Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"Brother, that wasn't my idea—it was his own!" Yan Shoubao now loathed the pretty boy with all his heart. You're that weak, you're no match for him, and you still dreamed of sneaking up on him—what a fucking idiot. Bastard, screw your mother! If you want to kill yourself, don't drag me down with you!

No wonder Yan Shoubao cursed the pretty boy's mother—he was truly furious. He had just begged for forgiveness from the great deity Yang Cenbin, and now you had gone and provoked that deity all over again.

"I know," Yang Linyue said flatly.

But that one flat sentence from Yang Linyue made Yan Shoubao feel as though a warm spring breeze had washed over him, as though he had returned from hell to the world of the living. Cold sweat broke out all over his body. "Brother, you're truly wise! Brother, rest assured, in a little while I'll throw this universe's super-invincible number-one idiot who ambushed you into sulfuric acid and leave not a whole corpse behind."

"Enough of that useless talk. The key's got blood on it, and I don't want to touch it anymore. Forget it—I'll skip the travel allowance." Yang Ce waved a hand. "But I hope you won't make me pay my own travel expenses for after-sales service. Otherwise, heh heh." Yang Ce gave a cold laugh and said no more, but the meaning was unmistakable: it would certainly be worse than this time.

"Brother, rest assured!" Yan Shoubao was in utter despair. What struck cold fear into him especially was that Yang Ce, with his back turned, had still sensed that someone meant to ambush him. What kind of organization did this man belong to, that his reflexes could be so swift?

Yang Ce focused his attention on Yan Shoubao and said nothing.

Under Yang Ce's gaze, Yan Shoubao grew nervous and frightened again, not knowing what Yang Ce intended. "Brother, everything I said before was true!"

Damn it, if I'd known Mingyang Heavy Industries had hired someone this formidable, I'd have never crossed them even if it killed me. This is no different from playing with fire. I'll dissolve the company as soon as I can and switch to another line of work while there's still time. Otherwise, as long as we're both in heavy machinery, even if I don't go after Mingyang myself, there's bound to be a clash of interests sooner or later. And if Mingyang uses that as an excuse to bring this fellow back for after-sales service, that would be a fuckup of no ordinary kind.

"Seeing" Yan Shoubao's inner voice, Yang Ce finally gave a slow nod, wholly convinced that Yan Shoubao would not trouble Mingyang Heavy Industries again.

Earlier, Yang Ce had discovered the knack of using this ability: when the target's heart was under extreme tension, he need only concentrate to see clearly what they were thinking.

After this experiment, Yang Ce's command of the ability grew even more practiced. The trouble was that this ability had far too many limitations—he could not use it at will. Yang Shuoxuan had once wondered: why was it that he could see into other people's thoughts only when they were under inner tension?

Even after long consideration, Yang Shuoxuan had found no definite reason. Most likely, though, it was because a person's will was comparatively weak under tension, and only then could he steal in and glimpse their true thoughts through that weakened will. But that was only Yang Juehuan's conjecture; there was no way to verify it yet.

"I'll believe you for now." Yang Yuting nodded. "You can handle the bodies, I take it?"

"Rest assured, brother, I'll take care of everything." Hearing Yang Cenbin say this, Yan Shoubao knew he had bought his life back. He had been unbelievably stupid before, actually entertaining the notion of opposing this "brother"—wasn't that just courting death?

"You won't call the police, right?" Yang Ce guessed the fellow would not, but he asked anyway. If there was any intent to call the police, he would give him another good thumping.

"Brother, they've all committed murders down south. If I called the police, wouldn't that just be asking for trouble? And what if it implicated me too?" Yan Shoubao explained with a bitter smile. He held nothing back from Yang Ce now; whatever came to mind, he said.

"I'm off. Let's hope we never meet again—because if we do, it'll be the last time we ever do." With that, Yang Yanzhou turned and walked toward the door of Yan Shoubao's office.

Yan Shoubao's heart gave a jolt. He watched Yang Juehuan's back leave his office, and only then did he collapse limply into his boss's chair. It was a long while before he took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Erzi, come to my office. I need your help with something. Don't ask any questions, just get over here right now." The "Erzi" Yan Shoubao spoke of was his own younger brother; these days, the only person he could tell about such things was the one closest to him.

Erzi arrived at Yan Shoubao's office in no time. When he saw the corpses strewn across the floor and his elder brother drenched in blood, he started in shock and roared furiously, "What son of a bitch had the nerve to come into Sankun and run wild?"

Yan Shoubao was badly startled, terrified that Yang Moyi's keen ears might catch what Erzi had said, and he said hurriedly, "Erzi, you mustn't talk like that."

"What on earth happened, brother? What's all this—" Erzi was struck dumb by Yan Shoubao's words. This was not like his brother at all. To be in such a state and yet show not a trace of anger, but instead a note of fear in his voice.

Yan Shoubao told Erzi the whole story from beginning to end, and after hearing it, Erzi too fell silent. Studying the wretched way the bodyguards lay dead on the floor, Erzi understood that his brother had crossed someone he could not afford to cross.

The two brothers clumsily stuffed the bodies into woven sacks, hauled them down in the freight elevator to the basement, to the warehouse where the sulfuric acid was stored, and dumped them straight into the vat of concentrated acid. A plume of thick smoke billowed up; in a few days, most likely, nothing would be left of them.

Only Yan Shoubao had the key to this warehouse, and he was not afraid that anyone would come in and discover it. Back in the office with Erzi, he began to discuss with him the business of dissolving the company. This was a task of the utmost urgency, a matter of first importance—Yan Shoubao had no wish to be the next one to die.

As for what he would do once the company was dissolved, Yan Shoubao had not yet decided; but even if he did nothing at all, the money he had made over the years was enough to squander for several lifetimes.

Yang Ce, meanwhile, was as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. Driving his big Dongfeng truck, he rolled grandly out of the Sankun Machinery Plant and headed for Zhaoshang Engineering and Construction.

He delivered the goods without a hitch and collected the full payment. The engineers at Zhaoshang Construction were thoroughly pleased with the construction machinery turned out by Mingyang Heavy Industry, and they agreed on a long-term partnership going forward.

They seemed, however, to know something of the affair with Yan Shoubao of Sankun Machinery, and they were rather puzzled that Yan Shoubao had not taken some sort of countermeasure.

"Sankun Machinery hasn't come looking for trouble with you?" the man from the Fenghuang City Investment Promotion Bureau's construction company asked Yang Ce in surprise.

"Trouble? No, none," Yang Hengye said. "Though I did hear that Sankun Machinery is going to change trades."

"Change trades?" Of course none of them believed Yang Juehuan. Sankun Machinery had been making construction machinery for many years; its quality might not match Mingyang Heavy Industry's, but it still had buyers. No one simply upped and changed trades overnight. So they took Yang Yanzhou's remark for a joke and thought no more of it.