"A second team?"
Lin Wu pressed the ledger beneath one hand. Her tone wasn't loud, but she caught the meaning hidden inside those two words instantly.
Not support.
Not reinforcement.
Takeover.
The moment that word appeared, the expression on Pei Wan's face had already said more than enough.
Outside, the rain kept falling. The team member by the vehicle, terminal in hand, stood stiffly, as if he didn't even want to read the rest out loud.
"Say all of it," Pei Wan said.
The man swallowed, eyes fixed on the screen.
"Base command. Second Special Containment Team arriving within twenty minutes. Upon arrival, sealed asset, recovery authority, and on-site command…"
He paused, voice dropping lower.
"…will all be transferred."
Another beat.
"And we are ordered to lock the area down in place. Without authorization, no unrelated personnel are to leave."
The store went silent for a second.
Su Yu tightened her hold on Sui Sui instantly.
He Qing's face went pale.
Even Wang Defa, huddled near the door, understood what that meant.
Once the second team arrived, anyone on this street tonight—anyone who had seen something, heard something, bought something—
would likely be accounted for all over again.
Qi Ye leaned against the counter, his eyes turning colder by the second.
"Doesn't sound like they're coming to do business."
"They aren't." Pei Wan stared at the terminal, voice heavy now. "They deal in containment."
Lin Wu looked up.
"Containment of what?"
Pei Wan fell silent for two seconds.
Then she answered.
"Uncontrolled materials. Uncontrolled information."
She paused.
"And uncontrolled people."
The words were delivered flatly.
But to everyone in the store, they felt like cold water being poured down the spine.
Su Yu's face turned white.
"Then… what do we do?"
Pei Wan didn't answer right away.
Because at this moment, even she didn't have a full answer.
The Second Special Containment Team wasn't under her chain. Her group recovered assets and tried to preserve people when possible.
That team handled something else entirely—
driving risk to zero.
If necessary, they locked roads, detained witnesses, cleared whole scenes.
In other words, Pei Wan had originally only needed to think about how to bring the box back.
Now she had to think about whether her team—and everyone who had witnessed tonight—might be conveniently "taken over" as well.
"So," Lin Wu said.
She stood behind the counter and tapped the cover of her ledger once with one finger.
"Captain Pei."
Pei Wan looked at her.
"Are you still planning to leave?"
The question was too direct.
So direct that Pei Wan couldn't hide behind procedure anymore.
Outside, the two vehicles still sat beyond the barrier. Rain slid over their roofs and tapped against the pavement in a steady rhythm. The thin golden boundary flickered in and out beneath the water.
Inside, the lights were steady. The air was clean. The swarm had just withdrawn. The Special Goods Cabinet stood in silence.
This place itself—
already looked more like a way out than any vehicle outside.
"If I leave now with my team," Pei Wan said slowly, "the second team will chase us first."
"And if I stay…"
She looked straight at Lin Wu.
"They'll probably focus on your store first."
Lin Wu nodded.
"Fair enough."
Pei Wan was caught off guard by that answer. For a second, she genuinely didn't know what to say.
Two seconds later, she asked in a lower voice,
"You're not angry?"
"About what?" Lin Wu flipped open a fresh page in the ledger. "On the first night of the apocalypse, the person trying to take over my store changed from one boss to one corporation."
She glanced up.
"That just means business is growing."
At the side, the corner of Qi Ye's mouth twitched.
This boss's mental wiring was absurdly stable.
Pei Wan looked at Lin Wu, and the complexity in her eyes deepened.
She understood perfectly well that Lin Wu knew exactly what this meant.
She just had no intention of panicking about it.
That made her even harder to suppress than most trained professionals.
"Then let's stop circling," Lin Wu said, closing the ledger and looking at her. "What do you want to buy?"
Pei Wan blinked.
"Now?"
"Of course now." Lin Wu tilted her chin toward the door. "If your precious second team gets here in twenty minutes, there's no guarantee you'll even be the one still allowed to speak on this street."
She smiled faintly.
"So if you want to buy a position, buy a narrative, or buy a temporary alliance…"
"Best do it while the window is still open."
Silence settled over the store again.
This time, Qi Ye genuinely wanted to laugh.
Most people heard Special Containment Team and thought fear.
Lin Wu heard it and thought window of opportunity.
Pei Wan watched her for a long moment. Then, finally, she dropped the last layer of professional maneuvering.
"Fine," she said. "I'm buying."
"I'm buying temporary safety for myself and my team."
"And I'm buying your word that once the second team arrives, you won't casually sell us off as bargaining chips."
The moment those words landed, several members of the recovery team outside visibly changed expression.
Especially Xu Bai, the young man whose scanner had been destroyed. He opened his mouth as if to protest—
then shut it again.
Because he understood.
This wasn't the moment to save face.
This was the moment to stay alive.
Lin Wu looked at Pei Wan.
"What are you paying with?"
Pei Wan didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she reached beneath her collar and removed a small metal tag she had kept hidden against her neck, placing it on the counter.
It was small, its edges worn from long use. A serial code was engraved on the front. On the back, in tiny letters, was a line of text:
Heng'an Biotech | Special Transit Authorization
The system evaluated it immediately.
[Detected: Special Transit Authorization Tag][Note: Allows rapid identification access through certain restricted zones.][Value: High]
Pei Wan continued.
"This is my personal clearance. Not linked to the shared system. Terminal scans won't pull it."
Then she removed her earpiece and placed it beside the tag.
"It carries the second team's call frequency and parts of their recognition code phrases."
She met Lin Wu's eyes.
"Is that enough?"
Lin Wu's gaze shifted.
Valuable.
But not enough to buy the safety of an entire team.
So she answered honestly.
"It's enough to buy you."
Pei Wan: "…"
Outside, every member of her team tensed at once.
But Pei Wan didn't flare up. She only shut her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, her gaze had hardened into something steadier.
"Then I'll add internal procedure."
"When the second team arrives, their first priority is not detaining people."
"It's securing the asset, cutting communications, and locking down the site."
She held Lin Wu's gaze.
"In other words—so long as they don't have the item, they won't spend their full attention on the other people in your store."
This time, Lin Wu didn't respond at once.
Because that information was worth more than an object.
It didn't deliver goods.
It delivered judgment.
And in the next twenty minutes, judgment itself was life.
She looked at Pei Wan for two full seconds.
"That's close enough."
Pei Wan lifted her chin slightly.
"And your terms?"
"Simple." Lin Wu's voice was crisp. "First, from this moment on, you and your team are customers in my store—not a recovery unit."
"Second, when the second team arrives, unless I say otherwise, you do not make decisions for anyone in here."
She paused.
"Third—"
Her gaze drifted lightly toward the two vehicles outside.
"I hold the car keys as collateral."
The instant that last sentence came out, the short-haired man outside couldn't hold back anymore.
"That's impossible! Those are our—"
Pei Wan raised a hand and cut him off.
She looked at Lin Wu.
Then, after a few seconds, she actually pulled out a ring of keys and placed them on the counter.
"Now?"
Lin Wu lowered her eyes, checked them, and nodded.
"Now."
The system lit up silently.
[Temporary alliance transaction complete.][Store Reputation +2][Guest identity updated.]
Good.
Lin Wu always preferred cooperation that could be written cleanly into the books.
"What next?" Pei Wan asked.
Lin Wu lifted her eyes toward the people outside.
"Next, your team buys supplies, enters the zone, shuts up, and rests."
"Then we wait for them to come to the door."
Pei Wan frowned.
"That's it? We just wait?"
"Yes." Lin Wu's tone remained flat. "This is my store, not theirs."
"If they want to take over, they can walk in first."
The moment her words landed, the system interface lit up softly, as if answering her.
[High-authority external organization nearing contact with this store.][Would you like to set temporary store rules in advance?]
Temporary store rules.
A faint light flashed through Lin Wu's eyes.
Perfect timing.
She didn't choose immediately. First, she asked the system:
"What can I set?"
Three options surfaced at once.
[A: Without owner authorization, any request involving "takeover," "requisition," or "detention" will automatically be deemed invalid.]
[B: All persons entering the store will automatically have external identities stripped, retaining only "customer" status.]
[C: Mentioning force, compulsory orders, or superior authorization within the store will trigger one warning.]
Lin Wu read all three, and the corner of her mouth slowly lifted.
It was like hanging a sign at the front door:
No matter how official you are, once you come in, you're a customer.
She barely hesitated.
[A, B.]
[Temporary store rules established successfully.]
At the same moment, the faint golden edge of the barrier outside flickered once, as if a new law had just been quietly written into it.
Pei Wan noticed.
She lifted her eyes.
"What did you do this time?"
Lin Wu answered casually,
"Just cleaning the doorway before business starts."
Pei Wan didn't ask another question.
Because by now she had learned something important:
Any answer Lin Wu didn't want to give was usually priced high enough to hurt.
And right then—
headlights lit up the far end of the street again.
Not two beams.
Three.
Whiter than before. Straighter. Sharper.
They cut through the rain like blades and drove straight into the cold, empty street.
The engines weren't loud.
But they pressed low and heavy, like controlled force approaching on purpose.
Outside, every member of the recovery team tensed instantly.
Pei Wan turned slowly toward the street, her profile tightening under the reflected light.
"They're here," she said quietly.
Lin Wu didn't move behind the counter.
She only lowered her eyes to the ledger in front of her.
The first page had been the boss.
The second, survivors.
The third, Scar Liu.
The fourth, Pei Wan and the sealed case.
Now, apparently, it was time for a new page.
She flipped to the blank sheet and wrote four words:
Second Team. To Be Butchered.
Then, as always, she tapped the ledger three times.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
Outside, three black off-road vehicles rolled to a stop just beyond the ten-meter barrier.
The doors hadn't even opened yet when an amplified male voice cut through the rain first—cold, standard, stripped of all extra emotion:
"Heng'an Biotech. Second Special Containment Team."
"All on-site personnel will cease movement immediately."
"Surrender the sealed asset and submit to takeover."
At the shelves, Su Yu held Sui Sui so tightly her heart felt stuck in her throat.
Qi Ye was no longer leaning on the counter. He stood fully upright now.
Pei Wan's face was cold and unreadable.
And Lin Wu, after hearing the announcement, didn't even twitch a brow.
Because in front of her eyes, the system had already made the judgment for her.
[External "takeover" request detected.][According to temporary store rules: Invalid.]
Lin Wu slowly lifted her gaze toward the shadowed figures beyond the headlights, and the corner of her mouth curved slightly.
Good...
Now it was her turn to name the price.