“Oh, oi, my boy, are you here to visit the old man?” asked Zhu Zhang upon seeing Ju De at the door.

Ju De ignored Zhu Zhang’s greeting and scanned his eyes across the apartment. It was a complete mess, very different from how he had left it a year ago.

“Do you know what cleaning is?” asked Ju De.

“I know you’re a psychopath, but I didn’t know OCD is one of your conditions,” Zhu Zhang jabbed as his tongue clicked. “It’s just a little dirt.”

“This isn’t a little dirt,” Ju De pointed at the the flies buzzing around the pile of dishes that had been sitting there for more than three weeks. No wonder his wife abandoned the family and found another husband.

Zhu Zhang waved off Ju De nagging, but his eyes opened wide as soon as he saw Li Yun walking in from behind. “What are you doing here!?” Zhu Zhang cried out as his foot subconsciously stepped back. He suddenly remembered the time Li Yun had stabbed him with a knife. His future son in law may be crazy, but Li Yun wasn't right in the head neither.

“Come on Mr. Zhang, it was a surgical operation,” Li Yun explained after noticing Zhu Zhang's reaction.

At that time, Zhu Zhang had encountered trouble with a rival arms dealer and got shot in the leg. Not wanting treatment at the hospital for a gunshot wound, he hid in his apartment and attempted to patch up his leg. Zhu Ah Nin had discovered him and contacted Ju De, who then contacted Li Yun.

Li Yun had arrived, not knowing anything about the incident. The only sharp objects in the aparment were the paring knives, steak knives and butcher knives. The paring knife was selected to cut an opening and to remove the bullet, and using regular thread to sew up the wound. Zhu Zhang refused to be treated, but Li Yun stabbed him anyway without any anesthesia.

“Your hands were shaking the entire time, I was scared for my life!” Zhu Zhang didn’t know whether he should be grateful or horrified that a 2nd year medical student was operating on him.

“Mr. Zhang, you were my first live patient, of course I was a little nervous,” Li Yun had only operated on cadavers and pig carcasses in class.

Not long after, the cops raided the Zhu Zhang’s gun storage warehouse. It was Zhu Ah Nin who had tipped them off, but she didn’t expect that it was Ju De who helped her father escape and got him an apartment in a small town north of Yide.

“So, what do you kids want?” asked Zhu Zhang.

“Where do your supplier ship the goods from?” Li Yun asked.

“My supplier has a place in the desert,” said Zhu Zhang, easily selling out his supplier's location.

“They routed through the desert?” Li Yun asked. He thought smugglers preferred going by the sea. But if there was secret a underground factory in the desert that produced them, then it made sense.

Arms dealing was a risky business, with penalty ranging from three years to life in prison, even death sentence was feasible. Although the risk was high, it was also lucrative. Dealers attempt to make one large transaction a year that could last them a year or two. Illegal guns were sold for more than 50,000 yuan each.

Between getting shot and dealing with authorities, the type of people who enjoyed the business were gun lovers or thrill seekers. Zhu Zhang was both.

“Are you kids interested in buying?” Asked Zhu Zhang.

“I thought you stopped dealing,” Li Yun remarked.

“Well, I did, but my supplier is still kicking.”

"How many times did you sell them out, why would they still sell it to you?”

“Well, they already know I would sell them out at any minute, they probably already have a new drop off location,” said Zhu Zhang. “You know the arms dealer, money over loyalty.”

“I don’t want guns, I want blueprints,” said Li Yun. He assumed Zhu Zhang must have a blueprint hidden for himself.

Buying guns was dangerous, but getting a hold of blueprints was also difficult in China. It was possible to buy anything related to guns online, but the government had ways to track it down. There were ways to create a gun, especially with new technology available, but creating one that wasn’t going to backfire and cause self-harm was a different matter.

Li Yun didn’t like guns or wanted to make them. It was not as dangerous as nuclear weapons, but more guns on the street meant more opportunity for people who shouldn’t have them to have them. However, getting the blueprints was necessary. It allowed him to have the option to create one if needed. Information was much more important to Li Yun, and there was many information on the web that was being tracked.

“That’s easy for me to do, but what are you planning to do with the blueprints?” asked Zhu Zhang. He didn’t have access to a lot of information, and he wasn’t even aware that Ju De was in charge of Shennong.

“Don’t you have a don’t ask policy?” Li Yun asked.

“Gee, for a doctor, you sure know a lot about the underworld unwritten rules.”

“I saw it in a movie, is there really such a thing?”

"This brat..." Zhu Zhang thought, maybe the less he knew, the better. He turned to look at Ju De. "How's your father?"

"At the capital," Ju De responded.

"He sure moves up quite quickly." Zhu Zhang had worked for the old mayor prior to Ning Long. But once the old mayor lost power, Zhu Zhang had to align himself with a new backer to keep himself out of jail. It was how most underground members survived, by aligning themselves with powerful politicians.

Did every career politician have a secret organization? No, but there was a good chance 90% of them had used their powers for their own benefits. The 10% who were considered good politicians would become corrupted when they realized more work could be done through underhanded means. It wasn’t to say that all politicians were bad, but power easily corrupted people, even people with the best of intentions.

Governor Ning Long was different, he was corrupt even before he took office and was better at covering his tracks than most politicians. His public persona as an outsider of bureaucracy was lauded by the press and netizens. More than 10 years ago, he publicly took down the old mayor in Yide, revealing sordid details of the former mayor's affair with a young married woman and under the table dealings with the banks, and quickly turned him into a local hero. After becoming a mayor, he was often seen at charity events, dressed casually, and socializing with the lower-class citizens.

"How involved is he with the underground network?" Li Yun asked.

"Not too sure. Everyone knew he had eyes in the underworld, but no one knew exactly who they are,” Zhu Zhang responded. “Why are you two suddenly curious about Governor Ning's underground involvement? I thought you two gave up on that."

There was a time they had tried to find evidence on Ning Long's underground dealings, but they also found evidence he had kept on his wife and Ju De. When Ju De was in middle school, Ning Long had sent his wife and Ju De to a therapist for counseling and had kept recordings on what was said during the sessions of Ju De's disorder and his wife's multiple attempts at suicide. It would be easy to discredit Ju De's testimony if he ever stepped out to denounce his father.

"We are dealing with an outside gang that’s expanding close to Yide," said Ju De.

Ju De hadn’t backed down on finding his father’s weakness. He was still far from collecting solid evidence that can bring down Ning Long. With the way social media operate, it was easy for Ning Long to twist facts into lies and lies into facts.