Right then, Song Xingchen suddenly ran out without saying so much as a word. I followed him out the door and asked, "Where are you going?"

"It’s a trick!" Song Xingchen pointed to the footprints on the stairs and said, "When we first entered the house, the middle-aged man had already left."

Listening to the sound of a car engine starting below, I knew it impossible to chase him.

But I didn't understand what the point of losing the pawn to keep the rook was^[1]? The man’s motive was clearly to protect the four young masters so this wasn’t losing the pawn to keep the rook but the other way around.

Could there be some sort of conspiracy?

When I returned to the flat, Xiaotao was reprimanding the men and women, ordering them to obediently squat down by the bed. Having smoked quite a few and already on a high, their movements were rather clumsy. The oldest...