Chapter 62: The Curious Xue Beichuan

Xue Beichuan furrowed his brow. He had held the top seat at the Haizhou Police Department for several years now, and had thought that public security in Haizhou was well under his control. Never did he expect such a major incident to occur, and in the home of the wealthiest man in Haizhou, no less!

If news of this got out, the consequences would be enormous!

Fortunately, the Tang family estate was perched halfway up a mountainside, and even within the entire Jingrong Villa district, it was well separated from its neighbors. There likely hadn’t been any witnesses to what happened here, which made it easier to keep things under wraps.

Right now, the most important thing was to get to the bottom of it. Whoever dared to stir up trouble in Haizhou—Xue Beichuan would never allow it!

“Mr. Tang, tell me exactly what happened here tonight, in full detail,” he said, having confirmed that aside from the slain bodyguards, the rest of the Tang family was unharmed.

But when Xue Beichuan heard from Tang Baisheng about the massacre with myriad venomous insects, his frown deepened.

As a man of the martial world himself, Xue Beichuan possessed not only remarkable courage, but also extraordinary experience.

The myriad venom slaughter? Wasn’t that the signature move of the King of Venomous Insects, the killer?

Xue Beichuan had spent many years in law enforcement, and with a background as a special forces soldier, he was well aware of the workings of the underworld.

The Venom King, Zuo Tianlang, was a professional assassin ranked in the top fifty of the shadowy underworld list. He’d been wanted by the police for years, yet had never been caught. And now, apparently, he had struck again.

Xue Beichuan knew very well how formidable Zuo Tianlang was. This time, trouble was surely brewing.

Even with his own mastery of inner strength, he had no chance against Zuo Tianlang.

His interest was piqued by the so-called Master Mu, the man who had saved the entire Tang family, as mentioned by Tang Baisheng.

Anyone who could save others from Zuo Tianlang was no ordinary person!

As these thoughts ran through his mind, the team sent to pursue Zuo Tianlang had already returned.

“Chief Xue, we’ve caught the suspect!” a police officer announced.

“He’s no criminal—he’s Master Mu! He saved us!” Tang Baisheng interjected.

“What? He’s the Master Mu you mentioned?” Xue Beichuan could scarcely believe it, as the young man’s appearance was far from what he’d expected.

Yet Xue Beichuan’s sharp insight and experience were what had allowed him to thrive in the police force. When his gaze fell upon the slender youth, he immediately sensed something unusual.

The youth was far too calm.

As Tang Baisheng had said, the place had just suffered a catastrophe of venomous insects, with over twenty corpses lying in the courtyard. Even the battle-hardened Tang Baisheng, no stranger to the world’s dangers, had been shaken. Yet this youth’s face was serene, his eyes calm as a quiet lake, without a hint of panic.

This was not how a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old should behave.

This was no ordinary youth!

That was the first assessment to flash across Xue Beichuan’s mind.

“I’m Xue Beichuan, Chief of Haizhou Public Security. May I ask your name, young man?” Xue Beichuan felt it necessary to introduce himself properly.

“My family name is Mu,” Lin Le replied, still intent on keeping his identity from the Tang family.

“And Zuo Tianlang? The assassin?” Xue Beichuan asked.

“He was killed by his own venom—he’s dead,” Lin Le replied coolly.

“What? Zuo Tianlang is dead?!” Xue Beichuan could hardly believe it. “Did you kill him?”

“In a manner of speaking. He tried to kill me, so I defended myself,” Lin Le answered matter-of-factly.

Xue Beichuan involuntarily sucked in a breath. Even with his own mastery of inner strength, he would struggle against Zuo Tianlang. Yet here was this youth, having killed him. If word of this reached the underworld, it would cause quite a stir.

Just as he was about to say something more, a police officer who had been investigating the scene in the house rushed over, visibly excited.

“Chief Xue, you should come have a look!”

With some doubt, Xue Beichuan followed him into the room.

When Xue Beichuan saw the criminals in the living room, felled by what looked like leaves, he frowned.

“Were the people inside the house also killed by you?” Xue Beichuan returned and questioned Lin Le.

“They broke into a private home with weapons and tried to kill the Tang family. My actions were no more than self-defense, wouldn’t you say?” Lin Le assumed Xue Beichuan was trying to assign blame.

Lin Le’s reply was as good as an admission.

Xue Beichuan’s expression changed to one of astonishment as he looked at Lin Le.

Being a martial artist himself, Xue Beichuan knew that to harm people with leaves was something only a master with complete inner strength could achieve. He himself, though similarly accomplished, would also find it difficult.

He desperately wanted to know who this youth really was. Could he be a figure from the shadowy rankings as well…?

“I’ll have to ask you to come down to the station with me,” Xue Beichuan said.

“Chief Xue, Master Mu is a good man! He only acted to save us!” Tang Baisheng protested.

“That’s right. If he hadn’t stepped in when he did, none of us would have survived!” Even Tang Nianchen spoke up for Master Mu.

Though she still felt a lump in her throat recalling how the man had seen her unclothed, she couldn’t stand by and watch him be wronged for saving them.

“Don’t worry, it’s just routine questioning. As long as there’s no problem, I won’t make things difficult for him,” Xue Beichuan assured them.

“Mr. Mu?” he looked to Lin Le.

“Fine, I’ll go with you.”

Lin Le was about to get in the car with Xue Beichuan.

“Wait, I have something to say to Mr. Mu,” Tang Nianchen said, pulling Lin Le aside before Xue Beichuan could object.

“Thank you for saving my family’s lives tonight,” Tang Nianchen said earnestly.

Though she was still a little disheveled from the ordeal, her beauty was undiminished.

“It was nothing. You could call it after-sales service for those two hundred million,” Lin Le joked.

Tang Nianchen was speechless. Thinking of how he had taken advantage of her family’s crisis to make two hundred million, any goodwill she’d just felt for him quickly faded.

“If you run into any trouble after you go with Chief Xue, you can call me,” she said, still worried he might be implicated.

“So you do care about people, Miss Tang,” Lin Le replied with a hint of mockery.

“You…” Tang Nianchen couldn’t understand why he could never speak to her properly. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d risked his life to save her family, she’d have wanted nothing to do with him—it was simply too exhausting.

“Forget it, take care of yourself,” she finally said, feeling that their personalities must be fundamentally incompatible.

Half an hour later, Lin Le arrived at the station with Xue Beichuan.

Having been brought in once before recently because of the Guan Tianxiong incident, it hadn’t even been a few days since Lin Le’s last visit. Even he found his visits a bit too frequent.

“Chief Xue, if you have time, you really ought to be investigating the identities of those assassins,” Lin Le said, adopting an air of seasoned indifference as he sat down in the interrogation room.

“I certainly will. But first, there’s something I need to clarify. Who exactly are you?” Xue Beichuan asked.

“I told you, my surname is Mu. You can call me Xiao Mu.”

“Mu, huh… And your full name? May I see your ID?” Xue Beichuan persisted.

Lin Le was momentarily stunned; he hadn’t even thought up a name for himself, let alone prepared an ID.

“All right, you can drop the beard now. Tricks like that might fool the Tang family, but they won’t get past me,” Xue Beichuan said. He had noticed the disguise back at the Tang estate, but hadn’t exposed him on the spot.

Seeing there was no use pretending, Lin Le took off the fake beard.

When his true face was revealed, a satisfied smile appeared on Xue Beichuan’s face.

“So, who are you really? If you’re doing good and saving people, why hide your identity from the Tang family?” Xue Beichuan asked.

“Chief Xue, that’s a personal matter, unrelated to the case, isn’t it?”

“Well, if you won’t say, then I’ll just have to take your photo and ask the Tang family myself,” Xue Beichuan replied with the calm of a veteran officer.

“All right, you win,” Lin Le gave in.

Xue Beichuan smiled; he could tell this young man wasn’t ill-intentioned.

“All right, let’s chat,” Xue Beichuan said with interest.

Lin Le sighed, then explained his connection to the Tang family. He knew Xue Beichuan could easily find out on his own if he wanted, so there was no point hiding it.

After hearing Lin Le’s explanation, Xue Beichuan nodded.

“So that’s how it is. It really is your private affair, and I won’t ask further. But there’s one thing I do want to know: at such a young age, how did you master the technique of harming with leaves?” Xue Beichuan’s gaze sharpened.

Lin Le looked up, his own expression changing slightly.

“I come from a family of martial artists and have seen many martial prodigies, but I’ve never seen one as young as you reach the mastery of inner strength. By your own account, you’re just the son of a bankrupt conglomerate, hardly likely to have had access to such advanced martial arts. What circumstances led you to achieve such skill?”

Lin Le realized that Xue Beichuan had brought him here not for the Tang family’s business, but because of his martial prowess.

Xue Beichuan’s pursuit of martial arts went far beyond any ambition for official rank. He had reached his current level only after years of opportunity and effort. He thought it rare enough for himself, and now saw a high school student of equal rank. How could he not be curious?

“Sorry, I can’t tell you that,” Lin Le replied. The secret of his past as the Celestial Emperor was not something anyone else could know.

“You think I can’t find out if you won’t tell me?” Xue Beichuan grinned and returned to his seat, logging onto his computer and typing rapidly to access the internal police database.

After a quick search, he soon found results.

“No wonder you’re the Lin family’s young master—your school record is truly ‘glorious’!” Xue Beichuan said, scrolling through Lin Le’s file with some amusement.

“Oh? You even served in the military?” Xue Beichuan grew more interested, thinking this might be linked to Lin Le’s abilities.

“What branch? Armed police, navy, special forces? Let’s see…” Xue Beichuan typed rapidly.

Lin Le sat in silence, watching him work.

“Hm? Can’t find it?” Xue Beichuan’s face showed a hint of suspicion.

But that didn’t stop him. At his level, he could access higher-level classified files.

Smiling, he logged in with his top-level account and searched again.

The next moment, Xue Beichuan’s eyes widened as a message appeared on the screen:

“Your clearance is insufficient. You do not have permission to view this content!”