The First Order

Ren Xiaosu did not suspect the woman in the black cap without reason. It was just that her previous appearances happened too coincidentally. Not long after he had caught the two paper cranes, she started appearing in the town of Stronghold 61. This left Ren Xiaosu with no choice but to link the two matters together.He had left Stronghold 61’s town in a hurry as he felt a little guilty. After all, it was only normal that other people would come and question him if he captured their paper cranes for no apparent reason.

But now, Wang Ergou was saying that her power was controlling sand?

Ren Xiaosu had to ponder this matter.

As Ren Xiaosu and Wang Ergou chatted, everyone in the entire tour group looked at each other in bewilderment. They did not understand what was happening.

He even met someone he knew out here in the wilderness?

Li Ran wanted to get up and go over to listen to what they were saying, but the ten guards stopped her. “You shouldn’t go over. Those people are clearly outlaws with blood on their hands. Not even we can do anything about them.”

“Aren’t you guys elites troops?” Li Ran frowned.

The guards said awkwardly, “But they have a heavy machine gun while we only have pistols.”

Zhou Yingxue started laughing from the rear. “At this range, the heavy machine gun can turn all the vehicles into Swiss cheese within ten seconds. But you guys don’t have to worry. With us here, everything will be fine.”

Zhou Yingxue could already tell that this “repair team” had a very good rapport with Ren Xiaosu. There would definitely not be any conflict happening here, so she took the opportunity to brag.

At this moment, they saw Wang Ergou and Ren Xiaosu come back towards their convoy while they chatted. Wang Ergou said to everyone with a smile, “Since I bumped into Ren Xiaosu here, I’ll take back the prices I offered just now. We’ll repair your vehicles for free.”

Suspicious, Li Ran asked, “Does Ren Xiaosu have such a great reputation?”

“Haha,” Wang Ergou laughed. “When we got lost in the wilderness after a heavy snowfall in the mountains, it was Ren Xiaosu who led us back to town while searching for food to fill our stomachs. He’s basically our savior.”

At that time, Wang Ergou and the others had not hit it big yet. They did not have any heavy machine guns and were not skilled at carrying out their scams, nor were their legs lame.

But later, Ren Xiaosu rarely met Wang Ergou and the others anymore as their group was rumored to have gone to the vicinity of the Yang Consortium’s strongholds to be bandits for a while. After that, their whereabouts became unknown.

As such, Ren Xiaosu did not expect they would actually come to the Central Plains and go back to plying their old trade.

Wang Ergou asked, “But, Xiaosu, why have you come to the Central Plains, and what’re you doing with them?”

“Oh, I took a mission to provide protection for their concert tour,” Ren Xiaosu answered.

Wang Ergou looked at Li Ran. “You people are really lucky to be able to get Ren Xiaosu to protect you. There’s nothing in the wilderness that he can’t handle. If you’re going south, what’s the place y’all’re heading to?”

“We’re heading straight to Stronghold 81.” Ren Xiaosu recalled the route.

“It isn’t exactly peaceful in the South anymore. Back when the Wang Consortium was dealing with the Zhou Consortium, many refugees moved into the mountains and even received funding from the Wang Consortium. As such, things are pretty chaotic there now. However, if y’all mention my name, that usually proves rather useful.” Then Wang Ergou turned around and beckoned, saying, “I need two bros with a car jack to patch up their tires.”

In fact, mending tires wasn’t a particularly difficult task to handle and neither was it costly at all. So Wang Ergou decided to waive the fee for Ren Xiaosu’s sake.

The other men of the “repair team” greeted Ren Xiaosu. It seemed they all had a good impression of him as well. After all, it was Ren Xiaosu who saved them back then.

Ren Xiaosu asked, “When you say that it isn’t peaceful, do you mean that the people who moved into the mountains have turned to banditry? It shouldn’t be that bad, right?”

“No, no, no.” Wang Ergou smiled and said, “If they did turn to banditry, the Zhou Consortium would have gone and wiped them out already. It’s just that some of them chop down trees and place them in the middle of the roads. If you pay them, they’ll help you shift the trees away. Or sometimes, they’ll lie in front of your vehicles and try to blackmail you. If you don’t pay up, you have to drive over them to get through. Most of those who can drive on the roads are people from the strongholds. Since they’ve never seen blood before, most of them are too afraid to drive over others. So it’s really easy to scare them into paying up.”

While Wang Ergou’s men repaired the vehicles, Wang Ergou kept asking Ren Xiaosu about what happened in the Southwest. The plainclothes guards by the vehicles wanted to seize this opportunity to detain Wang Ergou and show that they were competent to Li Ran. However, they realized the heavy machine gun a distance away was still pointed right at them.

The heavy machine gunner did not care about anyone else and kept his eyes trained on the plainclothes guards. It seemed he recognized they were soldiers and knew they were the biggest threat.

At this moment, Wang Ergou said with a sigh, “I didn’t expect the changes in the Southwest to be so widespread, and that the Li Consortium and the Yang Consortium no longer exist. How does it make sense that I, Wang Ergou, am doing even better than a consortium?”

Zhou Yingxue burst out laughing. Wang Ergou looked at Zhou Yingxue. “Are you Brother Xiaosu’s woman?”

“Knock it off.” Ren Xiaosu stopped Wang Ergou. What the fuck!

Zhou Yingxue said calmly, “He’s my assistant.”

Wang Ergou smiled and said, “That’s definitely not the case. My eyes are really sharp. There’s something between the two of you, and who knows just which one of you is taking orders from the other behind closed doors?”

Zhou Yingxue rolled her eyes, then asked softly, “Then what do you think is the relationship between Brother Xiaosu and that female celebrity?”

Wang Ergou chuckled, “Don’t worry, my bro here isn’t attracted by that kind of woman.”

Zhou Yingxue instantly beamed with joy.

A repairman off to the side shouted, “Ergou, the vehicles are fixed.”

Wang Ergou patted Ren Xiaosu on the shoulder casually. “We’ll be taking our leave now. Take care of yourself. If we meet again, we must have a drink or two.”

Ren Xiaosu smiled and nodded. He did not say he didn’t drink alcohol, as there was no need to reject his friend’s good intentions.

After the repair team drove off, a plainclothes guard said to Li Ran, “Should we get permission from General Wang to wipe them out?”

Li Ran glanced at them. “There were only about 17 of them just now, so why didn’t the ten of you, being regular soldiers, mention wiping them out while they were still around? Also, how’re you gonna wipe them out when this is the Zhou Consortium’s territory?”

“We can just get someone to do it covertly. They’re just your everyday thugs, so it’ll be very easy to deal with them if we want.” Now that they were no longer threatened, the soldier said, “And we also need to be warier of that Ren Xiaosu. After all, there must be something with him if he can address those thugs as bros.”

However, Li Ran did not agree with the points he brought up. Instead, she remarked, “I don’t care as long as he can solve problems.”

Honestly, when Li Ran saw the other party had a heavy machine gun just now, she felt a little scared. After all, they were people who risked their lives in the wilderness every day, and armed with such heavy firepower, how could she not be afraid?

But for some reason, the moment Ren Xiaosu stepped forward, her fear disappeared.

When Li Ran returned to the minivan, she said to Fang Zhi, “Pay 200,000 yuan to Ren Xiaosu and thank him for resolving the situation.”

Fang Zhi was stunned. “Even if we had the tires changed based on the quoted rates, it wouldn’t cost that much, right?”

Li Ran glanced at him. “I’m happy to pay!”