NOVPUB"Any news on Boss?" Li Wei asked Yue Peng as she handed her a stack of files.
"You're his personal secretary. Shouldn't you know?" Yue Peng asked.
"Well, I also have to look after the business now that Lin Ruan is out clearing gates at the breakneck speed." Li Wei replied as she casually took the seat opposite Yue Peng.
"Have a seat." Yue Peng rolled her eyes.
"Oh, please. Remember who takes care of your share of work when you go dungeon raiding." Li Wei said.
"And I bring back spoils for you to grow stronger from the comfort of your own office." Yue Peng said like a professional businesswoman.
"Whatever." Li Wei said, "I just came here to tell you that that deal we were trying to make in the capital city didn't work out."
"What? Why?" Yue Peng asked, "We gave them a much better offer than the locals."
"Apparently, someone beat us to it." Li Wei replied.
"Who?" Yue Peng asked.
"Don't know. This guy suddenly popped up on the radar." Li Wei replied as she handed Yue Peng a file.
"Xin Huatao? Do we know of him?" Yue Peng asked.
"Mhm. Son of the Huatao family from Fengdu city. This is all I could get on him before his own network stopped me from digging any further." Li Wei replied.
"Must be some network." Yue Peng was amazed. There were not many in the world that could match Li Wei's hacking skills and intelligence gathering.
"It wasn't because they were good. There were just too many of them. I was caught off guard by the number, so before I could give my location away, I backed out. Now they're probably on guard." Li Wei explained.
"That makes much more sense." Yue Peng replied before she began to check the file.
"Hmm... That's strange." Yue Peng couldn't help but say.
"Right." Li Wei said, "It resembles the boss's life quite a bit."
Yue Peng couldn't help but nod. Up until three years ago, Xin Huatao was nothing but a waste of oxygen, clubbing and doing all sorts of vulgar things all over the city due to his name.
But suddenly, he changed overnight, took control of his father's company after he cleansed it from traitors, expanded to other cities, and made a name in the east side of the empire while the Ruan name was famous on the west side, a very, very far distance away from the other.
"He has a sister, adoptive." Yue Peng remembered Lin Ruan, but the additional line made her shiver a little, "With whom he has a relationship."
"Yep." Li Wei said.
"He has a fiancée who then joined him, and now they're partners." Yue Peng said.
"Boss's fiancée tried to kill him a few times, and Boss remembers that even now. Why she's still alive is beyond me." Li Wei counted the counter.
"He's known for being in a relationship with over twelve women and still seems to be going for some more." Yue Peng couldn't help but read that line with uncertainty.
"Boss can't even control two." Li Wei chimed in.
"Which is why you're still on the naughty list." Yue Peng teased Li Wei, which only made her smirk as she said, "You're wrong. I'm the forbidden character for when he would be tired of the legal ones." 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
"Haha." Yue Peng chuckled sarcastically before she continued to read the file. There wasn't much about Xin Huatao, but the details of the deal he was making in the capital were paid special attention to.
"Move all of our merchandise. Take it to secure locations." Yue Peng said. "Already done." Li Wei was two steps ahead as she replied, "The problem is that we need to deal with him. He'll for sure come after us."
"No doubt he will and with Wei Jun in that condition..." Yue Peng was not confident. Even though Yan Rong, Xing Xiaomei, Natasha, Morial, and even the sect master Song Huan were present as powerhouses to deal with problems, without Wei Jun, there was no clear direction.
Wei Jun could make decisions no one else could and could come out victorious no matter the ridiculous situation.
"For now, I've asked Xing Xiaomei to be on guard. Although she grumbled a bit, she agreed to listen after I threatened her with the boss's name." Li Wei replied and stood up to leave as she asked, "I'd like you to handle the legal matters."
"On it." Yue Peng said as she opened her laptop and dialed a number on her phone at the same time.
"Mister Mayor. How are you these days?"
~~
"Any improvements?" Yan Rong asked as she handed Natasha a drink, which she accepted while one of her hands was on top of Wei Jun, emitting green light from it.
"There seems to be nothing wrong with his brain. Nor is there a problem with his body. I don't know where the problem is." Natasha replied.
"He'll wake up. Don't worry." Yan Rong said with determination.
Natasha knew where that faith was coming from, and she had an equal amount of faith in Wei Jun, but still, as a mage who could do something, anything, she wanted to do whatever she could.
"What about the headmaster and my mom?" Natasha asked.
"Morial hunted them down. Unfortunately, your mother managed to get away while the headmaster used some sort of weird magic to make sure she got away. He's in the holding now." Yan Rong replied.
"Everything okay with your friend?" Yan Rong asked.
"She..." Natasha took a long pause before she replied with a sigh, "...has yet to see things from my side."
"Let me know if she kicks up a fuss again. I'll give her a good thrashing." Yan Rong jokingly said, but Natasha knew there was nothing funny about it. The last time Melissa acted up was her last time because she was quite tame after Yan Rong had had her way with her. She would still tremble a little at the mention of Yan Rong's name.
"Sure." But Natasha didn't want Yan Rong on her bad side. If it came to her and Yan Rong, Wei Jun would have a hard time making a decision, but if it was Yan Rong and Melissa, there wasn't even a need to ask such a question. Wei Jun would snap Melissa's neck without a moment's hesitation.
If Yan Rong could keep her quiet when Wei Jun woke up, Melissa would be spared.
"How about Xia Lu?" Natasha asked.
"She's still going around the dungeons at a very quick pace. At this rate, she's gonna kill herself, or worse." Yan Rong replied.
"What could be worse than that?" Natasha asked.
"I don't know. I just put it at the end to make my words sound cool." Yan Rong replied as if she were proud of her smartness.
Natasha couldn't help but chuckle at her joke. Her attempt to lighten the mood, despite her hands shaking whenever she would come to visit, was the only thing keeping them together aside from Wei Jun.
"Do you think he's going to wake up anytime soon?" Still, Yan Rong was scared deep inside. No matter how brave a front she would put up, now and then, there were times when she would slip up, revealing her fears, but only when she knew only her own people were around.
"He will. You said it yourself, didn't you?" Natasha asked, as if to remind Yan Rong of her faith.
"Ha..." Yan Rong chuckled softly, "Right. I did." Yan Rong's forced smile soon vanished as her vulnerability showed for a moment: "I just don't know how long I could keep this up."
Natasha could understand. It had already been four months. With how things were going, she was scared herself. What if Wei Jun had fallen into a coma from which he might never wake up? She and the rest couldn't be afraid of that fact.
"Let's just... hold on." Natasha could only be uncertain as she said so.
Focused on Wei Jun, she began to use her healing abilities once again to see if she could find something now with Wei Jun's condition and heal him.
Inside Wei Jun's mind, deep inside, past his eyes, past his mind, past his consciousness, past his life even, there, in a room he was well familiar with, he took deep breaths, a boxing gear on his body, his body injured from various places, and his blood dripping on the floor.
He looked at his opponent, who was on the other end of the ring a blue boxing outfit that matched his red colored outfit.
His gaze, focused on the man, and he made sure to stand up, but his injuries were to the point that he just couldn't stand up straight.
"Come on now, little brother." A cheerful, calm, serene, and unhitched voice fell into his ears. A voice he hadn't heard for quite some time now. The voice of the person who had taught him his first lesson in that very boxing ring.
His brother's.
"You'll fail terribly at that rate."
