No men found them. And the sun seemed to have risen earlier than usual. Or it could just be an illusion from the fact that neither Marcus nor Gloria waited for sunrise on the regular. This time, however, when everything settled and they woke from their slightly uncomfortable slumber, they caught the first ray of an early sun just in time.

“Let’s - let’s head back and contact our friends.” Marcus checked his phone, there were a number of missed calls, some voicemails and a number of text messages from Kevin. There were plenty to talk about, especially about last night, yet this was not the time.

“Yes. I agree.” Gloria averted her eyes as she straightened her clothes, closed her eyes to get a sense of her own Qi. She shook her head with a wry smile: “Do you have somewhere you want to go? And - we’d better be careful.”

“Chef Tang’s.” Marcus answered after thinking for a moment: “Let’s go together. There’s something I would like you to know as well.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“The group of henchmen they caught, the group I fought at the docks area, they should still be in his custody.” Marcus took a deep breath as he pushed his Qi to course through his body, also as a means to check on his own physical state: “I think - with what we heard from the Lady in White, we have just enough to trade. ”

Gloria stared at Marcus’ face for a short moment, then chuckled: “Well, I sure hope so.”

“You’re not happy with the answers?” Marcus turned to Gloria.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I am.” Gloria shook her head: “I’m just not happy with the amount and depth of answers we got. Why do all of these people in the know have to be so stingy with information?”

Marcus thought for a moment, while taking in the feedback from his meridians, his muscles and even his bones and tendons. If he had to measure by quantity, he had recovered more than half of his total Qi reserves. He scratched his jaws and posed his theory: “Maybe - maybe because information and intelligence is just like Qiyun - it’s not something to dull out willy-nilly?”

“Hmm.” Gloria nodded, then snapped her fingers at Marcus: “That’s a good theory. It makes sense - ‘The will of the heavens shall not be revealed lightly’ they say - the reason fortune tellers never live very long?”

“I’m afraid so. We can ask the chef about this. I mean - I still have to collect on the token, for delivering him that many henchmen from the dark circles.” Marcus nodded and straightened his jacket. It sure felt good sensing the presence of strong and turbulent Qi in his meridians, it gave him more confidence should they come across those men when they left this place. The reason behind this strange, almost mysterious recovery was still unclear. He just did not have the mind to dive into it right now. “And - I’m not sure what your plan is after this, but if we share our intel and - and connect some dots, we could have a breakthrough - ”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Gloria smiled and took a look at the window, no pursuing men to be seen: “Let’s get going, the workers might come to work, and we don’t want civilians around - ”

“Understood. Let me go first. ” Marcus knelt down by the panel and started lifting it up bit by bit, in an attempt to not make any noise or attract attention from anyone. When the panel was lifted by around half a finger length, he lowered his body to scan through the entire room below - no one was in the room, nor any other signs of concern: “Okay, we’re clear. No one’s down there, looks safe.”

“Hey, before we get into the ‘run for our lives’ mode again.” Gloria took a deep breath: “Just - just to be clear, Marcus - Detective, or - I don’t know. But you don’t need to be - be this extra protective. Please don’t feel obligated to because of, you know, last night. ”

Meeting Gloria’s nervous gaze, Marcus chuckled: “Yeah, but I want to. I can’t get to the bottom of this without you - not if you’re harmed in any way.”

“Well, okay, then.” Gloria nodded, smiling: “Let’s go. Just be careful, they might still be waiting for us out there.”

“Of course.” Marcus lifted the panel and dropped himself down. With his Qi recharged, it was quite easy to cushion his fall with a roll to avoid making any loud noises. He got to the door, and Gloria followed. “There must be a place where they store the extra uniforms and hard hats right?”

“Good thinking.” Gloria nodded: “There should be another storage room along this walkway. Let’s check there.”