MMPS Ch. 34

Chapter 34: The Stumbling Block

A flowing tea table sat in the center of the antique-style room, its surface carved from raw wood, interrupted by a narrow, meandering stream. A miniature landscape of moss-covered rocks adorned the channel, where bright red fish glided lazily between smooth pebbles. At the table’s edge, an incense burner emitted curls of fragrant smoke, which drifted down into the stream below, merging the ethereal with the tangible.

Yu An hesitated at the doorway, half-convinced he’d wandered into the wrong room. He stepped back to double-check the nameplate. No mistake—this was indeed the office of the big boss.

Behind the table, Mr. Kong sat with an air of calm authority. His hand rested on a battered, rust-speckled radio, the faint crackle of static blending with the melody of a Cheng Pei-style opera^[1] drifting from its speakers.

So the interviewer liked this kind of music—clearly, he’d picked it up from the boss himself. Yu An relaxed, albeit marginally.

Hearing footsteps, Mr. Kong looked up from the tea table and gestured casually: “Don’t be nervous. Sit wherever you like.”

Yu An had little experience interacting with higher-ups. His gaze landed on the plush leather sofa, which looked inviting. He briefly considered sprawling on it, but the intense stares of two bodyguards stationed near the door killed that impulse. He remained standing, stiff and guarded.

Conversations with bosses made Yu An bristle. When he’d applied for the job, the first thing he’d asked HR was, “I’m not good at dealing with people. Can you assign me to a role where I can work silently?” He had hoped that working for the Underground Metro would mean less bureaucracy and fewer pointless chats. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

His hood was pulled low, shrouding his face in deep shadow. The air of unapproachability made Mr. Kong regard him with even greater interest.

Mr. Kong had two daughters. The elder one was learning to manage company affairs and was currently overseeing a public welfare project to provide free anti-mutation radiation chips to citizens. The younger one, quiet and introspective, immersed herself in studying gemstones and minerals.

Middle age had brought Mr. Kong the inevitable burdens of planning for his children’s futures. With his energy and stamina beginning to wane, he feared that in a few years, he might struggle to hold the family enterprise together against rising competition. For that reason, he was constantly on the lookout for young talent—someone to mold into the Underground Metro’s backbone.

“I took note of your performance during the skills test.” Mr. Kong said, sliding open a drawer. He retrieved a spring-loaded knife and placed it on the table, nudging it toward Yu An. “I think you have potential. I wanted to meet you in person. This is for you—my daughter calls it a ‘armor piercing-awl.’ Small, light, but razor-sharp. It might suit you better than a standard military blade.”

Yu An didn’t hesitate. He picked up the knife, studying it. At the junction between the blade and the hilt, embedded in a small circular mechanism, was a crimson, cross-shaped core.

Rust-red—Tier 2 Red, the middle rank in the hierarchy of rarity: blue, purple, red, silver, gold.

A weapon containing a Tier 2 Red core promised devastating power.

“Cores can be carved?” Yu An asked, brushing his fingertips over the cross’s sharp edges. The only cores he’d seen until now had been spherical.

“Of course.” Mr. Kong replied. “They can be sculpted into whatever shape you need, provided the craftsman has exceptional skill.” The unique material properties of cores made them volatile; a single misstep during carving could shatter them. With high-tier cores being so rare, no one would risk entrusting their core to an unskilled artisan.

“My younger daughter is the best carver around. She once sculpted two finger-shaped cores for Ni Lan.”

“The closer the core mimics the shape of the original limb, the higher its efficiency.” Mr. Kong continued. “You’ve experienced Ni Lan’s swordsmanship and combat skills, haven’t you? Those two silver-tier finger cores amplify her abilities to the extreme.”

“If you ever need carving work, go to her.” He handed Yu An a card with the address of a jewelry shop.

Carving cores was a meticulous craft. The finished product couldn’t be too small—smaller cores couldn’t store enough energy. Sculpting cores for implantation into specific parts of the body was even harder, as the design had to balance shape with energy retention.

“Alright.” Yu An replied, tucking the card away. Despite Mr. Kong’s image as a laid-back overseer, his daughters seemed to be the truly reliable ones—gifted and resourceful.

“There’s another reason I called you here. Zhao Ran should’ve mentioned it already.” Mr. Kong rose, his fingers idly rolling a string of blood-red beads as he walked to a bookshelf. “This matter wasn’t resolved yesterday, so it’s been delayed until now.”

With a subtle touch, he activated a hidden mechanism. The bookshelf began to rotate, revealing its hidden side.

Behind it, a man hung against a pitch-black wall, his limbs splayed out in a cruciform position, held in place by heavy restraints. Zeng Rang wore nothing but a pair of shorts, his head slumped forward in unconsciousness. His chest bore four red, cross-shaped brands.

This was no display of leniency for captives. Mr. Kong had personally interrogated the man the night before, prying every scrap of information from him. The Underground Metro’s head of emergency medical care had sat nearby, snacking on fruit, ready to intervene whenever the captive came close to death. Each time he was healed, a fresh brand was burned into his flesh.

Placing a firm hand on Yu An’s shoulder, Mr. Kong guided him closer to the prisoner. He gently lifted Yu An’s wrist, angling the spring knife so its tip rested against the man’s collarbone. “Carving meat off the bone requires intuition.” he murmured, his voice serpentine. “Not sight. You don’t look; you feel. You memorize the structure, let the blade glide into the gaps. Precision over brute force. Before you know it, the flesh separates cleanly, and your blade remains as sharp as ever.”

Yu An turned his hooded face toward Mr. Kong, his expression unreadable in the shadowed depths.

“Would you like to try?” Mr. Kong asked, his voice coiling like smoke. His fingers idly rolled the bloodstone beads as he waited.

“No.” Yu An’s reply was immediate, unflinching.

Mr. Kong blinked in surprise. He prided himself on reading people, and Yu An’s refusal caught him off guard.

“The interviewer won’t allow it.” Yu An added, planting the knife in the wall beside the prisoner and stepping back. So much for a free weapon. He’d known better than to think there’d be no strings attached.

“Zhao Ran forbids it?” Mr. Kong mused, his brow furrowing in thought before a slow smile crept onto his lips. “He’s never said such a thing before.”

“But today, I’m not asking him.” Mr. Kong continued, his voice silk-smooth but laced with venom. “I’m asking you. What you want.” He waved off the bodyguards, who silently exited, shutting the door behind them.

The room fell into an unsettling silence. Only the soft trickle of water from the tea table broke the stillness, its sound like blood dripping into a crimson stream.

Yu An raised the knife again, its blade gleaming with an eerie, blood-red light from the embedded core. At the first graze of its edge, the man’s skin parted effortlessly, leaving a smooth, clean wound.

Yu An’s hand hovered in midair, frozen.

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Kong asked, his tone deceptively gentle with his hands behind his back.

Yu An stepped closer to the unconscious man, his left hand pressing lightly against the man’s chest, feeling the faint thrum of a heartbeat, like a beast examining whether it’s prey had died.

“Wake him up.” Yu An said, his voice unnervingly calm, yet carrying a note of latent excitment.

Half an hour later.

Yu An sat beneath the showerhead, fully clothed, as warm water cascaded over him. The steady stream soaked his body, washing the blood from his skin and the seams of his clothes. Streaks of red-tinged water flowed across the pristine white tiles, weaving like veins before vanishing into the drain below.

In his hands, he cradled a silver ring, turning it over and over as he meticulously scrubbed the blood from its carved grooves. The task should have required focus, but his thoughts kept drifting, wandering to places that had nothing to do with work.

The interviewer’s strength lingered in his mind like an unsolved puzzle. That effortless grip—lifting him with the ease of picking up an empty plastic bottle. Was this how a puppy felt when it was scooped up? To the one holding it, the act seemed weightless, even trivial. But to the puppy, there was a subtle pain—a light pressure against fragile bones. Yet the puppy still sought that embrace. The joy of being held outweighed the ache, rendering the discomfort insignificant.

Lost in thought, Yu An began to understand something.

Earlier, when he had defied the interviewer’s orders and attacked his target, the anticipated thrill never came. The exhilaration he had once found in such acts was absent, replaced by a hollowness he hadn’t expected. When the interviewer had first warned him, Yu An hadn’t taken it seriously. He thought himself fearless. But gripping the blade, plunging it into soft flesh, he had been unable to savor the satisfying sound of the cut. In that moment, he realized he had been consumed by fear, slowly, silently, without ever noticing.

And now, a new fear took root: if the interviewer found out what had happened today, would he refuse to wear the ring Yu An had given him?

The boss entered, handing him a towel, only to pause. Yu An was still sitting fully clothed beneath the stream, drenched and unmoving. Without warning, Yu An reached out, seizing the boss’s wrist. The sharp tip of a bone-breaking awl pressed against the artery.

“Don’t tell him.” 

“Forget it.” Yu An slowly lowered the blade, his grip loosening. “You can’t hide it from him anyway.”

The boss didn’t need to ask what Yu An was afraid of. He already knew.

It was hard to fathom how Zhao Ran had managed to break someone like Yu An, a feral wildcat, and turn him into someone who obeyed only him.

“He’s not exactly a saint, you know.” the boss said, crouching beside Yu An. His tone softened as he gently pushed away the weapon still faintly aimed at him. Yu An, drenched and slumped on the tiles, looked utterly pitiful. “You’ve probably heard the story. Years ago, there was an intern who killed his interviewer during his probation period. In the end, I still hired him.”

The boss paused, flicking water droplets from his arm. “That intern was Zhao Ran. I found him in the small town of Riyu. Back then, he acted purely on instinct and whim, his personality brash and unpredictable. You could see ten different emotions play across his face in a single minute. Even now, age hasn’t fully tamed him. Who knows which side of him he shows you?”

“?” Yu An tilted his face upward, his expression earnest as he listened.

*

At that very moment, Zhao Ran wasn’t at Underground Metro’s headquarters but at an abandoned amusement park.

The city patrol unit had followed leads from illegal aberrant pet merchants, uncovering the den where the creatures were bred. Cleanup had been assigned to the Emergency Order Unit, and the Public Relations department had already drafted a press release. They had painted the trafficking operation as a grave and sensational scandal, stirring public outrage. The plan was for Zhao Ran to personally take charge, delivering swift, brutal justice in the name of Underground Metro.

The amusement park was sealed off. Red circus tents, once vibrant, now stood faded and dusty, their colors bleached by years of sunlight.

Inside the dim, labyrinthine tent, several criminals clutched crates brimming with cash, their panic palpable.

“Move! Forget the money!” one yelled.

“Like hell I will!” another snapped, gripping the crate tighter. “I bled for this! I’m not leaving it behind!”

“Zhao Ran from Emergency Order is coming for us!” a third voice shrieked, trembling. “Keep your damn money and spend it in hell if you want! I’m out!”

Behind them, a cage brimming with infant animals rattled softly. The air was thick with their faint whimpers, a sound both pitiful and haunting.

Reluctantly, the men dropped some of their cargo, scrambling toward the exit.

But the narrow corridor ahead wasn’t empty. A figure stood there, backlit by the harsh glare of noon.

The light behind him was so blinding it seemed to burn his outline into their vision. As he stepped forward, shadows swallowed him, and the dazzling white of his hair dimmed to red from the tips upward—like flames creeping higher, licking at the edges of something pristine.

“He’s alone! Take him! Charge!” one of them roared, a desperate command.

But the man at the front, a hulking figure, froze mid-step, his charge abruptly halted. He stood there as if time had stopped.

Zhao Ran bent slightly, his sharp teeth flashing in a predatory grin.

Blood began to pool at the frozen man’s feet. Then, slowly, a hand emerged from the ground. Its fingers dug into the man’s lower back, burrowing deep into his flesh until they gripped his spine.

“Don’t run.” Zhao Ran said, his voice chillingly soft. His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dark.

He was in a bad mood. The boss had deliberately sent him out during the day, likely to meet Yu An in private.

The boss clearly admired Yu An’s talent and had plans to cultivate him.

But those plans clashed with Zhao Ran’s own vision for Yu An. The boss wanted to shape him into a cold-blooded killer, someone as ruthless as he was calculating. Zhao Ran had other ideas, and he silently vowed that the boss wouldn’t become an obstacle in his efforts.

The other criminals, terrified, abandoned everything and fled. But severed hands burst through the floor like jagged spikes, breaking through the tiles and pinning them to the ground.

One bald man, driven by desperation, pulled a gun and fired. The muzzle flashed, and the bullet struck Zhao Ran squarely in the chest.

“A bulletproof vest…?” the man stammered, disbelief etched across his face.

Zhao Ran tugged down the collar of his shirt, revealing bare skin. There was no vest. Embedded in his flesh was the bullet, still warm. With a flick of his fingers, Zhao Ran plucked it free.

He raised his hand, miming a loose grip in the air. A sharp crack followed as one of the severed hands twisted the bald man’s spine, snapping it with an almost lazy precision.

Annoyed and impatient, Zhao Ran completed the task with visible irritation. He pulled out his phone, typing a quick message to Yu An:

“Learn anything new at work today?”

The reply came almost instantly, as if the little brat had been waiting:

“Butchering people.”