Chapter 64 Besieged

Just a single day later, Chen Xuan received the shipping notice from Walter Arms. As requested, the company had packed all the firearms into cargo trucks and parked them in a nearby park. At the same time, they scanned and sent over a deed of gift for a property right beside the park—a dilapidated, uninhabited small villa.

Walter had specifically mentioned this issue, feeling that such a shabby house was somewhat beneath him as a gift. He could easily have prepared something much better, such as a luxury apartment in the city center or a fully furnished, meticulously decorated villa.

However, Chen Xuan turned all of them down.

What he wanted was not a permanent residence, but a branch location suitable for transferring cargo.

Furthermore, this branch didn't have to be a fixed, immovable establishment. If he acquired multiple properties, he could operate here for a month and then switch to another location for the next. The only cost would be wasting a large sum of money every time he made a change.

He scanned the deed of gift into the app, and the option to set up a branch lit up.

Chen Xuan clicked confirm, and immediately felt the store tremble slightly.

Then, he saw an elevator door appear on the wall beside the bar counter.

They aren't even pretending anymore, are they!

This elevator door was not made of cold metal panels, but rather quite tasteful solid wood panels. The surrounding door frame was carved with mysterious, artistic patterns whose names he did not know, yet they immediately looked exquisite.

There were no selection buttons on the door frame, only a wooden pull ring.

He pulled it slightly backward, and the door slid open.

The interior space was unusually spacious, measuring at least thirty square meters—quite enough to serve as a bedroom. After the door closed, Chen Xuan noticed a row of hand-carved text appearing on the wood-paneled wall to his right.

He thought to himself that for all its rough-and-ready operation, this wretched shop was truly meticulous about certain things.

He pressed the characters for "Branch," and a crisp chime rang out overhead. In less than a second, the door opened once again.

Though it was the exact same bar counter and the exact same coffee machine, Chen Xuan knew he was no longer in the Tianlu Residential Compound.

The new shop still carried a faint scent of dust, as if it had just awakened from an entombed era of time.

The layout of the branch was noticeably different from the compound store; for instance, the shopping area was narrower, and the display cabinets were arranged differently. Overall, however, all the equipment present in the main store was fully available here. Even so, the shelves were completely empty, waiting for him to stock them himself.

Chen Xuan stood by the window and glanced outside, confirming that five container trucks were parked side by side in the parking spaces of the nearby park.

For safety's sake, he didn't even step out the front door.

Returning to the main store via the same route, Chen Xuan summoned a villager from Spicy Village and explained the moving requirements. Soon, the villager led twenty companions from the village's fishing and planting departments into the parking lot, and the busy unloading work began. Chen Xuan remained inside the branch the entire time, keeping a close eye on any movement in the park.

...

Walter Weiss was currently standing at the top of a hotel beside the park, observing the situation of the cargo through a telescope.

He was genuinely curious as to why the other party insisted on purchasing a small, ordinary house near the delivery spot, while having no specific requirements for the delivery location itself, provided it was relatively quiet and secluded.

One had to bear in mind that this place was miles away from the port, railway station, and airport, and no conceivable method seemed capable of transporting such a massive quantity of firearms out of the city.

Use them within the city?

Walter himself found the thought somewhat laughable. Three thousand rifles plus a full supply of ammunition—if the Containment Agency dared to pull off something like that, they would become global public enemies by the next day.

Then, he saw a swarm of "porters" pouring out of the house.

They wore extremely... plain clothes, and cleanly and efficiently opened the unlocked cargo doors, moving everything they could carry back into the house. The entire process was professional and quiet, and the moving went straight from four o'clock in the afternoon into the evening.

Once the cargo was cleared, all motion inside the house ceased.

To say that Walter didn't want to go check out the situation in person would be a lie, but considering that his abrupt appearance might disrupt trading etiquette, he hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to have his butler disguise himself as a vagrant and take a peek at that dilapidated house.

The old butler, George, quickly returned with shocking news.

"Sir... there is nothing inside the house!"

"What do you mean there's nothing?"

"I didn't see any boxes, nor did I see any people. The house is just as it was when we bought it; the interior is completely empty!"

"Hahahaha..." Walter couldn't help but laugh aloud.

As expected of the Containment Agency—truly, amazement oozes from every single detail!

When he bought that property, he had taken a look inside as well. The previous owner hadn't left behind a single piece of furniture when moving out, and the first floor contained nothing except dust and trash. The house itself didn't even have a basement. To stuff the cargo of five large trucks into it, every single room would surely have to be crammed to absolute capacity.

Yet the Agency had made three thousand rifles and their ammunition vanish into thin air in broad daylight!

No wonder the big shots of major corporations spoke of the Agency with such profound dread. An organization possessing this kind of capability could surely turn the world upside down, even if they couldn't subvert it entirely.

Walter's awe of the Agency deepened by another notch.

Fortunately, they currently appeared to be a remarkably orderly bunch of people.

"Alright, let's head back," he said to the butler. "George, you and I are the only ones who need to know about this; don't leak it to anyone else... Starting today, we belong to this circle as well."

...

...

Chen Xuan and Lin Qing met Liu Shuyue once again within the Liu family estate.

It was evident that she was somewhat fatigued, though her spirits were still reasonably high.

However, Chen Xuan noticed that a layer of un-wiped white frost remained beneath her right ear, alongside a tiny bloody gash.

"You're injured?"

"Are you talking about this?" She touched her neck. "I was a little careless, but it's nothing to worry about."

Chen Xuan was well aware of the healing properties of blood oranges. For a wound to still leave a trace after blood orange treatment meant that the injury at the time was far simpler than she made it sound.

If the cut had been any deeper, it might have directly threatened her carotid artery and spine.

"Did a formidable cultivator from the opposing side show up?"

"Not really," Liu Shuyue smiled. "It's just that the technique was extremely rare; this was my first time seeing it. I suspect that person must have been a heretical cultivator, using demonic arts. Fortunately, he's already dead."

She then briefly recounted the events of the past five days.

The day after arriving at the Liu estate, she had led the hunting party in launching a surprise raid, targeting the garrison stationed outside the city. This proactive strike proved highly effective, catching the enemy off guard. After suffering the loss of the majority of their commanders, the enemy retreated over a hundred miles before halting.

Precisely because this surprise raid was a resounding success, the subsequent reinforcement troops heightened their vigilance significantly. Not only did they arrange mobile sentries, but rogue cultivators were also sent ahead for scouting missions.

Judging by the banners presently raised in the army camp, the vanguard forces from Baizhou, Cangzhou, and the Royal Capital had all converged here. It could be said that the military forces of the three regions bordering Yunzhou had already been dispatched, bringing the total estimated troop strength to over twenty-five thousand.

King Qi really spares no expense, Chen Xuan thought to himself.

Neighboring countries were already massing troops at the borders, ready to invade Great Qi at any moment, yet he could still afford to pull troops from three states at such a critical juncture just to deal with Liu Shuyue. From a certain perspective, that took a kind of daring.

Naturally, he could understand why the other side was doing this. Senior Sister Lanqin had already trained a batch of cultivator special forces units for the state of Luo, while this side could only scrape by by recruiting rogue cultivators. How could they not be anxious? If the two nations actually went to war and disciples of the Lotus Cloud Sect personally joined the fray, the State of Qi clearly wouldn't have high odds of winning.

Right now, the other party had no choice but to double down and force Liu Shuyue to back down.

If this world had radios, he feared everywhere would be filled with propaganda denouncing Liu Shuyue as a traitorous and treacherous minister.

The troop reinforcements were undoubtedly effective, especially the increase in archers, crossbowmen, and heavy cavalry, which dramatically ramped up the pressure on the hunting party's offensives. By now, they were completely suppressed within the city, having lost the initiative in battle.

Moreover, the number of rogue cultivators coming here to grab a share of the spoils was increasing day by day.

Relying on the fact that they possessed a modicum of skill, these practitioners frequently breached Nine Peaks City to attack the Liu family. On this day alone, more than a hundred rogue cultivators had appeared, and after several rounds of engagement, casualties had begun to appear among the hunting party.