Guan Feng loves to cook his own food, so he had several kitchens in his house alone. However, a quick check inside the kitchens made it clear that all the equipment had ceased to function. Even the household robot was standing quietly a corner and not reacting to Cillin’s arrival at all, its indicator light completely dark.
Cillin opened a baking machine in the kitchen a find a half-baked Guan style biscuit still inside. The rest of the decorations were untouched just like how he remembered them to be. There was neither a mess nor any traces of conflict to be found.
Cillin went upstairs to take a look. Every room including Guan Feng’s bedroom was locked tight behind a pass code, and there were no signs of forced entry. It looked like Guan Feng was the one who suddenly vanished to some place.
When he went back down to the living hall, Wheeze was just jumping out of the fish tank. It was holding a fish in its mouth. It stepped on the fish and tore it from head to toe after landing on the ground.
There were no flesh or blood. It was a mechanical fish.
“Trying to fool me? No way!” Wheeze turned to look at Cillin after swallowing the fish whole. “Where’s Guan Feng?”
Cillin shook his head. “I don’t see anyone.”
His gaze shifted towards the sofa where a projector lay on the table in front of it. The indicator light of the device was blinking, hinting that a projection was prepped to be played. When Cillin hit the play button, every light in the living hall turned off on its own, and the curtains pulled themselves close, sinking the place into darkness.
A man suddenly appeared on a sofa. He was an incredibly average-looking person, the kind that who wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Cillin knew that he was a robot though. If someone were to ask why he was able to deduce this in a single glance and from a projection no less, he could only tell them that it was his instinct speaking.
“Dear guest, I’m sorry that the master of this house wasn’t able to welcome you. Our boss had invited him away to talk about old times, and not even we have a clue when he’ll be able to return from this excursion. If you are in a hurry to meet him, you may visit him at…”
A huge star chart appeared at the end of the monologue. It was clear from the planar arrangements that it was the subsectors of twenty or so imperial star regions, and out of the twenty region worths of planets one particular planet was glowing with unusual brightness. This was the destination the robot mentioned in his speech, but Cillin was certain that this planet didn’t exist in the star charts he had read before.
The star chart remained for five seconds before it vanished into nothingness. The robot sitting on the sofa was gone as well. The curtains pulled themselves back open, the lights turned back on on their own, and the living hall returned to its former state.
Cillin had the star chart fully memorized even though it had appeared for five seconds only. After the projector had turned off on its own, Cillin dimmed the lighting in the living hall again and took out his own star chart.
As he thought, the planet technically didn’t exist in the star chart he was currently holding. Besides that, there were a couple of planets and a star that were missing from the star chart as well. The rest of the star chart looked more or less the same as the one showed by the projector though. Judging from the position of the planets that existed in his star chart, gravity was pulling them towards the location where only a blank existed. It was proof that there should be a star around that area.
Gravitational force was clearly still pulling its weight in that area, but for whatever reason the star and the few planets surrounding it were missing from the official star chart.
Since this area was situated at an inconspicuous corner of the Mist Bodhisattva Empire, there was no reason for anyone to give it special attention and discover the oddity. Of course, there might’ve been someone who had noticed this before, but they either found nothing, or “vanished” during their search for answers.
For the most part, every person who owned a star chart of the entire empire would find their version to be the exact same as the one Cillin was currently possessing right now. This also meant that the marked planet on this new star chart technically didn’t exist in the galaxy. So someone must’ve wiped out all traces and records of this planet and others around it.
The only people capable of doing such a thing were high level personnel of the empire, but who was this person, and why would they do such a thing? Could they be a spy for Black Viper?
Cillin didn’t know the answer. He couldn’t even venture a guess. He knew too little about the Mist Bodhisattva Empire, and the overt and covert games of the higher class had little to do with his current life. Originally, he had no intentions of participating in them, but Guan Feng’s disappearance had given Cillin a different idea.
Cillin sat on the sofa and thought in silence. Wheeze didn’t disturb him and went on its own way, circling around the living hall once in boredom before running to Guan Feng’s kitchen for an illegal snack.
Some time later.
“Oh my meow!”
Cillin’s train of thought was broken by the strange, muffled cry of a certain cat that sounded like it came from a tin.
“What now?!”
Not really having a choice, Cillin got up and went into the kitchen. He was immediately greeted by a furry, fat butt frantically waving its tail outside a biscuit maker. The gray cat was trying to pull its head out of machine.
“You got stuck?” Cillin went over to help it get unstuck.
“Wait a second, stop pulling I got stuck!” Wheeze cried out from inside.
“I thought you can change forms…”
Cillin’s words were cut off by a loud crack coming from inside the machine. The noise continued for a moment before the gray cat finally got itself out of the biscuit maker, its face dirty with biscuit crumbs that was colored like green poop. Besides that, it was also holding a circular tube in its mouth.
“This is the only thing I managed to get out of that machine. There’s another box inside, but I can’t get it out.” said Wheeze while licking its claws and wiping its face.
As it turned out, the biscuit maker was hiding a secret beneath the ground, and Wheeze accidentally found it while it was busy stealing biscuits. That was why it had bitten through the biscuit maker directly in an attempt to pull out the objects. It wasn’t expecting to get stuck multiple times during the process though.
Cillin took a look at the tube and gave it a shake. He didn’t know what was inside the tube, and since it looked like it would take some effort to get it open he decided to set it aside for the moment. He put his head through the hole Wheeze had made and checked out the box hidden beneath the biscuit maker.
Damaging Guan Feng’s property while he wasn’t around definitely didn’t count as a good thing, but this was an emergency situation, so...
Cillin brought out his tools and took apart the composite cooking machine that was blocking the hole. Then, he pulled the box out of its hiding spot.
The box was password protected just like the tube he found earlier. It couldn’t be opened immediately.
“Do you know what’s inside these things?” Cillin looked at Wheeze.
“I don’t. I can’t see through its exterior, it seems to made out of some special material.” Wheeze took another bite of biscuits while it was answering Cillin.
“You might wanna watch out for diarrhea if you insist on eating these half-baked biscuits.”
“It won’t happen! It’s not like this is the first time I ate one.”
“Do what you want. Come break this passcode when you’re finished.” Cillin assembled the composite cooking machine back in one piece after he said this.
Wheeze carried out Cillin’s wishes obediently after it was done eating. The first thing it decrypted was the tube. The front part of the tube opened to reveal the design drawing of PTS S.
I think I saw something that’s supposed to be a secret…
He put it back into the tube. He had a hunch what was inside the box now, and as he expected it was none other than the weapon itself.
The white-painted PTS S felt icy to touch. It also gave off a pure and uncaring feeling. It had a hexagonal-shaped muzzle that reminded Cillin of snowflakes.
The body of the weapon was marked with the PTS’ logo and the character “S”.
To think that Guan Feng would come up with this weapon so quickly, not to mention hiding something so valuable beneath a biscuit maker no less! It was something only Guan Feng would do, although in hindsight it was a pretty good hiding spot. It was impossible to imagine that Guan Feng would dump a priceless, fresh made weapon like this at a corner of his kitchen.
This discovery made Cillin realize something, however: Guan Feng was in such a hurry that he didn’t even bring the PTS S with him. Was it because he was in too much of a hurry? Was it because he wasn’t given the opportunity? Or was it because he had no intention of revealing its existence to Black Viper at all?
After the tube and the box were put away to safety, he sat back down on the sofa and thought to himself: what should I do next?
Wheeze was lying on its back and scratching itself against the sofa, letting out a yawn of boredom. Suddenly, its ears twitched as if it had heard something, and turned towards the door.
Di——
The front door opened, and a person walked in. It was a familiar face, one that Cillin had just met recently, in fact.
“White Night?”
Cillin stared at the young man in puzzlement. If he wasn’t mistaken, Guan Feng must have restricted the type of people who had access to his house. For example, Cillin was permitted to enter because he was Guan Feng’s student. But what about White Night? Why was he able to walk in?
White Night didn’t look surprised by Cillin’s presence. He looked around once before setting his gaze at the fish tank. One of the fishes inside the tank was missing.
“There was a mechanical fish inside. I’ve dealt with it.” Cillin explained.
“I know. I came here earlier. I decided to leave it be at the time.”
White Night walked to the sofa and sat down. Following closely behind him was the snow wolf Rubu. The wolf and the cat immediately started staring down each other the moment it came in.
Wheeze had just rubbed its scent on the sofa, and the only one it hadn’t touched was the small sofa on the other side of the table. However, White Night had already occupied that seat for himself. Rubu wanted to lie down on the sofa, but it just couldn’t help but feel irritated every time a waft of cat scent entered his nose. It was almost as if someone had declared this place its domain already.
Wheeze didn’t look ashamed in the slightest. On the contrary, it stared at Rubu provocatively while refusing to budge an inch from its position, all the swaying its tail back and forth.
Rubu bared its fangs at Wheeze.
Wheeze flicked its ears once and ignored it.
“Have you seen that message?” Cillin pointed at the projector on the table and asked White Night.
“I did.”
Cillin raised an eyebrow at White Night’s reaction. Why is he so collected?!
At this point, Cillin was starting to wonder who was the real target of the message. Was it him, or was it actually White Night?
“What are you going to do?” White Night asked.
Cillin tapped himself in the forehead once before answering, “I’m going there to take a look. What about you?”
“I’m going.”
“Is it for Guan Feng’s sake?”
“I’m going because I’m bored.”
Cillin: “...”
Cillin had to admit that his chances of success were pretty low if he were to face off Black Viper alone. However, he didn’t wish to borrow the Gen Family’s help either. More specifically, he didn’t want to get too close to anyone in the Gen Family except Genya. In that case, should he recruit White Night’s aid?
It was at this moment White Night’s communicator rang.
“What’s wrong?” asked White Night after answering the call.
“Did you find him yet? I’m kinda urgently need some cash here!” Sediya said loudly from the other side of the communicator.
“No, but I have news to share.”
Cillin looked at him. Is he going to leak Guan Feng’s disappearance?
“Where is he?! Has he gone into hiding or something? He may be Teacher Guan, but not even he can delay paying our dues!”
“Come to Guan Feng’s house. We’ll talk later. Bring Chi Lafang and Nikki with you.”
“We have a job? Gimme a moment, I’ll be right there!”
After White Night had turned off the communicator, Cillin asked, “Are you going to publicize this?”
“No. But it’ll be a suicide mission to visit Black Viper with just the two of us.”
Cillin gave the idea a thought. It was acceptable. White Night and his companions were considered freelancers and weren’t overly tied up with the forces of the empire, so they were convenient to work with. At the very least, he wouldn’t be triggering a series of large-scale movements by cooperating with them.
Sediya and the rest showed up pretty quickly. Maybe it was because Guan Feng went missing, or maybe it was because they didn’t get the pay they were due, but they looked pretty resentful when they walked into the house.
“Eh? Are you the cat that made Dahl cry?” The armadillo lizard Armadillo stared curiously at the gray cat that was lying on the sofa and swinging its tail lazily.
“Who are you people?” Wheeze countered with a question.
Smiling, Armadillo crawled over to Wheeze and introduced himself and the snow wolf Rubu. However, Rubu continued to maintain a prideful appearance and refused to acknowledge Wheeze.
Wheeze couldn’t be bothered with the dog itself because its attention was currently drawn somewhere else. Nose twitching, the gray cat stared at Sediya sitting rudely on the sofa.
“What are you looking at?” Sediya tried to pinch Wheeze’s nose, but his hand was swatted away in no time.
“You smell like fishes.”
“Fishes?” Sediya sniffed himself. “There shouldn’t be. I didn’t eat any fish today.”
Wheeze swayes its tail once. “I know. You’re an alien! A sea alien.”
Even White Night and the others were surprised by Wheeze’s insight this time. They didn’t think that its nose was this sharp.
Sediya grinned as his teeth suddenly turned into several rows of sharp teeth. He looked very scary like this.
“Yeah, I’m a sea alien. So what?”
Wheeze yawned at him before replying, “Oh get off your high horse, will you, what’s so rare about a sea alien?”
Sediya: “...”
Wheeze jumped onto Cillin’s shoulder and asked, “Cillin, are we taking these people with us to find Guan Feng?”
Sediya interrupted loudly before Cillin could answer, “What happened to Guan Feng? Did he owe you your pay too?”
White Night gave everyone a brief summary of things before pressing the play button on the projector and replaying the scene.
“I see. Luckily for Guan Feng I’m free enough to go on a trip, although he’ll have to increase my pay after this. Hey White Night, you know you’re coughing up if Guan Feng refuses to pay us, right? You are his direct disciple.” Sediya said.
Guan Feng was White Night’s teacher? An immediate superior no less? Cillin had not heard about this until now. Now it made sense why White Night was able to waltz into Guan Feng’s house without triggering any alarms.
In fact, Pistura would’ve to address White Night as his “senior brother” if they ran into each other, but White Night made no such demands to Cillin. He couldn’t care less about such things, and he cared so little that even Goryeo didn’t make a blip in his mind.
White Night was the first person to play the video. After that, Cillin played it a second time. When the third replay was finally complete, the projector broke down on its on and took all the records inside to its grave. It was also impossible to replicate the star chart in the replay.
“Interesting. I didn’t think that Black Viper would be hiding at a nook like this.” Chi Lafang broke his long silence and spoke up.
Instead of answering, White Night looked and Cillin and asked, “We’ll be heading there together. What about you? Will you join us?”
“Of course. It’ll be suicide if I head there alone.” Cillin said.
Wheeze got up on its feet. “Don’t forget about me! I’ll teach those trash robots a hard lesson this time!”
By now, Cillin realized that these had cooperated with each other quite frequently, and their knowledge of the empire was pretty diverse. It’d be a lot safer to work with them.
“If you hold us back we reserve the right to kick you out anytime we want.” Nikki said.
“No problem.”
White Night and Cillin used their ID cards to open Guan Feng’s storehouse and acquire some equipment and supplies. They also chose an excellent spaceplane for their trip.
Judging from White Night’s practiced movements, Cillin had a feeling that this guy had been doing this for a long time already. That being said, almost all of Guan Feng’s direct students seemed to share the habit of taking Guan Feng’s stuff like they owned them in the first place.
They were entering Black Viper’s domain, so they were expected to be away from school for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, Cillin had an upcoming test during the period he was gone, and he would fail the course if he decided to skip it. It was something Guan Feng absolutely would never allow, not to mention that failing his first ever course in the affiliated schools would be an embarrassment on its own. That was why Cillin had resolved himself to speak with the teacher-in-charge before they left for the mission.
Cillin had already gone through the reference material Guan Feng gave him multiple times before, so there was no chance he was going to fail the test. What he planned to do was to apply to have his test brought forward.
The teacher-in-charge was a white haired old man whose qualifications in the affiliated schools was said to be the equal of Guan Feng. Although his face was covered in wrinkles, they weren’t as deep as what you’d expect from an old man. Moreover, he had a loud and powerful voice probably because of his occupation.
The old man looked very angry by the fact that Cillin had asked to take his test in advance, “I don’t care what business or background you have. Here in the affiliated school you are a student first and foremost, and as a student your studies should always be your top priority! Moreover, you are an AF1 student. You shouldn’t copy the bad habits of those fops at AF3…”
Cillin had to admit that the old man was worth his salt. Not only was he able to deliver his lecture without any pauses, the lecture itself was well founded in logic and righteousness. As a veteran educator and and of the few scholars who had given over hundreds of speeches and lectures in his life, words were the one thing he never ran dry.
The non-stop and non-repetitive lecturing lasted for two painful hours, but Cillin was ultimately allowed to take his test in advance.
The old teacher had taken it upon himself to supervise Cillin throughout the entire test and prevent him from cheating. Moreover, the test’s difficulty was increased as a response to Cillin’s request. However, the questions were ultimately all within Cillin’s capabilities, and he didn’t encounter any particular difficulties while solving the problems. The only thing that slowed him down a little was a derivative question.
The old teacher wasn’t just supervising Cillin, he was marking Cillin’s answers directly in his mind every time the latter had finished a question. By the time Cillin was done with the test, he was done scoring already.
The old man didn’t loosen his expression. He let out a “humph” before waving Cillin out of the room. That was that, then. One of his biggest troubles was settled, Cillin left the old man and went on with his business.
After Cillin had left the room, the dissatisfaction on the old teacher’s face suddenly transformed into helplessness, “What a troublesome matter. Seriously, what on earth are you people doing?”
“It can’t be helped.” A young man walked out from an adjacent room.
“Well, whatever. I’m too old to stick a hand in this matter.” The old teacher walked out of the room with Cillin’s test paper, but when he slowed a little when he was passing by the young man. “Don’t go too far, alright?”
“I know, it’ll be fine, teacher.”