[City Center Luxury Apartment · Night]
The city had gone quiet. Unable to sleep, Yin Wuwang threw on a jacket and stepped out onto the balcony.
The night breeze was cool, carrying the city's distinctive scent—car exhaust, the aroma of food drifting from distant restaurants, and a faint hint of flowers. Leaning against the railing, he looked down at the scattered points of luminescence below. From this height, the city looked almost peaceful, its daytime chaos reduced to nothing more than a gentle hum and the occasional distant siren.
His thoughts kept returning to Chen Wan.
A young man who built a bar with his own hands should have lived a good life. But five years ago, he suddenly fell into massive debt, had to mortgage the place, then used his own labor to pay it off. From owner to manager, from freedom to shackles, from having everything to having nothing.
This feeling was all too familiar to Yin Wuwang.
He'd just been thinking about this earlier today—how debt could trap a person, invisible yet inescapable. Chen Wan had been living in that trap for five years. Five years of smiling at customers while his soul slowly hollowed out. Five years of watching everything he'd built with his own hands slip further from his grasp with every passing day.
He suddenly remembered what Little Deer Assistant had said: "Chen Wan's character setting is... warm and considerate? Or a scumbag? ...Both." A person burdened with massive debt who could still smile so warmly at customers—how much willpower would that take? Yet Chen Wan had persevered, spending five years slowly paying off his debt bit by bit. Was someone like that really a scumbag?
Raising his head, Yin Wuwang gazed at the sparse stars overhead. The city's glare was too strong; the stars were hard to see, though occasionally a few peeked through.
Tomorrow they would meet this Brother Long and see what kind of person this mortal gambling den boss was. Maybe they'd get some useful information—about the origin of that debt, about Chen Wan's past, and perhaps about that "woman with the lovely voice."
In the room next door, Xie Qingyan was already asleep.
Today's volume of information had been overwhelming. Unusually tired, he'd fallen into dreams not long after lying down.
The night breeze slipped through the window crack, rustling a paper on the desk covered with keywords. The paper showed a simple relationship diagram with Chen Wan's name in the center, surrounded by several circled words: bar, Brother Long, gambling debt, five years ago, woman with lovely voice.
The answer was hidden among these clues, just not yet connected into a complete line.
[Cloud City · Streets · Next Day]
Early the next morning, Xie Qingyan began preparing. He changed into more formal attire—a dark jacket paired with a light-colored shirt, collar buttoned neatly, looking both professional and polite. The dress code for meeting "important people": showing respect without appearing too subservient.
Yin Wuwang stood nearby, watching him adjust his collar in the mirror. Fuguang looked good in anything, but today's outfit was especially striking—the dark jacket made his complexion appear even more fair, the light shirt lending him an air of refined elegance. Every movement was unhurried, carrying an innate grace, like mist over Cangqiong Peak—serene and lofty.
"What are you looking at?" Having finished with his clothes, Xie Qingyan caught Yin Wuwang's gaze in the mirror and turned around.
"Nothing." Yin Wuwang quickly looked away, suddenly fascinated by a corner of the ceiling. "When do we leave?"
"Now."
Xie Qingyan noticed Yin Wuwang was dodging again. When this man looked at him, his eyes were always particularly complex—appreciation, concern, and something else that couldn't quite be named. But the moment he was caught, he'd immediately look away, pretending nothing had happened. Occasionally when lost in thought, his hand would unconsciously drift toward a certain direction, then jerk back as if burned.
This reaction had become more and more obvious since entering this world. Xie Qingyan didn't call it out, just quietly noted it in his mind.
The two walked out of the apartment and hailed a taxi. Yin Wuwang sat in the back, watching the streetscape fly past the window. The vehicles in this world really were fast—not as fast as flying swords, but for mortals without spiritual power, an impressive speed nonetheless. Skyscrapers swept past the car windows, glass facades glittering in the sun, pedestrians and vehicles flowing endlessly. The entire city hummed like a massive machine that never stopped.
Little Deer Assistant 9527's voice echoed in his mind: "I looked up more on Brother Long. Real name Liu Long, fifty-three years old, the biggest gambling den owner in this area. Been in business over thirty years, built up from a small gambling stall to his current scale, has quite a few people under him." A pause. "His character setting is... um, businessman, values loyalty, thinks highly of Chen Wan? Something like that."
Yin Wuwang didn't respond. His mind was elsewhere. Brother Long thought highly of Chen Wan—strange, for a creditor to think highly of someone who owed him money. Normally, that relationship should be adversarial: creditor wants money, debtor wants to escape, both sides wary and calculating. But Brother Long "thought highly" of Chen Wan? Unless Chen Wan wasn't an ordinary debtor, or this debt wasn't his own doing, and Brother Long knew that.
"We're here."
Yin Wuwang looked up at the building outside—an unremarkable gray structure, its exterior blending in with the surrounding commercial high-rises, completely inconspicuous. No flashy signs, no hint of what lay within. The perfect disguise for a gambling den. But he could sense that the atmosphere inside was different, a subtle tension that ordinary mortals probably couldn't detect. As for what kind of atmosphere exactly, he'd find out soon enough.
"Let's go." Xie Qingyan pushed open the car door. "Time to meet this Brother Long."
Following him out, Yin Wuwang studied the gray building. A premonition stirred in his gut—this trip would uncover some unexpected things. About Chen Wan, about that debt, and perhaps about that "woman with the lovely voice." Somewhere in this building, answers were waiting. He just hoped Brother Long would be willing to share them.
Taking a deep breath, he followed Xie Qingyan through the glass doors.
[End of V2_Chapter 23]
Next: Face to face with Brother Long—what secrets does the gambling den boss know about Chen Wan?