"Wang Lan, Chen Xiaoping suddenly left the dorm." Around five o’clock, Wang Lan was dropped off at the school gate and was about to head to the dormitory when Xiao Ai sent a notification on his phone. After Chen Xiaoping had received Wang Lan’s red envelope, a clone of Xiao Ai had entered Chen Xiaoping’s phone. Even though there was nothing on that phone, as long as Chen Xiaoping carried it with him, he could be located. Wang Lan turned left, entering a cafe. Not long after, Chen Xiaoping, looking somewhat flustered, walked towards the school gate. The school closed its gates around 5:30 PM. After that time, unless one had special privileges, no one was allowed in or out. The only exceptions were Saturdays and Sundays, when the gates stayed open until 10 PM. It looked as if Chen Xiaoping was trying to get out of the school gate before 5:30 PM. Watching Chen Xiaoping’s retreating figure, Wang Lan did not hurry to follow. As a sensory-perception type Star Martial Warrior, Chen Xiaoping had managed to elude many tracking experts from the Tianjian Bureau, which spoke to his abilities. Once out of the school gate, Chen Xiaoping hurriedly hailed a taxi, "Go to the bus station." Wang Lan stirred his coffee, staring at the red marker on his phone’s map, watching it slowly move along the elevated road and then head west. After traveling about ten kilometers, it descended from the elevated road and stopped in the large roundabout in the middle. Wang Lan stood up, walking towards the school gate. "Uncle, please let us in, just for five minutes, we are only five minutes late!" Outside the school gate, two girls pleaded with the guard, their faces full of desperation. "You had an hour and a half to go out for a meal, and you still managed to be late? No, the school has its rules. Call your class instructor to come and get you." Then, the two girls watched helplessly as Wang Lan walked out of the school gate as if he were invisible. "What about him? You’re not following the rules now?" "He has access permissions. Why don’t you go to the guidance office and get yourself an access permission too? Alright, stop dawdling and call them. It’s getting cold; aren’t you two freezing?" In the roundabout, Chen Xiaoping, sitting in the car, was pale as a ghost, shivering uncontrollably. Stiffly raising his head, he looked at the back of the driver’s head. "Chen Xiaoping, Qing wants to see you." "I really didn’t expect...that Qing would send an ordinary person to fetch me... heh heh... brother, aren’t you afraid of dying?" "My life was given by Qing, and now I’m returning it to him..." Suddenly, the driver’s body violently shook. Stiffly lowering his head, he looked at his chest, where a green wind drill emerged from his torso, spraying blood everywhere, staining the car red. Chen Xiaoping used a gust of wind to slice open the car, and the door swung open. Just as he was about to leave, his face suddenly changed dramatically. This time, it was not anger nor fear that distorted his features but despair. In his perception, over a dozen masters were rapidly approaching from all directions. He couldn’t overpower a single one of these many experts. Soon, ten mysterious figures dressed in unified work clothes and wearing silver-white masks appeared around Chen Xiaoping, encircling him completely. "Qing invites you for a visit." Modu City’s Bund is its most bustling area, heavily concentrated with wealthy people. The Bund has tankers, beaches, and natural swimming pools. Nearby, there are places like Happy Palace and grand theaters dating back nearly a century, with luxury brand stores visible at every turn in the streets. For many aspiring youths, owning a villa on the Bund is the ultimate dream, a goal considered harder to achieve than reaching the sky. On a hillside near the river at the Bund, a villa with a sea view was brightly lit. The flapping sound echoed as a Feather flew across the sky and then gently landed on the roof of the villa. Qingniao opened its mouth, dropping a spider that vanished into the darkness in the blink of an eye. "Qing, it really wasn’t my fault, believe me, I didn’t betray you, I really didn’t..." Chen Xiaoping knelt in the living room, looking at the muscular Xiao Qing in front of him, desperately pleading his case. "Then...why was my warehouse raided by the Tianjian Bureau?" Xiao Qing, playing with a ring and without raising his head, asked grimly. "’I don’t know, Qing. Think about it. If it really had something to do with me, the Tianjian Bureau wouldn’t have just destroyed the warehouse; they would have come after you directly. Moreover, I didn’t even know where the warehouse was... Qing! "Qing, we are in the same boat; if the ship capsizes, we both go down!’" "’Nobody apart from me and the big boss knew the location of the warehouse. But... the Tianjian Bureau managed to strike accurately and decisively. This can only mean they knew its exact location. "’And just after I received the Soul Beads you delivered and placed them back in the warehouse, it was raided. It seems there was a problem with those Soul Beads.’" "Soul Beads? What could be...wrong with the Soul Beads?" Chen Xiaoping suddenly recalled last night when Mr. Jun sent him a hundred thousand in a red envelope. At that moment, he had an ominous premonition but, failing to identify its source, he didn’t pay it much attention. Could it be...Mr. Jun? Impossible, Mr. Jun was just a wastrel, and from start to finish, he had shown no intention of befriending him. On the contrary, he had rejected him, looking at Chen Xiaoping with disdain... Suddenly, Chen Xiaoping realized the problem. Would a person who looked down on him from the bottom of his heart send him a red envelope at night? Even if one hundred thousand yuan was nothing to Mr. Jun, given his attitude towards him, he wouldn’t even give it to a dog, would he? Cold sweat began to drip down Chen Xiaoping’s forehead. But he absolutely could not admit to anything. Even though it was very possible that the issue really lay with him, once he admitted it, he would be dead with no place for burial. Even his mother and younger siblings would share the same fate. "Qing..." Chen Xiaoping cried out in anguish, "Qing, how could there be a problem with the Soul Bead? What problems could the Soul Bead possibly have? Could it be fake? Even if they could be fake, every Soul Bead went through professional testing! How could there be an issue?" Xiao Qing looked at Chen Xiaoping coldly; he had also considered this question. Each Soul Bead had been tested, and there certainly should be no problems. However, Xiao Qing’s instincts told him that the problem this time must be within this batch of Soul Beads. His instincts had always been accurate, so Chen Xiaoping had to become his scapegoat. "’What you say might not be wrong, but... who asked you to know too much about my business? With the current situation, I must be cautious. So don’t you blame me. "’I’ve called back all the loose ends. You are neither the first nor the last. Go down; you won’t be alone.’" "Qing... Qing... don’t... don’t..." Xiao Qing’s palm rested on Chen Xiaoping’s head. Suddenly, a burst of purple flame erupted from the top of Chen Xiaoping’s head and swallowed him up almost instantly. A brief and sharp scream, and Chen Xiaoping fell dead to the ground. The purple flame burned intensely, quickly melting away Chen Xiaoping’s flesh. Before long, the flames died down, leaving behind a pile of white ash. "Clean this up!" Xiao Qing barked a command and turned to walk upstairs. Several cloaked figures with silver-white masks quickly took brooms and swept up the pile of ashes on the ground. This scene was all witnessed by a spider that had crept in through the gap under the door. In the era where Star Martial Warrior abilities were strange and varied, the infiltration of high-tech products could sometimes be more effective than Star Martial Warrior infiltration. With this video, Xiao Qing’s crime had irrefutable evidence. But Wang Lan felt it was not enough. Xiao Qing was likely not the hidden mastermind. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to establish such a large operation in Modu City without ever being detected by the Tianjian Bureau. Patiently waiting until late into the night, Wang Lan commanded the spider to carefully go upstairs, stealthily infiltrating Xiao Qing’s bedroom. Although the lights were off in the bedroom, Xiao Qing wasn’t sleeping. Instead, he stood at the window, silently smoking. One cigarette followed another without any intention of stopping. The spider surveyed the room; since Xiao Qing was awake, it was impossible to search. Then it left the bedroom and headed toward other rooms. It took half an hour before the spider found Xiao Qing’s study. The study was simple, with only a laptop and a few bookshelves. The spider jumped onto the computer desk, initially planning to check the drawers. But as it passed by the computer, it stopped in its tracks. The laptop was still on, but the network connection displayed was disconnected. The spider carefully approached the computer to check the network connection history and found that this laptop had never been connected to the network. That was abnormal. What reason could there be for this computer to never have connected to the network? Suddenly, several strands extended from the spider’s abdomen. What appeared to be silk were actually data cable lines, the type with the connector wrapping peeled off. The silk reached the USB port of the computer, and the spider inserted it. Instantly, the USB connection was successful. Xiao Ai’s avatar followed the port into the computer. When it successfully broke through the layers of defenses and entered the secret folders, a smile appeared on Wang Lan’s face, who was hiding in the distance under a streetlight. Although there wasn’t time to see what was in the folders, the fact that so many passwords were set and such complex encryption methods were used meant that it must be something important. Wang Lan had initially thought that Xiao Qing was just an intermediary in the hidden Soul Bead trade network. But it turned out he was the one who controlled the black market trade of Soul Beads. This could be seen from what he had said today. The real masterminds behind the scenes were those bosses who provided him with Soul Beads. But finding out this much was enough. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✶𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✶𝕟𝕖𝕥 He immediately ordered the spider to copy the confidential files. It took nearly half an hour to copy three gigabytes of data. Suddenly, footsteps were heard from outside the door. The spider quickly left the desk and hid inside the desk’s cavity. Xiao Qing, wearing his pajamas, came into the study. He quickly went to the computer and started working, deleting all the data that Wang Lan had copied before, and then shredded the folder. After formatting it back and forth more than a dozen times, he finally let out a long sigh of relief. Standing up, he turned and left the room. The spider carefully left the study, exiting the villa through every nook and cranny. Once the spider had completely left the villa, Wang Lan made a call to Ming Baiye’s number. "Mr. Ming? Still busy?" "’We’ve confiscated over a hundred thousand Soul Beads. Although we haven’t found the hidden mastermind, the black market is bound to suffer a major blow and won’t recover its vitality anytime soon. We’re all busy categorizing these Soul Beads. "’You’ve made a significant contribution this time; maybe your military rank will move up.’" "Really? That’s great. By the way, Mr. Ming, I’ve found the hidden mastermind." The other end suddenly fell silent.