Celestial Human Diagram-Chapter 71 - 61: Fragments

Old Mi tensed up at the sight of the dark muzzle pointed at him. He slowly raised both hands, showing he was no threat, and stammered, "Wait, the item isn’t on me! It’s useless even if you kill me..."

Ren Xiaotian acted as if he hadn’t heard him. "I’ll count to three," he said. "If you don’t bring it out, I’ll kill you. One..."

"Whoa, whoa, don’t shoot! I told you, the item isn’t on me..." Old Mi sounded deeply wronged.

"Two..."

"I’m telling you, it’s really not on me..." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Three!"

"Stop, stop, stop! I’ll get it! I’ll get it!"

As Ren Xiaotian reached three, his finger already preparing to pull the trigger, Old Mi saw he was serious and cried out.

Ren Xiaotian’s finger froze on the trigger. He stared at the man. "The item!"

Old Mi said, "It’s not on me! Wait, wait, it’s over there... I’ll have them bring it over..."

Under Ren Xiaotian’s watchful gaze, he carefully lowered one hand, slowly pulled a red cloth from his pocket, raised it over his head, and waved it more than ten times toward the area behind him.

Chen Chuan saw them. About two or three hundred meters away, two people climbed out from a hole in the ground. They were holding something that looked like a box and started walking toward them.

Ren Xiaotian didn’t lower his gun. He waited until the two men were about ten meters away before saying, "Put it on the ground. Now back away."

Old Mi quickly chimed in, "Do what he says! Put it on the ground! On the ground!"

The two men glanced at each other, placed the object on the ground, then carefully backed away.

Chen Chuan glanced at the box. It looked like a mechanical dial, a uniform gray-silver color. He had no idea what it was.

Ren Xiaotian gestured with his gun toward Old Mi. "You. Go open it."

Old Mi muttered, "It’s the right one, I’m sure of it..." But he didn’t dare to disobey and walked over anyway.

Ren Xiaotian motioned for Chen Chuan to stay put while he had Old Mi walk ahead of him. Once they reached the box, Old Mi bent down, picked it up, and gripped it with both hands. He gave the lid a twist and lifted it off.

Chen Chuan glanced over. The box was filled with something like broken tile shards, but they were threaded with fine, hair-like red filaments that emitted a faint glow. He couldn’t identify what it was.

At that very moment, he suddenly noticed his Second Self had become slightly incorporeal. He raised an eyebrow. ’This undoubtedly means something has caused me minor harm.’

Then Ren Xiaotian signaled Old Mi to close the box. At the same time, the incorporeal state of his Second Self vanished.

Chen Chuan was now certain the harm had come from that object. ’But what is it? Radiation? Chemical contamination? Or something else entirely?’

Ren Xiaotian stepped forward and snatched the box. Old Mi said anxiously, "You have the item! The Trading Vouchers! The Trading Vouchers!"

Ren Xiaotian took a stack of Jiaoshan-issue Trading Vouchers from his pocket. "You’ll get them," he said. "Back away."

He gestured with his gun for Old Mi to move back, then returned to the car. He had Chen Chuan get in first, then tossed the Trading Vouchers far into the distance before yanking open his own door and quickly getting inside.

Chen Chuan saw that the instant the Trading Vouchers were thrown, all three of them, including Old Mi, bolted over to them. They scrambled to pick up the vouchers and immediately began counting them, one by one.

Ren Xiaotian placed the box he’d acquired into a duffel bag he had prepared beforehand and zipped it shut. He started the car, turned it around, and headed back the way they came.

Chen Chuan asked, "Senior Brother Ren, does this mean we’ve completed the commission?"

Ren Xiaotian said, "Once we deliver it, we have."

Chen Chuan had expected more complications. ’But on second thought,’ he mused, ’if Senior Brother Ren hadn’t been so decisive and called Old Mi’s bluff, things would have gotten much more complex.’

He asked, "Senior Brother Ren, how were you so sure they had the item with them?"

Ren Xiaotian replied, "I wasn’t." He paused, then said gravely, "You can never go into the village. If you go into the village, you die."

Chen Chuan thought for a moment and understood. ’This place is far from Yangzhi. You can’t just apply the same logic you would in the city. There’s a completely different set of rules out here. When it comes to survival, people are capable of anything.’

’The person carrying out the mission bears all the risks. If we had followed them into the village, we would have only had ourselves to blame for whatever happened next.’

’Looking at it another way, those people had the item on hand but still tried to lure us into their village. Their intentions were truly malicious. If we hadn’t been resolute and had gone with them, we’d most likely have been killed by that group.’

It was an object lesson for him.

He asked, "Senior Brother, may I ask what’s in the box?"

Ren Xiaotian shook his head. "I don’t know. It’s what the client wanted. There have been others like it." After a moment, he added, "It was found in the Jiaoshan garbage heaps."

Chen Chuan nodded. "Senior Brother Ren, have you been out here many times?"

Ren Xiaotian said, "Seventeen times to the north. This is my first time to the south."

’He keeps such a precise count,’ Chen Chuan thought, his mind returning to the box. ’What on earth is that stuff?’

He was very curious, but not to the point of obsession. He just offered a subtle warning, "Senior Brother Ren, I have a bad feeling about that stuff."

Ren Xiaotian glanced at him, nodded, and said seriously, "I won’t take jobs like this anymore."

On the way back, Chen Chuan noticed Ren Xiaotian didn’t take the same route. Instead, he deliberately drove south, taking a detour. It seemed he was planning to re-enter the city from the South City direction.

Although Ren Xiaotian offered no explanation, Chen Chuan realized from this action that he must be guarding against competitors. ’And perhaps... against the company as well.’

From this, he could also see that an operative like Ren Xiaotian was very different from someone like Wei Chang’an. The tasks they handled and the people they dealt with were worlds apart.

He asked, "Senior Brother Ren, are you able to carry a gun because you have a Weapon Permit?"

"Yes."

Ren Xiaotian turned his head to look at him and said with great seriousness, "The Weapon Permit. It’s very important."

Chen Chuan grunted in acknowledgment. Cheng Zitong had also stressed this point repeatedly.

During a meal once, Cheng Zitong had told him that, to put it bluntly, the whole point of going to Wuyi was to get the permits. You could always learn more skills after you graduated, but you could only test for those permits at Wuyi. If you didn’t get them there, you weren’t getting them at all.

Furthermore, some permits required other, more basic ones as prerequisites, and the Weapon Permit was one of those fundamental prerequisites.

Ren Xiaotian was extremely observant as he drove. At one point, he spotted a convoy of modified vehicles in the distance, likely belonging to one of the outlaw groups hiding out in the area. Fortunately, they paid them no mind.

The rest of the journey back was uneventful. They returned to the city smoothly, eventually pulling into a parking lot in front of a shopping mall near the city center.

Ren Xiaotian first made a phone call. A short while later, a car pulled up and stopped nearby. Two powerfully built men in security uniforms got out. Their uniforms bore no insignia.

Ren Xiaotian got out with the bag. He let the men inspect the contents first. After they confirmed it, one of the men signed the form Ren Xiaotian handed him. They then took the item, and quickly drove off.

When Ren Xiaotian returned to the car, he handed Chen Chuan a carbon copy of the form. "It’s done," he said. "I’ll take you back to the academy."

Chen Chuan put the form away. "Thank you, Senior Brother Ren."

’To think,’ he mused, ’all I really did was tag along for the ride, and that counts as completing a commission.’

’It looked simple, but there were actually a lot of subtleties involved. A novice taking on this kind of commission could easily fall into a trap.’

After leaving the mall, the SUV headed for Wuyi. It wasn’t far, and they arrived at the academy within minutes, slowing to a stop in front of the dormitory building.

Just then, Chen Chuan saw a familiar figure carrying something into the building. The person scurried inside, bounding up the steps in two or three strides and disappearing from view in an instant.

Ren Xiaotian stopped the car. "We’re here."

"Thank you, Senior Brother Ren," Chen Chuan said.

Ren Xiaotian gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his eyes fixed ahead. "Don’t mention it."

"See you, Senior Brother Ren," Chen Chuan said. He opened the door, got out, and headed into the building.

Ren Xiaotian watched him go. Only after Chen Chuan had entered the building did he start the car and drive away.

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