Chapter 145: Identity

"You're quitting?"

Tang Xingxiong's crow laughed. "You think this is child's play? That you can just quit whenever you want? People who live in Thought Wave One are all the same. So naive."

But after a moment's thought, she sighed and said, "I was going to think more highly of you. What a shame you didn't cherish the opportunity."

"Fine. If you don't want to be given an important position, I won't insist. You can go. From now on, you're only fit to be a common mercenary scraping by in the Big Circle. It would be a waste to just clean up these people, though."

As she spoke, Tang Xingxiong waved her right hand. The sun in the sky instantly turned red, and the thick stench of blood filled the air. The crimson sun mirrored the red eyes of the crow.

Just as three crows aimed their beaks at the crowd and shot toward them like three bolts of lightning, Zhang Wenda's body became a blur, following right behind them.

In the next second, black feathers filled the sky. The three crows were sliced to pieces by Zhang Wenda's scythe and fell to the ground.

Here, only Zhang Wenda was fast enough to catch the crows.

"Fuck! What's your problem? Are you an idiot too, just like that cat?" Saber, seeing this, flew into a rage and pulled his gun on him.

Meanwhile, Tang Xingxiong's body began to transform back into a black crow, and the sun in the sky rapidly changed into a moon.

"Move."

"I won't!" Zhang Wenda stood his ground, glaring at her fiercely.

With a sound of flapping wings, a sky full of crows blotted out the moon. Unseen presences began to emerge from the darkness, closing in on Zhang Wenda and the remaining crowd.

"I'll say it again. Move." Tang Xingxiong's voice emanated from the mouths of a hundred crows, overlapping into a single, bone-chilling sound.

"I won't move!" Whether Bureau 507 had a backup plan or not, Zhang Wenda would not retreat now. Teacher Rabbit was right behind him, and he absolutely could not let Tang Xingxiong kill it!

In that short span of time, tentacles and twisted monsters began to fully materialize in the dark. Like a living, grotesque mountain of monstrous flesh, it advanced on Zhang Wenda as the darkness deepened.

The thing in the darkness was utterly mysterious and bizarre. Just a single glance from its many eyes made Zhang Wenda's head swim and his eyes ache.

Song Jianguo's Black Cat had just started to form a shield in front of Zhang Wenda when it collapsed under the gaze of those eyes.

Zhang Wenda didn't know what this thing was, but he knew he was probably going to die here today. "Teacher, go! I'll hold it off!"

Just as the colossal dark mountain, radiating an incredibly terrifying aura, was about to crush Zhang Wenda, a soft cough sounded, completely out of place.

Then, Zhang Wenda saw a familiar figure strolling casually from the side and stopping in front of him.

The bug-eye sunglasses, the bell-bottoms, and that trademark plastic tube sticking out from his clothes—who could it be but his uncle?

As Zhang Wenda watched, his uncle took a cigarette from the satchel tucked under his arm and tossed it toward the terrifyingly hideous dark creature before them.

"Ahem... how about this. Give me some face."

The flimsy cigarette bounced softly off an eyeball and rolled down a crevice in its toad-like skin, finally landing on the ground.

Everyone present was stunned. They all stared, dumbfounded, at the idiot before them.

After two long seconds, a motionless, ten-meter-long tentacle swung high and smashed down toward his uncle.

"Uncle!" Zhang Wenda became a blur and shot to his uncle's side, trying to pull him away, but was held firmly in place by a single hand.

Just then, the tentacle came crashing down like a falling telephone pole. Just as Zhang Wenda thought he was dead for sure, it skimmed past his left side and slammed into the ground.

Then, the tentacle curled up from the ground, picked up the cigarette, and very graciously gave the man before it some face.

Zhang Wenda was utterly stunned watching this. 'That worked? Could it be? Did my uncle eat the Face-Face Fruit?'

Just then, Tang Xingxiong, who had reformed, sounded furious. "What are you doing here?"

"Why can't I be here? This is my nephew! My own flesh and blood!" His uncle pointed at Zhang Wenda.

Watching the two of them talk so familiarly, Zhang Wenda finally understood what was going on.

"Uncle! You're with the Big Circle?"

"Hold on a sec, Guo'er. I need to have a word with my nephew." The uncle grinned cheekily at Tang Xingxiong, then pulled Zhang Wenda aside.

"Uncle! How could you be part of the Big Circle?" Zhang Wenda stared in disbelief at the man who had raised him in his past life.

"What about it? Do I need to report to you where I go to work?"

As he spoke, his uncle pulled a cigarette from the briefcase tucked under his arm, lit it, and took a drag. He didn't inhale, though. Instead, he pulled the tube out from his stomach and blew the smoke from his mouth down into it.

"And you're lecturing me? Look at you. You've been getting into trouble since you were a kid. How old are you, getting mixed up with them?" His uncle poked Zhang Wenda on the head, exasperated.

"What? But why? Do you know what that place is? Do you know what they do?" Zhang Wenda couldn't accept that the uncle who had saved his life would get involved with people like that. The members of the Big Circle were killers who wouldn't even bat an eye!

This time, his uncle didn't speak. He just took another drag from his cigarette, blew the smoke into the tube, and said meaningfully, "If I don't do this, what else can I do? If I don't do this, how do I eat? You think money is so easy to make these days?"

"But you said before you had connections to get to the border…"

"That was all talk, you get it? Who comes back from working elsewhere and admits they couldn't make it? They all claim to be at least an assistant manager, don't they?"

His uncle glanced at Zhang Wenda's current state and sighed with utter disdain. "Ever since you were little, I could tell you were cut out for studying. How did you end up scraping by just like me? Didn't you read all those books for nothing?"

Zhang Wenda fell silent. Everything was happening too fast; he needed to sort things out.

Seeing Zhang Wenda's silence, his uncle thought for a moment before saying, "Hmm... don't worry about what happened today. And stay away from that woman from now on. She's bad news. If I hadn't shown up today, you'd have been in deep trouble."

"Sigh. Telling you to go back to your studies now, you definitely wouldn't be able to do it. How about this: from now on, you stick with me. As long as I have meat to eat, you'll have soup to drink."

The uncle rambled on, and Zhang Wenda listened in a daze. Just as he was about to follow his uncle back, his sharp eyes caught sight of a small zipper on the back of his uncle's neck.