Cooperation and Transactions

On a normal day, Lin Mo—well, how to put it—his face was handsome, but the way he stood there, his overall vibe was completely unremarkable.

After that slap went out, Lin Mo's entire demeanor shifted.

His eyes half-lidded, fingers tapping lazily on the tabletop, that bone-deep sense of pressure radiating off him made the temperature in the room drop several degrees.

Dongfang Shuye's hand, holding his coffee, paused mid-motion.

He'd seen this version of Lin Mo before. More than once.

Every time, it made his scalp crawl—not out of worry for himself, but for the other guy.

Though he also feared this boss might lose control one day and leave all the cleanup work on his shoulders.

But today, the reaction really was over the top.

Lin Mo had just casually backhanded Song Junhe across the room with a single palm-blast from thin air.

The squad members behind Song Junhe reacted fast, drawing their guns in unison, pitch-black muzzles all aimed at Lin Mo.

Though they didn't seem to speak much Chinese, shouting in English instead:

"Stop! Hands up!"

"Don't move!"

Lin Mo didn't even glance at them.

Fingers still tapping the table, unhurried rhythm, not caring in the slightest whether they pulled the trigger.

Dongfang Shuye swept his eyes over the guns, silently set his cup down, and leaned back relaxed in his chair.

He wasn't afraid of bullets either—his abilities could basically block any conventional weapon attack.

It was Song Junhe himself who broke first.

The man's left cheek was swollen badly, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, yet he refused to wipe it.

He raised a hand, signaling his men to stand down.

Interesting. A man who could take a slap without losing his cool—either he had serious patience, or he had something to ask for.

Song Junhe was both.

"Lin Mo, we came here to talk about a cooperation."

His voice was steady when he spoke, except for the left side of his face twitching. Pain.

Lin Mo leaned back in his chair, propped both legs up on the table, tilting his head to look at him: "Cooperate with me?"

His tone basically had the words 'are you even worthy' carved all over it.

Song Junhe took a breath, letting the jab slide.

"To be precise, this is about cooperating with the Yan Huang Awakened. We received intel that the Divine Eye Bureau plans to deploy dirty bombs inside the peninsula, and the Superpower Youth Corps hopes you can help resolve this."

Dongfang Shuye's expression froze.

Oh boy, the Yanks want to deploy dirty bombs?

A dirty bomb is called that precisely because of how dirty it is. This thing isn't good news.

A relic of the Cold War, built on the mindset of "if I die, you're not living well either."

The principle is simple to explain: conventional explosives detonate, blasting the radioactive material packed inside across the sky.

Physical destruction is mediocre.

But once that radioactive dust falls, the soil, water sources, and air within dozens of kilometers all become worthless.

Not worthless for a few years—worthless for decades.

Every living thing in the zone suffers cellular mutation and cancer. People, livestock, crops—none escape.

Put simply, this thing isn't a weapon. It's a curse. A curse on a piece of land that lasts decades.

Dongfang Shuye mulled over the implications.

The Yanks deploying dirty bombs in South Korea—publicly, the excuse would be defending against the North Korean threat.

But who buys that crap? A dirty bomb can't intercept missiles, can't push a front line. Its only purpose is to turn an entire region into a radioactive wasteland should the peninsula ever spiral out of control.

Don't want the land, don't want the people.

And how close is South Korea to China?

Just across a stretch of sea.

Radioactive dust doesn't respect national borders. Wind carries it, ocean currents pull it—it can drift over just the same.

So the Yanks are playing it smart. Put dirty bombs in South Korea: threaten China, annoy China, but the ones who die are South Koreans.

Clearly, the Yanks don't treat South Korea as human either.

Kill two birds with one stone, without dirtying their own hands.

Clever. Really goddamn clever.

But does South Korea itself want this?

The answer was written on Song Junhe's swollen face.

No. Absolutely not. Not enough to swallow a slap and still come begging.

South Korea is barely the size of a palm print. Planting this kind of thing at their own doorstep—if even a single thing goes wrong, the entire peninsula turns into Chernobyl.

If their living space shrinks any further, where do they go? Squeeze together on some remote island?

That's exactly why Song Junhe came knocking.

They want the Yan Huang Awakened to step in, take care of the problem so the dirty bombs never get deployed, and the Divine Eye Bureau gets kicked out.

Dongfang Shuye worked through the whole logic, but he still refused on the spot.

"No reason to take this job. A dirty bomb only works on close-range detonation. If it ever gets to that point, do you really have the balls to fire it like a missile at us?"

Song Junhe opened his mouth, then shut it.

A planted dirty bomb is mostly a threat to local territory. Honestly, the threat to China is smaller than people think.

Truth be told, the moment a launch happens from that side, Chinese fire-control radar would already have it locked.

So Dongfang Shuye genuinely wasn't worried about whether a dirty bomb placed in South Korea would affect China.

Plus, he had a personal grudge with Song Junhe. Even if he did decide to do something, he wouldn't agree to it right away.

Song Junhe's face grew even darker.

But this guy really had skills. Anyone else would've slammed the table and stormed off at getting shut down like that. He swallowed it.

Not only swallowed it, he took a file from his subordinate, placed it on the table, and slid it forward.

"I'll wait for your answer. There's something in this file that I believe the Yan Huang Awakened will find interesting."

With that, he stood, led his men, and left.

From start to finish, not a single word about the slap Lin Mo gave him.

A man of significant restraint, indeed.

After they were gone, Dongfang Shuye finally spoke.

"Song Junhe, that guy has serious patience. That one mission nearly fell apart—if it wasn't for me saving the day back then—"

"Enough. Don't talk about it. Scum like him is one slap away from being throttled. You need to 'save the day'?"

Dongfang Shuye: "..."

Fine. Whatever you say. You're always right.

He quietly swallowed the story of his past glory, lowered his head, and began flipping through the file on the table.

Lin Mo said nothing more, but his eyes had already shifted.

In strategy, Lin Mo always despised his enemies, but tactically, he never underestimated any faction.

His spiritual sense had already spread out silently, tailing the direction Song Junhe and his group had taken.

Hopefully, these people wouldn't wander too far.

Meanwhile, the deeper Dongfang Shuye read, the darker his face got.

Finally, he slammed the file down on the table.

"Damn it!"

"They're forcing our hand on this one."

The file was full of intelligence—names and intel on agents that Japan and the Yanks had planted inside China.

Lin Mo glanced over it. Some of it he already knew, but part of it was new even to him. This file was genuinely useful.

But the other side had only given them a portion of the information.