On a mild evening within Yichang City, a man in a suit walked towards a party within the famous Sadieu hotel.
Today his superior had tasked him with a new job. The observation and assessment of a certain individual.
Using his wide information network, he quickly found the probable location for the person he was searching for and was ready to test the waters.
This job, compared to others, seemed quite boring, as the individual was reported to be a martial artist of unknown caliber, which mostly meant someone had mistaken him for one. He was ready to quickly test the individual and leave to enjoy this quiet night.
The security guards at the hotel wanted to stop him, but as most times, a few words were enough to convince them to let him through and cooperate; his organization wasn't unknown after all.
After questioning, his sources were right, and the person was seen on the scene and is now acting as a security guard. A lucky scenario, as he wouldn't be with his employer, and isolating him will be no problem.
Walking upstairs to the last known position, he quickly identified the target, namely Li, although his sources revealed that Li shouldn't be his real name.
He watched closely and probed for any dangerous signs; his instinct was quite sharp, so he would know when someone was stronger than him. For Li, though, he seemed totally ordinary, without any outstanding features as far as he could tell.
He was ready to start a conversation to isolate the target, yet suddenly Li's facial expression changed. From neutral to somewhat sad to angry and to hard.
It was quite difficult to put Li's facial expression into words as he steadily walked by the investigator, but without a closer look, it was an expression like his neutral one, just hard as steel. Like it couldn't be broken even if hit by a hammer.
In these few moments of Li walking by him, the investigator suddenly felt something, something he only felt once before. Primal fear!
Simply looking at the man's eyes gave him the feeling of facing something else. Not a wild animal, or something humans could imagine, something else entirely.
As Li passed, the feeling went away as quickly as it came, and the investigator had everything he wanted to report. He could just leave and report the situation to his superior and be done with it, but why did he not do it?
Instead of going home, he unconsciously followed Li, and as his brain caught up, he asked himself why a simple answer was floating through his mind. I want to see more.
I want to see what would happen next. I want to see why he became this angry all of a sudden. I want to see what happens to the person responsible.
As dark thoughts clouded his mind, he unconsciously bumped into another man close to Li.
"Hey, watch your step before I have him beat you up!!!" The man turned around and shouted angrily. The man looked drunk, but after putting the words into context, the investigator quickly ran away.
He ran as quickly as he could, using all his power as well as his emergency movement technique to escape, yet he was sure that if the man next to the drunkard was serious, there would be no chance to escape.
After running for about 10 miles, he took out his phone and wrote one word to his superior.
STOP!
...
A few hours earlier:
Li, enjoying the view and looking for suitable candidates to become a bodyguard, lightly shook his head.
This world may be different from my old one, but flexing wealth and power is still as prominent as I remember from my childhood.
Back in the early days of his life, events like these came and went often. The only difference was that instead of status and wealth, status and strength/talent were the things people showed off since with status wealth naturally came.
This is just the same, but at an even lower level, without any cultivation geniuses or any actual talent. It was only about their past generations.
This party doesn't seem like the spot to look out for a new position; maybe I should ask some company owners directly; they at least seem to have succeeded in something, even if I don't know what.
And just on cue, two older men in their mid-forties came in. They looked around and walked towards the familiar young man while the crowd made way for them.
These two were different company owners who came as a goodwill towards young Master Ding's father. "Welcome, gentlemen, I'm honored to have you," Ding Feng said.
"No need for pleasantries; your father can be proud of what a fine man you have become," one of them responded.
After giving out gifts and a bit of flattery, Ding, the two gentlemen, and Yan Yuiling entered a separate room. Yan Yuiling could finally talk business.
The same couldn't be said for Ling Qidong, as he, after facing a few more rejections, now just ordered drink after drink and gave up on socializing and instead enjoyed the free catering to its fullest.
Being at this party made him understand one reality. Rising through the classes was impossible. It was all about the family wealth you had, and if you weren't in the same class, there would be no chance to make any friends.
Thinking back to his own behavior towards lower-class people, he felt like this is exactly how he would treat them as as well. Was he lower class too? he asked himself while sipping on his glass.
The party continued, and soon the business deal Yan Yuiling prepared to seal came to a close.
"Miss Yan, it was nice doing business with you. Let's prepare the contracts and sign them on Monday. How about it?"
The talk went very well, even somewhat too well for Yan Yuiling; she had prepared for the opposition to negotiate every term and prepared counterarguments to strengthen her case, but the two partners directly agreed to every term. Now the deal was done, and all that was left was to sign the contract, yet it felt somehow wrong, and she needed to ask one final question.
"Gentlemen, before you leave, why exactly did you agree to everything I proposed?"
"Oh, miss, don't joke around like we wouldn't know. Young Master Ding already told us. Don't worry, we won't dare to negotiate with young master Ding's girlfriend on such a trivial deal," they explained, and Yan Yuiling's smile dropped in an instant.