Feng Ju snorted coldly and said directly:

"It’s not that I don’t want to kill you, nor do I want to save you; I just want to save myself. Our lives are now damn well tied together!

Captain Li, you’re now the renowned ’Detective’ of Zone 9, so do you think my explanation can make you believe it?"

Chang Erbing suddenly turned to Li Shang, his pupils trembling violently. Like a drowning man grabbing at a straw, he pleaded desperately with his eyes for a denial—even if it was just a slight shake of the head.

Li Shang’s silence was like a heavy hammer falling.

The private room fell into a deathly silence; time seemed to stretch, and every second was filled with suffocating pressure.

A long while passed, as if a century had gone by.

Li Shang exhaled a long breath and said to Chang Erbing in a deep voice:

"Let the brothers sit down and have their supper at ease."

Chang Erbing shivered all over, his lips moving a few times, and staggered out of the private room.

In the two adjoining private rooms, the elite gunmen of the Cyan Wolf Gang arranged by Ma Bin were pressed against the walls, holding their breath and listening intently.

Their orders were: if there was any unusual noise in the private room, especially gunshots, they were to rush in immediately, at all costs to protect Li Shang, and eliminate Feng Ju!

Killing a Patrol Office captain, especially one who is an agent, was definitely inconvenient for the "insiders" of the Patrol Office, so Ma Bin had to arrange for someone to do it, to clean up afterward.

Chang Erbing pushed the door open and went in, leaned close to Ma Bin’s ear, and recounted the events in the private room to Ma Bin in a trembling voice, speaking so fast it was almost a blur.

Ma Bin’s originally calm face immediately became extremely grave, with a sharp glint flashing across his gold-rimmed glasses.

At the same time, Feng Ju and Li Shang sat in the private room, staring coldly at each other.

Li Shang’s hand holding the gun, as if drained of all strength, slowly withdrew from under the table.

He picked up the cheap rough porcelain wine jug from the table and poured himself a full cup of white wine.

Without offering to Feng Ju, he tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple rolling violently, and downed the burning liquid in one go.

"Cough... cough..."

The strong alcohol choked him, making him cough violently a few times, a faint and abnormal flush spreading across his face.

He slammed the empty cup heavily on the table and let out a cold sneer:

"I always thought the position of Chief of Patrol Office is either yours or mine... but now it seems, we were both wrong, terribly wrong!"

"That position... neither of us can sit on it! Neither of us can! Haha..."

Laughter echoed in the small private room, and Feng Ju’s expression was equally complex and indescribable.

Li Shang stopped laughing, his eyes bloodshot, like a wild beast driven to the brink once again:

"So? Captain Feng, you tell me the purpose of all this, surely it’s not to just sit here waiting to die with me?"

"Waiting to die?"

Feng Ju seemed stung by the word; he suddenly slammed a fist on the table, causing all the cups and dishes to clatter.

"I don’t want to die, and I can’t die!"

Feng Ju exuded a chilling intent to kill, his voice distorted and hoarse, with a kind of pathological madness:

"So, I want to kill the agent, yeah, I want you to help me kill the agent too."

"What?!"

Li Shang took a cold breath, his pupils instantly constricting to needlepoints, his scalp tingling.

Even though he had prepared for the worst, he never imagined Feng Ju’s means of ’self-defense’ would be so crazily extreme.

Directly killing the agent, in some sense, is nothing short of poking a hornet’s nest in Upper City!

Li Shang had thought that their previous kidnapping of Secretary Hou was already audacious enough, but Feng Ju went even further...

Wrong, Feng Ju wasn’t just the agent’s lapdog; he was clearly a mad dog too, befitting of his friend’s father!

Li Shang: "You’re insane, do you know what kind of position the agent holds in Upper City?"

Feng Ju’s face showed a slight retreat from madness, but the determination in his eyes didn’t diminish in the slightest. He answered honestly:

"I don’t know exactly what position the agent holds, but someone from Upper City is surely of significant status. However, he wants me dead, and he wants you dead too!"

Feng Ju’s voice suddenly rose, snarling:

"I have no choice; either he dies or we die. From the moment you presented that Sheepskin Scroll, there was no third path.

Or, you tell me, what should we choose?"

Li Shang opened his mouth, closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then suddenly opened them again.

In those eyes, all hesitation and struggle were replaced by a more primitive, more violent desire for survival.

"You’re right!"

Li Shang gritted his teeth, the taste of blood in his mouth:

"If he doesn’t die, we all die!"

The last shred of worry in Feng Ju’s heart was finally dispelled. His greatest fear was that Li Shang would be so scared by the Upper City’s reputation that he would rather die than resist.

After all, there’s a difference between dying alone and dying alongside your whole family.

For Li Shang to figure this out so quickly was slightly beyond his expectations, saving him the effort of persuading him further.

Feng Ju slightly relaxed his tense nerves, his tone softened a bit, but the sense of urgency didn’t diminish at all:

"There’s no time to delay. We must act before the agent discovers my betrayal and kill him first."

It’s no nonsense, the countdown before his eyes is unrelenting; he must seize every second.

Li Shang nodded heavily, a fierce light in his eyes, but first interrupted Feng Ju:

"The agent is not easy to kill, we two alone are far from enough; we need other people’s help too."

Li Shang stood up to open the door, calling Chang Erbing and Ma Bin inside.

Since they were all good brothers, they must face the beheading risks together. No one could stay out of it.

Li Shang first made a brief introduction of Ma Bin to Feng Ju, and then laid bare the perilous situation to the two of them.

With each word spoken, the air in the private room became more tense.

After introducing the situation, Li Shang suddenly turned to look at Feng Ju, making a very serious request:

"Captain Feng, I think it’s not safe enough with just the four of us. Ideally, we should also get your son Feng Mu involved; the people around him are not ordinary."

Li Shang truly believed that if Feng Mu could be brought into the fold, their success rate would increase by at least twenty percent.

Upon hearing this, Feng Ju’s expression instantly darkened like ink. He flatly refused, his voice firm without any leeway:

"No! Absolutely not! We can’t involve Feng Mu!"

What a joke, his fear of his "son" now even surpassed that of the agent.

How could he bring Feng Mu into this? Once involved, the subsequent development of events would be out of his control.

After all, his own son had a high probability of being a monster, and an insane one at that.

His behavior was completely unpredictable.

Li Shang saw Feng Ju’s intense reaction, a fleeting hint of regret flashing in his eyes, but he quickly let it go.

He mistakenly assumed this was Feng Ju, as a father, simply unwilling to drag his only son into this dangerous whirlpool.

This father and son seemed to have a poor relationship, but in truth, they still cared for each other.

Li Shang could only nod helplessly: "Fine, then we’ll depend on ourselves."

The four of them sat around the table, starting to plan the grand scheme of killing the agent.

"The security force around the agent..."

"The layout of the villa’s floor plan..."

"His daily routine..."

"Assessment of the agent’s personal combat capability..."

Each piece of crucial information was repeatedly scrutinized and intensely discussed.

Time slipped away quietly amid the tense and oppressive plotting.

Halfway through the discussion, Feng Ju paused and glanced over at Li Shang, Chang Erbing, and Ma Bin, and naturally spoke with feeling:

"By the way, that Sheepskin Scroll... you must have a backup, right? What’s recorded on it exactly, can I take a look?"

Noticing the three of them casting suspicious glances, Feng Ju explained with a calm demeanor:

"Who knows, we might all end up dying at the agent’s hands, so I ought to know what I’m dying for. When I get down there, at least I can be a ghost who knows why, right?"

He looked at the three of them openly, with a hint of curiosity in his expression, yet also seemed nonchalant:

"Alright, stop hiding it. If you have it, just let me take a look."