Xia Lei had some time to kill before meeting Caitlin so he decided to get some work done at the hotel.
He opened his laptop which showed a stock trading software, where the progress and status of Giovanna’s account were displayed clearly. Five stocks were bought under her name. Among them, three had suffered some losses while the other two profited. A comprehensive calculation showed that one hundred thousand USD was lost from the principal ten million USD. The same phenomenon had occurred to the accounts of the other three female knights. Their five purchased stocks had shown some growth but Rosa, Theresa and Stella’s account had gained a profit totalling to around fifty thousand USD.
Four accounts, forty million USD worth of principal stocks and losing fifty thousand USD in a day was not considered a failure. Without much consideration and hesitation, he bought every single stock the app could detect randomly. After the purchase was done, there was no further entry into the market.
Xia Lei had thought this through. It would be dangerous to utilize his impeccable analytical skills and estimation abilities offered by his brain to cause a surge in profit to all four of his proxy accounts. Doing so would just attract unwanted attention. For now, he’d let himself lose a little each day and wait till the transaction data updates before he starts playing for real. His puppet, Honick, might have been a manager to a financial securities company but this was something that required his own effort. There was no way Honick could come close to Xia Lei’s level.
A bait was required before fishing. In the world of the stock market, be it a farmer who sold leeks or a vegetable retailer who hiked up the harvest prices, the rule of thumb was to be calm and generous. It was crucial to give and take.
“Uncle Xia, what is that?” Zhu Xuanyue came to stand behind Xia Lei, resting her head on top of his. Together, she studied the stock trend with Xia Lei.
Xia Lei corrected her. “Are you asking what this is for?”
Zhu Xuanyue replied, “Why the hassle? We could just go straight to the person who sells the stock and have me hypnotise him. That way they’ll give away all their money to you. Wouldn’t that be easier?”
Xia Lei chuckled. “This is the world’s largest stock market. Everyone all around the globe trades in this market. There’s so many of them involved here, are you really going to hypnotise everyone?”
“There’s a lot of people involved? Ah, nevermind.” Zhu Xuanyue’s interest immediately diminished. The woman moved her head away from the top of his skull.
Xia Lei closed his laptop and stood up. “Your time will come but not so soon.”
“Who do you need me to hypnotise?” Zhu Xuanyue’s interest was piqued once again.
Xia Lei looked at her. “There’s no target at the moment. Caitlin’s brother could be one but I need to confirm his worth. If he is unworthy, I’ll use him and Caitlin to get in touch with important figures in Lockheed Martin. You’ll come in handy when the time comes.”
“Okay!” Zhu Xuanyue nodded fervently. “I’ll turn anyone you want into your puppet.”
Extending an arm, Xia Lei patted the top of her crown lightly. “Alright, it’s about time. I’m going to meet Caitlin now.”
“Come back soon, I’ll be waiting for you in bed,” reminded Zhu Xuanyue.
Xia Lei could feel his temples throb but decided to nod instead. Following that, he left the hotel to head towards The Flaming Skeleton.
There were isolated flakes of snow dropping from the clouds above. It wasn’t particularly heavy but the roofs and streets were veiled in white snow. The road lamps along the street were broken but despite the lack of illumination, the black tar road was obvious thanks to its stark contrast against the snow.
Due to the temperature, there was no one on the streets tonight. After walking forwards for a little while, Xia Lei spotted The Flaming Skeleton. There was a good number of motorcycles parked in front of it.
“I knocked Michael out cold, I sure hope he doesn’t bring me trouble. If he does, the only thing I can do is to have Zhu Xuanyue eat him.” Xia Lei deduced internally.
Abruptly, a black shadow flashed before his eyes.
Xia Lei halted his footsteps in shock. The black shadow was moving at an incredibly rapid speed, but it took him no time to realize that it was just a black cat. Xia Lei was not someone who would be easily spooked by a mere cat but he was always on guard. However, as the cat crossed the road, he felt an unsettling sensation bubbling in the pit of his stomach.
His advanced evolution had allowed his sixth sense to be more sensitive than regular people.
The black cat left behind a few imprints of its paws on the snow, quickly disappearing out of sight.
Xia Lei instinctively averted his eyes to where the black cat had come out from. In that direction was a very small church.
The dread of danger crept up his spine rapidly. Under the influence of that feeling, Xia Lei felt as if a threat could appear from any direction and attack him. Perhaps it was waiting for an opportunity to seize him and tear his body apart!
There were only two things that could bring him such fear. One of them was Zhu Xuanyue and the other was the black-robed man. There was certainly no need to suspect Zhu Xuanyue as she was back in the hotel room awaiting his return. Eliminating Zhu Xuanyue, the only possibility left was the black-robed man.
Weirdly, as his sixth sense came to a peak, the black-robed man had not made his appearance.
Xia Lei inhaled deeply and yelled in the direction of the small church. “Is it you? Quit hiding, show yourself!”
There was only silence. No one answered him and nothing moved. The wooden door of the church remained tightly shut.
“I know you’re there,” warned Xia Lei. As he spoke, the man activated his X-ray vision to spy if anyone was hidden behind the wooden door.
The church was empty and dark. At the very front of a few rows of long benches was the podium, where pastors and hosts carried out masses. At the back of the podium on the wall was a cross and the statue of Jesus Christ. As Xia Lei focused his gaze on the statue, Jesus’s eyes felt like it was staring right into his soul. In the dark, his expression held no warmth. The darkness of the statue’s eyes felt like a spiralling black hole that threatened to swallow him whole!
Xia Lei’s heart jolted at Jesus’s uncanny stare. But as he focused his left eye once again on the statue, Jesus was back to his merciful self. His gaze was cast down at forty-five degrees, his expression filled with compassion.
“What…” Xia Lei couldn’t fathom what had just happened.
Bewilderingly, the earlier sense of threat had disappeared. Xia Lei tried to jog his memory, what happened earlier felt like an illusion and not reality.
“If that was the black-robed man, why is he here? He gave me three years and I’ve got two years left. An entity like him can’t be someone that breaches their promises, right? If he is really here, then his target must be…” Xia Lei quickly snapped his head around, letting his X-ray vision penetrate through the winter night to go through the hotel walls. The hotel was about a few hundreds of metres away from his position.
He saw Zhu Xuanyue, peacefully asleep on the bed. The woman’s underwear was scattered about on the top of the covers. In his absence, she had gone to bed in her birthday suit.
Xia Lei looked away and sighed. “Maybe it’s just my imagination. The pressure must be getting to me now.” He shook his head with a troubled smile, continuing his journey to The Flaming Skeleton.
He kept his alert high as he walked down the street. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened and the same sense of dread hadn’t occurred again.
Perhaps it really was nothing more than an illusion.
Finally making it to the entrance of the bar, Xia Lei glanced at his Patek Philipe wristwatch. There was still a few minutes to spare before his date with Caitlin. He ultimately chose to wait for her outside instead of entering the facility.
At this moment, a middle-aged Caucasian exited the bar. He noticed Xia Lei and immediately came forth to greet him enthusiastically. “My Mexican friend, it’s so nice to see you!”
Xia Lei responded with a polite smile.
“My friend, I’d love to talk to you but Caitlin is in trouble.” The man continued, “Michael had brought a biker gang over and they’re not letting Caitlin leave. Perhaps they’re waiting for you to rough you up. You need to leave now.”
Xia Lei furrowed his brows. Though he was just using Caitlin for her interpersonal network in town, not once had he expected Michael to bring him trouble out of jealousy.
Noticing that Xia Lei was unfazed, the Caucasian man shrugged his shoulder. “I know you’re not afraid of those people but I must warn you. Those rowdy youngsters might have guns with them.”
“Thank you, my friend.” Xia Lei extended a hand. “My name’s Costa, I work for a family business. It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Ah, not bad. My name’s Ton, I work for Lockheed Martin.” Ton laughed at himself for a bit. “Oh, friend. I’m not half as good as you. My salary is barely sufficient to treat you to a round of booze.”
“Hehe, making money isn’t that difficult. If you’d like, we could meet tomorrow and talk about business over coffee.” Xia Lei smiled. “But I must excuse myself now, it’s time to take care of some matters.”
“My friend, are you really going inside?”
“Of course, I’m not someone who’d be terrified by jeering delinquents.” Xia Lei was resolute.
“If that’s the case, I’ll meet you tomorrow.” Ton continued, “I’m good friends with the sheriff in town. Perhaps Michael would spare me some face.”
“Thank you in advance Let’s head in.” Xia Lei and Ton entered the bar.
As soon as they stepped foot inside, Xia Lei spotted Michael among a small crowd of muscular leather jacket-clad bikers. Caitlin was circled by those strong men, looking anxious and troubled.
Caitlin noticed Xia Lei. The freckled woman hurriedly waved at him. “Leave! Leave!”
As soon as Michael spotted Xia Lei, he lifted his hand and pointed at him. “It’s this damned Mexican, it’s him!”
The group of men in leather jackets left Caitlin alone to size up Xia Lei.
Ton advised, “Michael, quit it. Mister Costa is a friend of mine, please just…”
Before Ton could finish his sentence, Michael interjected rudely. “Shut up! I’m going to paralyze this fucking Mexican today! Do not come in my way!”
“You…” Ton shook with anger.
Michael came closer to the older man and shoved him, causing the older man to stumble backwards. Ton itched to say something but the man was quickly silenced by intimidation, ultimately opting to stay silent.
A biker replicated Michael’s action, hurling a palm towards Xia Lei.