Chapter 63

Young People

Secretary Liu was among the first to know about the boss's new profile picture. One glance was all it took to work out who had taken it.

He opened the office gossip group. His colleagues, with no idea whatsoever, were still busy guessing.

"Hmph." He put his phone away and looked toward the corner, where the little black cat was curled in its bed asleep. Some secrets were not for sharing.

*

"Xiao Chao — there's something I need to tell you."

Tiger had been quiet the whole walk back, but the moment he stepped through the gate into Chao Musheng's courtyard and confirmed no Chen family members were within earshot, he dropped his voice to something conspiratorial. "I think something is wrong with the Chen family."

As a player, he couldn't disclose instance plot details to other players. But he genuinely feared that if a malevolent god descended, someone like Chao Musheng — an innocent NPC — would become its fuel.

"Oh?" Tiger's expression reminded Chao Musheng of the Wangyue, when he'd worn the same furtive look delivering news.

"Do you remember that wooden building yesterday — the one the second young master wouldn't let us near?"

Chao Musheng nodded.

"Early this morning, I saw someone come out of it." Tiger's voice dropped further. "Face the color of paper. Footsteps that barely touched the ground. Like something had drained the life out of him. I managed to help him as far as the gate, and then he fainted. I asked around afterward — he was a distant relative of the Chen family. Something like... Chen Er, I think."

That name doesn't try very hard. If he had an older brother, would he be called Chen One?

"Chen Er?" Chao Musheng frowned.

"You know him?" Tiger pulled out his phone. "I took a photo — look at his color."

In the photo, Chen Er's cheekbones jutted, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes unfocused and vacant. He looked like a man in the final stages of a prolonged illness.

"I saw him last night." Chao Musheng stared at it. "He didn't look anything like this."

A pause.

Chao Musheng: "That dramatic a change — he must have touched something he shouldn't have."

Tiger: "Xiao Chao — you don't think Chen Garden is haunted? Should you move somewhere else for the night?"

They both stopped and stared at each other.

Tiger, internally: This NPC has ended up in a supernatural instance and his thinking has absolutely nothing to do with the supernatural. How?

Chao Musheng sighed. "Xiao Hu — watch more documentary science programs, read fewer supernatural novels. It affects your reasoning."

Tiger: "..."

Xiao Chao. We are inside a supernatural instance right now. What exactly would you like me to watch?

Also — what's a documentary science program?

"You were soaked through just now. Come inside and drink something for the cold before it sets in." Chao Musheng saw Tiger's slightly dazed expression, brought him inside, and went through the first aid kit. Several types of cold medicine.

"What are you looking for?" Secretary Liu glanced at the large man sitting on the corner sofa, hands placed neatly on his knees. "Is he sick?"

"Not yet. He got caught in the rain — I'm finding something to head it off."

"Isatis root, then." Secretary Liu located a packet. "Isn't that supposed to cure everything?"

"Xiao Chao, I'm strong as an ox — I don't get sick that easily." Tiger's voice had gone quieter by several degrees, sitting in this opulently decorated room surrounded by bodyguards who were each more imposing than the last.

"Mr. Chao." One of the bodyguards came out of the kitchen carrying a cup. "This gentleman got chilled. Brown sugar and ginger works best."

"Thank you." Chao Musheng returned the kit and took the cup from the bodyguard, then handed it to Tiger. "Drink up."

Tiger looked at the cup steaming in his hands, and something caught in his chest.

He'd left school in his teens to fend for himself. Ran with a rough crowd for a while. Delivered food. Became a mechanic. When it was hot, you drank cold water; when it was cold, you put on more layers. Whether for himself or anyone else around him, getting soaked had never been a thing anyone worried about.

The first person to ever make a fuss over something this small was an NPC in an instance.

The brown sugar water had a faint edge of ginger. Not a flavor he particularly enjoyed.

Tiger tipped it back and drank it all at once, his large rough hands wrapped tight around the cup. "Thank you, Xiao Chao."

"What's there to thank me for?" Chao Musheng had noticed his discomfort and awkwardness. "The Chen family treats their workers badly. If you don't want to stay, find something else."

Who activated water systems without so much as a warning to anyone nearby? In summer heat, clothes soaked through and stuck to your skin — the Chen family hadn't even considered it. Maybe they simply couldn't see ordinary people.

"It's fine. Curly Hair and I are just here to help a friend — we'll be moving on in a few days anyway." Tiger looked away from Chao Musheng's eyes, which were too sincere and too kind to look at directly. "Xiao Chao — how much longer will you be at Chen Garden?"

"Master Chen's sixty-ninth birthday is in two days. After the banquet, we leave." Chao Musheng noticed Tiger's grip on the cup tightening, and reached over to take it from him. "If you run into any difficulty, call me. You have my number."

With the cup gone, Tiger took hold of his trouser leg instead. Something conflicted moved across his blunt features. "Just — be careful at night. Don't go out alone."

"Meow."

A black cat padded over with an unhurried proprietary air and stopped in front of Tiger, staring up at him for a long moment.

"Ink Blob — you're awake." Chao Musheng lifted it onto his knee. "This is a friend of mine."

"Meow." Ink Blob licked its paw, and stopped staring.

A black cat?

Tiger remembered — when he'd first arrived, the steward had made a specific point of telling all the new staff that if they encountered a black cat on the grounds, they were to kill it on the spot. No hesitation.

He looked at the cat grooming itself on Chao Musheng's knee, and saw, above its head, a gold-green halo.

When he activated his special ability, wrongdoers showed red above their heads, ordinary people showed pale yellow or pale green, and those who stood for justice showed green. Gold-green was something rarer. In all the instances he'd run, this was only the second time he'd seen it.

The first had been in a highway pursuit instance. The killers' halos had been red so deep it looked like bleeding. The one who finally brought them down was an elderly female police officer.

The officer's own daughter had been killed by those same men — she'd spent the rest of her life hunting them.

Players only needed to survive the first six days. On the seventh, the old officer appeared, and the instance could be cleared.

She'd appeared with tears of blood on her face, her body bent with age, and the gold-green above her head so bright it looked like a god descending.

At the time, Tiger had just been glad to get out alive. Now, seeing that same gold-green above a small black cat's head, he found himself thinking — every time that highway instance opened, players died by the dozens, and that NPC officer relived it all again. Followed the killers again. Wept blood again.

Do NPCs feel things?

He looked at Chao Musheng in front of him, carefully combing through the cat's fur, the movement as gentle as anything.

Maybe. Some of them.

If Chao Musheng felt nothing, why would he make a fuss over someone getting wet in the rain?

Tiger stood, the conflict still on his face. "Xiao Chao — I should get back."

He started for the door, then turned back. He pressed a ward talisman — traded from Curly Hair — into Chao Musheng's hand. "Take this."

"Thank you." Chao Musheng looked up, but Tiger was already at the door.

"Meow." Ink Blob batted at the yellow paper triangle.

"Someone gave me this as a gift — don't damage it." Chao Musheng raised his hand out of reach.

Ink Blob: "Mrrr~"

A scrap of paper. Beneath the Cat King's dignity entirely.

It dropped off the sofa and padded to its bed, flopping down.

Superstition was all very well in its place, but Tiger had meant it kindly, so Chao Musheng set the talisman aside carefully and went to get two treat sticks. "Come on — something good."

Ink Blob's eyes opened immediately. It came bounding over.

Fine. Since the human was being so reasonable about it, the Cat King would let this one pass.

*

Secretary Liu looked at the cat eating with considerable satisfaction, then came to stand beside Chao Musheng. "The boss's new profile picture — that was you?"

"Yes." Chao Musheng brought up the original on his phone and held it out. "Not bad, right?"

Secretary Liu looked at Chao Musheng's expression and saw nothing but pride in his own photography. Not the faintest trace of anything else.

He glanced over at the boss, who was sitting in a chair pretending to read through documents, then smiled and nodded. "It's very good. I didn't even know the boss had any knowledge of tea ceremony until I saw it."

"You didn't know either?" Chao Musheng was mildly surprised.

"The boss is supposed to be accomplished in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting — but he's always kept it private. I've never had the chance to see any of it." Secretary Liu nudged Chao Musheng with his elbow. "You're young, so the boss is probably more patient with you. Work on getting him to show off some of his other talents — give the rest of us something to look at."

"Brother Liu, I feel like you're setting me up." Chao Musheng shook his head. "I can't anyway — there's something I need to deal with."

"What is it?"

"Tell me — what would cause a person to age several years overnight?"

"They touched something they shouldn't have?"

His mind goes to the same place as mine. Chao Musheng found Officer Cheng's business card from the day before and dialed.

Whatever was or wasn't going on, report it to the authorities first.

A citizen with a proper education and a public-spirited disposition had zero tolerance for this kind of thing.

Officer Cheng received the call and passed it on to the colleague who handled cases of that type. The colleague put down his pen and ran straight to the hospital. Two hours later he was back, but the expression on his face had gone strange.

"You look terrible." Officer Cheng was pulling double shifts over the Wangyue case, running on barely any sleep. He looked up. "You're back fast. What happened?"

"When I got there, the hospital was already preparing to file a report. The patient's family was refusing to let them." The colleague dropped his bag on the desk. "The case has been transferred to the third unit."

"Not a controlled substance situation?" Officer Cheng was surprised. Mr. Chao wasn't someone who made frivolous calls.

"The hospital found the victim presenting with severe blood loss and no obvious external injuries. They ran a full body scan looking for internal bleeding — none. Clean." The colleague drank a long swallow of water. "Guess where they eventually found the wound."

"Where?"

"Left chest. Directly over the heart."

"Wait, wait." Officer Cheng was no longer tired. "You're saying someone may have drawn the patient's heart blood?"

He wasn't a doctor, but he knew that this wasn't a martial arts drama. Extracting someone's heart blood with a needle in real life wasn't dramatic — it was fatal.

"Why is the family refusing to report it?"

"Because whatever happened to the patient happened while he was in Chen Garden." The colleague pointed in that direction. "The wealthy Chen family."

"How is the third unit handling it?"

"The Chen family has significant influence. Without hard evidence, moving openly risks a media panic. They've arranged for several officers to go in undercover." He frowned. "I hear the Chen estate has very strict rules. Let's hope they don't get caught."

*

At dinnertime, Chen Garden servants arrived at the courtyard with covered dishes. Several of the items needed to be finished over a live flame at the table, and the young man assigned to serve Chao Musheng had a warm brown complexion and a distinct air of working very hard at something he hadn't done before. He watched him fumbling with the cleaver, which nearly went into the pot, and quietly reached out and caught the handle.

The young man — selected for this assignment entirely on the basis of his appearance — went still.

"..."

Chao Musheng calmly returned the cleaver. The young man went red, gave him a mortified grin, and went back to wrestling with unevenly cut pieces of meat.

The moment the steward walked through the door, Chao Musheng took the knife and fork from the young man's hands. "Here. Let me."

"What is this?" The steward saw a Chen Garden servant apparently allowing a guest to cook his own meal, and immediately moved to contain the situation. "Mr. Chao, I am so sorry — this staff member is useless and I will dismiss him this instant—"

"Nothing to do with him — I prefer doing it myself." Chao Musheng looked up. "Steward, what brings you by?"

The steward looked at the chaotic arrangement in front of Chao Musheng — meat in various states of rawness and burning, cut to wildly different sizes — and felt something in his chest loosen.

Ah. That was Mr. Chao's own work.

Well then. No problem at all.