Chapter 48: Midnight Meeting
Bang!
The iron-reinforced door slammed shut behind Lu Bao, sealing him off from the damp subterranean corridor. The room was shrouded in oppressive, suffocating darkness, illuminated only by a single, flickering oil lamp sitting on a scarred wooden table in the center. The flame cast long, grotesque shadows that danced restlessly against the rough stone walls.
Seated silently in a high-backed wooden chair directly across from the desk was a dark-clothed individual. The figure’s face was entirely concealed beneath a jagged, expressionless ceramic mask that absorbed the meager light, making it impossible to read any expression.
Lu Bao’s legs felt like lead. He walked forward with stiff, trembling steps, pulling out a rickety wooden stool and sinking into it. The heavy leather pouch containing hundreds of gold coins felt like a dead weight clutched tightly in his lap.
For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them spoke. The heavy silence hung in the room like a drawn blade, broken only by the steady, crackling pop of the oil lamp.
Finally, Lu Bao could no longer bear the suffocating tension. He swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper, and leaned forward across the table, his voice trembling with unadulterated fear.
"I... I had no idea," Lu Bao stammered, his hands gripping the leather money bag so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I swear to you, I didn’t know Lu Feng had a protector. Someone was shielding him from the shadows, stepping in to obliterate the strike team. I didn’t know who the protector was—none of us did!"
The masked individual remained perfectly still, not a single muscle shifting beneath the dark robes.
Lu Bao rushed to clarify further, his voice frantic as he tried to piece together the disaster. "And because there was no one left alive to report the details of the fight between that unknown protector and my men, we all assumed... we had to assume it was someone else entirely. Not Lu Feng himself. I know Lu Feng better than anyone; I grew up watching him. There is no physical way he could have orchestrated that kind of slaughter on his own. He simply doesn’t have the power or the backing!"
A chilling, low chuckle vibrated from behind the ceramic mask. It was a dry, raspy sound that sent a fresh wave of ice down Lu Bao’s spine.
"Ignorance is a poor defense when forty elite mercenaries vanish into ash overnight," the masked individual spoke, his voice modulated and flat, carrying a lethal edge that cut through the dim room. "You hired my men. You guaranteed the target was an isolated nobody. Because of your gross miscalculation, my organisation lost forty of our most skilled, highly trained operatives in a single night."
The masked figure leaned forward, the white ceramic mask catching the flickering lamplight as a menacing aura pressed down upon the room.
"If my ongoing investigation into Lu Feng reveals that this mysterious protector is tied directly to you—or if I discover you deliberately led my men into a trap—I will not wait for the family elders to deal with you," the masked man threatened, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I will personally come for your head."
Lu Bao flinched, leaning back as if struck physically. "I apologize! I swear to the heavens, I apologize for everything!"
Without a second thought, Lu Bao lunged forward and slammed the heavy leather pouch of gold coins onto the center of the wooden table. The thick fabric hit the wood with a heavy, metallic clink as the weight of hundreds of gold coins shifted inside, the drawstring loosening just enough to let the golden glow of wealth spill out across the scarred surface.
"I know... I know this won’t be enough to replace or fill the void left behind by forty skilled men," Lu Bao pleaded, his eyes wide and desperate as he pushed the bag closer to the masked figure. "A life cannot be remade with gold. But please, take this coin as a token of my profound apology and partial compensation for the disaster I caused. Use it to buy a new batch of slaves, train them from the ground up, or hire a fresh set of mercenaries for your operations."
At the suggestion of buying slaves to replace his fallen men, the masked individual stiffened sharply. An aura of dark, volatile fury flared up in the small room, and the man’s fist clenched violently over the armrest of his chair.
For a terrifying second, Lu Bao thought he had crossed a fatal line, expecting a hidden blade to flash out from the darkness and end his life right there on the spot.
However, as the seconds ticked by, the masked individual slowly reined in his murderous intent. He stared down at the heavy pouch of gold, his analytical mind quickly calculating the practical utility of the funds. In the brutal underworld he operated in, gold bought weapons, resources, and operational capability—things his syndicate desperately needed after taking such a devastating, unexpected hit in the northern wilderness.
The tense silence stretched thin, and then, the masked figure gave a slow, deliberate nod.
He reached out a gloved hand, pulling the heavy leather bag of coins closer to himself, sliding it off the edge of the table and out of sight.
"You are painfully arrogant, Lu Bao, but you are not entirely stupid," the masked individual said, his voice regaining its cold, collected cadence. "For now... we are settled. No harm will come to you or your immediate family from my end. You are free to walk out of here tonight unharmed."
Lu Bao let out a long, ragged, shaky breath he felt like he had been holding for an eternity, sagging against his stool in profound relief.
"As for the rest," the masked man continued, leaning back into the shadows as he tapped his fingers against the table, "I, personally, will look into this matter concerning my fallen men. I will investigate who this hidden protector is, and I will deal with them myself if possible."
Lu Bao nodded frantically, not daring to ask any more questions or push his luck any further. He stood up slowly from the stool, bowing deeply to the masked figure before turning on his heel and hurrying back toward the door, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the terrifying underground den.