Chapter 205: Acquired
Nan Yu and the others got up and put on their clothes. Nan Yu slipped into a pair of cotton slippers, while Yu Lanfeng simply and roughly put his bathrobe back on and stepped into a pair of plain slippers. Together with Bai Zhouyun, they sat on the sofa, watching the door as strange scraping noises continued to come from outside.
They were probably using some method to open the door, but unfortunately for them, the hotel’s lock was extremely difficult to crack. Several minutes passed, yet they still hadn’t managed to get it open.
Nan Yu grew bored sitting on the sofa waiting, so he opened the Interstellar Network and started watching some entertaining videos to pass the time. About twenty minutes later, there was finally a click, and the door opened.
The people outside were extremely cautious. Perhaps they thought the sound of the lock opening had been too loud, because they immediately became very careful. At first, there wasn’t the slightest movement, as though there were no one outside at all.
They certainly had patience. Even after opening the lock, they apparently crouched outside for another twenty minutes before slowly pushing the door open.
Once there was a narrow crack, a cloud of white smoke drifted inside. It looked like some kind of knockout gas.
Nan Yu wanted to go out onto the balcony, but Yu Lanfeng pulled him back and wouldn’t let him leave. Instead, he made Nan Yu sit in his arms, took a small bottle out of his spatial button, poured out a pill, and fed it to Nan Yu.
After swallowing it in one gulp, Nan Yu stopped worrying. He simply remained in that position, leaning against Yu Lanfeng and enjoying his comfortable human cushion.
The white smoke continued drifting into the room for more than ten minutes. Only after the people outside confirmed that there really was no movement inside did they slowly push the door farther open.
The sound was very faint, but in the silence of the night, even the slightest noise seemed piercingly loud, so they were exceptionally careful.
Push a little, stop for a while. Push a little, stop for a while.
Perhaps they eventually realized that they might run out of time, because they gritted their teeth and pushed the door all the way open. Three people then crept inside.
They didn’t dare turn on the lights and could only move around in the darkness. However, all three were probably Ability Users, so their night vision was quite good.
“There’s nobody on the bed! What’s going on?”
The sofa where Nan Yu and Yu Lanfeng were sitting faced the balcony. Its backrest was fairly high, and with the two of them leaning against it, the intruders couldn’t see them at all.
“That’s impossible. We clearly saw them enter the room. Did they leave through the window or something?”
“Forget it. If nobody’s here, let’s hurry up and leave. We’ll pretend we were never here and forget the whole thing. Remember, we absolutely cannot mention this to the deputy manager. Otherwise, none of us will come out of this well.”
“Yes, Boss. Then should we leave now?”
Nan Yu found this astonishing.
Although he and Yu Lanfeng were sitting somewhere the three couldn’t see, these people were Ability Users, weren’t they?
What was going on?
Couldn’t they sense them?
Two people were hiding this close by, and neither Nan Yu nor Yu Lanfeng had deliberately concealed their presence, yet these three still couldn’t detect them?
Nan Yu suddenly felt as though he had been deceived.
These three were complete weaklings!
How had three Ability Users this weak survived until now on such a dark planet? After all, most people capable of staying in a hotel like this weren’t weak!
Well, actually, there were probably two extremes: either they were extremely strong and had plenty of money, or they were extremely weak and had plenty of money.
Perhaps these three had simply been lucky before and had always encountered rich weaklings. That made robbing people staying here relatively safe.
Who would have thought their luck would suddenly run out?
Nan Yu glanced at Yu Lanfeng.
Yu Lanfeng stood up.
As he rose, the three people in the room finally saw a dark silhouette suddenly appear before them.
“Who’s there?!”
Nan Yu walked over to the bedside and turned on the light.
As the room lit up, he stood there and smiled faintly at them. Of course, he was wearing a hat, so all they could see was the curve of his lips.
Yu Lanfeng was similarly concealed.
Neither of them wanted their identities exposed here.
“We’ve been discovered!”
“You’re actually fine? How is that possible?! You bought fake drugs!”
“No way! I always bought them from that place before. Did they sell me fake stuff this time? Damn it! Next time, I’m definitely beating the shit out of him!”
“There might not be a next time...”
Nan Yu looked at the three men Yu Lanfeng had knocked down and immediately contacted the front desk.
The response was extremely fast. Within a minute, hotel security guards and several staff members hurried into the corridor outside their floor. The manager arrived slightly later, about three minutes afterward.
Nan Yu looked at the manager.
Although he resembled the deputy manager they had met earlier, they weren’t the same person. This man looked much sharper and carried himself with far greater authority.
“What happened here?!”
Then he looked around.
“Where is he?!”
Apparently failing to see the person he was looking for, he first walked to the doorway and looked at the four people inside.
The two soldiers had also opened their door and come over.
In fact, they had sensed the disturbance long ago, but Yu Lanfeng had messaged them and told them not to come over. That was why they had remained obediently inside their room. Only after everything was over were they finally allowed out.
Thinking about it, they felt somewhat aggrieved.
Nan Yu stayed behind Yu Lanfeng, feeling a little helpless.
He had originally intended to try using his Mental Power, but these three people were unexpectedly so weak that they weren’t even worth using Mental Power on. If he actually did it, he would practically be bullying them.
Nan Yu sighed inwardly and watched Yu Lanfeng speak with the manager.
Yu Lanfeng said, “How does your hotel intend to handle this?”
The manager replied, “This incident was indeed our hotel’s mistake. How about this? All expenses incurred by the four of you during your stay will be covered by the hotel...”
Yu Lanfeng said, “If you mean making our entire stay free, wasn’t that already agreed upon?”
He deliberately said this to make the manager aware of what had happened earlier.
Judging by what the manager had just offered, he obviously didn’t know that another incident had already occurred.
Sure enough, the manager paused slightly after hearing this. He apologized, then pulled someone aside and went some distance away to ask what exactly had happened.
Unfortunately, the person he grabbed didn’t know either.
He was the security captain, but he had happened to be off duty during the day and had only arrived a few hours ago. He had no idea what had happened earlier, and nobody had told him. Naturally, asking him was useless.
The manager understood as soon as he saw the confused expression on his face, so they casually grabbed one of the security guards who had been on duty during the day.
That guard hadn’t personally witnessed the incident, but he had heard about it from his colleagues.
“Manager, Captain, apparently this group came here around dusk. They waited until two of the guests had left, then pretended to be the people who had gone out and knocked on the door. They were caught in the end. Afterward, the deputy manager came over and offered the guests a completely free stay.”
The manager and security captain immediately understood.
So that was where the problem lay!
“The deputy manager... Very good. Where is the deputy manager?”
For someone to become the manager or security captain of the most luxurious hotel on such a dark planet, neither intelligence nor strength could be lacking.
All they had to do was think about it for a moment to realize that this incident had to be connected to the deputy manager.
“The deputy manager seems to have gone to the twelfth floor.”
The twelfth floor was the hotel’s public dining area.
But there was no way someone would go there to eat at four in the morning, so what he was doing there was obvious.
He had undoubtedly occupied another private room to fool around in.
“Go arrest him! Lock him up first. Once I’m finished dealing with things here, I’ll settle accounts with him!”
“Yes, Manager!”
After learning what had happened, the manager returned to Yu Lanfeng and the others with a smile.
Given their hotel’s strength, his attitude could actually have been somewhat tougher.
But strong people could sense other strong people.
The moment he saw Yu Lanfeng, he knew he absolutely couldn’t defeat him!
This was an extraordinarily powerful and ruthless man!
“My apologies to the four of you. I didn’t expect that such an unpleasant incident had already occurred earlier. In that case, all of your expenses during your stay will remain completely free, and the hotel will additionally compensate you with a gift. Would that be satisfactory?”
He took a small box from his pocket.
Yu Lanfeng wasn’t worried about him trying anything and accepted it. When he opened the box, he discovered that it actually contained a First-Tier Invitation—the very thing he had previously been considering going out to steal!
There was absolutely no reason for Yu Lanfeng to refuse it.
Although he could steal one, doing so might alert their enemies. Since someone was delivering one straight into his hands for free, why refuse?
“Then we’ll consider the matter settled.”
The manager smiled.
“Very well. Thank you for your understanding.”
Yu Lanfeng took Nan Yu back into their room.
The other two silently returned to theirs as well.
Only after both doors had closed did every trace of expression disappear from the manager’s face. He looked coldly at the three captured men.
“They should have accomplices. Catch them all and lock them up with our deputy manager. I’ll personally entertain them later!”
“Yes, Manager!”
The three men’s eyes were filled with despair.
They regretted it.
They should never have come here.
If only they had abandoned tonight’s operation.
Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret in this world.
This time, they really were dead!
And not only them. All their brothers would die as well, along with the deputy manager who had cooperated with them.
The hotel quickly discovered that this group had worked together to carry out the same scheme many times.
They had succeeded six times before. Each time, they had killed several people—sometimes as few as two—and had murdered twenty-five people in total.
They had successfully seized all of their victims’ property, including a total of 2.6 billion Imperial credits!
They had already squandered nearly 500 million of it.
They certainly knew how to spend money. How long had it even been?
And this was despite deliberately controlling their spending because they didn’t want to attract attention.
After discovering such a large sum of money, the manager’s mood improved considerably.
After all, more than two billion credits were enough to compensate for the First-Tier Invitation he had given away, as well as the guests’ free stay.
But even after recovering his losses, he still felt that he had lost face.
And there was no way to recover lost face so easily.
The manager walked over to the naked deputy manager hanging in the torture room.
By now, every member of those small gangs gathered around the torture chamber had already been tortured until they were barely alive. Only the deputy manager remained completely unharmed as he hung there.
No one knew whether they intended merely to frighten him or whether they were deliberately saving him for last.
He stared fearfully at the man before him and called out in a dry, trembling voice.
“Brother...”
“Hmm? Who are you calling? Me? Since when did I have another younger brother? Why didn’t I know about it? Do any of you know? Hmm? Anyone?”
As though genuinely puzzled, the manager turned around and asked the people standing behind him.
Everyone shook their heads, all wearing expressions that showed they were eagerly waiting for the show.
“See? Nobody knows you, so don’t call people whatever you please. Sure, we might share a tiny bit of blood, but don’t forget that bitch of a mother of yours was never qualified to be compared with my mother. So you and I aren’t the same either. You’re a bastard. I’m the legitimate young master.”
“Don’t think that just because Father let you join the company as deputy manager, you can do whatever the hell you want. Believe it or not, even if I kill you right here, my father won’t say a single harsh word to me!”
“Because Father knows I’m his legitimate son, while you’re nothing more than a seed he casually left outside. Who knows how many seeds like you are out there?”
Although he couldn’t stand the fact that his father constantly scattered his seed outside and that quite a few of those seeds had actually grown up, there was one thing he could be absolutely certain of.
His father had only ever raised him as his true son.
The other children were basically toys.
When his father was in a good mood, he played with them. When he was in a bad mood, he tossed them aside.
If a toy broke, there was nothing to regret.
Just throw it away.
About an hour later, the manager finally walked out of the torture room.
He wiped the blood from his hands with a handkerchief, but no matter how much he wiped, he couldn’t get them clean. He tossed the handkerchief away and went to the restroom to wash his hands properly before finally getting himself clean.
He dried his hands and straightened his clothes before turning to leave.
“Clean up the garbage inside. Then tell my father that I broke his new toy. If he still wants something to play with, he can just replace it.”
“Yes, Young Master!”
Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu naturally didn’t know {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} exactly what happened afterward, although they could more or less guess.
But they didn’t care about that.
Instead, now that they had obtained a First-Tier Invitation, they no longer needed to steal one. All they had to do was peacefully wait for the auction to begin.
Nan Yu turned the invitation over and over in his hands but couldn’t find anything particularly interesting about it.
“Brother, when does the auction start?”
“One tomorrow afternoon. Apparently, it’ll continue until one in the morning—a full twelve hours. There’ll be two breaks in between, two hours each, so everyone can rest and eat.”
Nan Yu said, “Wow. There must be a lot of things being auctioned.”
Yu Lanfeng said, “I have a list they released.”
Sure enough, after Nan Yu checked it, he discovered that the auction was divided into several sessions.
The first session would begin at one in the afternoon and end at four, lasting three hours. Everything being sold consisted of things that could still be bought outside if one was willing to pay a sufficiently high price, although they were rarely seen under normal circumstances.
The second session would run from six to ten, lasting four hours. It would consist of many valuable items that were nearly impossible to buy outside even if one had the money.
Then came the third and final session.
It would run from midnight until one in the morning, lasting only one hour.
However, everything being auctioned during this final session was confidential. No information had been released.
Nan Yu saw that there would be eight items during that final hour.
Other than the number of items, nothing whatsoever was known about them.
Nan Yu let out a long sigh and walked out onto the balcony to look outside.
“So there’s nothing to do today? I wonder if there’s anything good to eat here, or if everything is instant food?”
Yu Lanfeng said, “You’re wrong about that. People here know how to enjoy themselves even better than people outside. Get some rest first. Once you wake up, I’ll take you to the twelfth floor for a meal.”
Nan Yu had very little resistance when it came to delicious food, so he lay back down on the bed and quickly fell asleep.
His sleep had been interrupted earlier, and he had actually been quite annoyed about it. Now he could finally get a proper rest.
He found a comfortable position in Yu Lanfeng’s arms and soon fell deeply asleep.
Yu Lanfeng gradually drifted off as well.
Yu Lanfeng had previously said he would take Nan Yu around to have some fun, but this clearly wasn’t a particularly good place for sightseeing.
As far as Nan Yu was concerned, the only worthwhile thing here was the food on the twelfth floor. He wasn’t interested in much else, so they simply returned to their room and waited for the auction to begin the next day.
The biggest reason was that although many people in the hotel restrained their behavior somewhat, all Nan Yu had to do was glance around and he would still notice all kinds of obscene acts taking place in countless corners!
He felt as though merely seeing them was dirtying his eyes, so he didn’t want to remain outside.
After returning to their room, however, Nan Yu found himself unable to look directly at practically anything in it—especially the bathroom, sofa, balcony, and similar places.
He didn’t even want to look at the walls or floor.
Yu Lanfeng moved closer to him.
“If it bothers you, don’t think about it. Browse the Interstellar Network and find something interesting to watch. It’ll help pass the time.”
Nan Yu shook his head.
“I’d rather help you with your work. Share your work inbox with me. Let me see if another pile of documents has accumulated.”
Yu Lanfeng opened it and discovered that there really were quite a lot more.
Since they had nothing else to do anyway, they started working.
Far away in Border Region One, Qin Wenxing was rather surprised.
None of the documents he had sent over earlier required urgent attention, yet the Marshal had processed them as quickly as possible and sent them back.
It seemed the Marshal had some free time right now.
In that case, he might as well send over some more work.
Nan Yu and Yu Lanfeng, who were busy processing documents, watched as the amount of work waiting in the inbox suddenly tripled!
They looked at each other.
Then they continued processing everything as quickly as possible.
After all, the work would have to be done sooner or later. If they finished it now, things would be easier afterward.
Only after they finished all the work did Nan Yu breathe a sigh of relief and collapse onto the bed.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.
“Brother, I suddenly feel like going out for a walk.”
Yu Lanfeng said, “All right. I’ll take you to a restaurant. The chef there is better than the ones in the hotel, and it’s near the place where tomorrow’s auction will be held. I can take you around the area while we’re there so you can familiarize yourself with the surroundings.”
Nan Yu didn’t refuse.
“Sure. Then let’s go.”
When the two of them left, they didn’t have the two soldiers accompany them.
The soldiers went to the twelfth floor to eat on their own and would return afterward.
There was really no need for them to worry about Nan Yu and Yu Lanfeng’s safety.
As long as Yu Lanfeng was there, nothing would happen.
Moreover...
The other member of the pair was a High-Tier Mental Power User.
Nan Yu had yet to actually test his Mental Power attacks. He had been itching to try them for quite some time now.
If anyone had the courage to approach them, he really wanted to experiment.
The three people who had broken into their room earlier had genuinely been too stupid and too weak. Nan Yu had been too embarrassed to use his Mental Power on them.
Yu Lanfeng led him toward the hotel entrance.
Both had put on the cloaks they had worn earlier and were now also wearing masks. Even their chins, which had previously remained visible, were completely concealed.
It was a little after four in the afternoon.
There were still many people on the streets, but ninety percent of them silently hurried along without speaking. The rest were either “taking care of business” or discussing where they should go to pull off their next job.
They encountered plenty of people traveling alone, and there were also many pairs like them.
But pairs walking hand in hand like Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu?
There were practically none.
It didn’t take long for some experienced, sharp-eyed people to realize that they were a couple.
The person walking slightly behind had a slender, relatively frail build and was probably a Mental Power User.
The person walking in front was tall and broad. Just looking at his silhouette was enough to tell that he wasn’t someone to mess with.
Yet pairs like this were often the easiest targets.
After all, two fists couldn’t defeat four hands. No matter how powerful an Ability User was, surely he couldn’t directly fight more than a dozen—or even dozens—of Ability Users at once.
And then they could seize the defenseless Mental Power User!
Once they had him as a hostage, capturing both of them would become easy.
It wasn’t long before a group set their sights on Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu.
However, no matter how bold they were, they didn’t dare attack on the main street.
So they decided to follow first and wait until the pair reached somewhere suitable for an ambush.
As for Yu Lanfeng and Nan Yu, they had noticed the little tails following them long ago.
But...
There were simply too many tails.
They couldn’t really be bothered dealing with them yet.
It seemed that more than one faction was following them. None of those groups had realized yet that other people had exactly the same idea, so for the moment, everyone’s attention remained focused entirely on Nan Yu and Yu Lanfeng.
Nan Yu suddenly laughed.
“Brother, I wonder what they’ll do once they realize so many other people have targeted us at the same time.”
Yu Lanfeng said, “They’ll settle things among themselves first, then whoever wins will come after us.”
Nan Yu said, “I wonder what expressions they’ll make when they realize that after paying such a huge price, the people they’re trying to capture are still people they can’t afford to provoke.”
Yu Lanfeng said, “Want to watch when the time comes?”
Nan Yu said, “Sure. We have time anyway.”
Yu Lanfeng led him farther along the main road.
Eventually, they reached a three-way intersection near the auction venue. All three roads here were extremely wide, and all of them were major thoroughfares.
Yu Lanfeng pointed toward the auction venue situated at the corner ahead.
“That’s it.”
Nan Yu looked at the place.
Its entrance alone gave off an imposing sense of pressure.
But where was the restaurant?
Yu Lanfeng pointed to the side.
“Over there. Shall we go?”
Nan Yu said, “Sure. Let’s go.”
They leisurely walked in that direction.
Meanwhile, the people following behind them finally noticed the others who had exactly the same plans.
Sure enough, easy prey was always in high demand!