Chapter 68: Chapter 68 – The Ren Tribe of Luoyang
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“Here’s your Nata de Coco Milk Foam.”
Ren Suo used the straw to mix the milk foam in the drink as he looked around the shop—the wooden tables were dark brown in color and the hanging ceiling lights lit the shop with an amber hue. Ren Suo and the girls were sitting by the window, and it was the best area to sit at.
It was in the afternoon and the shop was still relatively crowded. Ren Suo was salivating at his drink. Although the shop looked relatively well-decorated, the menu was heartless towards those who were single—all the snow ice choices on the menu were double portions. Ren Suo would not have been comfortable with sharing the snow ice with the two girls and was left with no choice but to order the milk foam drink.
Furthermore, Ren Suo was embarra.s.sed to eat a double portion of snow ice alone, and neither did he have the ability to stomach everything…
“Stop there!”
Suddenly, a stern shout came from outside the shop. Ren Suo looked in the direction of the shout just in time to see a haggard-looking man with a beard and wearing tattered clothing running past the shop. A few men donning vests stating that they were “Urban Management Law Enforcement” personnel were chasing after him, as if they were playing a game of police and thief.
The pa.s.sers-by did not seem intrigued nor perturbed and even opened up a path for them to catch the man.
Ren Suo was slightly stunned and asked, “How could the Urban Management Law Enforcement personnel try to catch the man like this in broad daylight?”
Li Ke’er let out a laugh and said, “Catch the man? This is called maintaining law and order in the city. How could you not know about this as a civil servant?”
Ren Suo shook his head and replied, “I’d think that the targets of the Urban Management Law Enforcement Agency were the street peddlers, but that person…”
“It’s more than that now,” Xia Lingyu said. She was no longer as shy as when they first met and was showing more of her calm and composed personality as a handsome girl. She continued, “About a week ago, the Urban Management Law Enforcement Agency joined forces with the Public Security Bureau to carry out enforcement duties against the vagrants and beggars in Lianjiang City. They sent those who needed help to treatment centers and gave those who wandered around tickets to travel back home. The scammers were detained and brought back to the detention center.”
“This has been the talk of the town for the past few days, how could you not know about all of this? The Public Security Bureau of Lianjiang City had busted a number of child-trafficking syndicates who abducted children and forced them to beg on the streets and even captured murderers who hid by pretending to be beggars. The other cities and provinces seem to be following in the footsteps of Lianjiang City and strongly resolving the problem of vagrants and beggars,” she said.
Ren Suo shook his head and said, “I have been busy these few days…with my work!”
Li Ke’er was slightly surprised and said, “I always thought that civil servants should always be up to date with current affairs, especially local state news. Don’t you need to study or research or something?”
“The department I am in is slightly special and we are not involved in those lower-level work,” Ren Suo said as he looked at what was going on outside. The vagrant from before was already in the hands of two enforcement agency members. He was sulking unhappily as he walked back with them, one on each side of him.
Most of the people were supportive of the work of the Urban Management Law Enforcement Agency—the news must have played an important, positive role in doing so. After all, what more did they ask for now that the government was willing to solve the problems at the lowest cla.s.s of society?
The tone of the two university girls when telling him about the entire situation implied that the large majority of people were extremely supportive of the Lianjiang City government’s stance and actions.
Only Ren Suo thought that it was slightly strange.
Team 2 of the Countermeasure Division is currently investigating the strange happenings occurring at the construction site, and that means that they have closed their previous case of the non-human murderer… They must have relied upon the Urban Management Law Enforcement Agency and the Public Security Bureau to weed out all the “Hungry Ghost Demons” hiding amongst the vagrants and beggars on the streets.
It looks like they have completely eradicated the hidden threat by finding all the vagrants and beggars throughout Lianjiang City and deal with them using administrative power. In this way, it would be extremely obvious to spot any Hungry Ghost Demons that hide amongst the vagrants.
This is also possibly the most suitable way to find all the Hungry Ghost Demons in Lianjiang City, and so the method employed by the Countermeasure Division of Lianjiang City to find all the Demons would soon be used by the entire nation…
“By the way, if it is alright, what department is senior in?” Xia Lingyu and Li Ke’er asked. They finally got down to business when they finished half of their snow ice.
“I previously planned to enter the Street Office,” Ren Suo replied. He continued, “But now, due to special reasons, I am working in the Countermeasure Division which is a branch of the Ministry of National Security.
“The Ministry of National Security…” Xia Lingyu said. She and Li Ke’er exchanged glances. Ren Suo felt that they seemed slightly surprised yet happy.
“Sorry.” Li Ke’er apologized and said, “Is it alright for senior to tell us about this?”
“I cannot disclose what we do in detail, but what department I work under is public information,” Ren Suo said. He continued, “Anyway, I am just one of the errand-runners at the bottom of the food chain and naturally, I need to tell people my ident.i.ty before I can get down to work.”
“Oh,” acknowledged Xia Lingyu and Li Ke’er before changing the topic to the civil service entrance examination. Ren Suo gave them the USB drive he had prepared beforehand and briefly discussed the important points to take note and the amount of time needed to revise and prepare for the examination, as well as the differences between the city-level examination, provincial-level examination, and the national-level examination.
Suddenly, Li Ke’er asked, “I recall that the Ministry of State Security employ people directly and would not open up the positions to the public. They also only transfer people between departments very rarely…”
Ren Suo looked very seriously at the two girls as they talked. It seemed rare for the two girls to be under such an intense gaze and they slightly averted eye contact, feeling slightly embarra.s.sed.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, Ren Suo would naturally not be so bold—but in the context of a mission, it was a totally different story.
Were Xia Lingyu and Li Ke’er just girls to Ren Suo? No! They were girls who had keys with them!
“Do both of you…wish to enter the Ministry of State Security?” Ren Suo suddenly asked.
“I am thinking of doing so,” Li Ke’er said openly. She continued, “Actually, I think that it would be very interesting to work in the Ministry of State Security, but unfortunately, we did not enter the police academy.”
“Why not?” Ren Suo inquired.
“Hmm?” Li Ke’er said.
“As girls, you would probably prefer an ordinary nine-to-five job, wouldn’t it be better to be a member of other ministry departments? Why exactly do you wish to enter the Ministry of State Security then?” Ren Suo questioned.
Li Ke’er did not reply immediately, as if thinking of a reason. But Xia Lingyu said, “Because it’s cool!”
“It’s cool?” a slightly surprised Ren Suo asked.
“Yes, isn’t it quite amazing to tell people that you are from the Ministry of State Security?” Xia Lingyu said in all seriousness.
It was Ren Suo’s turn to remain silent. But he pondered for a short while and said, “The Ministry of State Security is very short of manpower now…If you have some ‘special abilities’, perhaps the Ministry would make an exception to employ you.”
“Special abilities?” the two surprised girls exclaimed. “Don’t they need specialized talents…”
Ren Suo laughed and said, “Don’t mind me, I am just casually saying. I am not managing employment anyway…By the way, what are both of you majoring in?”
They replied, “We major in history.”
“It’s rare to meet girls who choose to major in history,” Ren Suo remarked.
“We are also starting to regret slightly now and are thinking of changing majors…” they replied.
After mentioning “special abilities”, Ren Suo realized that the two girls did not ask more about the Ministry of State Security, further confirming Ren Suo’s guess.
The two girls must be Awakeners!
Ren Suo had always been thinking about the common traits of those who possessed keys: Yu Kuangtu, Li Dan, Mo Zhaolong, Yao Fei, Wu Jianming, Qiao Muyi…Some of them were Pract.i.tioners and some of them were Awakeners. It was very easy to tell in one glance who were Pract.i.tioners, but that was not the case for Awakeners!
As long as Awakeners did not use their Awakened Reiki Abilities, they would look no different from ordinary people!
Both Wu Jianming and Wu Zhaolong were not Pract.i.tioners at that time when Ren Suo found that they possessed keys, so they must be Awakeners! Based on that fact alone, Ren Suo was quite sure that the possession of keys was related to being an Awakener.
Although Qiao Muyi still did not reveal her ident.i.ty as an Awakener, it did not mean that she was not one.
As for Yu Kuangtu and Yao Fei, both of them were powerful members within the Countermeasure Division and were even more likely to be Awakeners.
With the same line of reasoning, Ren Suo was almost certain that the two university girls sitting in front of him were Awakeners.
The reason why Ren Suo did not feel an extremely strong attraction towards them until they made physical contact and he realized that they possessed keys based on the key-searching system was likely because their keys had not fully developed.
The keys had not fully developed…could that mean that they had not fully discovered their Awakened Ability?
On the other hand, could it then be that the Awakeners like Qiao Muyi, Yu Kuangtu, Li Dan, and Yao Fei had already fully developed their Awakened Abilities, and was a “1-star” level, which was why Ren Suo felt such as strong attraction towards them?
Nonetheless, Ren Suo discovered that the two girls truly wanted to join the Ministry of State Security. Or rather, they wanted to enter the civil service.
Thinking back about Mo Zhaolong, Ren Suo quickly understood their mentality—as Awakeners, they wanted to disguise themselves in the heart of the nation while waiting for the nation to plan and disclose their intentions towards Awakeners.
It was a very common idea to have. Apart from a group of Awakeners who would immediately call the police after they discovered that they had fully Awakened, most of the Awakeners would calm down first and either pretend that nothing had happened, make use of their Awakened Ability to commit crimes or start businesses, or lay low in wait of what was planned for them.
Most people belonged to the third category of Awakeners who did not want to give up on their abilities so easily but did not want to commit crimes either or did not have an ability suitable for starting lucrative businesses. As such, they awaited any news of the nation announcing any policies with regard to them, or perhaps meet an Extraordinary Abilities group or the like…
Naturally, becoming a civil servant was the best place to be in the loop of the nation’s plans and policies.
Unless they were sure that the nation would treat them Awakeners kindly, they would definitely not expose their abilities first. It was not because they could not trust their nation, but because they lacked a “backup plan” to fall back on.
What would happen if they meet ill-intentioned people if they expose their abilities?
But based on what Ren Suo knew, the nation was rapidly developing plans and policies for Awakeners and Pract.i.tioners—it was evident from the fact that those in the Countermeasure Division were working non-stop.
The trend was headed towards a new era of Reiki technologies, and it would not be long before the nation would disclose information about Pract.i.tioners and Awakeners and develop a complete Pract.i.tioner system. All Pract.i.tioners and Awakeners would then be involved in it and be under the watch and management of the nation.
At this juncture, Ren Suo did not reveal any other information, but only hinted to them to “wait for a while more” and that “the situation regarding the employment of Ministry of State Security could change”. Afterwhich, he discussed about the positives and negatives of university life as their senior, and reduced the awkwardness between him and the two girls in preparation for retrieving the key…
“By the way, the senior’s surname is Ren? It’s a flamboyant surname,” Li Ke’er commented with a laugh.
Between the two of them, Xia Lingyu looked more like a guy, but in reality, Li Ke’er was more extroverted and liked to talk more.
Ren Suo shrugged and said, “It’s a rare surname too. I only know of my relatives and I having such a surname.”
“Yeah…Oh, where is senior’s ancestral home?” Li Ke’er asked as if she suddenly thought of something.
Ren Suo replied, “Fofeng Village of Lian Province. Why do you ask?”
“Ah!” a suddenly excited Li Ke’er exclaimed. She tugged on Xia Lingyu’s sleeves and smiled, saying, “Xiao Yu, senior is part of the Ren family lineage that Teacher Cheng was telling us about!”
“What Ren family lineage?” a confused Ren Suo asked.
“Well, during one of our history elective modules in university, our lecturer, Teacher Cheng, once told us that during the final years of the Eastern Han dynasty, there lived a mysterious family tribe. They were only recorded in unofficial historical accounts, but were related to many warlords of that time,” Li Ke’er said.
She continued, “And that was the Ren family tribe of Luoyang. However, the Ren family tribe of Luoyang no longer exists today, but their descendants then continued to live and preserve their family lineage. Today, there are only three Ren families, the Ren family in Fofeng, Changlong, and Tai’an.”
Ren Suo was astounded.
He began to recall that a year ago when he went back to his hometown, the area was indeed called the Ren family town, and the shrine was very big…
“Senior, your ancestors may well be the large family with a long-standing history!” the girls exclaimed.