No men found them. And the sun seemed to have risen earlier than usual. Or it could just be an illusion from the fact that her Marloria waited for sunrise on the regur. This time, however, whehiled and they woke from their slightly unfortable slumber, they caught the first ray of an early sun just in time.

  “Let’s - let’s head bad tact our friends.” Marcus checked his phohere were a number of missed calls, some voicemails and a number of text messages from Kevin. There were plenty to talk about, especially about st night, yet this was not the time.

  “Yes. I agree.” Gloria averted her eyes as she straightened her clothes, closed her eyes to get a sense of her own Qi. She shook her head with a wry smile: “Do you have somewhere you want to go? And - we’d better be careful.”

  “Chef Tang’s.” Marcus answered after thinking for a moment: “Let’s go together. There’s something I would like you to know as well.”

  “Oh? What is that?”

  “The group of hehey caught, the group I fought at the docks area, they should still be in his custody.” Marcus took a deep breath as he pushed his Qi to course through his body, also as a means to che his own physical state: “I think - with what we heard from the Lady in White, we have just enough to trade. ”

  Gloria stared at Marcus’ face for a short moment, then chuckled: “Well, I sure hope so.”

  “You’re not happy with the answers?” Marcus turo Gloria.

  “I am.” Gloria shook her head: “I’m just not happy with the amount ah of answers we got. Why do all of these people in the know have to be so stingy with information?”

  Marcus thought for a moment, while taking in the feedback from his meridians, his muscles and even his bones and tendons. If he had to measure by quantity, he had recovered more than half of his total Qi reserves. He scratched his jaosed his theory: “Maybe - maybe because information and intelligence is just like Qiyun - it’s not something to dull out willy-nilly?”

  “Hmm.” Gloria hen snapped her fingers at Marcus: “That’s a good theory. It makes sense - ‘The will of the heavens shall not be revealed lightly’ they say - the reason fortuellers never live very long?”

  “I’m afraid so. We ask the chef about this. I mean - I still have to colle the token, for delivering him that many hen from the dark circles.” Marodded and straightened his jacket. It sure felt good sensing the presence of strong and turbulent Qi in his meridians, it gave him more fidence should they e across those mehey left this pce. The reason behind this strange, almost mysterious recovery was still unclear. He just did not have the mind to dive into it right now. “And - I’m not sure what your pn is after this, but if we share our intel and - and ee dots, we could have a breakthrough - ”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Gloria smiled and took a look at the window, no pursuio be seen: “Let’s get going, the workers might e to work, and we don’t want civilians around - ”

  “Uood. Let me go first. ” Marcus k down by the panel and started lifting it up bit by bit, in an attempt to not make any noise or attract attention from anyone. When the panel was lifted by around half a finger length, he lowered his body to s through the entire room below - no one was in the room, nor any ns of : “Okay, we’re clear. No one’s down there, looks safe.”

  “Hey, before we get into the ‘run for our lives’ mode again.” Gloria took a deep breath: “Just - just to be clear, Marcus - Detective, or - I don’t know. But you don’t o be - be this extra protective. Please don’t feel obligated to because of, you know, st night. ”

  Meeting Gloria’s nervous gaze, Marcus chuckled: “Yeah, but I want to. I ’t get to the bottom of this without you - not if you’re harmed in any way.”

  “Well, okay, then.” Gloria nodded, smiling: “Let’s go. Just be careful, they might still be waiting for us out there.”

  “Of course.” Marcus lifted the panel and dropped himself down. With his Qi recharged, it was quite easy to cushion his fall with a roll to avoid making any loud noises. He got to the door, and Gloria followed. “There must be a pce where they store the extra uniforms and hard hats right?”

  “Good thinking.” Gloria nodded: “There should be ae room along this walkway. Let’s check there.”