Chapter 441

“Why your tsifu stay so far out?” Yao Jing complained as the group were caught in traffic. It was not too bad, nothing like the multi-hour traffic jams that had been around even a few decades ago. Public transport options had reduced the number of people on the road along with the simple fact that there were few enough reasons to travel. 

No one was going to office jobs in the city, working from eight to seven on the regular. Sure, there were people doing deliveries and traveling for food and saying, no one, was a little bit dramatic. There were still jobs - it was just significantly lower. And, with the advent of better made electric cars and the ease at swapping out the engines and the simplification of the cores - along with the lightening of body structures - it had grown quite cheap to have such vehicles.

All of which meant that while traffic grown lighter, it was still present. At least the stink and smell of burning gasoline was much reduced. There were still combustion engine cars running around, most often in the mini-scooters and the ultra-expensive vehicles owned by the rich; but they were no longer the majority and the numbers kept dropping, day by day.

"Subang isn't that bad," Arthur said. "I normally take the MRT anyway." Gesturing to the fast rail line that ran not far from the highway that they were on. The train itself was a little old, the money needed it upgrade it had been siphoned off as usual; but it still ran and was relatively safe. Thirty plus years old by now, but it still got you down the city in twenty minutes.

"Of course you do,” Jan said. “Anyone with sense does.”

“Always busy, always smelly, always late,” Yao Jing complained.

“Rich man,” Arthur replied.

“My rich man,” Jan pointed out.

“Not that rich, but my family had some money saved and the bakery is still running…”

“Bakery?” Arthur said, surprised. “What kind?”

“Normal lah. Chinese and some other breads.”

“You’ll need to bring some, some day.”

“Sure, sure.”

Jan, bored with the discussion, reached over to the side and flipped the radio on. Taking the hint, Arthur fell silent, content to run things through his mind as he weighed the options available, glancing at his phone once in a while as messages arrived one after the other.

Most of it, unimportant. The usual slew of advertising, mailing lists junk and, of course, the sudden appearance of ‘friends’ who had begun to learn of his return from the Tower. He marked most of those to be dealt with later, highlighting a couple from women he had once been intimate with and who he recalled as rather cute.

He probably wouldn’t do anything about it, he wasn’t that dumb.

Probably.

“This it, boss?” Yao Jing asked, as the car slowed down, breaking Arthur out of his reveries. He looked around at familiar surroundings, grimaced at the lack of parking.

“Find parking where you can, will you? It’s the building up there.” Arthur gestured to the large rectangular warehouse ahead of them. “It was on the second floor.”

“Got it. Jan…?”

“I’ll follow him.”

Sliding out of the car and making his way to the concrete building, Arthur frowned as something twigged in him, something that was different. He kept looking around till he realised what it was.

 “Door’s closed.” He walked up to the sealed security door that had always been there, but had never been closed at all. A turn of his head went to the wire intercom and, after a moments hesitation, he stabbed it.

“Wei?” An unfamiliar voice answered.

“This is Arthur here.”

“Password?”

“What the hell?” Arthur said. “What password?”

“Good try.” Then the intercom silenced itself with a blurp.

Arthur frowned, pulled on the door. Growled softly under his breath and punched the intercom button again.

“Go away! You’re not coming in. Only guests are allowed.”

Arthur leaned over and poked the intercom again when he heard it cut-off once more, a little growl echoing through his chest. This time around, no one answered so Arthur leaned over and kept his finger depressed.

Jan, not far away, just watched with a little smirk on her lips. It took about a half minute before he could hear the clatter of feet coming down the stairs. A lot of feet. Jan eyes widened, stepping away as she reached behind her back and extracted a pair of smaller pen-like objects from her back pocket, snapping her hands down to extract the asps.

“Cool, but we’re not fighting my juniors,” Arthur said.

“Sounds like they’re going to try to fight you.”

It certainly did sound that way, with the raised voices and shouts and the words of anger echoing over and over again as the group rushed down. He noted the first to come, a kid no older than fifteen. Another seventeen year old, long and lean and obviously not done growing with the thinness of his body just behind. At the back, though were two other, familiar faces.

“Quinn! Luke!” Arthur cried out as he stepped back from the kid who threw the door open, a stick brandished in one hand, ready to strike out. In fact…

Arthur slipped to the side as the stick swung, caught the kid’s arm with his own and then stripped the weapon from him before shoving the boy back into the building. He took a step forward, jamming his foot in the way as he frowned.

“What the hell? What are you people learning, hitting people first?” he snapped.

“Arthur!” Luke, the hefty twenty year old plumber who trained here because it gave him a place to hang out that wasn’t with the gangs and his alcoholic father cried, pulling the kid back. “You’re back!”

“And not a moment too soon, from the looks of it.”