Iron Fist and Loyal Heart

Chapter 39 A Late-Night Meeting

After the joint meeting, Su Xinpei stood at the back door of the Special Affairs Bureau for nearly twenty minutes. He was waiting for Ye Xinghe—Ye Xinghe had been called away by Yan Tong for a private talk, and when he came out, he looked unwell, only saying "See you later" before hurrying towards the garage. Su Xinpei tucked his briefcase under his arm, slipped out through the back alley, and turned into the unlit side street next to the Beihe Vegetable Market.

He'd walked this road for three years; he could find his way back with his eyes closed. The market was deserted at night; empty cardboard boxes and styrofoam containers were piled up under the tin sheds after the vendors closed, and the air still smelled of fish and rotten vegetables. As he passed the bean product stall, a stray cat darted out from behind a styrofoam box, startling him. He cursed under his breath and continued walking.

He stopped when he reached the end of the fork in the road, next to the crooked old locust tree. A person was standing under the tree.

The man was wearing a dark gray suit, with one button undone at the collar of his white shirt, revealing a silver prosthetic wristband on his left wrist. It wasn't the same type Su Xinpei had seen on Deputy Director Zheng's wrist that afternoon—this one was thinner, with no screw holes at the joint, indicating it was a military-grade concealed module. He stood relaxed, his hands hanging at his sides, a cigarette dangling from his right hand, as if he had been waiting under the tree for some time. The shadow of the locust tree fell on his face, obscuring half of it.

"Mr. Su." The man spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft, using the same tone as the receptionist at the street office when she said "Please wait a moment"—polite, but without any extra emotion. "Excuse me for bothering you. I am Han, the deputy director of the risk control department at Tianheng Heavy Industry."

Su Xinpei didn't move. His left hand still held his briefcase, his right hand hung naturally at his side, and his center of gravity shifted almost imperceptibly half an inch backward due to the instinctive reaction honed from his stance training. He quickly reviewed the seating arrangement for the afternoon's joint meeting in his mind—Deputy Director Han wasn't in the meeting room, but he knew who Su Xinpei was and that Su Xinpei would pass through this area. This could only mean one thing: Tianheng Heavy Industry had thoroughly investigated the list of attendees before the joint meeting even began, including the junior external consultants who were just observing.

"What's up?" Su Xinpei used the standard tone he used when speaking to people at the street office window—neither hot nor cold, without any emotion, as if he were processing a routine low-income assistance renewal application.

Deputy Director Han smiled slightly. He took out a business card from his suit pocket—not paper, but a thin metal plated with matte silver, without any patterns, just a line of text and a number. He took a step forward, but not too close, stopping about an arm's length away from Su Xinpei, and handed him the card with two fingers.

"Tianheng Heavy Industries appreciates your archival skills and combat record in the Lower City. Your sonic tactics during the Rift Sealing Operation have been incorporated into the Special Mechanism Bureau's operational template, and you also built the early data framework for the Iron Net system—we are aware of all of this." He moved his business card forward half an inch. "Tianheng Heavy Industries needs talent like you. The salary is thirty times your current annual salary at the street office, and the position is Subspace Security Consultant. We can solve all the problems you are currently facing—your master's injuries require better medical resources, you are aware of the promotion bottlenecks at the Special Mechanism Bureau, and we can also provide resources for cross-system training. You can consider it for three days."

Su Xinpei took the business card. It was thin but sturdy, with beveled edges so it wouldn't cut his hand, and its temperature was slightly lower than body temperature—it was made of titanium alloy. He turned the card over; the back was blank except for the number—not a landline number, but a direct-dial code for an encrypted communication frequency band.

He silently analyzed Deputy Director Han's words in his mind. Thirty times the annual salary—this figure was so precise that it was exactly equal to the annual salary of a mid-level manager in the central urban area plus additional subsidies, indicating that the other party had checked his payslip. His master's injuries—Old Iron Head's medical records at the Special Elephant Bureau's military medical station were internal documents, and the fact that the other party knew about them meant that there was information infiltration within the Special Elephant Bureau. Cross-system cultivation resources—the other party knew that he was simultaneously cultivating traditional martial arts, alchemy, and runes, information known only to a very few people. He cursed inwardly, his face expressionless.

"I'll think about it," he said, putting the business card into his coat pocket.

Deputy Director Han nodded, turned, and walked to the other side of the locust tree. He didn't look back, his pace neither fast nor slow, his leather shoes making a rhythmic clattering sound on the broken brick ground, and he soon disappeared at the end of the fork in the road.

Su Xinpei stood there for a while longer. He switched his briefcase to his right hand and continued walking back. As he passed the public water tap at the back gate of the market, he turned it on and splashed his hands with cold water. The water was very cold, and the veins on the back of his hands constricted slightly under the cold water's stimulation. He turned the tap off tightly and suddenly remembered something Old Tie Tou had once told him—during the defense of the Glacier Fortress, a Northern Alliance sorcerer, after being captured, said something like, "We're blocking the crack, you're blocking the other side of the same door. But the person blocking the door is being searched for on the other side too." He hadn't quite understood it then, but now he did. Tianheng Heavy Industry didn't need guns; they only needed money, promises, and a titanium alloy business card to push you from one side of the door to the other.

It was nearly midnight when he returned to his apartment. Su Xinpei placed his briefcase on the table, didn't turn on the light, and sat on the edge of the bed, slowly twirling the titanium business card from its inner pocket. Rain began to fall outside, the raindrops pattering against the air conditioner unit. He placed the business card on the bedside table, then took out the old pocket watch left by his master from the drawer—a habit he'd maintained ever since switching from a ring watch to a wristwatch. The watch face was long since cracked, but the movement was still running, very slowly, losing two or three minutes each day, but it kept moving. He placed the pocket watch and the business card side by side, looking at them.

Then he stood up and walked to the center of the living room, took off his shirt, and assumed a stance in the darkness. His feet were shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, and spine straight. He focused his energy into his dantian, and within a few breaths, a warm sensation rose from his Guanyuan acupoint, ascending along the Ren meridian and returning to his perineum along both sides of his spine. After completing a full cycle, he finished the stance, walked to the table, turned on the lamp, opened the bottom drawer, and placed the titanium alloy business card inside, along with the ring left by his master. Then he closed the drawer.

He looked at himself in the mirror. The person in the mirror was wearing an old T-shirt, his hair was a bit long, and his eyes looked more somber than when he first started working at the neighborhood committee. He thought to himself, "I haven't finished hitting the punching bags at the Iron Bones Hall tonight." Then he turned off the light and lay down on the bed. The cracks in the ceiling were still there, and the rain outside was getting heavier.