Chapter 102: The Top Expert Is Dead

The three of them got into the car, and Zhao Ling'Er drove Mu Lin back to the villa.

Mu Lin checked the time. It was still quite early, and the light in Li Xue's room was on.

'She probably won't be jealous anymore.'

He walked to the villa's entrance, but Li Xue wasn't there. Going inside, he saw her watching TV with Elder Li, acting as if nothing was wrong.

"Mu Lin, you're back! Have you eaten? If not, I can make you something."

Mu Lin chuckled. "I ate already. It was just friends at this dinner, people I can trust, so I ate my fill."

Li Xue glanced behind Mu Lin. "Where are the bodyguards I arranged for you?"

Mu Lin froze for a moment. 'Oops, I completely forgot about that.'

However, he decided to spin it another way. "Oh, I sent them home. It felt weird bringing bodyguards to a hotel."

"What's so weird about it? You're a deputy project team leader, after all."

Sweat beaded on Mu Lin's forehead. 'You really have no filter. A deputy team leader with bodyguards? What kind of crazy company is that?'

'Does that mean the chairman gets an entire army?'

After sending Mu Lin and his companions off, Qiao Canhua had Lao Wang book a suite.

They would spend this last night in the hotel, and the couple could properly enjoy an emperor-class lifestyle.

"Of course. Rest assured, you can leave it to me!" Lao Wang called over an attendant and arranged for the suite.

After the attendant left, Lao Wang pondered for a moment. There was a doubt still lingering in his mind.

"Chairman Qiao, why did Mr. Mu ask me about the matter of the powerful families?"

Qiao Canhua thought for a moment. All sorts of possibilities existed, but he wasn't familiar with the local situation in Anhua and really couldn't predict what might happen.

"Anything is possible. Regardless, he's a slippery one; it's unlikely he'll be the one to come out on the losing end."

Lao Wang thought back on Mu Lin's track record. It was true; Mu Lin had never suffered a loss, not from the very beginning.

Just then, his phone buzzed.

Lao Wang frowned. 'Didn't I say not to call when I'm attending to a guest?'

'Good thing we've already eaten, or I would've chewed them out for this.'

"My apologies, Chairman Qiao, I have to take this call!"

Qiao Canhua paid him no mind, sipping his wine by himself.

Lao Wang walked five meters away before answering.

An excited voice cried out from the other end of the line:

"Lao Wang, you won't believe this! Dong Jia, the Yang Family's top expert, was found dead on the side of the road! Shot in the temple. His entire head is like tofu pudding... It's gruesome."

What?!

Lao Wang's leg nearly gave out, and his face paled. "What happened?"

"How would I know what happened? I just overheard some talk. When I drove past, the whole road was blocked off. They're saying it's for roadwork..."

Lao Wang said, "So you're saying the police aren't involved, and the Yang Family is handling it themselves?"

"That's about the gist of it!"

"Where did you say this was?"

The voice on the other end gave an address. As the general manager of the largest hotel in Anhua City, Lao Wang was incredibly familiar with the city's geography.

He realized in an instant that it was on the main route from the hotel to the Li Family's residence.

Was it an attack aimed at Mu Lin? He knew that Mu Lin was living with the Li Family now.

But... but how could Dong Jia possibly be defeated by Mu Lin?

He was a top-tier enforcer!

"All right, all right, I have to go! A few guys are chasing me off!"

Lao Wang walked weakly back to Qiao Canhua's side. He was drenched in sweat, his shirt soaked through as if he'd just been in a fight.

His reaction while on the phone had been quite loud, and Qiao Canhua was very puzzled. "If you don't mind my asking, what happened?"

This was probably something he could talk about, Lao Wang judged. Besides, nothing was confirmed yet. The Yang Family wasn't going to come settle a score with him over this, were they?

So he briefly explained the whole situation.

Qiao Canhua swirled the red wine in his glass, letting the aroma breathe.

"Dong Jia. Is that the Yang Family's most capable enforcer? The one who made a huge splash in the underground fighting scene?"

Some time ago, Qiao Canhua had gone through a phase of being fascinated by the underground fighting scene and had spent a lot of money on it.

He'd also learned a few things about its inner workings. Dong Jia had been a top fighter more than a decade ago, a rising star who appeared a few years after Wu Long retired from the ring. But after a brief, brilliant period, he quit the scene to become the captain of the Yang Family's bodyguards.

"I can't believe it either, but that road is currently closed. I doubt any construction company is so dedicated that they'd close a road in the middle of the night."

Qiao Canhua couldn't sit still. Mu Lin wasn't just his family's benefactor; he was a good young man. Qiao Canhua didn't want anything to happen to Mu Lin.

Absolutely anything.

Qiao Canhua dialed Divine Doctor Zhao's number. "Elder Zhao, are you okay? Did anything happen on the way back while taking Mu Lin home?"

Divine Doctor Zhao thought for a second and realized Dong Jia's body must have been found. The truth was, Mu Lin hadn't bothered to hide it at all. He had simply tossed the man by the roadside with casual ease, precisely so he would be discovered quickly.

"Dong Jia blocked our way, intending to take Mu Lin with him. Mu Lin killed him," Divine Doctor Zhao stated simply.

"I see..." Qiao Canhua let out a long breath of relief. All that mattered was that Mu Lin was unharmed. But he was also secretly shocked. 'How can he be so strong?'

'What a kid.'

At the Yang Family residence, Young Master Yang was coaxing his child to do their homework when an assistant suddenly rushed in and handed him a folded piece of paper.

Young Master Yang stood up and walked a few steps away before opening it.

The message on the paper caused him to nearly lose his composure.

The child looked up worriedly. "Dad, what's wrong?"

Young Master Yang waved a hand. "It's nothing. You get back to your homework!"

Then he stormed out and grabbed his assistant's shoulders. "How could Dong Jia be dead? My Yang Family spent thirty years cultivating him! How could he suddenly..."

The assistant replied, "His body has been recovered. The scene is still sealed off. A few of the family's experts are analyzing the scene, trying to reconstruct the entire battle."

Young Master Yang paced back and forth, but it did nothing to relieve his anxiety.

"How could this be..."

Then came the enormous problem.

Dong Jia wasn't just some solitary fighter; he had a powerful backer...

This was not going to be easy to handle.

"Young Master, what do we do? With Dong Jia dead, his older brother, Dong Hua, is sure to come looking for trouble... He's a truly ruthless character. Our entire security team couldn't stop him."

Young Master Yang was also worried, extremely so. "If I'd known that Mu Lin kid was such a good fighter, I never would have agreed to Wu Long's terms."

What was supposed to be a simple favor, an easy way to build goodwill, had turned into this mess.

"Let's take it one step at a time. I'll try to work on Dong Hua's boss, see if I can contain his anger. Once his rage is under control, we can turn a big problem into a small one, and a small one into nothing. In the end, it's just a matter of money."

After mulling it over for a long time, Young Master Yang chose this solution. "If his anger can't be contained, then let him go and deal with Mu Lin personally."

'You're the expert, right? Then go kill him yourself. That ought to settle things.'

The assistant was still hesitant. "Young Master, we've already lost one top expert. Over thirty years of heavy investment have gone down the drain. Now we have to compensate Dong Hua on top of that. Isn't this loss a bit too great?"

Young Master Yang said, "Of course I know the loss is great... But we have no choice but to pay. Besides, we don't have to be the ones to pay it. It was Wu Long who wanted the man dead, so we'll just make him foot the bill."

The assistant's eyes lit up. The whole maddening financial crisis had been resolved, just like that.

The subsequent problems wouldn't be nearly as big.

"Yes, I'll get right on it!"

When Mu Lin returned home, the old man was still awake, so they decided to play another game before turning in.

Li Yinhe was busy with the Li Group's land acquisition for a new project when a notification popped up on his phone.

It was from a local informant. The man had once bought a property in a Li Group development, and Li Yinhe had given him a fifteen percent discount. Ever since, he'd sent any juicy news to Li Yinhe first.

"Dong..." Li Yinhe exclaimed. "Dong Jia?"

Elder Li's train of thought was broken by Li Yinhe's shout. He said with dissatisfaction:

"What are you getting so worked up about? If you have something to say, just say it."

Li Yinhe stammered, "But... but that's Dong Jia! The man who once dominated the underground fighting scene! How is he dead?"

Elder Li paused for three seconds before crying out in shock, "You mean Dong Jia, the Yang Family's number one expert? How could..."

"But it did!"

"Then is his brother, Dong Hua, just going to let it go? That man is utterly intolerant of the slightest offense. Insult him once and he'll chase you to the ends of the earth. Now that his little brother has been killed, all hell is going to break loose."

"Exactly. Whoever did the killing will have to spend the rest of their life living in fear. It would be a mercy to be killed by one of his fists instead."

"Is Dong Hua really that strong?" Mu Lin asked, advancing a pawn.

"Are you kidding?! He's one of the top experts in all of Celestial Yang Province! He's taken out enough people to fill a skyscraper!"