Step Back! Master is Here! - Chapter 21
Chapter 21: Infiltration
Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
It wasn’t as if Tang Luo and the others didn’t investigate the murders.
Unfortunately, apart from discovering someone who seemed to have been possessed by the Ripper, they returned empty-handed.
Tang Luo wasn’t interested in handing that person over to the Cotland Yard as Jack the Ripper either.
They needed to complete the mission of ‘Search for Jack the Ripper’, not the monetary reward offered by the Cotland Yard.
“Master, do we act tonight?” asked Chu Chongtian.
His spectacles were tied tightly at the back of his head with strings, preventing them from falling off easily. The air of youth and immaturity around him was also gone. He looked significantly steadier and staid. After all, they had spent the last three days in fierce combat. His growth was considerably rapid.
As for Li Liang, he had indeed attempted to join the sweep too.
Unfortunately, he simply wasn’t cut out for it and was scared silly.
In the end, he went back to the decision of being a slacker who only knew how to cling on to others for dear life. No matter what, he had to at least get past the mission this time.
As for future missions, let’s just think about it in the future.
Slacker Li Liang abided by this principle of his and followed Tang Luo and the other two men everywhere. He tried his best to lower his presence and avoid causing them any trouble.
The three men didn’t mind continuing to protect him either. Mainly because there was no way Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian would object to what Master Xuanzang said.
“Or how about we postpone it for a night?” suggested Zhou Zhenguo.
The Cotland Yard’s Inspector General was on the invitation list for the banquet too. He had no relation to the organization whatsoever.
However, as the highest-ranking government official in charge of the security matters in the city, and considering that the theme of the banquet tonight was to resolve security issues, it was impossible for him to not be present.
Thus, other than Earl Thorndike’s private team of bodyguards, some of the patrol officers from the Cotland Yard were in the manor too.
The security was tighter than before.
Before they had made their way here, Tang Luo and the others didn’t know that there would be a banquet tonight either. After all, they were just foreigners.
Even the residents of the city were only aware that the big shots of the city had finally become unable to sit still any further during the last few days and were planning to come together to resolve the city’s security issues.
But they weren’t very clear as to when the gathering would take place.
“Since we’re already here, let’s go in and take a look.”
Tang Luo uttered the Four-Word Curse. Under the influence of this Four-Word Curse, people could practically eat the worst-tasting dishes and experience the most awful activities.
Of course, there was also a possibility that it could allow people to experience happy times.
The manor was in the outskirts of the city, approximately an hour away by horse carriage from the main city district.
Since they were already there, Tang Luo wasn’t willing to leave anymore.
“You guys can stay outside to coordinate with me,” said Tang Luo.
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian exchanged a look before they nodded.
Owing to his superb abilities, Tang Luo was bold enough to do a “since we’re already here” and dash straight ahead, but they couldn’t.
Even the bit of benefits they had gotten during the last three days wasn’t enough to rouse the mentality of seeking wealth amidst danger in them. Even Chu Chongtian had become a lot staider, much less Zhou Zhenguo, who was already composed from the start and liked to use the Imprisoning Chain to strike first.
Reaching up and giving the black hat on his head a light press, Tang Luo headed in the direction of the manor.
As he walked, he took off the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit hanging around his neck.
Then, he tossed it lightly into the air.
The Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit floated above Tang Luo’s head and emitted a gentle glow.
The glow didn’t spread. It draped downwards like a tassel, shrouding Tang Luo within it.
“Eh?”
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian, who had been watching Tang Luo just a moment ago, suddenly felt a blur in their vision. In just a mere moment, they lost sight of Tang Luo.
“He’s gone?”
Chu Chongtian looked at Zhou Zhenguo for verification that it wasn’t his eyes that were playing tricks on him.
“He’s gone.” Zhou Zhenguo nodded.
“How did he do that? Is it a skill?” asked Chu Chongtian.
“Possibly. Skills that can make one invisible do exist.” Zhou Zhenguo was even more certain now that Master Xuanzang must be a veteran pro-player.
“I’m so envious. I wish I had skills, too,” said Chu Chongtian.
“You’ll get them if we can clear the mission this time.” Zhou Zhenguo’s desire to complete the mission was stronger than anyone else’s. After all, this affected his own life.
The reason why Tang Luo had vanished naturally didn’t have anything to do with the skills obtained by Employees of Gods and Demons. It was just an ability of the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit’s.
Actually, to be accurate, Tang Luo hadn’t been directly using the power of virtuous merits to treat injuries and rescue people all along.
Rather, he had been using the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit, a mysterious and fascinating magic weapon, to convert the power of virtuous merits into a source of driving force.
This time, Tang Luo didn’t employ the Xuanzang Style of Infiltration. He chose to expend part of the power of virtuous merits to activate the Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit and cast a concealment spell.
He was in a state of invisibility now.
If he were to be more of a spendthrift and expend a great amount of power of virtuous merits, not only would he be invisible, he could also achieve the states of being odorless and untouchable.
It was a first-rate means of survival and running for one’s life.
Of course, Tang Luo wasn’t using it to escape right now but for infiltration purposes instead.
The Jade Lotus of Virtuous Merit was suspended above him, and Tang Luo swaggered through the front doors right into the manor.
The banquet in the manor commenced.
Most of the guests had already arrived. A small number of guests were hurrying over one after another.
Walking into the grand hall of the banquet, bright and resplendent chandeliers could be seen lighting up the entire hall as bright as daylight. As though the lights in the hall had skipped directly into the standards of those several decades in the future.
The rectangular table was laden with delicacies.
A servant stood at the side with a bottle of wine in his hands, ready to attend to guests anytime.
On the wall right opposite the main doors hung a portrait, probably of a bigwig among the ancestors of Earl Thorndike.
Underneath the portrait was a stage, approximately two steps tall, that had been specially built.
On either side of the stage was a stairway leading to the second floor.
A man dressed in luxurious clothing stood on the stage. He was giving a speech.
Full of emotion, his voice was loud and clear and was very infectious in his enthusiasm.
What the topic of the speech was didn’t require much elaboration. Naturally, it was about restoring lasting peace and security in the city and cracking the damned Jack the Ripper case.
However, if one were to listen closely, they would realize that there wasn’t any substantial content in his speech. He waxed lyrical in his entire speech and called for donations to solve the problem together.
As for how exactly the donations would be used to resolve the serial killer case and restore lasting peace and security in the city?
That wasn’t the concern of this group of influential figures anymore.
In fact, no one would really pay close attention to how the donations were used in the end. What they were after was more of fame than anything else.
The headlines in the papers the next day.
Their lackeys’ praises and respect.
They were in charge of paying while others were in charge of getting things done.
Hadn’t this always been the case all along?
After ending his fervent and excited speech, the man got off the stage and greeted the guests in the vicinity.
Graceful smiles, as if enjoying refined company, adorned the faces of everyone there.
This made Tang Luo certain that this man must be Leo Thorndike.
Before this, Tang Luo honestly didn’t know what Thorndike looked like.
Thorndike weaved among the crowd superficially, occasionally stopping to exchange a few words with others. There was no knowing whether there were members of the organization among them.
It was only about half an hour later that he walked towards the stairs by himself.
Before that, a few people had already gone up the stairs discreetly.
Capable and skilled bodyguards stood guard at the stairways on both the left and right.
Tang Luo followed Thorndike leisurely, going up to the second floor and then the third floor with him.
Compared to the bustling atmosphere of the ground floor, while a few people occasionally walked by on the second floor, the third floor was void of any human presence.
Along the long corridor, there were only some rather dim lights lighting up the place. As for sounds, there was only the sound of footsteps.
Thorndike suddenly stopped in his tracks with a hint of a strange expression on his face.
Why was he hearing footsteps? The footsteps didn’t belong to him.
He turned around and ascertained that there was no one behind him.
While frowning, Earl Thorndike loosened his slightly tight collar a little and continued forward. He stopped in front of a pair of double doors.
Thorndike pressed down on the handle, opened the door, and walked in.
It was a study.
Only the table lamp on the desk was lit.
Thorndike looked around the room. Then, he popped his head to the outside and cast a couple of glances at the corridor outside the study. After ensuring that the footsteps he heard earlier were just a figment of his imagination, he closed the doors and locked them.
He came across as extremely careful, even in his own home.
He walked over to the bookshelf and shifted a few books, activating a mechanism. The bookshelf slowly shifted away to actually reveal a small and cramped elevator inside.
Thorndike walked into the elevator and pressed the switch. The elevator slowly descended. Then, the bookshelf slowly shifted as well and started to return to its original position.
The light gradually dimmed.
Bam!
All of a sudden, Thorndike heard something.
At the same time, the elevator shook for a while, as if some kind of heavy object had crashed above him.
“Who’s there!”
Thorndike reached into his clothes at once, as if he was about to pull out a gun. He looked up at the same time.
He didn’t see anyone or anything at the ceiling, which featured a design with open spaces in order to reduce weight.
“Is it my imagination again? It’s just the elevator that’s shaking?”
Thorndike had an awful look on his face. Members of the organization had been attacked in succession during the last few days, making him extremely sensitive.
Even the mere rustle of leaves startled him.
After staring at the area above for a long while and making certain that there really wasn’t anything there, Thorndike lowered his head.
At that point, the elevator had also reached the bottom.
Thorndike walked out.
The place outside was an underground chamber that could still be considered relatively bright.
In the middle was a round table with four people seated there. Behind the four of them were bodyguards as well. There were two to each of them. Another two bodyguards stood next to the wall.
There were ten people in total, and quite a few of them were holding revolvers. The area at their waists was full and bulging too, clearly holding another gun there.
Two tall and large men stood near the wall, one of them holding a dagger.
The dagger flew and constantly spun in his palm, an icy glint flashing occasionally.
“Everyone’s here,” said Thorndike as he walked over to his seat and settled into it.
There were actually still three empty seats.
But the owners of these three seats would never ever arrive because they had already died, right during the short last three days.
It wasn’t just them. The other members of the organization had similarly suffered devastating attacks.
Right after that one night, when something had gone wrong at the psychiatric hospital, their underground research facility collapsed and became a place of doom.
All the fruits of their research had been buried.
Jack White, their most important researcher, had also gone missing.
Should he be lucky enough, he might have survived. But should he not, then he had probably been buried amongst the research facility.
If it hadn’t been for Jack the Ripper that had started to go on a crazy killing spree and distracted everyone’s attention, as well as themselves secretly suppressing the news of the incident, the headlines in the papers right now would undoubtedly be the horrifying case of the psychiatric hospital.
“Leads, I want leads,” said Thorndike as he looked at the others.
Obviously, he was the most highly-ranked among everyone here.
“There are no survivors,” said one of them. “But we do have some clues. Some people witnessed these people there…”
He pressed a few portraits onto the table and pushed them towards the others.
The portrait sketches held a degree of similarity to Tang Luo’s group.
However, to be honest, there were quite a lot of people in the city in similar getups.
Moreover, because of Jack the Ripper wreaking havoc in the city, everyone preferred to move about in groups.
“How is this of any use?” Suppressing his fury, Thorndike went on. “This is no different from looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“We can get the Cotland Yard to assist us. We’ll just say that these people might be related to Jack the Ripp—”
Screech!
Suddenly, the sharp and piercing sound of metal tearing and breaking apart resounded.
Thorndike’s head whipped towards the back.
The form of a human fell from the top and smashed into the narrow and cramped elevator.
With a hand pressed against his hat, his head was slightly lowered, such that no one could see what he looked like.
