NIKKE, when the stars bloom

Destined to be creepy dark.

Chapter 159 Qingming Festival

"Shangcun, the road was blown down. The enemy must have used a lot of explosives to leave it in this state."

"Who dares to mess with our Qingming Society? Are they from Heaven or the Red Jungle?"

"Tsk - ever since the last head of the family left, our lives have become more and more miserable. Now, any random person dares to treat us like a weakling."

"I think women shouldn't be in charge! This is the outer edge area, and only the gun can do the job. What's the point of convincing people with virtue? Bullshit!"

Inside and outside the ruins of the bakery, more than 20 members of the Qingming Society were all cursing and complaining after confirming that the secret passage had no value for restoration. They were completely unaware that in the shadows of this steel jungle, there was a man eavesdropping on their conversation.

Qingming Festival?

Are these guys from Sakura?

Phoenix has a fairly good understanding of the Queen's Mafia Forces. Sakura's Qingming Society, Rosanna's Hedonia, and Peony's Peony Society, these three mafia forces jointly maintain the basic rules of the game in the Outer Zone.

Is Qingming Festival trafficking in human beings?

This obviously does not conform to Sakura's personal belief of wanting to transform into a legitimate business.

This means that these guys were secretly engaging in human trafficking without the knowledge of their master.

Thinking of this, Phoenix stood up, turned the corner of a building, and walked towards the ruins of the bakery in broad daylight.

"Hey! Are you blind? Can't you see that we are doing business at Qingming Club?!"

When a thug at the outermost edge saw someone wearing an iron mask walking towards them, he immediately drove him away impatiently:

"What? Just because you have a knife in your right hand, you think you are a sword master?! Get out of here right now, or else..."

Swah——

There was a flash of cold light, and then a handsome head fell to the ground.

The next second, the prosthetic limb that had transformed into an arm snatched the submachine gun from the corpse's hand. Under Anik's full control, it began to fire bursts of fire with extremely terrifying accuracy and speed.

The almost instantaneous movement of swinging the gun was exactly the same as opening the violent lock in the game.

Bang bang bang bang bang——

The bullets penetrated the brows of the Qingming Society members with incredible precision.

After more than a dozen brothers died in succession, the thugs who had just been awakened finally realized that they should raise their guns and fight back.

However, while they were just raising their guns, three more brothers were shot in the head by the enemy's submachine guns. When they actually pulled the trigger, there were only four or five gun lines left.

Bang bang bang bang bang——

What kind of monster is that?!

When the little boss Kamimura fired a whole magazine of bullets but still failed to break the opponent's extremely strange liquid metal, the fear from the unknown successfully forced him to turn around and run away.

Unfortunately, all of his twenty or so brothers had died, and there was no one left to buy time for him to escape.

boom!

An armor-piercing bullet broke through the iron wall and pierced into Shangcun's ankle, forcing the Qingming Society leader to fall flat on his face.

Lieutenant Phoenix, who had picked up a rifle for the other party, was now walking slowly towards Kamimura's position, step by step.

"You... who the hell are you?!"

Enduring severe pain, the little leader turned over with difficulty and looked towards the corner behind him in horror, watching the masked man approaching him step by step. Subconsciously, he chose to pull out the pistol hidden at his waist and fired several shots at the other person's chest.

Dangdangdang——

The bullet was still ruthlessly bounced off by the silver-gray liquid.

It's not an illusion...

The last bit of hope in his heart was extinguished. With his worldview shocked, Uemura opened his mouth involuntarily and let Phoenix walk to his side in a daze.

"Where is the nearest underground secret passage from here?"

The man deliberately lowered his already low voice and said coldly:

"Tell me and I won't kill you."

"You...you blew up our Qingming Society's secret passage..." Shangcun said halfway, then changed his words: "No, that's not right, you can't carry so much explosives by yourself, you are not the one who blew up the secret passage...Ah——!!!"

The little leader screamed in agony from the pain that felt like his heart and liver were being torn apart. The lieutenant's right hand had already touched his cheek, and the nanometal silently cut through his skin, torturing his fragile trigeminal nerve.

Trigeminal neuralgia is recognized as the pain with the highest suicide rate in human medicine.

"I don't have time to waste on you."

Stopping his torture on Uemura, Phoenix said calmly:

"Second time, where is the nearest underground secret passage from here?"

"No, there are no more... The nearest secret passage has been blown down. There can't be any more secret passages within a dozen kilometers because it's impossible to dig secret passages next to each other."

Kamimura is not stupid. Judging from the question the other party asked and his strange ability, he is most likely not from the Outer Zone.

"Call your master."

"Wha...what?"

"Tell your master that your life is in my hands. If I don't want you to die, let her come to see me. Come now, drive over!"

"..."

Hearing the man's request, Kamimura's expression became more distorted and distressed.

“I… I’m just a small leader, I can’t contact home directly… Aa ...

Yes! Yes!!!"

……

……

drip-

When Sakura answered the phone, Phoenix did not ask immediately, but chose to wait for the other party to speak first.

"Umura, why are you contacting me directly across two levels? Is there something important?"

"He's in my hands. If you want your man to live, you must come to see me in person at the bakery in block 32588. Remember, drive over.

I want to see you within an hour, or you'll have to wait to collect his body."

"you……"

drip-

Without giving the other party any chance to communicate, the lieutenant hung up the phone and looked down at Xiangcun. A hint of worry inevitably appeared in the green eyes under the mask.

"Hey, your family master won't just give up on you, right?"

"What do you mean? Do you think our Qingming Society is some kind of gangster organization?" After hearing someone's questioning, Shangcun's face suddenly turned red, and the veins on his forehead throbbed violently. It was obvious that he was very angry about this.

"We in the Qingming Society would never abandon our family members!!!"

"is it?"

Phoenix's tone became more and more strange, and he continued to ask:

"But I heard you guys scolding your master behind his back before. How come you trust your master so much now when you are about to die?"

The armor-piercing power of this sentence was so strong that it made Shangcun grit his teeth on the spot, but he didn't know how to refute it.

"Hey, Qingming Festival will have you ungrateful bastards, it's hard not to fall into poverty."

The man shook his head, using the simplest movements and the calmest tone to say the most lethal words.

"Speaking of which, it would be hard to end something like bringing shame to the head of the family without having to cut open the stomach within your Qingming Society, right?"

Uemura: “…”

Chapter 160 Worthy of Being the Boss

"...I want to see you within an hour, otherwise you'll have to wait to collect his body."

Listening to the deep male voice's request on the phone, the other party's almost commanding tone did not change Sakura's usual cold face.

After confirming that the other party hung up the phone, the girl calmly placed the phone on her thigh, then silently looked at herself in the mirror and at the maid who was tying her hair.

His fingertips danced between the dark green hair, his movements were gentle and agile, like a dancer dancing on thin ice, not daring to be negligent in the slightest.

"Prepare a car and go to block 32588."

"Hi."

The retainer who had been guarding the door 24 hours a day nodded and left immediately after hearing the master's order.

Block 32588, this is not the Qingming Society’s territory.

Kamimura is a family member of the Qingming Society. Every family member is supposed to report to the society whenever they leave the gang's jurisdiction.

But she had just checked the relevant reporting records. After 0:43 in the morning, all family members had returned to the jurisdiction of the Qingming Association and no one went out again.

Then the problem is coming.

It was the man on the phone who sneaked into the Qingming Society's territory, quietly kidnapped Shangcun and took him to the 32588 block.

Or did Kamimura secretly go to block 32588 and end up being kidnapped by the man on the phone?

If she could choose, Sakura would choose the first option. Unfortunately, her reason kept warning her that the possibility of Uemura sneaking out was far greater than the former.

It is impossible for a master who can sneak into the Qingming Society to just take a minor character as a hostage.

"You are increasingly not taking me, the head of the family, seriously."

The girl sitting in front of the mirror slowly closed her eyes, and the loneliness she was unwilling to admit surged into her heart as usual.

Clear and bright,

This was the original intention of the first head of the family to establish the Qingming Society in the Outer Zone. He hoped that the Qingming Society could become a pure land in the Outer Zone and provide a safe haven for those who were willing to uphold morality.

But with the change of generations of family heads, until the previous family head, the Qingming Society had already lost its original sincerity, and family members had lost themselves in power and material things, one by one becoming greedy villains, no different from other gangs in the Outer Edge Area.

When Sakura took great pains to win the position of the current head of the family and expressed to all family members her original intention of regaining "clarity and brightness", even the conservative members who initially supported her gradually became alienated because of her overly conservative ideas.

At first, they were just tentatively pretending to obey, but now, after stopping human trafficking, prohibiting the sale of banned drugs, and giving up the flesh trade, the revenue has remained flat for several consecutive months, which has made the entire Qingming Society panic.

No one can resist money. Flat revenue cannot satisfy the appetite and desires of family members. At least this is the norm for the outer fringe areas.

Of course, the warriors from the Peony Society are not included in this list.

"Master."

The call from the maid behind her interrupted Sakura's thoughts. Even though she was filled with sorrow, the girl still opened her eyes calmly, stood up gracefully, took the coat from the maid, and strolled out of the courtyard.

Even in her private residence, she must not show even the slightest sign of weakness, as that would make her loyal servants uneasy.

She is the head of the family.

She should have borne the greatest pressure.

……

……

The roar of the engine resounded in the desolate steel jungle.

If you dare to peek out through the window, you can see a military jeep with a very high chassis crossing the block and driving towards the northwest without hesitation.

Fifty minutes later...

"Turn left and go straight ahead... Keep going forward and stop at the fork in the road ahead... Turn right and go forward..."

Listening to the instructions on the other end of the phone, Sakura deliberately slowed down her pace, taking the opportunity to use her peripheral vision to quickly search every corner of the alley, trying to use the visual device to scan out any miniature cameras that might be hidden in the shadows.

Unfortunately, she failed.

Using all the anti-reconnaissance techniques she had learned throughout her life, and even using Nikki's exclusive reconnaissance accessories, the girl still couldn't find even one electronic object that looked like a camera.

She even suspected at one point that the other party was hiding on top of a tall building, deliberately teasing and insulting her as the head of the Qingming Society.