Wang Zen walked through the dark alleyways. This was a place where shady people dwelled, awaiting shady business to be conducted. He was surprised when he saw someone familiar talking to a skinny character. Zen waited for them to stop talking then tried to catch up to his teammate.

He walked up beside her. “Funny seeing you here?”

“Wang Zen?” Deng Dandan shouted.

“Geez, try to keep my name a secret while we’re here.” Zen said. “Last thing I need are these shady people knowing who I am.”

“I… sorry but you shouldn’t be surprising me like that!” she said.

“I’m equally surprised that you are here and dealing with Shnippy of all people.”

Dandan slammed Zen against a wall, her forearm trapping him to it and an angry look in her eyes. A killing intent instinctually rose from Zen but he supressed it almost as quickly as it rose.

“What do you know about it?” she said.

He smirked. “I’ve had a few dealings with him. He’s not a very reliable information broker.”

She scoffed and let him off before walking away.

He dusted himself off and followed after her. “You know I could help you?”

She remained quiet.

“I’ve had my fair share of dealings with information brokers. Heck, I’ve been one myself.” Zen said.

“I don’t need any man’s help,” she said.

Zen sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh well, seems like I need a woman’s help. Do you have any idea where the Blue Swallow Barracks are?”

“Ugh, follow me. I’ll show you!”

They walked together through the town.

“I’m surprised you don’t know where the male barracks are.” Dandan sneered. “Are you one of those camping guys, who prefer grass over a soft bed? You been sleeping in the forest?”

“Not exactly,” Zen said. “But seems I’m going to need a place to stay for a while.”

“Whatever, you should have found out where they were when you joined.” Dandan said. “Men are so stupid.”

“Hey, look at that.” Zen said, pointing. “There’s another of our teammates.”

“Captain Lao!” Dandan said. She narrowed her eyes at Zen, “Try not to annoy her.”

He smiled in confusion. “Okay… but the captain likes me. I doubt I could annoy her.”

“You’re a man. All you can do is be annoying.”

“Geez, no mercy.” Zen said, with a grin.

“Captain Lao,” they both said as they approached her.

She turned to them. “Oh, Wang Zen, Deng Dandan. Funny seeing you here.”

“Why did you mention his name first,” Dandan said under her breath.

“What brings you here, Captain?” Zen said. “You got someone to work on your sword, I see.”

Lao looked at the sword she was holding then at Zen. “How did you know that?”

“The hilt, its different from the last time. I’m guessing a new hilt was installed and if I had to guess, you had some work done on the blade and the elemental energy.”

She nodded. “Your knowledge on weapons and attention to detail is impressive, Wang Zen.”

“Well, you do have magnificent weapons.” Zen said.

“I could’ve noticed them too if I wanted,” Dandan said beneath her breath.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Uhm… well… we… we were just…” Dandan searched for a reason.

“What do we have here?”

They all looked towards the voice. It came from an older man with black hair flowing to his shoulder. He wore a Blue Swallow Uniform reserved for high ranking members. Next to him was a Blue Swallow member of high rank but not at Captain.

““Commander Zhe,”” all three members of Team Lao said.

“This is nice, the inferiors recognise you, sir.” The man beside Commander Zhe said.

“Now, now, Captain Geng. Be nice to your juniors and anyways, Captain Lao is your equal.” Zhe said. “Who are these two?”

“These are my teammates.” Lao said. “This is Deng Dandan and this is Wang Zen, new recruits. I am surprised you do not recognise them. You are the one who approved of their application to join our sect and assigned them to my team.”

“I deal with many applicants, I cannot be expected to remember everyone.” Zhe smirked. “And I don’t assign people to teams.”

“So, is this the team you’ll be entering the Blue Swallow Sect Tournament with?”

“Blue Swallow Sect Tournament?” Zen said. “What is that?”

“Oh? The Blue Swallow Sect Tournament is a competition held every 2 years by our sect.” Zhe said. “It is mainly for fun but it is to determine the top squad in our sect by a fighting competition.”

“Really? We never knew about that!” Dandan said.

“That is no surprise,” Zhe said. “I mean, Captain Lao here did put quite a strongly worded request to the Sect elders to get your team disbanded.”

“What?” Dandan said. She looked at Lao with hurt eyes. “Captain? Is this true? You wanted to get rid of us?”

Lao kept quiet and glared at Zhe.

“Well,” Zen said, breaking the building tension. “Seems we still have a lot of proving to do. Our last escort mission was an S-class mission, right?”

“Your point?” Geng sneered.

“I heard our sect is sitting on a S-class escort mission.” Zen said. “We’ll take it.”

“Zen, no!” Lao said. “We are a B-class squad…”

“So? We proved can handle it.”

Zhe smirked. “I like this boy, this…”

“Wang Zen, sir.”

“Wang Zen,” Zhe said. “I’ll see to it that your request is accepted. Captain Lao good luck.”

Zhe and Geng departed.

Zen turned to the two women but they immediately left, without saying a word.

“I guess I’ll have to find the barracks by myself,” he sighed.