Chapter 31: Major Discovery

"Transfer it to me?"

Lin Qing couldn't help but size up Zhao Jiayi before him and asked, "Are you serious?"

"Yes." Zhao Jiayi lightly nodded her head.

Lin Qing pondered for a moment and said, "Since you mastered the 4-6 version of the practice method, you must have defeated the enemy on your own back then. This Third-Class Merit was originally yours."

"But if you, Squad Leader, hadn't helped me back then, I would definitely have been killed by those two."

Zhao Jiayi said sincerely, "Anyway, a single Third-Class Merit can't be used to learn combat techniques. Keeping it is actually useless to me, so consider it my way of thanking you."

"Under capable circumstances, a patrol refusing to save a comrade in need is originally a violation of regulations." Lin Qing shook his head slightly.

Merit is originally accumulated bit by bit; how can there be such a thing as it being useless? He could feel that Zhao Jiayi didn't have a secret crush on him; she was simply expressing goodwill towards him.

"How about this? I do indeed need a Third-Class Merit right now."

Lin Qing thought for a moment and said, "Consider it as if you lent it to me. Later, when I have extra Third-Class Merits, I will transfer one to you."

Zhao Jiayi was slightly stunned.

She couldn't help but mutter something, but Lin Qing didn't understand what she said.

"What?" Lin Qing asked in confusion.

"Nothing at all. It's just a dialect phrase from my hometown."

Zhao Jiayi waved her hands and said, "Then consider it as if I lent it to the Squad Leader. Later, when the Squad Leader has so much merit that it can't be used up, you can return it to me."

"Good." Lin Qing nodded. "Once the bounty money comes down, I will help you buy High-Energy Sustained-Release Liquid."

Having experienced the apocalypse, he had seen too much darkness in human hearts and understood even more the preciousness of goodwill, like a ray of light in the darkness.

Therefore, he disliked owing good people; otherwise, if the other party encountered trouble in the future, it might affect his judgment and cause him to be soft-hearted.

"Has the Squad Leader had lunch?" Zhao Jiayi felt a bit embarrassed, as if she had mustered up the courage to ask.

"I'll eat at home in a while." Lin Qing glanced at her. "Where are you eating?"

Zhao Jiayi muttered something. Although Lin Qing heard it clearly, he didn't understand it.

"Dialect again?" Lin Qing couldn't help but raise his eyebrows slightly. "Which dialect is this?"

"I'm saying I'm eating outside. Coincidentally, my father is here to pick me up."

Zhao Jiayi hurriedly shook her head. "It's just a dialect from a small place. I've been used to hearing it since childhood, so sometimes I unconsciously say a phrase like that."

Lin Qing looked at her suspiciously. He felt the dialect she spoke didn't mean that, but he didn't understand it.

"Alright. Coincidentally, I'm going home too." Lin Qing stood up. "Anyway, Teng Feiyu is on duty, so it's no problem if you go out to eat. Shall we go together?"

"Wait." Zhao Jiayi walked quickly towards the office. "I need to change out of my uniform."

After the two left the main gate of the branch station, Lin Qing waited at the entrance for the ride-hailing car to arrive.

"Squad Leader, see you tonight."

Zhao Jiayi, now changed into a casual little dress, had lost a bit of her sharpness and gained a bit of a young girl's playfulness and cuteness. She waved to him and then stepped lightly into a blue-and-white private car parked by the roadside.

Soon, this beautiful private car drove onto the road and sped away.

"Your family conditions are quite good."

Although Lin Qing didn't know much about cars, he knew that private cars in this era were basically at least in the mid-to-high-end market, and license plates were also very expensive.

It wouldn't be affordable without several hundred thousand, nearly a million.

Anyway, he didn't have that kind of spare money to buy a car.

However, since she could bear and raise a beautiful daughter like Zhao Jiayi, whether through plastic surgery or naturally, it could show that her family conditions were good.

He hadn't seen Zhao Jiayi's father just now; he probably had no interest in her, his daughter's superior.

Amidst the flowing traffic, inside a blue-and-white private car.

"Dad, you came to pick me up specifically just to see the Squad Leader, right?" Zhao Jiayi leaned lazily against the back seat, looking at her father beside her. "Why didn't you come out to meet the Squad Leader just now?"

"Knowing him is enough. There is no need for him to know me for the time being." The middle-aged man wearing glasses smiled gently.

"Dad, I wanted to give him a Third-Class Merit, but he didn't want it. He only agreed to borrow it from me."

Zhao Jiayi puffed out her cheeks. "He clearly should have been very eager to learn combat techniques. It's exactly when he lacks merit, yet he is still only willing to borrow mine?"

"That's good." The middle-aged man said with a smile, "It shows he is unwilling to owe others. The more a person is like this, once they give you their approval, they will also treat you sincerely."

"Anyway, I feel this person of his hides very deeply..." Zhao Jiayi muttered, "He seems to have a very strong sense of crisis."

"Is that so?"

The middle-aged man laughed. "He hides even deeper than you imagine."

Time passed day by day.

Every day, apart from cultivation and replenishment, Lin Qing led Group Seven on patrols, but he never found another opportunity to earn merit.

In the blink of an eye, another five days passed.

On January 19.

【Squad Leader, I have made a major discovery. When will you come to the branch station? I want to talk to you alone.】

In the afternoon, after Lin Qing completed today's 7-7 version of the practice method and combat techniques, he discovered that the second-generation heir suspected of being there just to polish his resume, 'Teng Feiyu', had sent him a WeChat message.

"Could it be that there is progress on the underground boxing ring matter?"

Lin Qing originally wanted to stay home and read, but obviously the underground boxing ring matter was more important, as it concerned the merit for his promotion to Patrol Officer. He didn't hesitate and went out to the station.

After arriving at the Group Seven office, he immediately went with Teng Feiyu to the adjacent meeting room.

"Speak."

Lin Qing casually took out a bottle of finished tea, glanced at Teng Feiyu sitting opposite him.

"Team Leader, after these few days of investigation, I've made a major discovery."

Teng Feiyu sat up straight and said in a low voice, "I can now confirm that beneath the Red Oak Boxing Gym, there really is an underground fighting arena. Besides the death matches held every day, it's also involved in gambling and illegal transactions with enormous sums of money. And aside from the fighters who signed themselves away because of massive debts, the rest are fugitives."

Lin Qing listened quietly until he finished, then asked, "You couldn't find anything before, but in just these few days you got results?"

Teng Feiyu was silent for a moment, took a deep breath, then said in a low, somewhat humiliated voice, "These past few days, I deliberately got to know a few VIP members of the underground arena."

He took out his phone, opened a recording file, and said, "This is what they told me after getting drunk. I cross-checked several people's accounts before I was sure it was real. The recordings are all here."

"These days, private recordings and videos can't be used as evidence."

Lin Qing glanced at it, didn't reach for it, and just said, "Just tell me directly what you found out about the underground arena."

These days the voices and images AI produces are so lifelike that anything slightly blurry is hard to tell real from fake.

And they're private recordings anyway — they can't be used as evidence at all, and their reference value is very low.

"That underground arena is located directly beneath the Red Oak Boxing Gym."

Teng Feiyu said, "The entrance for VIP members into the underground arena is in the underground parking garage of the Qingtai Hotel we investigated before — that VIP elevator."

"The VIP elevator is disguised. Each time the underground arena's staff verify a VIP's identity, they actively control the VIP elevator to descend, dropping down to a disguised underground warehouse. From there, you go through a passage and pass multiple checkpoints before you can enter the underground arena."

"The underground force that founded the arena is an organization called 'Yuanhong Society.' It's said to be the largest underground force in all of Lin'an City, and even a dominant power within the province."

"All the spectators Yuanhong Society invites to watch the death matches are observed and vetted multiple times in advance, and they've signed non-disclosure agreements, so there's almost no possibility of someone mixing in — it's a completely invitation-only system."

"And Yuanhong Society definitely has an umbrella backing it, and has a fairly good grasp of official information, so there's basically no hope for any official personnel to get in."

"Based on what I've gathered these past few days, the people I've dealt with all claim the most thrilling part is the 'death match' segment, where two fighters must fight to the death, and the gambling money involved is extremely huge."

"In addition, Yuanhong Society also provides VIPs with playthings called female or male companions — the source is unknown for now."

Teng Feiyu took a deep breath and looked at Lin Qing. "To sum up… Team Leader, I think as long as we go search the place, there will definitely be results."

(End of this chapter)