Arriving at the scene, Lin Qin couldn’t help but feel a mix of amusement and exasperation at the chaotic mess.
Over the communicator, Motobu Ryo had sworn he was being threatened by criminal forces.
Lin Qin surveyed the area and noticed that the people still standing were all familiar faces.
As for those sprawled on the ground, they were strangers.
It seemed the “criminal forces” had already been physically subdued.
Jin Xueshen gave him a nod.
Lin Qin greeted him warmly, “How’s Father Fu doing?”
Jin Xueshen, less annoyed by Lin Qin than by Ning Zhuo, answered readily, “Fine. Well-fed, well-watered.”
After the brief exchange, Lin Qin turned to the man in question. “What happened?”
“…I had no choice,” Motobu Ryo said, his face blank but his words carefully rehearsed. “I wanted to get ahead, but someone wouldn’t let me.”
“I borrowed money from an old friend, but the interest he demanded was sky-high. He even said if I couldn’t pay, I could use my brain to settle the debt.”
“I thought he was joking, so I signed the contract. But when he came to collect, I got stubborn and said I wouldn’t pay. Then, out of nowhere, all these people showed up to kill me—no talk, just straight to murder.”
His words painted him as an innocent, pitiful victim, like a naive graduate unaware of the world’s dangers.
Lin Qin knew better. No matter how out-of-touch Motobu might seem, he wasn’t clueless enough to misunderstand what a high-interest loan entailed.
Sure enough, Motobu’s next words revealed his true intent.
He adjusted his glasses. “I’ve got history with this Mr. Ma—he wouldn’t treat me like this. I suspect someone else is pulling strings, trying to kill me… the same woman who killed Takeshi.”
Motobu’s gaze locked onto Lin Qin, intense and expectant.
Lin Qin understood.
The women in the upper district Motobu Takeshi had crossed were few and far between.
Others might not know, but Lin Qin did: Raskin was Jin Charlemagne.
He had a piece of private evidence.
It proved Mrs. Charlemagne had ample motive to kill Motobu Takeshi.
Lately, though, she seemed to have sensed trouble brewing. She’d gone quiet, skipping her usual beauty treatments, social calls, and tea parties, living like she was ready to join a monastery.
But traces always remain.
Mrs. Charlemagne wasn’t a professional in this game.
With her limited imagination, she thought the lower district was a lawless jungle where even the law would shrink back in fear.
Lin Qin had caught her on several broken old surveillance feeds, appearing in the lower district during the time Motobu Takeshi went missing.
Why would an elegant upper-district lady like her frequent the lower district?
Lin Qin noted it silently, biding his time to see what Charlemagne or his wife would do next.
Motobu’s dramatic performance was a veiled nudge to push Lin Qin to act fast and nab the woman.
At the same time, he wanted to leverage Lin Qin’s authority to tie the “loan shark” issue to “murder,” getting White Shield to take the lead and even protect Motobu’s safety.
But this was a tough case.
Lin Qin had seen plenty of similar cases in the lower district and knew the frustrations all too well.
Silver Hammer City’s financial sector was a mess.
The reason was simple.
Order is the foundation of a monopoly-driven financial system.
But Silver Hammer City, barely holding onto a facade of order, was no fertile ground for finance.
The city’s banks were practically decorative, and small lending outfits had sprung up like mushrooms after rain.
Lin Qin had seen countless lives ruined by loan sharks—families shattered, homes lost.
Loan sharks never labeled themselves “illegal.”
Their contracts were squeaky clean, every clause perfectly legal. Borrowers could take them to court and still lose.
White Shield’s manpower was limited. They couldn’t find issues in airtight contracts or babysit borrowers 24/7.
In the shadows, out of White Shield’s sight, borrowers were left to the mercy of their creditors.
By the time loan sharks showed up with guns or knives, it was too late for borrowers to call White Shield for help.
Loan sharks ran rampant in Silver Hammer City, devouring their prey without spitting out the bones.
This time, though, they’d bitten into a bone too tough, shattering their own teeth instead.
Lin Qin turned to Jin Xueshen. “How’d you get mixed up in this?”
Jin Xueshen, sparing with words, said, “He paid us to step in.”
Yu Shifei chimed in, “This is Mr. Motobu’s rented private residence. We installed 18 surveillance cameras in advance, which can fully prove they broke in first. We acted in self-defense.”
Lin Qin’s lips twitched, and he couldn’t hold back a smile.
Ning Zhuo, oh, Ning Zhuo.
Loan sharks play dirty, and you just throw their own game back at them?
That’s one way to make enemies.
Lin Qin made a call, contacting the nearest White Shield unit to detain the “trespassing thugs” and let them cool off in lockup.
Then he dialed Ning Zhuo, relaying his concerns plainly.
This was a game in the underworld.
Unless blood was spilled, it wasn’t White Shield’s domain.
His advice was gentle but firm. “Ning Zhuo, don’t dance on a knife’s edge.”
Ning Zhuo’s reply was as icy as ever. “I’m not asking you to dance with me.”
Lin Qin held the disconnected communicator for a long time, catching a strange undertone in the exchange.
He smiled faintly, his thoughts drifting to his investigation of Mr. Kenan.
A polished, justice-spouting star reporter with influence far beyond what Lin Qin had imagined.
Meanwhile, Ma Yushu, having survived his heart scare, was enduring a verbal lashing.
Kenan stood before him, cold and composed, pacing slightly. “I still can’t wrap my head around why you didn’t look into who Motobu Ryo was meeting before he took out that loan.”
Ma Yushu stayed silent, head bowed.
Ma Yushu knew things had gone terribly wrong. He’d been duped by Motobu Ryo, who’d used his own brain as bait to cloud Ma’s judgment.
But he couldn’t admit fault.
Admitting fault meant accepting punishment.
The consequences of that punishment were too horrific to contemplate.
After mulling it over for a long time, Ma Yushu said, “I’ll find a way to patch this hole.”
Kenan sneered, “Patch it? How?”
He peered over his glasses. “With your life? Or by throwing in the handful of kittens you’ve got under you?”
Sweat dripped down Ma Yushu’s forehead, stinging his eyes and fogging his glasses.
His eyelids twitched as he gritted his teeth. “Mr. Kenan, lend me a bit more.”
Kenan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you want to borrow more.”
Ma Yushu had no choice.
To get the money back, he needed to borrow more and rally more men.
It meant pouring money into what might be a bottomless pit.
But if he could snatch Motobu Ryo back, the debts he’d racked up wouldn’t be fully erased, but at least half might be forgiven.
Kenan stared at him, giving Ma Yushu goosebumps. “Borrowing’s fine, but what can you offer to pay it back?”
Ma Yushu shivered.
Kenan’s gaze was sharp, like a spotlight, as if he meant to carve out Ma’s heart, liver, and bones to weigh them for value.
Lowering his eyes, unable to meet Kenan’s stare, Ma Yushu growled at the floor, “I’ll stake myself! I still have… organs.”
The words slipped out, and Ma Yushu nearly bit his tongue.
The moment felt eerily familiar, like déjà vu.
Long ago, he’d sworn grand lies to someone, conning them out of their entire fortune.
Soon after, a young Ma Yushu was summoned by his creditor, who made him peer through a window at a young boy with his head bowed.
The creditor had smiled. “The Jin family’s got nothing left but this kid. But you still owe me a few debts.”
Ma Yushu, head lowered, heart cold, had said, “Doesn’t he still have… organs?”
Kenan clapped sharply, startling Ma Yushu and snapping him out of his memory.
Kenan said, “I’ll lend you five million. Not for your organs—they’re not worth that much even if I gut you. It’s for Motobu Ryo’s brain.”
“If you don’t get it, I won’t take your organs. I’ll flay you alive. Understood?”
Ma Yushu’s teeth nearly drew blood as he forced out, “Fine!!”
At that moment, murderous intent wasn’t exclusive to Kenan and Ma Yushu.
Charlemagne also burned with the urge to kill.
His target was clear.
That Ning bastard had dared to scam him!
Ever since that day when he was tricked into injecting poison into Little Jin, Charlemagne’s luck had spiraled downward, plummeting to depths he’d never imagined.
Over months, he’d lost both wealth and people.
The financial losses were bearable—had Ning Zhuo not taken advantage of his chaos, biting off a huge chunk of his liquid assets and leaving his accounts nearly dry, Charlemagne might’ve even overlooked Ning Zhuo taking on two jobs at once.
But his wife was growing madder by the day.
Before, she had Motobu Takeshi as her secret toy, a vessel for her pent-up depression and rage.
Now that toy was broken beyond use.
She’d lost her only outlet.
…So, she turned to tormenting Charlemagne.
One night, waking thirsty, Charlemagne glimpsed a slender, shadowy figure sitting by the bed, staring at him with eerie intensity.
He nearly thought it was a ghost, leaping up only to realize it was his wife.
Heart pounding, he flicked on the bedside lamp, his voice a thin rasp. “What are you doing?”
Her face, even in the light, looked ghostly.
She murmured, “Thinking.”
Charlemagne swallowed hard. “If you’ve got something on your mind… think about it when you’re awake.”
His wife let out a long breath, so prolonged he wondered if she’d emptied her lungs. “…You know, when Little Jin died, he was in so much pain. He called for me. Why did I go to sleep?”
Charlemagne’s home had become a blazing inferno.
A ghostly fire, at that.
His wife drifted through the house like a specter, appearing in places he’d never expect, disheveled, talking about “Little Jin.”
The “Little Jin” Charlemagne had fretted over for half his life had become his late-life nightmare.
With no choice, to keep family scandals hidden and prevent his wife from raving in public, exposing what shouldn’t be exposed, Charlemagne steeled himself and locked her in the attic.
That meant the new housekeeper had to go—he wasn’t one of the old, trusted staff, and Charlemagne deemed him unreliable.
Charlemagne became truly alone.
His home was an icy crypt.
In that crypt, with no one to talk to, his mind began to wander.
Charlemagne went to work and came home on schedule, everything outwardly normal, but inside, he was unraveling with anxiety.
The more he thought, the more it tormented him.
No one knew what Motobu Takeshi might’ve revealed before he died.
Charlemagne wanted to investigate, but with his current access, he could uncover nothing.
He turned on the TV, only to see Lin Qin, who’d fully replaced him.
He turned it off, only to hear his wife’s eerie lullabies, sung to no one.
In this environment, Charlemagne felt the only way to survive with some comfort was to follow his wife’s path into madness.
But Charlemagne refused to accept his fate.
Having clawed his way out of Yunmeng District’s muck, he was not a man who surrendered to destiny.
He took stock of his movable and immovable assets, confirming one thing:
…Ning Zhuo had to die.
