Chapter 176: The Middleman, Invasive Species (5k)

In Yu State, Zhuge Wanjun was on vacation at home. She needed to settle down for a while, lay low and keep quiet for some time.

She hadn’t gone to the scene in Duanzhou, but thanks to her wide connections, she did know a bit of inside info. She knew a Flying Zombie from Fuyu Mountain had suddenly appeared, bringing along two Deformed Corpses and eight Hundred Battle Black-haired Zombies.

Honestly, don’t be fooled by how small that group is. Just a dozen or so Great Zombies—if they launched a surprise attack and directly took out the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department’s headquarters, it wouldn’t be all that hard.

In and out in fifteen minutes flat, without giving Tuoba Martial God any chance to make a move.

Of course, normally, anyone with that kind of power wouldn’t actually do it; it means eternal pursuit and enmity—run to the Cape of the Sea and you’d still be hunted down and killed.

At least Zhuge Wanjun knew, apart from that overwhelmingly powerful Tuoba Martial God, the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department didn’t have anyone else that strong to show.

That Fake Mo Zhicheng died without suspense. She didn’t know exactly how he’d died, didn’t know a lot of details, but there was one detail Zhuge Wanjun did know: when they killed Fake Mo Zhicheng, the Flying Zombie never even got involved.

The Flying Zombie was just there to make a statement, then the matter was settled.

This was the part Zhuge Wanjun found really frightening.

Besides, she’d heard others talk about this in the past, and hearing it over and over, she’d felt that Fuyu Mountain falling so low meant they were pretty much finished.

But the moment they acted, they sent out a Flying Zombie to lead. There was no way the sect back home didn’t still have some real power protecting it, right?

It’s not like all their strongest people would leave together, abandoning only the old, fragile, sick, and weak, right?

The saying’s true—"A skinny camel is still bigger than a horse." Not to mention, this camel isn’t even skinny yet.

She was still thinking about when to take a trip to Virtue City when her phone rang.

She checked and saw it was Wen Yan’s private number, so she answered in a second.

"Mr. Wen, you’re finally willing to give me a call! I’ve been waiting for days."

"Ah, go ahead, ask me anything. There’s nothing inappropriate, you’re my top-priority client, I have to look after your interests first."

"Let me think... yeah, there was something like that. Hold on, let me check."

Zhuge Wanjun frowned, took out a battered laptop with the SIM card yanked out, and searched all the cases she’d handled or been involved in.

But after searching for a while, she couldn’t find any case that matched.

She thought for a bit, then looked through another folder and kept talking on the phone.

"I really haven’t worked on any case like this personally. If I had, I definitely would’ve remembered."

"But what you mentioned, it’s a standard non-disclosure agreement. Now I remember."

"When I’d just started as a lawyer, I didn’t know any better, and someone paid a lot to buy lawyer contracts."

"All three were NDAs. Back then, I was really strapped for cash, so I sold three contracts."

"Even at the time, I figured, even if I was onsite and signed the NDA, I wouldn’t know what secrets needed to be kept. I just drafted three contracts following their requirements."

"By my records, I got the feeling over time that all three agreements had been used."

"One of them, the time it was used matches the timeframe you’re talking about."

"The basic content is, as long as both parties do what they agreed to, they both have to keep confidential the content of their conversations and their identities."

"The penalty for breach is..."

"Wait." Wen Yan cut in on the phone. "Aren’t you going into a bit too much detail? Is that allowed?"

Zhuge Wanjun smiled brightly.

"It’s not against the rules because I wasn’t there in person to sign. The downside is, I’m totally out of control here; I have no idea what they used it for. If things go bad, it could come back to bite me."

"Back then I didn’t really get it, made some rookie mistakes, stepped into a pit."

"But I did have some foresight—not showing up for the signing, I just sold the contract."

"The upside is, there’s nothing I have to keep secret about any of this."

"No matter who signed, or who the parties were, none of them are my clients."

"Great, go ahead then."

"Penalty for breach is losing all the benefits you got out of this matter. There’s no explicit definition, so even I don’t know what that means."

"Got it, thanks. Has anyone been bothering you these past few days?"

"Not at all. Only two field agents from the Scorching Sun Department came by and asked a few questions, nothing else. If you need anything, you can always call me, this number’s on twenty-four-seven."

Zhuge Wanjun spoke very politely.

She definitely knew what it meant to be a top-priority mission for the Scorching Sun Department.

It meant that if necessary, she could be locked up for life. That was entirely possible.

Don’t talk nonsense—if it’s a mission with this level of priority, if needed, they’d even go into wartime mode.

And as for this matter, she certainly knew: as long as things took a turn for the worse, all that tender sympathy would be gone. Every trick in the book would be used.

Including but not limited to any means necessary.

The only reason she could still lounge at home in the AC instead of running for her life, wasn’t that she was lucky, nor that she picked the winning side, but simply because Wen Yan hadn’t burned the bridge after crossing it—he actually spoke up for her, so she only had to answer a few questions.

Most people—even Lady Lie—felt that helping someone out and having them speak for you were directly connected, one was the result of the other.

But in fact, she knew best herself—there wasn’t much inevitable causality involved here at all.

Don’t talk about whether you’ve signed a contract; even if you have, just barely meeting the requirements and actually treating this seriously are two totally different things.