The Society of Keeping Faith

“Will they take the bait?”

“They will.”

The voice on the other end of the line was certain. “It’s not a question of whether they will—they have to. Taking out the Divine Eye Bureau’s people is no problem for us, but with the Yanhuang Awakened in the mix, we can pin the blame on them. Most importantly, we can’t go head-to-head with the Divine Eye Bureau, and that thing has to end up in our hands.”

“Alright, we’ll talk later.”

Song Junhe didn’t say anything more. He hung up and sat in the car for a while.

Outside the window was the gray, overcast sky of Han City. Traffic on the overpass was sparse, and the glass curtain walls of a few office buildings in the distance reflected a pale, sickly light.

He flipped his phone over, glanced at it, then flipped it back, swiping his thumb across the screen a few times to pull up a number.

He hesitated for three seconds before dialing.

It rang for a long time.

So long that he thought the other person wouldn’t pick up—until a drowsy, slurred voice came through.

“Yeah?”

Piao Guochang—or rather, Lin Mo’s doppelganger.

The voice was thick with just-woke-up energy, dragging its syllables, lazy and indifferent.

You could tell he’d just gotten out of bed.

Song Junhe’s tense expression loosened, and he let out a scoff.

This guy sure knew how to keep a light heart.

Still, he quickly collected himself and switched to a polite tone.

“Got time to meet up? Let me buy you a meal.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

Long enough that Song Junhe started wondering if the guy had fallen back asleep.

“Fine.”

Twenty minutes later, he parked his car in front of a run-down little motel on the south side of town.

He’d been to this neighborhood before—cheap barbecue joints and internet cafés squeezed together, garbage bags piled in alleyways that nobody bothered to collect, and the air thick with a sour mix of kimchi and sewer smell.

A row of underwear hung drying on a third-floor window, snapping loudly in the wind.

The paint on the motel’s doorframe was peeling, and half the sign’s light tubes were dead.

Song Junhe leaned against the car door and waited a few minutes.

The door pushed open, and Lin Mo walked out.

Even though they’d only met not long ago, the doppelganger was playing old Piao now.

It was easy to slip into the role.

His hair was a mess, he was wearing the same clothes from yesterday, and his expression was dull and sluggish—the whole vibe screamed “don’t talk to me.”

Song Junhe gave him a once-over and shook his head.

“You killed the head of the Tiang Le Group yesterday.”

Lin Mo barely raised an eyelid and said nothing.

“Any random ornament in that man’s study, sold on the market, would’ve been enough to put you up in a presidential suite for a long time.”

Song Junhe jerked his chin toward the motel. “And you’re staying in a place like this? Doesn’t even have a proper sign out front.”

Lin Mo rolled his neck; the joints cracked audibly.

“That money’s dirty.”

“That money didn’t belong to him in the first place. What’s there to call dirty?”

“Money I earn myself—that’s my money.”

Lin Mo rubbed his shoulder, his expression flat. “Two different things. I’ve got my principles.”

Song Junhe blinked, then let the teasing edge slide off his face.

Interesting.

Not many people still talked like that these days. The guys in the Super Youth Corps would skim a little extra off the top whenever they ran a mission, and the higher-ups looked the other way.

But this Piao Guochang—he’d pulled off something huge, then gone back to sleeping in a motel that cost a few thousand won a night.

“The Super Youth Corps has already ruled the case a grudge killing.”

Song Junhe straightened his expression. “You won’t have any trouble, at least not for now. But the Tiang Le Group isn’t something that dies just because you cut off one head. The roots are still in the ground.”

“If a new head grows back, I’ll cut it off again.”

Lin Mo said it casually, dusting off his sleeve.

Song Junhe stared at him for a few seconds.

“Piao Guochang.”

The tone shifted.

Lin Mo noticed the change and stopped what he was doing.

“Killing doesn’t solve the root problem. Today you kill one, tomorrow three more pop up. The people standing behind the Tiang Le Group—can you kill them all?”

Song Junhe paused. “What actually works is control. Take these messes into your own hands, flip them from the inside—that’s the only way this country can catch its breath.”

He pulled a manila envelope from the car and handed it over.

“Take a look. See how our country gets pushed around.”

Lin Mo took it and opened it.

Inside was a file, not thick—seven or eight pages.

But every single page bore a different official seal, and two of them were marked “Top Secret.”

The content was blunt.

The Divine Eye Bureau planned to deploy dirty bombs inside Korean territory under the pretext of counterbalancing North Korea, but the real purpose was to build a deterrence line along China’s northeastern border.

The Korean government was expected to provide sites, personnel, and cooperation—and most importantly, to keep its mouth shut.

Lin Mo flipped through page by page, his grip tightening as he read.

On the last page, in the signature column, the names of three senior Korean officials were listed, with thumbprints pressed next to each signature.

They’d agreed without a single condition attached.

“They just said yes like that?” Lin Mo closed the file and looked up at Song Junhe.

“We didn’t agree.”

Song Junhe leaned back against the car, hands in his pockets. “Those politicians—they eat the Americans’ rice and do the Americans’ bidding. It’s only natural. The U.S. military base is right at our doorstep. You think they have any right to say no?”

It was blunt enough.

Everyone in Korea knew exactly where they stood, but knowing it and hearing it said out loud were two different things.

Everyone knew the Americans were Korea’s daddy.

Lin Mo let out a cold snort and tossed the file back into the envelope.

“Then what do you want me for? I joined the Super Youth Corps, but in the end, isn’t that still working for these people? A dog for the government, a dog for the Americans—what’s the difference?”

Song Junhe didn’t answer immediately.

He glanced up and down the empty street, then lowered his voice.

“That’s why I want you to join more than just the Super Youth Corps.”

“Also the Shouxin Society.”

Lin Mo raised an eyebrow.

The Shouxin Society?

Of course Lin Mo knew about it.

Eastern Leaf had mentioned it, and the Super Youth Corps’ internal files had records on it too.

A homegrown Korean organization of superpowered individuals, older than the Super Youth Corps itself. At its peak, it reportedly had over a hundred members, including no small number of S-class ability users.

But those were old stories.

Things were fine before the division of North and South Korea, but after the split, not much was left.

In the Super Youth Corps’ assessment documents, the Shouxin Society’s threat level was marked as: Extremely Low.

Followed by a parenthetical: Disorganized, severe member attrition, no practical operational capacity.

In other words, in the official view, this organization wasn’t much better than a neighborhood watch.

But now Song Junhe was telling him that he himself was a member of the Shouxin Society.

Which meant the organization probably wasn’t as simple as it looked on the surface.

Lin Mo didn’t rush to show his hand. Instead, he put on a half-convinced, half-doubtful look.

“Shouxin Society? Never heard of it. What do they do?”

Song Junhe looked at him, choosing his words carefully.

“If the Super Youth Corps is the superpowered organization created by the government, then the Shouxin Society is a superpowered organization that came together on its own.”

“What’s the difference?”

Justice, upholding true justice, and not the current government.