Chapter 44: Didn't Expect This, I Framed Myself

The bicycle rattled and squeaked as it rode along the road.

Spoke after spoke spun faster and faster, finally blurring into indistinct shadows, like the fate ahead—complex and tangled, countless thread ends converging toward the center, each thread end entangled with the others.

Like a net, everyone thought they would stand at the center and draw the net closed.

Little did they know, they were all just thread ends.

No one could see the full pattern of the net, for plucking any single thread end could trigger a chain reaction that rewove the net into another shape.

No one could glimpse the future, including Feng Mu.

When the vibration of a plucked thread end rolled toward you, all you could do was adapt on the fly, clutching your own thread end tightly and not letting go.

Because in the game of weaving nets to hunt each other, dropping the line meant only death.

"Someone's following me again?"

Feng Mu's heart thumped; unlike the last time he was followed, this time it was very concealed.

He moved his neck without changing expression, sweeping a glance around with the corner of his eye—many people were on their way to work on the road, and he couldn't tell who was suspicious.

But his back felt a chill in the bones, as if stimulated, ready to erupt with protective bone spurs, letting Feng Mu clearly sense the malice peering from the darkness.

He found no one, but it wasn't entirely without gain—at least Feng Mu discovered another hidden blessing of bone-ification: danger perception.

"Men of the Blue Wolf Gang?"

"No, Ma Bin just finished a phone call with me; he wouldn't be so foolish."

"And the danger I feel is on a completely different level."

Feng Mu stopped searching, pretending not to know as he kept pedaling, while his mind raced madly.

The answer was on the tip of his tongue: "Not the Blue Wolf Gang, then it can only be those black market merchants."

Feng Mu's heart sank at once; he and Ma Bin had both misjudged—those black market merchants had actually bypassed Ma Bin and come straight to him.

How did they find me?

Should I notify Ma Bin to come rescue me now?

Feng Mu's brain CPU was about to burn out, but his face remained expressionless; control of his facial bones helped his expression management immensely.

In the end, Feng Mu chose not to ask Ma Bin for help.

Not to mention whether Ma Bin would come, there wasn't enough time anyway, because he saw at the incineration plant gate a middle-aged man with a face full of chrysanthemum wrinkles slowly walking toward him.

Feng Mu breathed evenly, using 【Iron Eater】 to control his facial expression, using 【Blood Frenzy】 to slow his bleeding speed and heart rate; he pretended not to see the man as he rode his bicycle past him.

Zhang Hao listened to Feng Mu's calm heartbeat until the other had passed half a bicycle length, then suddenly turned around and asked politely, "Wait a moment, young man, are you a new cremation worker at the plant?"

Feng Mu stopped his bicycle, and the moment the other spoke his first sentence, he instantly caught the other's intent from those words.

Not coming for "me."

Not having bypassed Ma Bin to directly find "my" true identity.

But coming for Feng Mu!

The aforementioned "me" refers to the Lame True Culprit, the one who directly drove Ma Bin from behind the scenes and indirectly drove Qian Hao to the black market, who had conflicts with them and might know and covet the Black Core secret.

"I told you, to follow the vine to find me, you have to follow the vine first—how can you just grab the melon right away? Skipping steps!" Feng Mu's inner alarm settled halfway.

The reason it only settled halfway was because Feng Mu also had something suspicious hidden on him.

"The problem should be that I took Wang Jian's Black Core, causing them to lose Wang Jian as a source of goods, so they came to me."

"Damn, I was careless, but at first I really couldn't predict that Wang Jian's Black Core in one week was at most a few pieces—was it worth black market merchants coming to my door?"

"Are you guys too desperate?"

"No, what they care about isn't losing a few Black Cores per week; what they care about is that Wang Jian's Black Core might have been taken by someone else."

Feng Mu sorted his thoughts, looking at Zhang Hao with suspicion and vigilance, and asked, "What do you want? Who are you?"

His tone wasn't very polite—that was how a normal person would act. Zhang Hao's scrutiny of him weakened by thirty percent, and his voice became richer.

He said, "Young man, don't be nervous, we just want to ask if you have Black Cores; we want to buy them."

Feng Mu said nothing, but turned to look around, and saw two dark-skinned faces appear behind him—one squeezing out a simple, honest smile, the other a bit foolish, playing with an ant on a tree branch in his hand.

Tree branch?

Ant?

Feng Mu's heart gave a jolt, and he moved his gaze back.

He frowned and said to Zhang Hao, "I don't have any on me now; they're all at home."

Feng Mu had originally planned to lie that he'd already sold them to someone else, but the words reached his lips and, struck by inspiration, he told the truth instead, because he vaguely caught sight of the foolish dark-skinned face behind him suddenly stop playing with the ant and stick his hand into his pants pocket while answering.

A guy who looked foolish suddenly putting down his toy—it couldn't be for no reason.

What was he hiding in his pants pocket?

Something to detect whether I was lying?

Probably not; it was probably a detector similar to security or exploration equipment, able to detect whether I was carrying Black Cores, or whether I had recently been in contact with Black Cores?

Dark Face Number 2 lowered his head, his left eye strangely lit up, and his gaze directly saw through the fabric to the numbers on the detector.

Number 74.

This number indicated that Feng Mu was not carrying Black Cores on him, but that within eight hours he had definitely been in close contact with Black Cores, and not just one or two.

Dark Face Number 2 raised his head and continued playing with the ant on the tree branch.

Zhang Hao understood his companion's meaning; he confirmed Feng Mu hadn't lied, his suspicion of him dropped straight down, and he asked, "Why keep them at home instead of selling? The cremation workers at the plant should have told you we specialize in buying this stuff, right."

Feng Mu let out a breath of relief and said lightly, "I know, but I promised to sell them to someone else."

Zhang Hao's smile grew wider, his mouth splitting open to reveal a row of yellow teeth: "Ah? Someone else buys this stuff too? How strange, young man, can you tell me what kind of person is buying?"

Seeing Feng Mu not speak.

Zhang Hao thought for a moment and added, "Young man, don't misunderstand; we're also doing this for someone else. If we can't bring back Black Cores, we have to give our boss an explanation when we return—no other meaning."

While speaking, he held up four fingers and promised, "Like this, we won't ask about that person anymore; we just want to ask if you'll sell the Black Cores in your hand to us. We'll pay double the usual price—400 for one."

Feng Mu's cheek muscles twitched, clearly moved by the high price.

He irritably scratched his hair, gritted his teeth, and refused: "Fine, I'll tell you—the receiver is a limper. A few days ago, some hooligans were bothering me, and he helped me, so I agreed to collect Black Cores for him at the factory. I can't go back on my word."

Didn't see that coming~

I can frame myself!

Most importantly, this matter can be verified by these Black Market merchants—the security guard holding a thermos at the factory gate is a living eyewitness.

Zhang Hao caught the key information and stopped pressuring Feng Mu.

He gave Feng Mu a thumbs-up and flattered him: "Brother is a man of his word. So, Brother, can you give us that person's contact info? After you sell the goods to him, we'll contact him to buy them back at a high price. That way, Brother won't be put in a difficult spot, and we can report back to our boss. Is that okay?"

Feng Mu thought for a moment. Seeing Zhang Hao force several hundred yuan into his hand, he had no choice but to sigh helplessly, take out his phone, and open his contact list.

He gave Zhang Hao the phone number labeled 【Limped Weirdo】.

The phone number was naturally Hong Mao's mobile, the label changed by him after burying the latter's corpse.

Don't ask why he changed it—ask: prepare for the unexpected; when lying, he aims for consistency and leaves no loophole…

End of Chapter