The fight lasted less than a minute before the sounds of struggle outside suddenly came to an abrupt halt.
Professor Xu had just started to stick his head out to see what was happening when the wardrobe door was pulled open from the outside once again.
This time, three men in black stood before him. Each of them wore a dragon-shaped badge on his chest.
The man in the lead bent slightly toward Professor Xu, who was curled up in the corner of the wardrobe, and said politely, “Professor Xu, please don’t be afraid. We’re here to protect you.”
Professor Xu looked at them, then glanced at the black-clad thugs sprawled all over the floor behind them. He had only one thought in mind.
You guys look even more like gangsters than the people outside!
Protect me? Who are you trying to fool?
“Who… who sent you?”
“We’re with the Wanlong Society.”
The moment Professor Xu heard those three words, his heart sank.
Wanlong Society. Even the name sounded like some serious criminal organization!
Professor Xu slowly closed his eyes, stiffened his neck, and said, “Just get it over with! Kill me! I won’t tell you anything!”
But the pain he had imagined never came.
No one pulled out a knife. No one put a sack over his head. No one even laid a finger on him.
Instead, the men in black escorted him into a black Mercedes-Benz waiting downstairs.
Once they were in the car, the leader took the front passenger seat. He turned around and looked at Professor Xu, who was still trembling, before finally explaining, “Professor Xu, please don’t be nervous. The Young Lady sent us to protect you.”
“The Young Lady? Which Young Lady?”
“You’ve met her before—Liu Yutong, Miss Liu.”
Professor Xu froze for several seconds before a figure finally emerged in his mind.
Liu Yutong?
The wealthy young woman who had been sitting with his daughter, Xu Yi, in the BS University cafeteria that day, and had chatted with him for quite a while about her business plans?
Wait—she was the daughter of a crime boss?
“Just who exactly is your Young Lady?”
“She’s the chairwoman of the Wanlong Society Group.”
Professor Xu was stunned. “Chairwoman? Isn’t she a student at the University of Finance?”
The man in black nodded proudly. “That’s right. Our Young Lady just started her third year this year. You knew she was still in school?”
Professor Xu’s head began to buzz.
Everything was a mess. Completely unbelievable!
A third-year female university student was actually the chairwoman of some Wanlong Society?
And she had so many men in black working for her, all of them frighteningly skilled fighters.
What kind of person was she?
“Where are we going?”
“To the hotel. The Young Lady is waiting for you there.”
About twenty minutes later, the car stopped in front of a luxury hotel.
Professor Xu was helped out of the car. He looked up at the hotel entrance, and the small amount of relief he had begun to feel immediately vanished.
A huge number of men in black stood in the hotel lobby. At a rough estimate, there were at least fifty of them. They all wore identical black suits and identical dragon-shaped badges, looking exactly like a scene from a movie where a gang was gathering for a meeting.
“Professor Xu, this way, please.”
Professor Xu was led into the building, through the lobby, and into an elevator.
His legs kept trembling. With men in black surrounding him on both sides, there was nowhere to run even if he wanted to. All he could do was steel himself and follow them.
Before long, they arrived in front of the banquet hall.
When the men in black standing by the entrance saw them approaching, they pushed the doors open from either side.
It was an enormous banquet hall, at least a thousand square meters in size.
Even though Professor Xu felt he had prepared himself mentally, the scene before him still left him terrified the moment the doors opened.
The vast banquet hall was packed wall to wall with men in black.
Not five. Not fifty. Not even five hundred.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a sea of black. There had to be at least a thousand people.
The instant he stepped into the hall, more than a thousand pairs of eyes turned toward him in unison. The sight nearly scared the old professor into a heart attack.
Where on earth had he come?
What exactly were these people?
With this kind of force, even the police wouldn’t be enough. It looked like they would need to send in the army to wipe them out.
While he stood there in a daze, a black-clad figure at the front of the banquet hall rose from her chair and turned around.
It was the young woman he had met in the university cafeteria that day.
At this moment, she was completely different from the female student he had seen in the cafeteria. Her presence was far more commanding.
Several core members, all dressed in black and radiating an imposing air, stood behind her.
“Professor Xu, we meet again,” Liu Yutong said with a smile.
Professor Xu instinctively took half a step backward.
He had imagined meeting this young woman again countless times—in his office, perhaps, or at a restaurant…
But he had never imagined it would happen under circumstances like these.
A third-year female university student, with more than a thousand men in black standing behind her.
The contrast was simply too overwhelming!
It was terrifying!
“Professor Xu, please don’t be nervous. I asked you here because I’d like to discuss something with you.”
“You… what do you want with me?”
“I’ll get straight to the point. Professor Xu, you have something in your possession that one of your classmates gave you, don’t you?”
Professor Xu’s heart gave a jolt.
Here it was. She really had come for that thing!
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to cooperate. He simply didn’t dare hand it over so casually.
His old classmate, Zhou Ming, had risked his life to obtain that item. If he handed it over, and the other side turned around and used it to strike a deal with that crime lord, wouldn’t Old Zhou’s sacrifice have been for nothing?
“Professor Xu, are you worried that I’ll use the evidence to make a deal with Qi Tianhu?” Liu Yutong asked.
Professor Xu said nothing, but the expression on his face—an expression of defiance, as if he had already resigned himself to death—had given her the answer.
Liu Yutong naturally saw through him. “I can assure you that I’m not on the same side as Qi Tianhu.”
“I’m asking you for the evidence not to destroy it. I want to save your classmate.”
“Who did you say you want to save?”
“Your classmate, Zhou Ming.”
“You… you know Old Zhou?”
“I don’t know him personally, but I know he must still be alive. He’s currently in Qi Tianhu’s hands. The only reason Qi Tianhu has kept him alive until now is because he hasn’t found the item yet. Once the item is gone, he’ll have no reason to keep Zhou Ming alive.”
As she spoke, Liu Yutong raised two slender fingers.
“I’ll give you two choices.”
“First, give the item to me. I’ll use it to exchange for Zhou Ming’s life.”
“Second, continue hiding it. I’ll call the police and have them search Qi Tianhu’s hideout. But if that happens, Qi Tianhu will certainly kill Zhou Ming immediately. Even if you eventually manage to bring him to justice, Zhou Ming won’t survive.”
Professor Xu’s eyes immediately turned red.
It wasn’t because Liu Yutong had convinced him. It was because he had imagined what his old classmate might be suffering at that very moment—perhaps being tortured by those people—and the thought filled him with pain and anguish.
At the same time, two voices began fighting wildly inside his mind.
One voice screamed: Don’t be fooled by her appearance! This is clearly an extremely vicious criminal organization!
The other desperately reminded him: This might truly be the only chance to save Old Zhou.
“What guarantee do I have?” Professor Xu’s emotions had finally defeated his reason.
“I can’t give you any guarantee at all.”
“But you can take a gamble—gamble that I truly want to save people, or gamble that I’m lying to you,” Liu Yutong said.
Xu Yangeng slowly lowered his head.
He kept it lowered for a long time.
Under the gaze of more than a thousand people, he finally raised his head again and looked at Liu Yutong, telling her where the item was:
“In a supermarket in the north of Jinchuan City. Locker No. 17 in the third row. The key is hidden under the second brick in the flower bed outside the supermarket.”
Liu Yutong nodded, then turned to Lan Die behind her and ordered, “Send someone to retrieve it immediately.”
“Yes!”
Watching Liu Yutong’s swift and decisive manner, Xu Yangeng felt a jumble of emotions.
His fear had lessened somewhat, but his doubts had only deepened.
In the end, he couldn’t hold back and asked her one question: “What exactly does your Wanlong Society… do?”
Hearing this, Liu Yutong turned and glanced at the packed hall full of men in black before answering:
“We’re a legitimate, law-abiding private company!”
Xu Yangeng: “???”
