representative from Enclosed Shore had come asking his help for something urgent.

Chen Chuan didn’t know what it was, but based on Zhu Xian’s tone, words, and the fact that Enclosed Shore was involved, he could guess that this was no simple matter.

So, he said that he was going to come immediately. Since his family was using his SUV, he grabbed a car the Constabulary had sent to him and headed to the Department of Administrative Affairs. Once there, Xiao Pan brought him to the reception room.

Aside from Zhu Xian, there was another person waiting for him. The moment Chen Chuan walked in, the man stepped forward and shook his hand. “Director Chen, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Bao Ning, director of Enclosed Shore’s Yangzhi City branch.”

Chen Chuan observed him. Bao Ning was in his forties, and most of his face was covered in decorative implanted skin. He was lean and had a prominent jaw. His hair was also spiky. Half of it was white, while the other half green. Such an appearance was rare in Yangzhi City, but it was common in Central City.

Bao Ning said, “I’m sorry for asking you to come here today, Director Chen, but we ran into an accident. Since you’re the director of the Defense Bureau, we had to ask you for help.”

“What happened?” Chen Chuan asked.

Bao Ning extended a hand, and his assistant handed him a hardcover file. Bao Ning handed it to Chen Chuan with both hands. “Director Chen, these are our records of the incident. Please take a look.”

Chen Chuan skimmed through them and raised an eyebrow, because the incident was the one Nian Fuli had told him about. Chen Chuan had been thinking about looking into it once he returned to Central City. It was a surprise that Enclosed Shore came to him with it on their own.

The report spoke about Enclosed Shore building a railway in the north. However, on one stretch of the road, they dug out two people from the snow.

There were two stacks of photos in the report, so Chen Chuan saw the man and woman in question. They were both huge. Their clothes were made of special material in the style of nomads, but he couldn’t see whether they were loose or fitted.

One of them had white hair, while the other had yellowish hair. Both had tall noses and deep-set eyes, making it clear that they weren’t from the Eastern Continent.

Bao Ning said, “Once we discovered them, we hired professional analysts, and they suspected them to be martial arts masters from ancient times. What’s even more shocking is that they had some vital signs. We moved them onto a train to send them to the headquarters, but two days ago, an unknown organization attacked the train transporting them. They have gone missing ever since. We don’t know whether they woke up and fled on their own, or the unknown organization took them.”

“Since they had vital signs and were identified as martial arts masters, this makes it an extremely dangerous case. As a state-owned enterprise, you have a martial arts master in your company. Why didn’t you send him to protect the train?” Chen Chuan asked.

Bao Ning ducked his head down and said regretfully, “We were careless and didn’t consider it important enough. Since they only displayed weak biosignals, we thought that we’d be fine. That’s why such a thing happened. We’re really sorry! We’ll cover for all the losses caused by the incident.”

He bowed.

Chen Chuan gave him a meaningful look. He knew what companies like his were thinking. This didn’t happen because they didn’t treat it with enough importance. It happened precisely because it was too important.

He didn’t have a hard time figuring it out. After Enclosed Shore discovered the two people, they must have thought that they held incredible value for research. It was best to do that in private, but the branch company didn’t have the right conditions, so they had to ship the two people to the headquarters.

If they wanted the transportation to be safe, they needed to transfer their martial arts master over, but if they did that, it would leave a record in the National Martial Artists Council’s data. They didn’t want the world to know about their discovery, so they skipped this step.

Chen Chuan checked the records. Enclosed Shore had discovered the two people at the end of November and only sent them back to the headquarters a few days ago. It seemed like they did it in a hurry too, which gave him reason to suspect that it was because they heard about him coming back to Yangzhi City and were worried that he would ask about this after hearing the rumors. This explained their hurry all too well.

The rush resulted in the two people going missing. Once the situation slipped out from under their control, they came to him for help.

The two were unidentified martial arts masters with unknown motives, so if they were still alive, it would be dangerous to let them wander around. This concerned Jibei Road’s safety, so Chen Chuan couldn’t just ignore it as the director of the Defense Bureau. He needed to think of a way to find them and subdue them.

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