Enlightenment: Attaining the Dao at Age 8

Chapter 112: Chapter 94: After All, I’m Not a Devil

Night City, NCPD Police Station Headquarters.

A group of high-ranking officials were gathered in the conference room, seated according to rank, waiting for someone.

While they waited.

A deputy chief seated second from the head of the table grumbled, “Seriously, does anyone know what the hell Yunxiao Group is up to this time? Sending a nine-year-old kid to intern at the NCPD is one thing, but of all the assignments, they had to put him in charge of the Anti-Terrorism Mobile Team? Am I losing my mind, or has that damn old bastard Charles completely lost his?”

Evidently, many others in the room were just as baffled by the news.

They just hadn’t dared to voice their thoughts, given their respective positions.

Now that the deputy chief had broken the ice with his complaint, the conference room instantly erupted.

The head of NCPD dispatch shot to his feet, cursing, “Can’t these damn megacorps do a single decent thing besides stir up trouble?”

“Exactly! We at the NCPD manage this entire chaotic mess of a city. How many of their messes have we had to clean up? Isn’t that fucked up enough? Sending some young master down to pad his resume is one thing, but to insist on shoving him into the Anti-Terrorism Mobile Team… Isn’t Charles afraid his precious son will be eaten alive by those cyber psychos and Extraordinary monsters?”

Curses echoed back and forth across the conference room.

In the past, Night City’s megacorps had sent people to the NCPD to pad their resumes or just to collect a ghost salary, but never had they done anything this outrageous.

Pulling strings to get a nine-year-old a post in the Anti-Terrorism Mobile Team… What were they thinking?

Did they want Night City’s most powerful enforcement agency to become a laughingstock for drugged-up gangbangers to mock at will?

If Richard’s influence weren’t so immense—if he weren’t someone they absolutely couldn’t afford to offend—they would have sooner died than let this happen.

To put it bluntly.

Before the titan that was Yunxiao Group, the NCPD was nothing more than a dog.

A dog might bark at its master now and then, but if it ever dared to chew on its leash, every single person in this room would face a swift and merciless reckoning.

However, someone more perceptive now pointed out a logical inconsistency.

He stood, speaking over the clamor. “Chairman Richard knows exactly how dangerous the Anti-Terrorism Mobile Team is, yet he’s sending his chosen heir there anyway. I think there’s more to this than meets the eye. Why don’t we test the waters? If it turns out Chairman Richard has… other intentions, we can help him get what he wants!”

At these words, the room abruptly fell silent.

Everyone with a seat at this table was shrewd.

They hadn’t considered it before, simply because they had been blinded by their anger. But now that it had been pointed out, they all began to grasp the possible hidden implications.

Richard was no fool; he couldn’t possibly be ignorant of what an assignment to the Anti-Terrorism Mobile Team meant. Since he knew, and still did it, the act itself was worth some serious consideration.

…

After a wait of about ten minutes.

The doors to the conference room were pushed open. A boy of about ten, impossibly handsome, strode in as if he owned the place, flanked by dozens of heavily armed bodyguards from the Yunxiao Group.

The moment the boy appeared, the entire conference room went dead silent.

Whatever the officials truly thought, they couldn’t let it show. Instead, they all plastered fawning smiles on their faces.

As the boy strode toward the head of the table.

A precinct chief, a man skilled at knowing which way the wind blew, was the first to stand. He extended a hand with a sycophantic smile. “Little Charles, welcome to the NCPD. I am George Anderson, Chief of the Taiping State precinct!”

Li Chang’an glanced at George Anderson’s outstretched hand, then at the fawning smile on his face. A silent, contemptuous smirk touched his lips.

His senses were unnaturally sharp.

He had heard their entire discussion from far down the hall.

He knew these high-ranking NCPD officials were all resentful of his sudden arrival and were even contemplating taking him out after they’d figured out Richard’s true intentions.

For two-faced hypocrites like these, Li Chang’an had already decided to establish his authority in the simplest, most direct way possible.

He didn’t stop in front of Anderson, much less return the greeting.

Without a sideways glance, he walked straight to the head of the table where NCPD Chief Mills was seated and said in a flat tone, “Who gave you permission to sit there? Move.”

At those few words, you could have heard a pin drop in the conference room.

When everyone snapped out of their shock, they stared at Li Chang’an in utter disbelief, as if they were at a zoo watching a brainless gorilla.

In a matter of seconds, the young master of the Yunxiao Group had managed to offend the two people in the room he could least afford to cross.

This display of utter contempt left every NCPD member present completely stunned.

’What the fuck… Isn’t this a little too arrogant?’

He was just an heir apparent, and there was a huge question mark over if—or when—he would even inherit. He wasn’t Richard himself!

And yet he was already acting this high and mighty.

If he ever actually took over, would he think he was God?

Many of them couldn’t help but frown.

The official purpose of this internal meeting, after all, was to welcome Li Chang’an, the young master of the Yunxiao Group, and to allow the NCPD officials to familiarize themselves with him.

After all, whether Charles had sent him here to pad his resume or to die, the NCPD still had to show the proper respect.