Chapter 37: A Tragedy Sparked by a Pair of Underpants

With a sullen expression, Wang Chao dragged the middle-aged man out of the nightclub without a word. Earlier, Zhang Ze had noticed what had just happened, barely suppressing his laughter as he handed the man a pair of underwear. It was only after the three of them had left the nightclub that they realized, to their dismay, that it was a lacy pair of briefs.

Ignoring the two chubby informants still gathering intelligence, Wang Chao and Zhang Ze flanked the middle-aged man and hustled him quickly into their car. The man’s mind was hazy, and a burning pain radiated from his groin. When he realized he was wearing a pair of sexy lace-trimmed briefs and had just walked across an entire street in them, he wanted nothing more than to die from embarrassment.

It’s worth mentioning that although the dosage the chubby one had administered was high, after all the commotion, the middle-aged man had recovered his senses.

“What should we do with him?” Zhang Ze asked with a sneer, noting the man’s ashen face as he clung desperately to the lacy briefs. “Hand him over to the Investigation Bureau?”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Wang Chao suddenly asked. The smile disappeared from Zhang Ze's face.

With a roar, Wang Chao slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the car shot forward like an arrow released from a bow. The middle-aged man, listening closely to their conversation, harbored no illusions now that his true identity had been exposed. At this moment, all he wanted was to retain a shred of dignity as a man.

They sped through the city for over ten minutes until they reached the banks of the Vortex River in the northern district of Mengyang County.

“Why are we doing this ourselves?” Zhang Ze muttered as he trailed behind the other two. “This guy’s a cult member, and he’s had contact with Lin Ziwei’s secretary. If we turn him over to the Investigation Bureau, we could even put a check on the Lin family’s power.” He was clearly nervous, realizing what Wang Chao intended to do.

Without a word, Wang Chao strode to the riverbank, pulled out his phone, and pointed the camera at the middle-aged man. Then he kicked him hard in the groin.

“Damn you!” the man cursed through clenched teeth, his voice trembling with pain. “You bastards are dogs…”

Perhaps the pain had numbed him—his body was already ruined—so now he was less wretched than before. Wang Chao, still silent, gripped his phone in one hand and the man’s hair in the other.

He demanded, “You’re a member of the cult, aren’t you?”

Zhang Ze’s eyes widened in shock, his pupils contracting slightly.

The middle-aged man’s voice shook as he replied, “The glory of the Holy Church is something fools like you could never—”

Before he could finish, Wang Chao kicked him again without mercy.

“Did you kill Huang Xu, the reporter from Nanhe Province?”

“Yes.”

“Was it the Lin family who ordered you to do it?”

“Yes.”

With a final, forceful kick, Wang Chao sent the man sprawling several meters away, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. “The rest is up to you,” he said abruptly to Zhang Ze.

Although he had suspected what was coming, Zhang Ze still hesitated at the prospect of killing the man himself.

“I just don’t get it,” Zhang Ze protested, his voice rising in frustration. “Why do we have to do this ourselves? Wouldn’t it be better to hand him over to the Investigation Bureau, or extort a large sum from Lin Ziwei?”

Wang Chao only stared at him, his eyes deep and impenetrable.

“I give up!” Zhang Ze muttered after a dozen seconds of silence, finally steeling himself and walking toward the middle-aged man. “How could someone like you, who’s reached the second tier of cultivation, still be brainwashed by these people?”

“The glory of the Holy Church is something you fools—”

“Damn you!” Zhang Ze spat, cutting him off.

He’d seen bloodier scenes than this; now, with a hardened heart, he could no longer afford to care. After spending time with Wang Chao and the others, Zhang Ze, though still baffled by the world of martial artists, had begun to realize just how different their reality was—a world where death could come for them at any moment. The so-called “invincible enemy” Wang Chao spoke of weighed on Zhang Ze with a strange sense of oppression. If these cultist martial artists were nothing but brainwashed puppets, his guilt faded to nothing.

The dull thudding blows continued for a minute or two. Only when Wang Chao spoke did Zhang Ze finally look up, breathing a long sigh of relief as he took in the battered, unrecognizable corpse of the middle-aged man.

“Give me one of those,” he said, reaching out with his bloodstained right hand for one of Wang Chao’s cigarettes.

A moment later.

“How do you feel?” Wang Chao asked.

“Heh.” Zhang Ze tossed away the half-smoked cigarette. “Doesn’t taste like anything. I don’t get why people are so addicted.”

“Cult members… they’re traitors, traitors to all humanity!” Wang Chao said, as if to comfort Zhang Ze. “It’s not just in our country—wherever martial artists around the world encounter these people, there’s only one solution: kill them all, leave none alive.”

Zhang Ze, who’d been silent until now, frowned and asked, “Is it because they’re connected to those… enemies?”

“Exactly!” Wang Chao’s reply was emphatic, his expression dark with hatred. “Not just connected—the cult wants to wipe out the weak and ordinary people among humanity.”

“Can you tell me about them? Those so-called enemies…”

It was already the latter half of the night, and the two of them stood on the banks of the Vortex River, chilled by the biting wind.

“Look up,” Wang Chao said after a long silence.

Zhang Ze lifted his head and saw a sky full of stars. Had he been a poet or a man of letters, he might have been inspired to compose a poem or an essay. Unfortunately, he’d barely attended school in either of his two lives, so such eloquence was beyond him.

Wang Chao hadn’t expected eloquence, either. He said quietly, “Don’t be fooled by how beautiful those stars look. For all we know, there are countless eyes staring down at us from one of them.”

Zhang Ze’s eyes went wide with shock.

“But haven’t we never found alien life?” he blurted out, then realized with some embarrassment that he was thinking with the mindset of his previous life.

Wang Chao chuckled softly. “That’s exactly why the cult wants to eliminate the weak—why the Lin family inflates the price of first- and second-tier pills. In the eyes of the cult, ordinary people are nothing but a burden, parasites unworthy of protection…”

That night, Zhang Ze and Wang Chao stood by the Vortex River, keeping company with the corpse in lacy briefs, and talked at length.

In the morning, they sat across from each other in a breakfast shop.

A short while later, Huang Ming and the chubby informant arrived, both with dark circles under their eyes.

“Boss, two orders of lamb penis!” the chubby one called out as soon as he sat down.

The owner stared at him, then laughed and cursed, “This is a breakfast shop, not a butcher’s!”

The four of them ate, chatting idly.

“This just in: Early this morning, while exercising by the Vortex River, Mr. Wang discovered a male corpse dressed unusually, the head showing signs of heavy trauma. The Mengyang County Investigation Bureau has already rushed to the scene…”

The morning news played on the television. Zhang Ze and Wang Chao showed no reaction at hearing the report. The chubby one didn’t seem to notice at all. Setting down his bowl, he said with a grin, “You guys don’t know—when I was leaving this morning, I saw Chun Jiao searching everywhere for her lacy briefs…”

Zhang Ze choked on his porridge, coughing violently.