Chapter 1 “That was… a little over a month ago, I went to that ‘warehouse’ once.” Xiao Tan began his narration. Judging from his speed and expression, that experience was still fresh in his memory; however, when describing the date, he used the rather vague term “a little over a month ago,” indicating that he was unable to reveal the exact time for some reason.

“In other words… before the Gui Xiao kidnapping incident?” Feng Bujue asked.

“Yes.” Xiao Tan nodded in response, “At that time, I didn’t know Dongfeng existed, and what I want to say… has nothing to do with him either.”

“Do you know about this?” Feng Bujue immediately turned to look at Bao Qing and asked.

“I’ve seen the report.” Bao Qing replied, “As for the specifics…” He shrugged, turning his gaze to Xiao Tan, “Since you brought it up, I’ll listen too.”

While the two were talking, Wang Tanzhi picked up a drink from the coffee table, cleared his throat, and continued, “That day, I happened to be off, and Xiao Ling had to go to work…”

“When you say ‘go to work,’ you actually mean – she went to her family’s company to goof off, right?” Before Xiao Tan could finish his first sentence, Brother Jue interrupted him and made a comment.

“Not really…” Xiao Tan replied, “Recently, my future father-in-law has been personally teaching Xiao Ling about management, and she has to study for several hours alone after returning home each time. I feel like her work is more difficult than mine.”

“Hey, can you stop interrupting…” Bao Qing said to Brother Jue, “He only said half a sentence, and you’re already taking the topic far away. And… I find that you have a bit of a stereotypical prejudice against the rich and powerful. Just because a rich second-generation goes to work in their own company, does it mean they’re just wasting time? Do all civil servants spend their days killing, setting fires, and breaking the law?”

“Then have you ever killed anyone, set anything on fire, or broken the law?” Feng Bujue retorted.

“Uh…” Bao Qing hesitated for two seconds, then, in a state of seeming sudden amnesia, turned his face to look at Xiao Tan, “Where were we? You were off that day, right?”

“Hey, hey… looks like the answer is yes, yes, and yes…” Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes and muttered to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud, lest the topic be drawn into an argument.

“Yes.” On the other side, Xiao Tan also took the opportunity to continue, “That day, I was just about to have lunch when I suddenly received a call… the caller ID showed ‘Unknown Number,’ which I had never encountered before. Although I suspected it might be a sales call or a scam, according to Brother Jue’s principle of ‘consider all possibilities,’ I answered it anyway.”

“What does his principle have to do with whether you answer the phone or not?” Hearing this, Bao Qing couldn’t help but wonder, “In the end… isn’t that just immediately building up a psychological defense line called ‘Given my luck, it’s hard to say how unlucky I might be, so let me assume the worst-case scenario’ when encountering an unknown situation…”

“Yes.” Xiao Tan replied in a very ordinary tone, “The assumption I had in mind at the time was… maybe my parents were lost abroad, or had encountered a shipwreck or a mountain disaster, or had been put in a coffin and buried alive underground… and all they had was a phone with an unknown number and only one bar of battery left. In that moment, they would probably call me.”

“Sigh…” Bao Qing sighed, shook his head, picked up his cup of tea from the coffee table, took a sip, “Can’t help it, after all, he grew up with Feng Bujue, so mental pollution is inevitable…”

“Hey, weren’t you also raised with us?” Feng Bujue immediately retorted.

“That’s why…” Bao Qing continued, “Since I was ten years old, I’ve been applying to the organization for regular professional psychological counseling and mental assessments.”

“Oh, not bad.” Feng Bujue raised his eyebrows and said.

“Of course ~ ‘Not bad’ is right.” Bao Qing emphasized, “After all, I’m a genius teenage special agent. If an ordinary person were to infiltrate your life… even if their identity wasn’t exposed, their spirit would have collapsed long ago.”

“What do you mean ‘genius teenage special agent’?” Feng Bujue curled his lips and said, “I never saw you use a tranquilizer to shoot down adults with anesthetic needles when you were in elementary school, then pull out a voice changer to solve cases, did I?”

“Nonsense, in the real world, which elementary school student has murder cases happening around them all year round?” Bao Qing said, then, as if remembering something, paused for two seconds and added, “Uh… even if there were some murder cases around me, they were basically all related to you, okay? I knew from the beginning that it was you, the surveillance target, who did it. Who would I shoot?”

“Hmm…” At this time, Feng Bujue also pondered for two seconds, then, as if he had amnesia again, turned his face to look at Xiao Tan again, “Where were we? You answered the phone?”

Seeing this, Bao Qing rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.

This is what often happens when the three of them chat together. They can talk for an hour about something that can be explained in ten minutes because of their habit of intermittent digressions and mutual taunting…

Xiao Tan was used to it anyway. If it were Bao Qing telling the story today, it would be his and Brother Jue’s turn to argue… the result would be the same.

“Anyway… I answered the phone.” Xiao Tan once again picked up the topic and continued, “And on the other end of the phone… was Xiao Ling’s grandfather.”

“Gu Chen?”

“Section Chief Gu?”

Feng Bujue and Bao Qing blurted out two different titles at the same moment, and they were obviously referring to the same person.

“Yes.” Xiao Tan nodded, “I’ve met him a few times before, and he told me a lot – such as the affairs of the Ninth Division, the matter of spiritual power, and the Demon Hunters, the Borderliners, etc…”

“Oh…” Hearing this, Feng Bujue’s expression changed slightly, and he asked, “Did he happen to pass on a set of gongfa to you while he was at it?”

“No, he didn’t.” Xiao Tan replied.

“I see…” Brother Jue muttered, stroking his chin, and at the same time, he was thinking, “Could it be that the *Dunjia Tianshu* has a rule that it can only be passed down to one person? If I give it to you, I can’t give it to anyone else? Or… does Section Chief Gu think Xiao Tan doesn’t have enough talent? Or… does he not like this grandson-in-law?”

“Also… I feel like he doesn’t like me very much.” Two seconds later, Xiao Tan answered Brother Jue’s doubts without being asked, “So it’s not surprising that he didn’t pass on any gongfa to me, right?”

“Oh?” Brother Jue said strangely, “You, the Mr. Popular, beloved by young and old, he actually finds you displeasing?”

“Uh… he didn’t explicitly say that he didn’t like me.” Xiao Tan said with a pensive look.

“Heh… I understand.” Bao Qing immediately said with the expression of someone who’s been there, “Our Section Chief expressed it to you through actions, right?”

“Yes.” Xiao Tan replied, “The first time we met, he dragged me into an interrogation room and beat me up, and when I felt like I was about to die, he used spiritual power to heal me.”

“This was to let you experience the existence of spiritual power firsthand, so that it would be easier to explain later, right?” Feng Bujue replied.

“There was no need, I already knew about the setting of spiritual power at that time.” Xiao Tan replied, “Xiao Ling had told me a lot about it.”

“Then did you ask him why he did that?” Feng Bujue asked.

“I asked.” Xiao Tan said, “He threw me a cryptic answer, saying something like – ‘Beautiful women and virgins are as obvious as lipstick on a shirt collar.’”

“What does that mean?” Bao Qing also asked curiously.

“Ah… I asked that question after hearing those words.” Xiao Tan replied, “As a result, after I asked… he beat me up again.”

“No way…” Bao Qing also looked puzzled, and murmured, “Although Section Chief Gu often does things full of malice, they are all very purposeful… he is definitely not the kind of person who is fickle… this doesn’t make sense.”

“I still don’t understand what those two beatings were all about.” Xiao Tan spread his hands and said.

At this moment, among the three people present, only Feng Bujue… after a little thought, figured out the reason.

A few seconds later, Brother Jue chuckled and leaned close to Bao Qing’s ear, quietly saying a few words in a low voice.

“Oh –” Bao Qing immediately pretended to suddenly understand, “So that’s it… hmm… understandable, understandable.”

“I’m right, aren’t I~” Feng Bujue said to Bao Qing, “You’re a father, and yet your reaction isn’t as fast as mine.”

“Eh?” This time, Xiao Tan was completely dumbfounded, “Eh, eh, eh, eh?” He shouted several times, looking at Feng Bujue and saying, “What’s going on? You actually figured it out as soon as you heard it?”

“Yes, I figured it out.” Feng Bujue nodded and replied.

“Then why is that?” Xiao Tan quickly asked.

“Hehe…” Feng Bujue smiled, but did not answer his question, but suddenly started talking about his own affairs, “Do you know… that the progress between me and your Sister Yu has been stagnant for a long time?”

“Uh…” Xiao Tan was stunned again, “I know, but does this have anything to do with my question?”

“The relationship is…” Feng Bujue’s eyes suddenly changed, and he stared at Xiao Tan with eyes as big as copper bells, “If you ask such a stupid question again, I will immediately use the martial arts personally taught by Section Chief Gu to beat you up.”

“I’ll be responsible for calling the ambulance after you beat him up, and I’ll also help you testify that it was self-defense.” Bao Qing chimed in.

“Huh?” Xiao Tan was completely dumbfounded at this moment, and didn’t react for a long time.

Fortunately… he has never been the kind of person who wants to get to the bottom of everything. In many things, even if he suffers a loss, he will just laugh it off. As long as it doesn’t involve any principles, he won’t take it to heart; therefore, this topic stopped here, and Xiao Tan didn’t ask any further questions.

At this time, no one thought that… it wasn’t until decades later that Wang Tanzhi unraveled the truth of this matter; and at that time… he was using family martial arts to beat up Feng Bujue’s son.

Of course, those things may not appear in this book, so we will just mention it in passing.

“Okay… then I’ll continue talking about the matter.” Xiao Tan continued, “I received the call that day at noon, and I hadn’t even eaten my meal when I was called to a strange address by Section Chief Gu.”

“The phrase ‘a strange address’ means you can’t let me know, right?” Feng Bujue asked.

“Yes, the date and location must be kept secret.” Xiao Tan continued, “Anyway… I was called to the ‘warehouse’ just like that.” He paused for half a second, and then said, “After arriving there, I didn’t see anything strange, because from the outside, it was just a very ordinary building; the gatekeeper was a kind-looking old man, and he opened the gate and waved for me to enter without me even rolling down the car window. So, I drove into the warehouse, found a parking space, and parked the car. After getting out of the car, an uncle named Zhang Zhiang came over and led me into the warehouse.”

“Wait a minute…” Feng Bujue said, “You can’t say the time and place, but you’re just saying the full name of the agent like that?”

“Hehe…” Xiao Tan chuckled, and replied with narrowed eyes, “Brother Jue, you certainly won’t realize it just by hearing ‘Zhang Zhiang,’ but you’ll understand when I say a few more names of the warehouse staff.” He paused for a second, and then said, “The other employees in this warehouse are – Li Leyi, Zhou Zhiou, Su Siwu…”

“Holy sh*t?” After hearing three more names, Feng Bujue discovered the pattern, “These names are all the pinyin pronunciation of the surnames?”

“Actually…” At this time, Bao Qing interjected, “Our aliases aren’t all like this.” He explained, “Because some surnames would sound very strange when combined with pinyin pronunciations as names, such as ‘Yu Yuyu’…”

“What? Still ‘Yu Yuyu’?” Brother Jue couldn’t wait for the other party to finish speaking before retorting, “So people named Yu Yuyu are actually special agents? Eh? That’s not right… so, people who are given names like that are all special agents using aliases? Then what about Diao Deyi (a character in *Shajiabang*)? Counter-espionage?”

“Let me finish speaking first…” Bao Qing also knew that Brother Jue was joking, so he didn’t correct the fact that Diao Deyi was a fictional character in a model opera, and just continued, “Because some characters are not easy to break down into pinyin, or they sound too strange when read out, so we also have another type of alias, which is based on the radicals; for example, Feng Er Ma, Liu Wen Dao, Xu Yan Wu, and so on.”

“Ho…” Feng Bujue widened his eyes and thought for a few seconds, “So, what about people with the surname Man (满)? Should he be given the alias ‘Man Mo An’ (the pinyin pronunciation of the surname Man repeated three times)? Or should he simply change his name to ‘Cao Liang San’ (literally ‘grass two three’)?”

“Why do you care about that?” Bao Qing glanced at Brother Jue and said, “Don’t worry, a devil like you will never be specially recruited by us, so you don’t need to consider this issue.”

Unexpectedly, at this time, Xiao Tan looked at Bao Qing and said, “Lord Bao…” His expression was particularly serious, “In case I am recruited by you in the future, I don’t want to be called Wang Gan Yi (literally ‘Wang dry one’).”

“What’s the use of telling me!” Bao Qing was startled, “Continue talking about your trip to the warehouse! Warehouse!”