Chapter 99: A Striking Presence in the Crowd

Chu Ning’s thinking was simple enough. Since he had already crossed the line into killing, he might as well cast aside all restraint and be done with worldly scruples. His plan was equally straightforward: when they left, he would deliberately start a fire and burn every corpse to ash.

A chemical plant would surely have abandoned chemical residues scattered about, and those were all highly flammable and explosive hazards. Their force would be enough to obliterate the evidence completely.

Not long after Chu Ning and the others had gone, the bodies on the ground had vanished without a trace, leaving only a few twisted white worms behind. The man following behind Chu Ning looked down at the ground with lingering fear, carefully avoiding the writhing insects as he continued to tail them.

In a daze, he muttered, “Could this be a new experimental product?” He stared at the white worms with dread, and at last, with a heavy expression, kept on after them.

“There’s something going on ahead. Let’s go take a look,” Tanya said. She could not ignore the crowd gathering in front of them, since the target was far too conspicuous. She could not pretend not to see it and simply walk past.

A large number of people had gathered at the workshop area of the chemical plant, far more than the ones who had openly shown themselves. Tanya could not help but sigh at how greed could drive people to their deaths. Such a crowd had been drawn here, both in the open and in the shadows.

Chu Ning smiled and strolled over slowly. Seeing the factions that had been at each other’s throats earlier now set aside their grievances and arguing fiercely over how to capture the target, he immediately knew something was fishy. Otherwise, these people would never be sitting down and discussing matters so calmly.

Human beings only manage to reach common ground when faced with a problem too difficult to solve alone, joining forces to confront the challenge together. In all other situations, infighting is inevitable rather than cooperation. That, too, is a helpless reality.

“What’s going on here? Can someone explain?” Chu Ning raised his hands to make himself look less threatening, showing that he meant them no harm. His gaze lingered on Zhaoqing for a moment before moving to the others present.

All eyes in the crowd turned to Tanya, leaving her staring at them in stunned disbelief. Chu Ning had been the one to ask the question, so why were they all staring straight at her?

She felt a little awkward. They were not playing a game of statues, so why were they all just standing there and looking at her? Just as she was about to break the silence and ease her embarrassment—

Chu Ning rescued her with his question. He blinked and asked in confusion, “Why has everyone gone quiet? Who can answer my question?” He found it especially puzzling, as though those people had all been struck by a freezing spell.

“Ahem.”

Zhaoqing coughed twice and withdrew his gaze from Tanya. Though he still did not understand why the man before him had brought along a ghost, it did not stop him from assessing its value. If the current target were not more important, Zhaoqing would absolutely have captured the female ghost and sold her.

He would never pass up such a good chance to make money. When the profit was rich enough, people could easily ignore the difficulties in front of them. Even the biggest problems ceased to be problems. One would abandon one’s usual bottom line entirely, and it could stir a person’s potential to the utmost.

“Sorry. I was merely curious,” Zhaoqing said with a slight bow, apologizing. He really had been a little out of line. Still, it was not entirely his fault. Mixing a ghost in among a group of humans would surely arouse anyone’s curiosity.

As for the ghost’s possible danger, in the eyes of these bounty hunters the lure of money was bright enough to make them ignore the risk.

“That’s fine. You ought to tell me what this is all about,” Chu Ning said loosely. He did not believe for a second that these people would cooperate with one another in any affectionate sense. He was only laying bare the inevitable truth; everyone understood that already.

“We’ve lost some of our people,” Zhaoqing said gravely. At this point, there was no need for him to keep pretending to be some brainless rich fool, and no need to continue acting. His strength had already been revealed, and there was no point in hiding it any longer.

“Lost some of your people? Could they have been killed?” Chu Ning’s eyes were sharp as he looked toward the representatives of the various factions opposite him. He had reason to believe someone had eliminated the competition ahead of time, so the mission would proceed more smoothly.

As for what he himself had done, striking a finishing blow was hardly an unforgivable sin. If one were to be strict about it, he had only directly killed one person. The others who were left half-dead had merely been helped along, made to face death a little earlier.

When they met Chu Ning’s questioning gaze, some people’s eyes flickered, and they did not dare meet his directly. They looked away as if by accident, while others made small, unseen movements. The best among them kept their faces impassive and held Chu Ning’s gaze without betraying a thing.

“No. If it were only hostile competition, that would not be enough to fear. We all understand that much. Whoever seizes the target first is simply relying on skill, and death means one’s abilities were inferior. We would not all be gathered here discussing it. By the rules of the underworld, that would have been enough.”

Zhaoqing had always been the spokesman. Since he had previously shown a hand and won everyone’s recognition for his strength, it was only natural that he handled the negotiations. No one here fancied themselves a leader capable of taking his place, and no one would deliberately pick a fight with him. On top of that, when all was counted, they were still enemies.

“I mean exactly what I said. They vanished completely inside this chemical plant. Not even their corpses remain, and there is no proof left that they ever existed,” Zhaoqing said with a dark, chilly smile.

That was the real problem.

They could not accept such inexplicable disappearances. Anything beyond their control always left people uneasy. That was why they had come together in the first place: the disappearances were simply too eerie.