Book 3, Chapter 182: Cooperation

In the upper city district, Big Sis Huan stood in front of a screen in her apartment in Glowing Dew District and summoned her group again. “We just received a piece of news from the lower city district. Our target went there.”

One of the members lurched forward. “Big Sis Huan, should we use this chance to get rid of him?”

Big Sis Huan crossed her arms and said, “It’ll be hard. Even though the company has business partners with a base there, we’ve been told to complete the task on our own.

“If we want the business partners to cooperate with us, we’ll need to contact our higher-ups, then they will send word to the senior executives. It’s too inefficient, and word of it can leak far too easily. Too much can go wrong with this approach, and by the time it’s done, our target might not even be there anymore.

“I called all of you here today not to take him out, but to show you a video.”

As she spoke, Big Sis Huan flicked at the screen and dragged a video over. “This happened yesterday in the lower city district. You can compare the difference between this fight and the one against Wei Wusheng.

“We couldn’t get too much useful information from his fight against the Viper Order. This video is our best reference for his current strength and standard.

“A special resonator group in the lower city district provided it for us. Even though there’s something wrong with the Realm Pass and we can’t see all the details clearly, we can read our target’s movements after slowing the video down.”

The fight had a fast pace. Everyone saw Chen Chuan use his hand to block the tip of the three-section staff, and shock appeared on their faces. Someone commented, “We haven’t been able to learn much about him from his fight against Wei Wusheng, but this time, we can definitely tell that he practices body hardening.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Then, they saw Gai Er’s powerful swing and agreed with his choice. This attack was impressive in many aspects and was famous. Immediately after, they saw the staff slam into Chen Chuan’s neck, yet he did not budge an inch. This sight only proved their earlier assessment.

Not only did Chen Chuan practice body hardening, but he was even an expert.

“No. That’s not all. When body hardening experts get hit by blunt weapons, the weapons usually bounce off or sink into their flesh. It looks like he used a negation technique and strengthened his mutated tissue with blood essence to block the attack,” Big Sis Huan said after analyzing the situation.

Confused, one of the members said, “The usage of such a method while having his level of strength would require at least 85% of his body to be covered in mutated tissue. Is that even possible?”

“That’s why this is just a theory.” Big Sis Huan gave a non-answer, since she wasn’t sure herself.

They continued watching. A moment later, Chen Chuan matched Gai Er’s speed and grabbed his neck.

Big Sis Huan paused the video and said, “See that? After the target grabbed him, Gai Er lost control of his body. This is a classic reaction from a grappling-type refined force.”

The group nodded. Then, they saw Gai Er being thrown to the ground feet first and Chen Chuan crushing his head. Grim expressions appeared on their faces, and their muscles tensed. They had subconsciously put on defensive stances.

The video ended there. It stopped at the moment Chen Chuan killed Gai Er.

“Well then, state your opinions,” Big Sis Huan ordered.

A moment passed before a member said, “Based on the video, aside from displaying stronger durability, I can’t see much of an improvement compared to the time the target fought against Wei Wusheng. Or rather, I’d say that his opponent wasn’t strong enough. He hasn’t been able to draw out the target’s full strength. I believe that we don’t have to change our original plan, but we need to add methods or weapons specifically used to target body hardening experts.”

“Approved. What else?” Big Sis Huan asked.

Another member added, “The target is strong, especially in one-to-one fights. He’s skilled at seizing opportunities. I just received some information about his fight against the Viper Order. Based on the after action review, he should have taken down the Viper Order one by one.

“That’s what he did with Wei Wusheng, and he did the same thing with Gai Er.

“So, if we want to fight him, we can’t give him the chance to fight us one-to-one. When we fight him, we can’t send one single person up. We need at least one more member providing assistance from the back.

“Perhaps we should add an additional person to engage him head-on and hold him back.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Big Sis Huan asked.

“I think that we might need to bring Jiang Huowang over,” the member answered.

***

Through the dominant domain signal Mr. Chi set up in Clear Road Transport’s base, Chen Chuan was able to contact the Resolution Department and Border Fusion.

While Meng Shu had become the head of the company, she needed time to take over the large number of businesses and staff while coordinating all sorts of things. She would only officially take over next month. There was still some time until then, so Chen Chuan could rest until the middle of next month.

Since he had just completed an extended operation, the department didn’t have anything for him to do for the time being, though Wu Quan did remind him that he had to participate in a World Ring defense operation before the end of the year.

That was nothing. Chen Chuan didn’t plan to stay in the lower city district for long. After making all the arrangements for Yu Gang’s implants, he would leave.

Honestly, the Secret Python Cult provided implants for martial artists and had a great reputation. Unfortunately, they didn’t provide implants for non-members.

One of the supervisors of Bolun Corporation owed Chen Chuan a favor, but he wasn’t close to the man, and he wasn’t going to take a verbal promise seriously.

In the end, he decided to go to Border Fusion for help. After all, the company produced implants as well, so he mentioned wanting some when he contacted them.

The company acted efficiently. The next day, they contacted him through a dominant domain signal and sent an armored car from the upper city district. Lan Shennan went to receive them, and they arrived at the base together.

After the person in charge got out of the car, he hurried over to shake Chen Chuan’s hand. “Hello, Mr. Chen. I’m Tang Zhang, vice director of the External Operations Department,” he introduced himself.

“We’ve brought some products based on the information you provided. They’ve been created using our latest technology. After getting these implants, you won’t need to rely on medicine as much as with the other implants in the market. We’ve also removed the secret key, just as Miss Shu ordered. It won’t affect the implantee in any shape or form.”

This was precisely why Chen Chuan had picked Border Fusion. Even the Secret Python Cult might have left behind some secret keys in their implants, but Meng Shu wouldn’t do something so pointless. Instead, she would do her best to put a stop to it.

“I heard that implants that won’t make you reliant on medicine exist in the market, is that true?” Chen Chuan asked.

“They do exist, but they require various tests for compatibility, and we need to perform targeted conditioning of the person that will be receiving the implant. This usually takes a few years, and it’s expensive. We haven’t mastered this piece of technology yet,” Tang Zhang answered.

Chen Chuan nodded at that. It was just an offhand question, anyway. Since safety was an issue, he would rather make a tradeoff and go for the safer option.

Tang Zhang then said to Lan Shennan, “Captain Lan, if you need an implant specialist and equipment at your base, we can also provide you with those things.”

“Thank you, but we have them,” Lan Shennan politely rejected the offer.

At that moment, she came to realize just how powerful a Third Limit martial artist in the upper city district was.

When Clear Road Transport was in its prime, it had hired more than one Third Limit martial artist. Their strength lay in intimidating others into not attacking them, but they had little other uses.

Even so, that was enough for their group. However, those Third Limit martial artists couldn’t hold a candle to what Chen Chuan was doing. With just one call, he was able to make a vice director personally send implants over.

In the past, Lan Shennan had needed to use every means possible, like cashing in a lot of favors and making tons of promises, to get anything. In the end, all she’d receive would be a normal implant.

But those problems didn’t seem to even exist in front of Chen Chuan.

“Captain Lan, I can’t talk about this to Mr. Yu. It’s better for you to mention it to him,” Chen Chuan said.

“Leave it to me.” Lan Shennan bobbed her head.

After she left, Tang Zhang turned to Chen Chuan and asked with a smile, “Do you have a moment, Mr. Chen?”

When Chen Chuan saw that Tang Zhang still had something to say, he brought him to an empty spot and asked, “What is it, Mr. Tang?”

“This is my first time coming to the lower city district, and I had a chat with Captain Lan while we were on our way here. I think this is a great place to expand our business. Would it affect you, though?

“Please don’t misunderstand. This is purely a business venture. Every year, all we receive are deals from the country, so we need to find areas to grow our business.

“Meng Huang had cast his sights on other countries. Honestly, if not for politics, this would have been a good choice. Now that we’ve had it shut in our faces, our only unexploited area left is the lower city district.”

Chen Chuan stared at him for a moment before saying, “The lower city district has always been here. Why haven’t you expanded your business here before?”

Tang Zhang smiled in answer. “First, because there are rules we can’t bypass. Second, because we didn’t have any suitable products. We couldn’t find the right way to break into the market.

“We make protective gear and other defensive products, but the government doesn’t let us sell them to normal people, much less the people in the lower city district, since they have no citizenship. But as you’ve seen it just now, we also produce quite a lot of implants. They’ll make it easy for us to expand our business in the lower city district.

“We need to cooperate with one of the forces of power here for that to happen, and I think Clear Road Transport is a suitable business partner. They have established client channels and territories, so they’re perfect for promoting our products. Most importantly, though, they want to work with us too.”

“What are your personal thoughts about this?” Chen Chuan asked.

“The company proposed this a long time ago. Who wouldn’t want a slice of the lower city district’s pie? But you look close to Clear Road Transport, so I’d rather ask you for your opinion before making a decision. If you don’t think this is a good choice, pretend I said nothing,” Tang Zhang answered while smiling.