A Top Scholar in Everything (ATSIE) - Chapter 16

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Westlife Haven restaurant.

Bruce looked at the crowd and frowned. He had been having a hard time recently. This man who was over 50 years old had a head of white hair because of years of overwork and the loss of energy from his training when he was young.

The recent incident had made him even more exhausted.

However, as a rich man, he had to pay attention to his appearance no matter what.

Outside the restaurant, Bruce was dressed neatly. His luxurious black suit was meticulously groomed, and his hair was fixed by hair gel. Each hair was distinctively slick, making him look energetic.

He walked in his leather shoes, which had been polished to success, and headed into the restaurant with his cane in hand.

He looked around, the person he had made an appointment with did not appear at the right place. Bruce turned on his phone and looked at the message to reconfirm the time and place.

[The meeting time has been changed to three in the afternoon.]

The person above only sent this message.

Bruce’s expression did not change at all. He chose a corner near the window and quietly ordered a cup of coffee.

Time passed minute by minute.

At three in the afternoon, Bruce’s blue eyes slowly looked around. There was a wrinkle on his concentrated face.

“Hello.”

At this moment. A homeless man walked in. “Just now, a gentleman asked me to give this to you. He said to personally hand it to you.”

The homeless man put down a phone and quickly left.

Bruce’s face was dark as he picked up the phone. There was only a call button that had yet to be pressed. This was a specially designed phone.

“They’re being this cautious?”

Bruce’s evaluation of the person he was meeting was now on a whole new level.

He pressed the call button.

A tall and thin man appeared in the center of the screen.

The man was wearing a simple casual outfit. He looked very much like a student. There was a black and white mask on his face. He was full of vitality and his black hair was shining brightly.

The background of the video was an empty room, so there was not much useful information to guess where it was.

“Hello, I’m sorry we had to meet in such a circumstance.”

The voice that came from the phone sounded very young. This was Bruce’s deduction.

“Sir, it’s just a meeting. Is there a need to go to this extent?”

Bruce’s voice was calm.

Due to the man in the video wearing a mask, no expression could be seen. He could only infer from his body language that the other party seemed to be mocking him.

He had already guessed the other party’s identity.

It could be a friend who was also in contact with the female streamer, or it could also be a survivor from the supernatural incident.

Bruce’s voice was hoarse as he said, “Did I do something wrong?”

On the other side of the phone, the person shook their head.

“If you want to pretend to be crazy and act d*mb like this, then there’s no need for us to continue our conversation today.

“There are six martial artists around you.

“One of them already has a body reliciliency that is close to sequence 8.

“We have the latest R 8-head crusher developed by the Dongsheng Empire, which is enough to break the outer shell of the mechanical patrols and hurt the inner mechanical equipment.

“Your walking stick is made of a steel sword made of a grade D alloy, which cuts iron seamlessly.

“Although I don’t know about your personal situation…

“I can conclude that you have extremely strong combat ability, even stronger than the martial artists that you arranged around you.

“Do you think… I’m an id*ot?”

The man’s tone was extremely frivolous.

Bruce’s expression changed slightly from this, and his thoughts spun rapidly.

He had encountered a tougher opponent!

Just a few words from the other party had revealed several trump cards in his hands. This time, he had really fallen into an absolute disadvantage.

No, the two sides had yet to meet.

Just a single conversation had caused his arrangements for the past few days to be almost ruined.

The information they had about each other was no equal!

There was indeed a reason why the other party chose to meet in the Western District.

A few of his subordinates were good at hiding and were hard to discover. However, they still did not escape the other party’s eyes.

“Your intelligence ability is extraordinary. I was being careless it seems. How do you want to arrange the meeting? Speak your terms.” At this moment, his plans were exposed. Bruce did not hesitate and continued speaking, “I want to confirm whether I have any needs in your hands. If I do, I will be more than willing to discuss them with you.”

“You mean the demonic paper?”

“It seems that you know quite a lot. The survivors of the previous incident were lucky enough to get it, and then I assume you traced it back to me?”

Bruce’s blue eyes flashed.

“Heh, don’t try to trick me. I only have two requirements.

“First, you need to know the use and side effects of this sealed artifact, and you need to prove it.

“Second, your purpose.

“Do you think it’s possible?”

Bruce’s face was calm as he spoke with the other man.

“Of course it’s possible.

“If you don’t cooperate, tomorrow, the government of Linjiang City, Pingyi Company, and the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery will receive an anonymous tip-off letter with your picture, as well as that demon paper.”

Bruce pondered for a moment and said with a faint smile,

“I can provide you with a huge sum of money, or I can agree to some special requests of yours.

“I can even give you some special potions.

“The kind of potions that can give people extraordinary powers.

“As long as you hand this piece of paper back to me.

“Believe me, it won’t do any good to keep it in your hands.”

On the other side of the screen, Bai Yu almost jumped out of his seat. If he was not wearing a mask, he would have looked like he had seen a ghost by now.

A special potion?!

There was a really huge organization behind the other party!

They could even casually give out something like an extraordinary potion. Were they easily obtained nowadays?

Of course, he could not rule out the possibility that the other party was just straight out lying.

However, to even so casually mention that the other party was willing to give a potion was a big deal.

In other words, the other party could be an extraordinary being.

The danger level of the situation was rising as Bai Yu investigated.

“Yu, are you in?

“This man has the recipe for an extraordinary potion!

“Any one of them is enough to bring terrifying benefits. It can even nurture a batch of extraordinary beings!”

Qin Shou’s voice came through the earpiece.

Bai Yu turned off the video call.

“The other party is obviously confident in taking us down.

“When I proposed to report him to the authorities, he didn’t show any fear or apprehension. Instead, he pondered for a moment before he proposed a deal.”

“So what does this mean?” Qin Shou did not understand.

“It means that the other party isn’t afraid of the demon paper falling into the hands of the Pingyi Company, nor is he afraid of his identity being exposed.

“Perhaps his identity is fake!

“Of course, there’s another possibility.

“It means that there are people from the authorities working with him!

“Furthermore, he probably has high status. For them to be able to so casually talk about the demon paper, perhaps they wanted the demon paper to fall into the hands of the Pingyi Company in the first place!

“I was thinking…

“Since this thing is so important to them, why was the supernatural incident that the investigators solved able to collect the demon paper?

“They must’ve purposefully done it.

“Shouldn’t they retrieve the demon paper first after every supernatural incident?”

Qin Shou finally pieced the puzzles together. “That’s right… I remember you telling me that the Pingyi Company collected three other identical sealed artifacts.”

“That’s the case information that Lin Shan showed me. There’s no mistake. ” Bai Yu replied in a deep voice. “It’s very likely that the other party’s goal is to spread the demon paper and create a larger supernatural incident to achieve a certain goal.

“They’re using the Pingyi Company to collect the demon papers for them.

“I don’t know what methods the Pingyi Company used to store the sealed artifacts, but there might be some kind of loophole that they can use that we can’t see.”

“It can’t be that serious though, right? Pingyi is the strongest force in Linjiang City against the extraordinaries. Why would they want to take them down?” Qin Shou’s tone was exaggerated.

Bai Yu’s deduction seemed a little unbelievable.

Shouldn’t these unofficial extraordinaries and organizations avoid Pingyi?

It was like a chase between a cat and a mouse. What was the mouse planning to do with the cat in this situation?

“Unfortunately, there is a high possibility that this is the case.

“Because I accidentally took this demon paper, Pingyi Company didn’t get it.

“By accident, I disrupted the other party’s plan, so the other party needs to get this paper from me or directly create an extraordinary event to let this paper fall into the hands of the Pingyi Company.”

Bai Yu’s brain was rapidly thinking of several other possibilities and countermeasures as he spoke to his friend..