Chapter 322 — Faulty Information

"You could put it that way. But I have an old man who dotes on me. You could call him my adoptive father, or my adoptive grandfather... his age is at an awkward in-between, to be honest... so I just call him the old man." Wei Zhao scratched at his scalp.

"Heh..." Wang Xinyan was amused by him. "You don't have to comfort me. I'm truly fine, only a little unsettled inside. My grandfather has just passed away, and my uncles have already started fighting over the estate. They left grandfather's body lying in the hospital and nobody even cared. In the end it was my parents who arranged the funeral..."

"..." Wei Zhao was left speechless. He did not know what to say about Wang Xinyan's uncles. They had let an estranged daughter come back to handle the funeral while they were busy fighting over the family fortune.

"But it doesn't matter... our family wants nothing from them... My grandfather's family is very rich, richer and more powerful than my own grandfather's, but after all these years of hard work, my parents have carved out a place for themselves..." Wang Xinyan had kept these words bottled up for a long time; she surely had no one to pour her heart out to ordinarily. Now, with Wei Zhao, whom she found fairly easy to talk to, she opened up. "It's just... my uncles say that at a time like this, my mother came back only to fight for the estate..."

"..." Wei Zhao listened quietly to Wang Xinyan's outpouring, unsure what to say. This was her family's business, and he had no place to cut in.

"Heh... I'm just grumbling. As long as I'm not bothering you." Wang Xinyan shook her head with a bitter smile.

"Not at all. Didn't I say as much? Every family has its own difficult scripture to read. This sort of thing is hard to handle. So long as you do your utmost, that is enough," Wei Zhao said.

"Yes. So long as you do your utmost, that is enough." Wang Xinyan nodded.

The two of them talked for a while, and Wang Xinyan seemed to grow tired. She leaned back in her seat, and before long drifted off to sleep. Wei Zhao turned the air conditioning down a little for her, then closed his own eyes.

When he woke again, the plane had already begun its descent. Wang Xinyan had woken at some point and sat there quietly listening to her MP3 player, with several bags of snacks and a glass of juice set out on the tray table.

Seeing that Wei Zhao was awake, Wang Xinyan pulled off her earphones and handed him a bag of snacks from the table. "Here. They handed these out while you were asleep. I collected a portion for you."

"You have it. I'm not too fond of this sort of thing." Wei Zhao glanced at it. Dried vegetable chips or something of the kind. He showed it no love.

"Mm, thanks..." Wang Xinyan seemed very fond of this kind of snack. Her own portion was already finished.

Soon the plane landed at Yanjing Airport. After disembarking, Wang Xinyan headed for the domestic arrivals exit, while Wei Zhao went to the international transit lounge.

The encounter with Wang Xinyan was no more than a small interlude. Wei Zhao boarded the flight bound for Blue Town...

This time, once aboard, there was no one he knew, so Wei Zhao simply shut his eyes and quietly slept.

When he opened his eyes, he was already in a foreign land. It was a small town steeped in exotic charm, but it was not Blue Town. Blue Town still lay a few kilometers away by car.

After leaving the airport, Wei Zhao flagged down a taxi and told the driver in English that he wished to go to Blue Town.

English is the common tongue of the world, and it worked just as well in this little European town full of foreign flavor. There were many passengers going from the airport to Blue Town, and the driver was long used to it. Ever since Blue Town had fallen under the control of the Aqua Gang, it had been filled with extravagance and vice: casinos, red-light districts, drug deals — the whole town was saturated with them...

Every day, visitors came to Blue Town drawn by its name, and so the driver took Wei Zhao for just another tourist out for a good time. "Young man, it's fine to have some fun there, but whatever you do, don't lose yourself in it... otherwise, ah!"

"Heh, thanks. I'm only going to take a look." Wei Zhao thought this driver was decent enough to give him the warning.

The driver stopped trying to dissuade him and instead began describing the local customs and ways of Blue Town. With obviously Eastern features like Wei Zhao's, he was plainly a tourist here. "In Blue Town, whatever you do, don't offend the men in blue baseball caps. They're members of the Aqua Gang. They haunt the casinos and the brothels. The Aqua Gang is the only gang in Blue Town, and they're very powerful. Offend them, and you might not make it back!"

"I've heard of that!" Wei Zhao nodded. "By the way, driver, I'd like to ask — where is the Aqua Gang's headquarters?"

"Headquarters? What do you want to know that for?" The driver turned wary all at once.

"I want to stay somewhere far away from them. It sounds frightening, and since I'm traveling alone, I'd like to invite as little trouble as possible." Wei Zhao explained with a smile.

"So that's it!" The driver let out a breath and smiled. "The Aqua Gang's headquarters is in an old castle on the west side of town, but their true core isn't there. The castle is too conspicuous — these days it holds nothing but ordinary gang members!"

"Is that so!" Wei Zhao thought to himself: could the information be faulty? The material Xie Guangbo had given him showed that the blue castle was the Aqua Gang's headquarters! And yet, if even a taxi driver knew otherwise, had Xie Guangbo truly failed to investigate it properly?

"Heh, that's right. A cousin of mine is a member of the Aqua Gang, so I know a bit more than most! Their real headquarters is an auto repair shop in the North District. Only a handful of people know that. Ordinary folk have no idea! But you're a tourist from out of town, so there's no harm in telling you. Just try not to go to the North District!"

"All right, then I won't go." Something stirred in Wei Zhao's heart. So it was true after all! The gang's real headquarters was not much of a secret, but because this place was so far from Songshan City, all Xie Guangbo had been able to dig up was superficial information.

And information like this, never verified by investigation on the ground, would never turn up as any concrete search result online.

Wei Zhao had the driver take him into the town of Blue Town itself, then switched to another taxi and went to the North District, where he found a hotel and checked in.

Eastern tourists like Wei Zhao were hardly rare, so no one at the hotel paid him any mind. After a cursory glance at the room, Wei Zhao put on his sunglasses and left the hotel, wandering the streets of the North District at random.

An auto repair shop? Of course he would not casually inquire about such a place from passersby. That might bring unnecessary trouble — who knew whether any of these people had ties to the Aqua Gang? Wei Zhao's aim was to bring Xie Jinbiao back with him directly, not to go looking for trouble with the Aqua Gang.

For the fastest updates, please read without pop-ups.