Someone With Status

Lu Yuan glanced at the open door and said:

"Mr. Feng is dead. I heard Miss Ma making noise just now, so I went to check."

Li Qinghe's expression shifted sharply. "Mr. Feng died?! What happened?!"

"Do you remember the shadow I told you about?" Lu Yuan said. "Miss Ma says she saw it — it killed Mr. Feng."

Li Qinghe's pupils contracted, her face going tight with alarm.

"You mean *that* shadow?! It was real?! Are there seriously — are there *ghosts* out there?!"

He gave a lopsided smile. "So you thought I was making things up, Qinghe? Looking at this now, it's probably a special variant of an Aberration Event — one of the abnormal kinds. It's been pretty dangerous around here lately. Be careful at night. It seems like the thing only comes out after dark."

Li Qinghe nodded vigorously.

She glanced at the door. "Is Sister Ma inside? I'll go be with her."

Lu Yuan nodded.

The two of them settled in with Ma Lingling, keeping her company while they waited for the police.

Ma Lingling was still inconsolable.

The police eventually showed up — two Empire officers in red-and-white maple leaf uniforms. They examined Feng Wei's body, ran through their routine questions, and left before long. The case, they said, was still under further investigation.

Police efficiency in the slums was, to put it charitably, poor. A murder had occurred, and it took them over two hours to arrive. Whatever the cause of death might be, gang involvement was a near certainty — and two low-ranking officers could do little more than take notes and file a report. Turning a blind eye to the gangs was practically standard procedure around here; no one with any sense pushed harder than that.

Li Qinghe stayed with Ma Lingling. Lu Yuan excused himself.

He went back to his room, pulled out his phone, and thought he'd check in with Pete for any updates on the shadow.

His inbox was packed — class group chats, the Future War Gods Group with a string of unread @-mentions. And alongside those, a heap of friend requests.

Friend requests had been trickling in without stop ever since his Awakening. Before, he'd never attracted much attention — his poor background and a prior Aberration Event had kept people at arm's length. Now that he was an Awakened Gene Warrior, everyone suddenly wanted to know him. Mostly girls.

He opened the group chats. People were asking how his training was going, whether he'd made it back from the Land of Origin alive yesterday. There was the usual chatter about what each person had found on their last run, exchanges about cultivation techniques.

Lu Yuan had no mood for any of it. He swept all the friend requests to the trash without a second look. He wasn't about to alarm Zhuo Ming and the others by mentioning that his tempering had already hit 20%.

He opened Pete's chat and typed: *Any new information on the shadow?*

A few minutes passed. Pete's reply came through:

*Mr. Lu? I'm sorry — no new information at the moment. It's going to be hard to get anything for the next few days.*

Lu Yuan frowned. *What happened?*

After a short pause, another message:

*Here's the situation — Wild Dog Gang has no honor. Yesterday they killed our members and seized our territory. Our boss has decided to take the fight to those Wild Dog Gang bastards properly. So right now, we just don't have the bandwidth to keep looking into that shadow.*

Then, unprompted, a follow-up:

*Wild Dog Gang has been getting more and more out of control! They've expanded fast these past few years and don't even bother pretending to respect other gangs anymore. Not long ago, they pushed into Viper Gang's territory, and Viper Gang just had to eat it because Wild Dog Gang was too powerful. But the Black Rat Gang isn't going to roll over like those spineless Viper Gang cowards!*

Lu Yuan stared at the screen.

"......"

Another message: *Mr. Lu, don't worry — once we've given Wild Dog Gang a proper lesson, we'll get right back to investigating.*

*Then look into the shadow as soon as you can.*

*...Understood.*

Lu Yuan closed the chat and turned it over in his mind. There was nothing he could do here. If the gang wanted to go to war, he couldn't stop them and demand they investigate ghosts instead.

He was a bit helpless. He hadn't expected this to come up right now.

He took a slow breath. Nothing to do but accept it.

This whole area was riddled with gangs — possibly connected to figures at the upper levels of governance, too. The Wild Dog Gang in particular was the biggest and most arrogant outfit in the entire slum. Practically every form of villainy imaginable, they'd committed. They operated exactly like their name: wild dogs, tearing through the slum without restraint or conscience.

The police looked the other way. Blind eyes all around.

All he could do for now was keep training, keep growing stronger, and make sure the shadow had no reason to come looking for him.

Lu Yuan headed out and made his way to Jiuhu Shopping District.

*Sell the materials first, pick up some serums after.*

Not far from Wild Wolf Materials, he noticed a jet-black hovering car parked silently along the roadside. Embossed on its door was a snarling dog-head insignia.

He was about to push the shop door open when voices bled through from inside.

"Scram!" The owner's voice was flat and cold. "I'm not going back. I will absolutely not return to that heartless person's side."

A beat later: "I already told you to get out — how dare you come back?!"

The door swung open. Two men in black suits and dark sunglasses shuffled out looking distinctly worse for wear, faces pale. They spotted Lu Yuan, ducked their heads, and made themselves scarce.

Lu Yuan watched them climb into the hovering car. It lifted off and disappeared into the sky.

He stepped inside.

"The owner was telling me to scram?"

The owner went rigid. He looked up from his phone — and immediately broke into a wide grin.

"Oh! It's you! I was talking about those dogs. They've already left."

"They have." Lu Yuan smiled. "I watched them get in the car."

"Ha — you caught all of that?" The owner craned his neck toward the door.

"Wild Dog Gang?"

The owner gave the street one last look.

Lu Yuan didn't know much about the slum's gang politics, but the Wild Dog Gang's name came up often enough. They were the biggest and most arrogant outfit in the entire slum — virtually every bad thing you could imagine, they'd done it. Their style was exactly like their name: wild dogs, taking whatever they wanted without restraint or consequence. Not only that, but they were the largest gang in the slum by a wide margin, with reach and resources to match.

"Didn't take the owner for someone with connections," Lu Yuan remarked. "Those two in black didn't look like ordinary messengers — they were calling you *young master*."

"Heh." Something shifted faintly in the owner's expression. "Status?"

He gave a small shake of his head, dropping the topic.

He studied Lu Yuan with evident curiosity. "Anyway — here to sell again?"

Lu Yuan nodded and upended a heap of materials from his battle-mark space onto the counter.

The owner let out a long, low whistle. "Wow — *so much* again? You're something else, buddy. The Land of Origin really is just your personal ATM, isn't it?"

He leaned against the counter. "Oh, hold on — you've come by a good few times now and I still don't know your name. Want to add each other as contacts?"

Lu Yuan considered it. "Sure. I'm Lu Yuan."

The owner tapped at his phone. A moment later, he grinned up at Lu Yuan.

"My name is Xue Wang — WOOF WOOF WOOF!!"

Lu Yuan: "......"

"...Xue... Woof-woof-woof-woof?"

The owner's lip twitched. "Just Xue Wang. Haha. Old habit — you know how it is."

He got to work tallying. "Stone Man's Hearts at three hundred each, scorpion tail stingers at four hundred, giant pincers at two-fifty, dungeon spider silk at six hundred each — total comes to two hundred thirteen thousand. Sound fair?"

"Works for me."

The owner looked Lu Yuan over with undisguised amazement. "Buddy, you're already clearing dungeon spiders? That improvement speed of yours is genuinely insane. Are you some clan's hidden talent or something?"

Lu Yuan smiled without answering.

Inwardly, he was quietly pleased. The Wild Wolf owner had always been a bit of a miser, but he'd done his homework on market prices before coming — this was roughly right.

He reached into his battle-mark space and produced three glowing orbs: the Gene Armaments from the ant nest battle.

The owner's eyes lit up instantly. "Gene Armaments?! Of course I'll take them. You actually have Gene Armaments to sell?"

He examined each one carefully.

"These leather sets dropped from dungeon razor-rats — forty-five thousand apiece, two sets comes to ninety thousand. This one here came off a Black Scorpion — that one's pricier, sixty thousand per set. As for the daggers, they run a bit above armor — eighty thousand for the pair. All together, two hundred thirty thousand. How's that?"

"Fine by me."

"Done!" The owner's fingers flew across his phone. "All together, that's four hundred forty-three thousand — already transferred."

Lu Yuan nodded.

He felt a quiet, satisfied thrill.

*Last time I barely cleared a hundred thirty thousand. This time, in a single visit, I've made more than three times that — and I already offloaded plenty of materials back at the Land of Origin before coming here.*

Making money really was laughably easy.

With this haul, he could stock up on serums and still have plenty to spare.

Honestly, the Land of Origin really had become his personal ATM.

Though of course — that only worked because he had the strength to back it up.