Chapter 1 Feeling Uneasy

Unease, anxiety, tinged with a little secret joy and bewilderment—this was probably how Zhou Ze felt on the taxi ride to the suburbs of Tong City.

He was short of money, very short of money, but he wasn’t short of a fortune. He didn’t need a fortune, or at least, not for the time being.

Because of his resurrection and the entanglements of his past life, he needed a sum of money to solve his current problems. Then, he would plan for the future, not indulge in extravagance and a life of pleasure.

For example, leaving the Lin family. Although Lin Wanqiu was beautiful and elegant, he really couldn’t be bothered to go back to that family. They didn't have any intimate relations, and he hadn't really enjoyed anything. It seemed that Xu Le hadn't really enjoyed anything either, so there was no sense of owing them anything.

So, saying "goodbye" didn’t cause any psychological pressure.

But leaving that family meant making some preparations. He needed a place to live and a slightly better-quality freezer. Zhou Ze didn't dare to rummage through the second-hand market for discarded freezers. What if something went wrong and he ended up killing himself while sleeping inside? Wouldn’t that be a huge loss?

Money!

Even being a ghost required money.

But the feeling he got from the person on the phone with Xu Le just now made Zhou Ze feel uneasy again. Xu Le, a modern urban live-in son-in-law, so useless that his father-in-law and mother-in-law treated him like dirt, so useless that he slept in separate beds from his wife, was actually a hidden underworld boss?

Well, this kind of conflicting imagery was really stimulating and very much in the style of American dramas. Impressive characters always had a mundane real-world identity.

Like Spider-Man being a high school student, and Superman being a reporter for a newspaper.

So, how should he handle this situation?

How to get rid of that gang?

Zhou Ze didn’t want his identity to be “tainted,” because it meant endless trouble. In the real world, the police investigation was already something that Xu Le couldn’t easily handle, not to mention the people that the old man and the faceless woman had shouted about, who "would discover and catch him."

Feeling a bit of a headache and a bit unaccustomed, Zhou Ze still arrived at the abandoned small fertilizer factory.

Two people were squatting at the entrance of the fertilizer factory, one wearing a somewhat tattered military coat and the other wearing a cheap, low-quality suit.

Both of them had a cigarette in their mouths, puffing away.

Zhou Ze paid the fare and got out of the car. The two people immediately stood up and walked over to him.

“Our boss is waiting for you,” the person in the military coat said in a deep voice.

Zhou Ze nodded and followed the military coat inside. The man in the suit continued to squat there and smoke, as if keeping watch.

After walking inside, Zhou Ze saw a fat man with a shaved head wearing a gold chain sitting on a plastic chair, pouring himself a drink. When he saw Zhou Ze coming, the fat man immediately stood up.

“Brother Xu, you’ve finally arrived.”

The fat man was very tall, about 1.85 meters, and the gold chain was very thick, looking very flashy. The gold powder rubbed off on his neck by the chain made it even flashier.

“Where’s the stuff?”

Zhou Ze put his hands behind his back, his fingers slightly interlaced. There were only three people here, so taking them all down wouldn’t be a big problem, but what would he do after taking them down? Hand them over to the police? Wouldn’t that mean he would be exposed?

Should he deal with them himself through vigilante justice? Eliminate them in the name of the moon? That didn’t seem right either. With his sensitive identity, if he killed people at will, it might lead to the same kind of backlash as saving people at will. He didn’t want to try it lightly.

“Brother Xu is as straightforward as ever!”

The fat man wiped his mouth and patted Zhou Ze on the shoulder.

Zhou Ze's mouth twitched. He took a deep breath and barely managed to stop himself from slapping the fat man’s greasy hand away.

“Come, this way!”

The fat man made a gesture of invitation and led Zhou Ze to a small warehouse in the backyard.

After walking inside,

Zhou Ze’s pupils suddenly contracted.

Piled up like a small mountain was the "stuff," covered with black oilcloth.

Zhou Ze had never done anything illegal before, but he knew that if this amount of “stuff” was judged according to the law, it would be enough for him to be executed hundreds of times over. He'd have enough peanut shells to fill his stomach.

“It’s not just for Tong City, is it?” Zhou Ze really wanted to ask, Did you guys just rob a warlord from the Golden Triangle?

“Brother Xu, of course not. Tong City is still too small. This batch of goods will eventually flow into Shanghai, using Tong City as a springboard.” The fat man stretched lazily. “This time, let’s hurry up and get rid of the goods so we can make a big profit.”

Zhou Ze reached out and touched his forehead, feeling embarrassed. "It'll be difficult to get rid of it in a short time, right?"

After all, it wasn’t like selling cabbage, where you could ride a tricycle and shout with a loudspeaker.

“Don’t worry about that, Brother Xu. We just need to distribute this batch of goods to the people below. Although the profit isn’t as high as selling it ourselves, the advantage is that it’s fast and the goods are guaranteed to be sold. Once we’re done with this batch, we’ll get another one,” the fat man said nonchalantly.

Xu Le, oh Xu Le, you even built a drug trafficking network. You’re really awesome…

Such a big shot, actually beaten to death with a stick by that idiot over three hundred yuan!

“Brother Xu, come and see what the quality of this batch is like.”

As the fat man spoke, he lifted the oilcloth covering,

And then an astonished look appeared on Zhou Ze’s face,

Because what he saw wasn’t a mountain of drugs, but a stack of books and CDs.

Could it be hidden in the spines of the books?

“Brother Xu, thanks to your classmate, it was easy to get this batch of goods. These CDs are all popular movies still showing in theaters. I even copied a few adult films into them. These pirated books and romance novels are also bestsellers on the market.

“And Brother Xu, the expanded sequel to Bai Jie that you specially wrote, twenty parts totaling two million words, many of the distributors have already pre-ordered this one. We don’t have to worry about selling it.”

“You’re saying this is the ‘stuff’?” Zhou Ze asked the fat man.

“Yeah?” The fat man was stunned for a moment. “This is it.”

Disappointment,

Very disappointed,

Extremely disappointed,

And at the same time, he felt very ashamed.

Xu Le was still Xu Le after all. For the sake of selling these pirated goods, he actually continued writing the story of Bai Jie himself.

And he wrote a two-million-word sequel.

How bored was he…?

“How much can I get out?” Zhou Ze asked. “I’m planning to quit.”

To start a business together, there should be capital investment.

“What? Brother Xu, you’re planning to quit?” The fat man was a little surprised. “We’re just waiting to make money. You’re quitting now?”

“Yeah, this business doesn’t align with my core values. I don’t want to do it.”

Zhou Ze said very seriously. He didn’t want to take any risks, especially before sorting out his current life. He didn’t want to get involved in any whirlpools.

“……” The fat man.

“……” The man in the military coat.

“Brother Xu has a high level of awareness. I admire you. In the early stages, Brother Xu, you invested…”

The fat man held up four fingers and said, “Twenty thousand yuan.”

“Twenty thousand it is. Give me the money, and I’m not involved in anything else.” Zhou Ze was too lazy to haggle over these things. Having twenty thousand yuan would solve his immediate problems.

“Alright, I have twenty thousand yuan here.” The fat man nodded and went to get the money.

About fifteen minutes later, Zhou Ze, with twenty thousand yuan in his pocket, hailed a ride and started to return to the city.

He didn’t rush back to the bookstore first. Instead, he went to the appliance market and spent more than ten thousand yuan on a freezer. This freezer was generally used by businesses to store ingredients and meat, and it was one of the higher-end models. Zhou Ze didn’t hesitate to spend the money, because he would have to rely on it to sleep in the future. He was afraid that cheap goods would cause problems.

The salesperson was very enthusiastic and sent a small truck to help Zhou Ze deliver the freezer directly to… the bookstore.

After the driver and Zhou Ze moved the freezer into the bookstore together, the driver was a little stunned.

“Boss, do you need a freezer to run a bookstore?” the driver asked.

Zhou Ze handed him a cigarette. “Business is tough. I’m planning to sell seafood on the side.”

The driver took the cigarette and left. Anyway, the goods had been delivered, and he didn’t need to worry about anything else.

The bookstore had a small second floor, which Xu Le had originally used to store books. After Zhou Ze cleaned it up, he placed the freezer up there. Looking at his “new bed,” Zhou Ze finally felt much more at ease.

Coming down from the second floor, Zhou Ze discovered that there was someone in his bookstore. It wasn’t a customer, but his “wife.”

Doctor Lin was reading a magazine. Seeing Zhou Ze coming down, she asked with some confusion, “What were you busy with up there?”

“Organizing goods,” Zhou Ze said perfunctorily.

“I’m off work,” Doctor Lin said.

“Mm.” Off work but not sleeping with me…

“That girl has woken up,” Doctor Lin said, looking at Zhou Ze intently. “Her father wants to treat the people in our department to dinner at the Tong City Grand Hotel. Come with us.”

“What would I do there?”

“After the girl woke up, she kept calling for ‘Uncle.’" Doctor Lin asked Zhou Ze with some curiosity, "Did you know her before?"

“Even when people are in a coma, they can still sense things, right?” Zhou Ze continued to fabricate. “When I saved her, she might have been able to feel it.”

“Are you going?” Doctor Lin asked.

“I’m not going,” Zhou Ze shook his head. “I’m not hungry. I don’t have any appetite.”

Doctor Lin nodded, not forcing him any further. She seemed ready to leave, but when she reached the entrance of the bookstore, she stopped. “Are you going home tonight?”

Back to the familiar old question again.

If I go home, you still won’t sleep with me…

So, Zhou Ze answered decisively:

“I’m not going back. I’ve been a little busy lately.”

Yeah, even though the business in the store had become as deserted as an iced latte.

Doctor Lin hesitated for a moment, didn’t force the issue, and took out her car keys from her pocket, ready to leave.

Just then,

There was a "clang,"

Doctor Lin turned around and saw that her “husband” had collapsed onto the bookshelf, and books from the bookshelf were scattered all over the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Doctor Lin immediately came over to check on Zhou Ze’s condition.

Zhou Ze sensed that his eyes were starting to blur, his vision was difficult to focus, his chest was rising and falling, and at the same time, his legs were weak. He had just felt like he was stepping on cotton, completely losing his balance:

“I fainted from hunger…”

Zhou Ze answered.

He

Hadn’t eaten for days.