The Card Apprentice

Seeing Chen Mu, Lu Xiaoru ran over to him in a hurry. She had been waiting for the past two days; Sue Lochiro had told her Chen Mu had been injured and needed to recover. She didn’t really bring up Chen Mu’s injury. She had guessed something must have been wrong when Chen Mu brought her there. Who would go to the hospital if there wasn’t something wrong, not to mention seek out a high-level medical card artisan? But, she well understood her own position, and she kept her mouth shut and didn’t ask any questions. She obediently played with the little girl while she waited.

Now, she finally breathed a sigh of relief seeing Chen Mu come out. Her life depended on others; if something were to happen to Chen Mu, she didn’t know what would happen to her.

Lu Xiaoru’s experiences were unusually rich, and she had seen just about everything. Of course, there wasn’t anything to be happy about with getting captured. But, luckily this young master wasn’t so bad. So long as she didn’t disobey him, not only would her life be pretty good, but there were also some pretty good benefits. With regard to manipulating cards, there weren’t many willing to give instruction without some master-apprentice relationship.

She had been delving into the sound beam card in her hands during that time, and the pointers Chen Mu had given her left it only up to her own diligence and talent to go wherever she wanted.

Although it had only been a few days, she could already feel a direct increase in power.

For a person like her who had diverse experience, the things she could most count on were money and her own power.

“I will contact you right away if anything develops.” Sue Lochiro was standing demurely at the door with her hands in the pockets of her medical uniform and a smile on her face. With her extraordinarily mild face, she felt completely out of the ordinary in the eyes of Lu Xiaoru. But, when Lu Xiaoru looked a little more closely, the feeling disappeared.

Could she have been seeing things?

Lu Xiaoru was a little puzzled. She’d always made pretty good assessments of people, and she had seldom encountered such a situation. She turned the thought over in her mind a little before it went away.

Chen Mu nodded. “We have been so much trouble for you.” He then turned to leave, but he suddenly thought of something and stopped. He turned back around and said sheepishly, “I almost forgot something. I still haven’t paid you.”

Lu Xiaoru looked at Chen Mu in surprise. In her mind, Chen Mu and Wei-ah were both emotionless, cold-blooded men. They were so taciturn and coldly aloof, never laughing, and they killed people without batting an eye. They were butchers and killers. They were just killing machines, certainly not ordinary people.

Good lord, what did I just see? Lu Xiaoru’s whole aspect showed disbelief. She had never thought Chen Mu’s face could show such gentleness and such a heartfelt smile.

She opened her mouth in shock as she retracted her gaze from what was between the two of them.

Could there be something going on between them?

Once that thought floated up, she couldn’t prevent it from blocking everything else out of her head. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. She had never seen such an expression on Chen Mu. Taking another look at Sue Lochiro, although there was nothing breathtaking about her, even she liked a woman with such a gentle and refined temperament.

Sue Lochiro smiled and shook her head. “There’s no need for that. I wasn’t able to help you, so how could I take any fee?”

Lu Xiaoru smiled to herself. No fee? That was a practice often seen with ordinary doctors. The fees for medical card artisans were quite high, and she had never heard of fees not being collected just because someone didn’t get better. And, Sue Lochiro being a high-grade medical card artisan meant it would require an additional high fee for making a house call.

Lu Xiaoru didn’t show any emotion as she obediently stood by Chen Mu’s side.

“Oh, so it goes.” Chen Mu looked as though he got it and nodded. “Well, I’ll be on my way then.” He then left the hospital with Lu Xiaoru.

Sue Lochiro sent the two of them off with her soft eyes and a blank stare, not knowing what to think.

Once Chen Mu got back to Heaven’s Wings, the nearly collapsed Bu Qiangdong practically tumbled and crawled over to him and cried out, “You’ve come back, Boss!” His eyes were red, and his voice was hoarse. His hair was like a bird’s nest and his clothes quite disheveled.

“What happened?” Seeing Bu Qiangdong so miserable surprised him. Could someone have come looking for trouble again?

“My communications card is nearly fried. We’ve gotten commissions from quite a number of companies…”

As soon as he heard it was company business, Chen Mu relaxed. He cut Bu Qiangdong off. “Run the company as you see fit.” He then walked into his office and shut the door with a bang.

Bu Qiangdong’s face suddenly looked like a bitter melon as he mumbled, “What kind of boss is that…”

After sitting a short while, Chen Mu couldn’t sit still. The building was practically about to collapse, and it wouldn’t be safe to work there. He muttered to himself for a moment and then called Bu Qiangdong back in. He turned the matter over to Bu Qiangdong and then ushered him out. The huge pile of issues on Bu Qiangdong’s hands weren’t complete yet, and now there was something new. How could he not be depressed?

Not paying any attention to Bu Qiangdong, who was about to cry, Chen Mu took Lu Xiaoru out again.

“Where are we going?” Lu Xiaoru asked cautiously.

“To buy stuff.”

Shopping? Lu Xiaoru couldn’t make any sense of that, though she simply didn’t think about it. It wouldn’t do her any good to say anything.

Chen Mu really did want to buy things. With the Heaven’s Wings building half destroyed and the training room and card making lab gone, Chen Mu wasn’t even thinking about the card making studio anymore. He didn’t know how much money he’d spent on it last time, but it had fizzled out before he could even take advantage of it.

By then, he only had 3 million left. Never mind building a card studio; he didn’t even have enough to make a high-grade set of cards. Chen Mu was only thinking about buying materials and some training equipment.

The materials were to keep up his practice, and the equipment was for training. Time was precious, and he didn’t want to waste it. He didn’t have the qualifications to do so. Even without a card making studio, he still needed to keep up his practice. He well understood that with any skill, to stop keeping in practice for any length of time, or even not to think about it for a while, would always send a person backward. Those materials weren’t anything he could profit from; they were only for practice and to keep him thinking.

He couldn’t skimp when it came to the training equipment. No matter whether he considered himself a card artisan, he still needed to train. So long as his power kept increasing, he would be able to get along better. At least the training equipment wasn’t expensive.

* * *

Are you sure this gizmo is any good?” Butchie was not pleased as she looked at the Beard, waving the card the organization had sent in her hand.

The Beard suddenly complained, “Would I trick you, little lady? If I were to trick anyone, it wouldn’t be you!” The two of them had known one another for a long time, having known each other since before the Beard had been transferred to Pomelo. He knew how bad it would be to provoke that girl with the ponytail in front of him. The image of the female T. rex was sufficiently etched in his mind.

Butchie plunked the card onto the table with a look of frustration. She’d tried it for quite a few days—dozens of times a day—but she hadn’t been able to connect even once. According to what the Beard had said, that communications card could connect with the communications operations of the other party. Although it wouldn’t receive any images, and although the sound quality couldn’t be guaranteed, there shouldn’t be any problem with talking.

After trying it for a few days without getting through, Butchie was naturally angry.

The Beard picked up the card, wondering if it could really be broken. The card didn’t have a name, but it had come from the hands of Peanut Head; he still had a lot of confidence in it. No one would deny Peanut Head’s power in card making, just as no one would deny Hugo’s strength.

Putting the card into his own apparatus, he tried activating it. The card was completely different from other cards. According to what Peanut Head had said, apart from that one band, the card wouldn’t connect on any other band.

“Yikes! There’s a response!” The Beard called out in surprise, which startled everyone else in the room. Hugo and Butchie immediately gathered around. The veins on Butchie’s forehead were pulsing, having tried it for three days without any response. For the Beard to get a response the first time he tried was just…

But, she knew how important it was and closely watched the Beard.

* * *

Leading Lu Xiaoru along the street, the rate of head-turning went far beyond what Chen Mu could have expected. Lu Xiaoru was as dainty as a flower with her gold-framed glasses sitting on her delicate nose, all dressed like a secretary, which gave her a rather intellectual quality. The half-open collar of her blouse made a small section of her collarbone vaguely visible, though the not-quite-visible collarbone didn’t detract at all from her charm. On the contrary, it made her well-rounded, soft beauty even more apparent, mixing in some sexiness to her intellectual look. The highly propped out chest of her blouse declared what kind of splendor she was wearing inside, which kept the people with their sweeping gazes madly gulping.

Chen Mu was enjoying a different kind of status—jealousy, gasps, derision, and all sorts of such things. Such a fresh flower stuck into cow dung! was written on just about everyone’s face.

He had just bought a few three-star card blanks and some raw materials. The three-star card blanks had an ordinary texture and were far from comparable to the gold-mottled grass he’d used for blank cards in the jungle. Of course, they were only ordinary raw materials, but they were sufficient for practice. That pile of things had still cost him 300,000 Oudi, which showed how much money a card master burned through.

There were no finished products with exercise equipment, which he could only order. It was a good thing he’d bought them once and knew what he was doing.

The apparatus on his wrist suddenly sounded. It was an unknown number, so he closed it with a glance.

There was no point paying attention to it since the other party had called by mistake. He knew everyone who had his number, and he had all of their numbers. For a strange number to appear could only mean he’d been called by mistake. That happened pretty often, and most of those who had communications cards would encounter such things.

After a while, the apparatus sounded again, and Chen Mu lowered his head to look. It was the same number.

He shut if off.

It sounded again, and he shut it off again.

But, when it sounded another time, even Lu Xiaoru was surprised.

Chen Mu’s gaze fell onto his apparatus, wondering who it was. Turning a few thoughts around in his mind without making much sense of them, he decided to answer.