Chapter 146: The Foundation of the Incense Gang

At this moment, on the helicopter.

Chen Xiaobai gazed at this young girl on the stretcher bed who was born in 1999.

This child who erupted with astonishing light in a desperate situation, whose mindset experienced tribulations yet never lost its goodness.

This person foretold by the portrait, prophesied by the dying instructions, and waited for by the Incense Gang for long years...

She gently reached out her hand, using her fingertips to gently wipe away the fine beads of sweat on Xu Nuo's forehead.

Five years... a full five years.

She gave up her highly respected position in the San Francisco headquarters, and using the codename and persona of "Crow," infiltrated the Crescent Group, this Nihon yakuza devil's den.

Starting from the lowest-level thug, relying on real swords and guns, "merits" fought out on the edge of life and death time and time again, as well as deliberately displaying indifference to pain and rules, she climbed step by step to the position of Chief Instructor of the core training base.

Waking up every day, the instant she opened her eyes, she had to silently repeat in her heart: I am Crow, the Crescent Group's Crow.

Every sentence had to be filtered three times in her brain, every look in her eyes had to be precisely controlled...

That was not life, that was dancing restlessly day and night on the tip of a knife. The slightest carelessness would mean eternal damnation, dying without an intact corpse.

Was it worth it?

She had asked herself repeatedly countless times in the past.

Until she witnessed with her own eyes this young girl, poisoned with a bizarre toxin and with her strength severely weakened, actually manage to complete an almost miraculous desperate counter-kill, personally sending the deeply hidden Tsukuyomi into hell!

Until she held this child's heartbreakingly light body in her arms, feeling that faint yet unyielding fire of life...

It was worth it!

Chen Xiaobai looked out the window. The first faint light of dawn was piercing the deep night sky of the Far East, dyeing the sea of clouds with a faint golden edge.

That light, quietly echoing and blending together with the halo of that storm lantern in the portrait, spanning across a century of time.

"So... the future Aunt Lan saw... was true."

"The lantern light from a century ago..."

"You from a century later..."

She leaned down, by Xu Nuo's ear, using an intonation only the two of them could hear clearly, like chanting an ancient prayer:

"Welcome home."

"Lantern Bearer."

More than half an hour later, the helicopter landed on a private coastline near the Nemuro Strait in Hokkaido.

The cabin door was pulled open, and Chen Xiaobai walked down the boarding stairs carrying the still-unconscious Xu Nuo.

"Is the car ready?"

Chen Xiaobai asked the staff member who came up to meet them in a low voice.

"The Gulfstream G650 is on standby on the runway, ready to take off at any time."

Chen Xiaobai nodded and walked quickly toward a black Mercedes-Benz not far away.

She carefully placed Xu Nuo in the back seat, fastened her seatbelt, and then got into the passenger seat herself.

"To the airport, fly straight to San Francisco."

...

San Francisco, a certain top-tier private hospital.

Xu Nuo had already been recuperating here for five days.

Her external injuries were mostly healed, but her mental exhaustion and the residual neurological effects of "Qiluo Incense" still needed time to be slowly conditioned.

Outside the ward, quiet and professional guards rotated shifts twenty-four hours a day, while inside was filled with flowers sent by unknown people, and fruit baskets piled into small mountains.

"This formation..."

Xu Nuo leaned against the head of the bed, sipping the bird's nest porridge delivered by the nurse in small bites, muttering softly in her consciousness,

"Teacher, why do I feel... I don't look like I'm recuperating from injuries, but rather like I'm being enshrined as a Bodhisattva?"

Xu Yunzhou's illusory figure floated by the window, hugging his arms, his tone carrying a smile:

"Is it bad to be enshrined? What kind of days were you living before, what's wrong with enjoying blessings now? This is called bitterness ending and sweetness beginning."

"It's just too sweet, so sweet my heart is panicking."

Xu Nuo put down the porridge bowl, her fingers unconsciously rubbing that string of sandalwood Buddhist beads on her wrist,

"Moreover... what exactly does the Incense Gang want me to do? Lantern Bearer... sounds so heavy."

After Chen Xiaobai told her Aunt Lan's dying words these past few days, after her bewilderment passed, she was truly uneasy.

Destiny switching from Hell Mode to VIP Heaven, this transition was too big, making her instinctively vigilant, afraid this was another transaction requiring an unknown price to be paid.

"When the boat reaches the bridge, it will naturally go straight."

(TL: "When the boat reaches the bridge..." is an idiom meaning things will sort themselves out in the end.)

Xu Yunzhou was quite calm, because his intuition told him that it was exactly the future him who arranged all this,

"Anyway, you can't run away now even if you wanted to, might as well accept it with peace of mind."

Just as they were talking, the ward door was knocked gently.

"Please come in."

Xu Nuo sat up straight.

The door opened, and Chen Xiaobai pushed an old man sitting in a wheelchair slowly in.

He wore a simple Chinese-style jacket, a wool blanket covering his knees.

"Miss Xu Nuo,"

Chen Xiaobai introduced respectfully, her tone unprecedentedly solemn,

"This is Elder Du Xinyuan. He is Aunt Lan's grand-nephew, the current old man (boss) of the Incense Gang."

Du Xinyuan's gaze landed on Xu Nuo's face for a long time, sighing gently.

"Similar..."

"Too similar, simply as if walking out from the painting."

Xu Nuo was looked at until she felt somewhat uncomfortable, but still politely bowed slightly:

"Elder Mr. Du."

"Just calling me Grandpa is fine."

Du Xinyuan waved his hand, his tone suddenly becoming gentle,

"Child, we know all about your matters these years... you have suffered."

Xu Nuo actually didn't feel much. If it weren't for such an encounter, how could she have met Teacher?

Smiling breezily:

"It's okay, it's all in the past."

"The past is in the past, but the words that should be said, the apologies that should be made, cannot be omitted."

Du Xinyuan said slowly, his tone becoming serious,

"Child, to tell the truth, according to the dying instructions of Great-Grandmother Aunt Lan, we indeed found you very early on."

"But the Incense Gang has been passed down for a century, its branches and leaves are luxuriant, and it involves a lot. Under the main hall, the various branches and factions have different thoughts."

"Just relying on a painting and a few dying words, wanting everyone to be sincerely convinced by a strange young girl and revere her as the Lantern Bearer, is absolutely impossible. Even I, this old man, must be responsible for the stability and future of the entire gang."

"So we always had Xiaobai secretly pay attention to you, and your performance far exceeded all of our expectations! Infiltrating Nihon, reaching the summit and becoming a Saint on the Go board, this is wisdom and courage; falling deep into Crescent, your mind unswerving, hiding your sharpness, this is resilience; the most rare thing is, not only did you complete the almost impossible task of assassinating Takemiya Susumu, but at the final moment, you even forced out the deeply hidden, never-before-seen Tsukuyomi, and personally killed him! Such achievements, such methods, such temperament..."

His voice raised a bit:

"Up and down the gang, who else dares to be unconvinced? Who else can question Great-Grandmother Aunt Lan's prophecy? You used your own actions to win everyone's respect, and also proved... you are exactly that person we waited a century for!"

Hearing this extremely high praise, Xu Nuo didn't have much joy in her heart, but instead felt somewhat ashamed.

She knew full well that her brilliant track record was completely inseparable from Teacher's miraculously skillful "support."

Du Xinyuan seemed to see the complexity in her eyes and didn't continue this topic.

He smiled slightly, gesturing to the few people who followed in behind him.

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses stepped out first, smiling and nodding to Xu Nuo:

"Miss Xu Nuo, I am Li Weian, Deputy Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. Your subsequent treatment and comprehensive rehabilitation plan will be personally handled by me. Please rest assured, we will use the best resources to let you return to optimal condition as soon as possible."

Next was a female wearing a suit skirt, with a capable and sharp temperament, about forty years old.

She handed over a gold-stamped business card:

"Zhao Qin, Partner at Hushan Capital. For any questions regarding legal, financial, asset allocation, and any future commercial affairs, you can contact me directly."

The people introduced subsequently shocked Xu Nuo and Xu Yunzhou more than the last.

A Managing Director of a certain top-tier Wall Street investment bank, an influential Chinese-American State Assembly member in California, and even two Chinese-American generals wearing US military uniforms.

On the surface, Xu Nuo maintained calmness, politely responding to everyone's greetings, but in her consciousness, she had already exclaimed repeatedly, almost unable to hold her expression:

"Teacher... these people... are all from the Incense Gang? Or rather, all have relationships with the Incense Gang? This penetration power... is too terrifying, right? Politics, business, academia, military... what kind of network is this?"

Xu Yunzhou also clicked his tongue secretly watching this.

Although he knew the Incense Gang had profound foundations in the overseas Chinese society, being profound to this extent, with its energy radiating to such key fields and positions, still far exceeded his expectations.

The future me... exactly how many cards did I leave for myself?