“Stop!”

Just as Gu Shen leaned against the wall of the alley, breathed a sigh of relief, tidied up his clothes, and prepared to leave, a loud shout suddenly came from behind, followed by rapid footsteps from outside the alley.

Is he calling me?!

The moment the voice sounded, Gu Shen instantly became nervous.

With a guilty conscience and the thought that it would be better to run away, he immediately picked up his pace.

He had just extorted Cui Zhongcheng. Who knew if Mr. Cui would suddenly change his mind, send someone to chase him back, and then take back the mysterious Class E clock hand?

He hurriedly turned around and saw a few figures rushing out from the shadows. They were all at least 1.9 meters tall, clad in black suits, wearing sunglasses, and had stern expressions… Most importantly, the collars of their clothes were ironed with a black flower insignia.

It was the emblem of the Blossom Flag Group.

These people were really from the Zhao family!

As he ran, the voices behind him became even angrier.

Someone roared, “Don’t run!”

Gu Shen ran even faster.

If not for the fact that he had used the Ruler of Truth twice in a row, he would have even considered using it to escape. In fact, this was purely an instinctive biological stress reaction.

No matter what was going on, when you were being chased, you couldn’t help but run.

The faster you were being chased, the faster you ran.

This alley wasn’t wide, and it was cluttered with abandoned wicker baskets and obstacles, causing Gui Shen to stumble and stagger along the way.

What was even worse was that this secluded alley actually led to a dead end. After running for more than ten seconds and making a turn, Gu Shen saw the wall at the end of his line of sight and felt despair.

“Step on the baskets and climb over!” An anxious reminder suddenly came from behind.

“???”

Only then did Gu Shen notice there was a figure following behind him. This person was neither tall nor muscular, and it was easy to overlook him in peripheral vision. But when he looked closely, he was quite eye-catching.

Despite the cold weather, this man with a buzz cut was wearing a thin floral shirt and a pair of flip-flops. He was running fast and urgently. Unfortunately, the alley was very narrow, so no matter how anxious he was, he could only be blocked by Gu Shen’s back.

There was no time to think about who he was or ask questions.

Gu Shen instinctively followed the man’s instructions. He stepped on a wicker basket and jumped up. Fortunately, he had always been in decent physical shape, but this was the first time climbing a high wall this way…

Thud!

His five fingers slammed down heavily and barely managed to grab the edge of the wall. He turned his body sideways and exerted strength again. Gu Shen felt like a gymnast on the horizontal bar as he pulled himself up precariously but successfully.

Immediately after, Gu Shen glanced back and saw a scene that dumbfounded him.

The buzz-cut man didn’t step on anything like a basket at all. Instead, he charged from about five meters away, jumped from two meters away, and seemed to take flight, astoundingly defying gravity. The arc of his jump was  light and graceful, making him resemble a big bird spreading its wings.

Gu Shen estimated that this wall was at least four meters high.

With just a short run-up, the man effortlessly landed on top of the wall.

Is this guy… even human?

The buzz-cut man didn’t stop. After landing on the wall, he immediately jumped down. This time, his posture was even more like a big bird. Gu Shen suspected that if this guy had a pair of wings, he would even be able to see the movements of the wings soaring and gliding through the air.

“What are you waiting for?” The buzz-cut man landed on the ground and turned around. “Aren’t you running anymore?”

Gu Shen was stunned. The pursuers behind him had already arrived murderously. These burly men coordinated seamlessly. Some of them had started a run-up, while others leaned against the wall and squatted, using their backs to build a human bridge.

“Fuck!”

Gu Shen came back to his senses and quickly jumped down from the wall. When he landed, the buzz-cut man gave him a helping hand. The two of them dashed through the alley, resembling two ostriches lowering their heads and sprinting forward through a sandstorm. After crossing the high wall, the alley was no longer a straight line but connected to a maze of intersecting alleys. The buzz-cut man led the way. Not only could he jump high, but he also ran extremely fast. No wonder he had been anxious when Gu Shen blocked him earlier.

Reality proved that the economic development of the East Continent still had room for improvement. Even the most prosperous Dadu in the south had an old city area called Old Town with dilapidated neighborhoods and crisscrossing ancient alleys. After the buzz-cut man led Gu Shen through several twists and turns, their straight path immediately became a winding and branching one… The pursuers found it increasingly difficult to follow.

Only when the sounds of pursuit had disappeared did the buzz-cut man gradually slow down.

“Huff… Huff…” Gu Shen held his knees with both hands and said with difficulty, “Did we lose them?”

“Lost them by miles.” The buzz-cut man scoffed disdainfully. “With their intelligence, it’ll take another eight hundred years to catch me.”

His physical fitness was excellent. After the frantic run, he only needed a couple of deep breaths to calm down.

Song Ci patted the dust off his floral shirt. He was a person who loved cleanliness, but after the mad dash through the narrow alleys, his clothes were inevitably dirtied. After patting his clothes, he realized that… something was amiss with the situation. “Wait… Why were you running?”

He looked at the young man in front of him with a strange expression. He looked about seventeen or eighteen years old. Although he looked a little disheveled now, he had managed to keep up with him the entire time, indicating that this kid was in pretty good shape.

Gu Shen’s expression was equally strange.

Because the buzz-cut man had stolen his line…

The Zhao family’s bodyguards should be chasing me. Why did this man run?

Those burly men weren’t chasing after me, but… him?

“You know those guys from earlier. If you didn’t do anything, why did you run away?” Song Ci frowned. “Did you steal something? Or do you owe money? Why did you run so fast?”

“Nonsense… I’m a model citizen!” Gu Shen quickly denied. “Those burly men were chasing me, so of course I had to run. Moreover, the logos on them were so obvious. They’re from the Blossom Flag Group. Who knows what they’d do if they caught me!”

The buzz-cut man rubbed his chin, listening to Gu Shen’s explanation in amusement.

Irritated, Gu Shen said, “It’s normal for me to run! But what about you? Why did you run?”

The sudden counterquestion left the buzz-cut man speechless, and his fingers, which had just taken out a cigarette, froze in midair.

He held the cigarette in his mouth and calmed down for two seconds before arguing, “Like you said, isn’t it normal to run when you’re being chased? Just look at me. You know at a glance that I… I’m a model citizen too.”

Gu Shen cast a skeptical gaze.

A buzz cut, a floral shirt… No matter how he looked at him, this appearance didn’t say ‘model citizen’.

“Hey, don’t judge a book by its cover.” The buzz-cut man fumbled in his pocket and took out a flint wheel lighter. He tried to  light it but failed and grumbled indistinctly, “Do you think I don’t understand what that look means?”

Gu Shen was about to say something.

“Found him… over here!” A familiar voice came from the other end of the alley.

The persistent tall figures appeared again.

The buzz-cut man’s expression changed drastically. He frowned and stared intently at the lighter. Then his fingers exerted strength, and with a crack, the base of the lighter was shattered. A chip the size of a fingernail was stuck to the inside of the base.

“Is this… a positioning chip?” Gu Shen’s eyes narrowed.

“Yo, brother, you know your stuff.” The buzz-cut man looked over in surprise. He smiled, expressionlessly stretched out his thumb, and pressed hard on the base. With a crack, the chip shattered and turned into powder.

Clean and efficient.

“Now…” He chuckled and stretched out his hand to Gu Shen. “Regardless of whether you’re a model citizen or not, you have to run away with me now.”

“???” Gu Shen slapped away the buzz-cut man’s outstretched hand. “I can run on my own!”

He gritted his teeth and looked back at the burly men in suits behind him.

Running was his only option.

The scene of the two of them escaping together had already been witnessed. He would definitely be mistaken as an acquaintance. If he were caught, no one would believe he had only exchanged a few words with this guy.

Thus, the two ostriches continued to sprint head down.

After running at full speed for thirty minutes…

“I can’t… I can’t…” Gu Shen leaned against the wall, gasping for air. “I can’t run anymore… Let me rest…”

The buzz-cut man, who had been running as fast as a whirlwind in his flip-flops, finally stopped. He crossed his arms with interest and said calmly, “Actually, we lost them twenty minutes ago. I just wanted to see how long you could run.”

Gu Shen: “???”

If not for the fact that he couldn’t defeat him, he really wanted to beat this guy up.

He took a closer look. The buzz-cut man had quite a strong physique. Under his thin shirt, the contours of his well-developed chest and abdominal muscles were visible. Judging from his performance in jumping over the wall earlier, it was evident that this agile body concealed explosive force.

Seeing Gu Shen’s expression, the buzz-cut man touched his nose and laughed. “Brother, you’re really loyal for not betraying me. There’s a fantastic noodle shop nearby. I’ll treat you to noodles later.”

Gu Shen’s face twitched.

He had considered selling out this buzz-cut man, but he didn’t even know his name. If caught, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.

“Oh, right.” The man extended a hand casually. “My surname is Song, Song Ci. It means benevolence.”

Song Ci… Gu Shen silently repeated this name. A gust of wind swept through the alley, causing the man’s thin shirt to flutter. At this moment, he caught a glimpse of a small black pattern faintly exposed on Song Ci’s chest.

It was an eerie black pattern of a hibiscus flower blooming with thorns encircling a broken heart. Just a glimpse of it was enough to confirm the full appearance of this tattoo… This was the symbol of the Sincere Society.

Gu Shen averted his gaze.

He reached out a hand to shake Song Ci’s hand. “Gu Shen. It means be cautious.”