Chapter 105: An Easy One to Deal With

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"You're handsome, mister, but that doesn't mean you can say whatever you want." The owner lady chuckled and pulled at her collar. "That's not from some wild boar at all. Do I look like someone who'd be that rough?"

Long Er's gaze dropped to her hands. "Your gun calluses haven't faded yet."

"The homemade hunting rifles commonly used around here are usually single-shot. They've got a lot of recoil—you need both hands to hold one, with the stock braced against your shoulder." Long Er watched the smile fade from the owner lady's face, still utterly unruffled. "If I'm not mistaken, you ran into a wild boar at the border. When you shot it, your shoulder got hurt too. That's why you pulled back here to mind the shop."

The owner lady said nothing, but Mo Fei could tell from her expression that Long Er had hit the mark.

What's more, the owner lady had pressed her lips together, furrowed her brow, and crossed her arms over her chest—a clear posture of wariness and distrust.

Mo Fei thought for a moment, then asked, "So who won in the end?"

Long Er and the owner lady both froze. Their eyes landed on Mo Fei, heavy with scrutiny.

Mo Fei let them look, a natural smile still on his face.

The owner lady raised an eyebrow, then burst into a snort of laughter. "I'm standing right here—who do you think won?"

She swayed out from behind the counter, walked between the two of them, gave Long Er a once-over and a roll of her eyes, then bumped Mo Fei with her shoulder. "Must be boring going around with a guy like this, right? Once everything's said out loud, there's no fun left in it. Am I right?"

Mo Fei nodded in agreement. "You've got a point. Playing dumb is a required course in life—great wisdom often looks like folly."

"Oh, this young man here is way smarter than you." She turned and patted Mo Fei's arm, her tone weighted with meaning. "If you ever get bored, come find me. I'll take you out for some fun."

With that, she pressed a business card into Mo Fei's hand.

Long Er, completely unperturbed, asked, "Any word from the boss?"

The owner lady leaned against the counter, examining her nails. "Code."

"0017."

"Follow me." The owner lady grabbed a ring of keys and led the way.

Mo Fei glanced at the card. All it had on it was a string of numbers. Nothing else.

He tucked it into his pocket and dragged his suitcase along behind Long Er and the owner lady.

The owner lady wound them through the building in a maze of turns. Along the way they passed quite a few people hard at work, all of whom she greeted cheerfully in the local dialect.

They arrived at a storage room in the back of the inn. The owner lady counted through her keys, picked one out, and unlocked an unremarkable wooden door. What came into view was a room much like a mortuary.

The style of this room clashed entirely with the rest of the inn: tiled floors, metal walls, and on the walls, rows of handles fitted with keyholes.

The owner lady pulled a ladder from the corner, swept her eyes over the handles, set the ladder up, and climbed it. She used the key to unlock one of the handles.

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Before pulling it open, the owner lady jutted her chin at Long Er. "Come give me a hand."

Long Er stepped up beside her, and she pulled the handle open.

With a scraping sound, Mo Fei could even clearly see the muscles tensing along her arm.

What the handle was attached to was indeed something like a cold-storage drawer for storing bodies.

The owner lady lifted a suitcase out from it with one hand and passed it to Long Er. "Here—inspect the goods on the spot."

Long Er took the suitcase, opened it immediately, and laid it flat on the ground.

Mo Fei stepped up to take a look.

Inside the suitcase were all sorts of things that would never pass through airport security.

Knives, pepper spray, a Swiss Army knife, and even pistol components and ammunition.

Mo Fei watched helplessly as Long Er deftly assembled a pistol, loaded in a magazine, and tucked it behind his waist.

His fingers trembled slightly. "Are you sure this is okay?"

The owner lady waved a hand, laughing. "What could happen? This is a 1:2.05 scale pistol model—the barrel's solid steel, it can't fire."

"No wonder it looks a bit smaller..." Mo Fei hadn't even finished his sentence when he saw Long Er pull a barrel out of the suitcase—one identical to the model's.

Long Er glanced at the chamber, then stowed that barrel away as well.

Mo Fei forced a dry laugh. "That one's solid too, right?"

"Guess?" The owner lady smiled. "I never said the bullets were models either."

Mo Fei: ...

Criminal. Absolutely criminal. They were gearing up to take on the sky itself.

"Don't look at me like that, young man." The owner lady shook her head. "Demand decides the market. Where there's profit to be made, someone will do it. Everything works the same way."

Long Er had already finished checking everything in the suitcase.

He closed it, stood up, and nodded to the owner lady. "No problem."

"Of course there's no problem." The owner lady had full confidence in her goods. "Just pay the boss the balance. Let's go."

After locking the storage room door, she gave them both a look, a strange smile surfacing on her face. "I can tell you're a man of the world—but him—"

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"Aside from the money, I'm not interested in anything else about my customers. But you'd better explain our rules to him properly."

She spun the key ring around her finger, swaying her hips lazily as she walked back toward the front lobby.

"If he goes and says something he shouldn't out there, no one is going to be able to help either of you."

Mo Fei pointed at himself. "She's talking about me?"

"Yes." Long Er waited until they were outside the inn before turning around to speak to him seriously. "The rules of survival here are different from where you came from. No matter what you see, talk less, make fewer mistakes—and don't go looking for trouble."

"I'm famously well-behaved and sensible, okay?" Mo Fei muttered, disgruntled.

Long Er thought about Mo Fei's strange knack for attracting trouble and concluded that this was highly debatable.

"We'll find a place to stay for a while in the border town. Stick close to me and don't wander off."

Mo Fei nodded obediently.

Having witnessed that owner lady firsthand, Mo Fei now had a preliminary understanding of what "simple local folk" meant in these parts.

Judging by the way she hauled that suitcase around, twisting a person's neck off with one hand surely wouldn't be any challenge at all.

Someone like that—if she'd been in the city he came from, you wouldn't even run into one in a lifetime. And here she was working the front desk.

Even if she was only a part-time receptionist... Mo Fei figured the nightlife security around here must be excellent. No one would ever dare harass a girl.

Who knows if they might try it on some gorgeous lady boss who could pop someone's skull open with one hand.

And that pile of contraband, and that "pistol model"—if you hauled all that out, it would be enough for a small-scale battle.

If the Myanmar side ever invaded, these people alone could push them back.

"Don't the police around here care about any of this?"

Mo Fei was utterly baffled.

Long Er glanced at him. "Didn't the lady just say it?"

"Demand decides the market. Even if it wasn't them, it would be someone else. It's not that they don't care—it's that there's no end to what they'd have to police."