If not tonight, White Moon would have to send someone tomorrow and it would still be Hao Lianchuan! No other Sunflare would dare cross thousands of kilometers to transport thousands of cubes. There were supernaturals roaming the wild, waiting to commit robbery!
“Teacher, you’ve really considered everything!” Li Hao couldn’t help but sigh with appreciation.
Of course, who knew how Hao Lianchuan would react?
“And it doesn’t matter what he thinks,” said Yuan Shuo. “Can Night Watchers not eliminate wanted criminals? Not to mention, various factions are waiting to excavate the ruins with us. There will be no problems so long as it isn’t open warfare. The prerequisite to that is that they don’t know about Qiao Feilong’s true strength.”
Teacher and disciple nodded.
“Then does this mean we’re on our own for the three Sunflares?” Liu Long asked. He thought about the issue and mulled over what Yuan Shuo had said about having Hao Lianchuan bring up the rear. There shouldn’t be much issue with their proposed course of action.
Of course, no plan could be perfect. Fortune was snatched from the jaws of danger! But if Yuan Shuo wasn’t afraid, then what was he afraid for?
“I’ll need to make certain preparations after I go back and require the cooperation of the others. At the very least, we need to be ready for a besiegement.” Liu Long hesitated. “There are probably plenty of regular people in the mines. Once we use weapons of mass scale destruction...”
It weighed on him. Yuan Shuo was more ruthless than him when it came to this, but the professor was also aware of Liu Long’s personality. He didn’t outright say to ignore the regular people, but bent his mind to considering Liu Long’s concerns as well.
“They won’t let regular folks into that area because of the ruins,” Li Hao interjected. “During my observations, I noted there was a distance between the three Sunflares and ordinary people. They were at least one thousand meters apart.”
Not too far, and in fact, very close! But it was a distance that could be avoided if one exercised a little bit of caution.
“I have a suggestion if chief thinks this is ill-advised,” Li Hao mentioned.
Liu Long blinked. A public holiday? He thought rapidly. “There’s no reason for a public holiday!”
“Why not?” Li Hao smiled. “Our Night Watcher branch is opening in two days. In order to celebrate this day and the fact that Silver City has its own supernatural agency, the entire city can relax on that day and the day after! We can say this to the city’s senior council and tell those below that it’s simply days off.”
Most people would return home for a two day holiday, particularly those who worked in the mines. They were overworked in normal times and would absolutely not stay in the mountain with the arrival of a rare holiday. Not everyone would leave, but there would be much fewer there than otherwise.
Since they would be one thousand meters away, that would decrease losses to the lowest amount possible.
“Won’t that unnecessarily alert the enemy?” asked Liu Long.
“It’s the entire city on holiday, not just him!” Li Hao laughed. “And it’s only targeted toward mundanes, the Qiaos shouldn’t pay it any attention.”
“But we must be on our guard!” Yuan Shuo objected. “Do you think it makes sense to give mundanes a holiday for a Night Watcher occasion? And will the Qiaos give those days off just because we say so?”
The professor swept a glance at his student and shook his head. “You do well with minor tricks, but you also easily commit mistakes in critical moments.”
Li Hao lowered his head without a word. Since his teacher had spoken thus, perhaps he had a plan.
“Declaring a public holiday outright isn’t a very reliable course of action...” Yuan Shuo narrowed his eyes. “Roughly a thousand meters away, are they? Then I’ll visit tonight and create an incident. I’ll collapse the mine! I’m familiar with the area as I opened a new mine there before. A few pokes and prods at the original collapse site will ensure that the ground continues to cave in. No one is in the mines at night and the Qiaos will declare a company holiday themselves. They won’t be back up to business for another ten days to two weeks.”
“That’s doable.” Liu Long nodded. “It won’t be the first. Qiao Mining Industries suffered a few collapses when I was on the law enforcement team. They were able to move on afterward due to a lack of casualties.”
“That’s normal!” Yuan Shuo chuckled. “Their area of collapse should be close to the ruins. There naturally won’t be that many people there. But since it caved in, they have to rectify it. Now that they’ve started excavating the ruins, it’s collapsed more than once or twice in recent years. Another occurrence isn’t a big deal, and they’ll certainly send their people away when they explore the ruins to avoid discovery.”
Li Hao nodded. That was true. Another collapse wouldn’t raise eyebrows since it wasn’t the first time and the Qiaos would be more concerned than anyone that the incident might draw attention. They’d immediately halt operations to prevent a third party investigation.
Therefore, they would pause work as soon as the incident occurred.
“Can you avoid their detection, teacher?”
“No shit, I’m a martial master, not a supernatural!” Yuan Shuo hectored. The lad didn’t even know basic fundamentals! The greatest advantage to being a martial master was that internal force blossomed from inside the body. There was nothing special about a martial master if they didn’t project their energy.
Supernaturals were extremely hard pressed to sense their martial dao counterpart.
Li Hao laughed dryly and said nothing more.
Liu Long’s assorted fears and concerns were set aside after deciding upon the overall direction of their plan. It was up to luck as to whether or not they would succeed.
It was up to luck to see if he could take down the three Sunflares.
Based on Li Hao’s thoughts, he wanted to add Hao Lianchuan to the cause for added surety. However, his teacher and Liu Long were gamblers at heart; the thought didn’t cross their mind. They wanted to take care of this by themselves if possible and bring in the cavalry if they couldn’t. This wasn’t in accordance with Li Hao’s expectations.
But at the moment, it was all the young man could do.
They continued to eat lunch without further discussing this matter.
Li Hao left with Liu Long after lunch. There would be someone who came along to fix Yuan Shuo’s floor tiles. That had nothing to do with Li Hao.
Liu Long’s eyes were shut as he contemplated something. He suddenly opened them when they were almost at the Inspectorate. “Do you think we should involve Liu Yan and the others?”
He was asking for Li Hao’s opinion!
Startled, the young man marshaled a response. “We should if they still aren’t afraid of danger and want more resources. But if they feel that they want to live out their days in peace and just draw a salary, then we should leave them be. But to be honest, Silver City will be in danger if anything goes wrong with us. It won’t matter whether or not they’re involved.”
“So you think we should bring them into this?”
“You have your own considerations, chief.” Li Hao refrained from saying too much as Liu Long wasn’t the indecisive sort. He was just overly worried because this operation involved several Sunflares and the Demon Hunters were akin to his siblings. Li Hao was certain that if Liu Yan and the others knew, they’d all want to be part of it. Only Wang Ming and his people were hard to determine.
“Let’s hold a meeting,” Liu Long decided. “Should we let Wang Ming and the others participate?”
They were outsiders, after all.
“We should.” Li Hao offered his take. “They’re all young and highly driven! This is a chance to blend our department, or we’ll stay two separate teams that are difficult to integrate. We’ll become one group only after fighting side by side.”
“You’re right.” Liu Long smiled, then quickly resumed his customary aloofness. “While I don’t know the particulars of our enemy, I’m confident of defeating all three of them after becoming a Dominator! They’re three rats who’ve never shown their faces in the supernatural domain. Maybe they’ve never even raised a hand before. How much battle awareness can they have after the Qiaos hid them for so long?”
“Probably not much.” Li Hao smirked. “Maybe less than me!”
“Precisely!” Liu Long nodded in agreement. It wasn’t just the three Sunflares, but also Qiao Feilong. The man hadn’t fought for many years either. He was just a mere Slayer before, how much battle awareness would he hold even as a Solar now?
He could torture those weaker than him, but what of his peers?
Who knew if it was out of self-comfort or true belief, but confidence began to brim in Liu Long.
The Law Enforcement building.
Wang Ming couldn’t help but complain to Hu Hao when he heard that yet another meeting had been scheduled. He’d just come from visiting some corporations.
“People say that White Moon holds a lot of meetings and I quite agree! But after coming to Silver City, I find that it’s the smaller places that are completely out of control!”
It’d only been how many days and how many meetings in that duration? Silver City held meetings at the drop of a hat!
He was immensely dissatisfied with Liu Long, finding the director to be someone indifferent to fame and wealth. The man was known among White Moon supernaturals as a cantankerous guy. But now he seemed more obsessed with the trappings of power!
He held nonstop meetings after becoming director. There was absolutely no end in sight! Not only that, but there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony in two days. Bah! They were Night Watchers, not a corporation! What was this nonsense about a ribbon-cutting ceremony? They were an absolute laughingstock!
“He doesn’t do a single thing that he should be doing!” Wang Ming complained again. Hu Hao didn’t say anything as he was a taciturn, reserved type. Li Meng, however, quite agreed.
“That’s right! When upstairs told us to come to Silver City, I was thinking it might be the same as last time and we might see some fighting. It might be dangerous, so they wanted us to come to temper ourselves. But after a few days... it’s either meetings or whiling the days away. We go to dojos and companies to waste time. I’m so bored!”
The heck was this! Li Meng felt that White Moon City was overestimating the martial masters of Silver City. They seemed to have entered retirement after the last battle. Every single person was busy displaying their authority instead of doing actual work. This was such a waste of the trio’s lives!
“Director Wang, Li Meng, let’s go to the meeting!” Hu Hao interrupted. They were in the law enforcement building! It wouldn’t do for someone to overhear them. They were a team, after all. They’d yet to grow close with Liu Yan and the others after these days. It only appeared that they were congenial on the surface.
“C’mon, let’s see what they’ve got in store for today,” Wang Ming snorted. “There’s a perfectly fine conference room here, but they want to hold it in the basement. They’ve seriously got too much time on their hands!”
The three grumbled and muttered among themselves, but still headed for the basement. This was where the meeting was being held this time.