Confrontation

Liu Zhian was not surprised to hear this. Their church had already expanded to thousands of followers in just two days.

Even if the Ningcheng inspectors were incredibly slow to react, they should have noticed something was off by now.

Liu Zhian's expression remained calm. “Since they're here, let them investigate. Also, make sure to quickly move the bodies we collected earlier out of here.”

“Understood!” Liu Ziping's voice came through the phone.

Hanging up the phone, he looked at Liu Qi, who had a trace of blood on his clothes.

Having also heard the conversation, Liu Qi glanced at his sledgehammer and suddenly gave a crazed grin. “Brother Zhian, should we just kill these inspectors?”

“No, now is not the time to act. The authorities have their eyes on us. If we do that, the garrison outside will storm the place in less than half an hour.” Liu Zhian adjusted his flashy red suit.

He then gestured into the distance, and several people wearing red cult robes immediately rushed over.

They tossed the bodies on the ground into the car Liu Qi had driven, while others brought out brooms to clean up the blood and flesh stuck to the pavement.

Liu Zhian took an umbrella from inside the door, opened it, and walked over to Liu Qi's side. “Change your clothes and put on your colored contacts. Let's go welcome our arriving officers.”

“Alright!” Liu Qi followed him back into the church.

He reached up to pick his nose, dug out a booger, and flicked his finger forward.

A sudden gust of wind blew, and the booger landed right on Liu Zhian's left cheek.

Liu Zhian froze in his tracks. He reached up to touch his face, and upon seeing what it was, he turned to glare at Liu Qi.

Liu Qi, however, looked away as if he had absolutely nothing to do with it.

A few kilometers away, on the street.

A convoy of law enforcement vehicles sped past. The pedestrians on both sides of the street had already grown numb to such sights.

Inside one of the middle vehicles, Wang Pingcheng's expression was grave. “Where are the inspectors from the other branches?”

“Chief, based on their speed, they should arrive at around the same time as us!” a middle-aged woman in the front passenger seat replied.

Hearing her reply, Wang Pingcheng leaned back against his seat and stared out at the heavy rain.

After his video conference with Zhang Yi, the latter had told him about the Church of the Earth Mother, which was highly likely to be that person's next move.

Zhang Yi had instructed him to immediately gather all available inspectors and launch a raid. After all, the Church of the Earth Mother had a massive number of followers, so they had to tread carefully.

A few minutes later, the convoy, sirens blaring, arrived outside the Church of the Earth Mother.

Law enforcement vehicles also appeared from the other three directions around the church. There were so many of them that it seemed as though almost the entire Ningcheng Inspector Bureau had mobilized.

The sound of car doors opening and closing echoed in rapid succession. At the main entrance of the Church of the Earth Mother, a large number of inspectors got out of their vehicles.

Having deployed in such a rush, they hadn't even brought raincoats.

“Go in and secure the scene!” Wang Pingcheng barked as he stepped out of his car, ignoring the pouring rain.

Instantly, over a hundred tactical inspectors armed with rifles rushed into the church courtyard, with Wang Pingcheng following closely behind.

Seeing the church doors tightly shut, he was just about to order his men to ram them open when...

The doors slowly swung open, and Wang Pingcheng peered inside.

He could see hundreds of cultists dressed in red robes sitting on the pews, holding books in their hands and chanting.

“Everything in the world is born of the Earth Mother. The reason all living things exist upon the earth is due to the Earth Mother's benevolence...”

A synchronized, eerie chanting drifted out as the doors opened.

These cultists did not react at all to the inspectors appearing behind them. This abnormal behavior caused Wang Pingcheng's heart to sink.

As his gaze drifted past the cultists and landed on the stone face of the Earth Mother hanging on the wall, an eerie sensation washed over him. This feeling... there is definitely something wrong here!

“Who is in charge here? Step forward!” an inspector standing at the entrance shouted.

The moment he spoke, the cultists who had been reading their scriptures turned in unison to stare at him.

Stared down by hundreds of cold eyes, even the inspector couldn't help but take a step back, his expression faltering slightly.

Among the cultists, a young man with a buzz cut wearing a cult robe stood up.

A haughty look sat on his face. “My dear little inspector, I wonder what business you have with our leader. After all, our leader is a very busy man and doesn't have time to talk to a nobody like you who only makes a few thousand dollars a month.”

“If he's a nobody, then does your leader have time to speak with me, the Chief!” a commanding voice boomed from behind.

Wang Pingcheng walked in with long, grim strides, his eyes locked onto the young man with the '69' tattoo on his face.

Seeing this, Liu Qi wasn't intimidated in the slightest by the Chief's presence.

He stepped out from the pews with a maniacal grin. Suddenly, he threw his hands up in the air and cried out dramatically, “Whoa! It's Chief Wang of Ningcheng himself! Should our entire church kowtow to you right now?!”

Seeing his behavior, the tactical captain who had followed him in immediately flared up in anger. “Who do you think you are, talking to us like that!”

He quickly stepped forward and slapped Liu Qi across the face. Liu Qi didn't even try to dodge, and his right cheek immediately flushed red from the blow.

Still unsatisfied, the captain grabbed Liu Qi by the collar with one hand and reached for his handcuffs with the other, preparing to restrain him.

However, this action instantly provoked the surrounding cultists, and they all stood up.

“What do you inspectors think you're doing? Why are you attacking our church members?!”

“Don't think you can do whatever you want just because you have guns!”

“Let him go!”

Angry shouts erupted from the crowd as the cultists glared at them in outrage.

The tactical captain was taken aback by this reaction. Looking at the crowd of cultists, he couldn't help but shout back, “What are you doing? What are you doing? Are you trying to start a rebellion?!”

The inspectors at the entrance tensed up, raising their rifles to aim at the cultists.

Just as the tension reached a boiling point, a mocking voice echoed. “Captain, why must you label us like that the moment you walk in? We are merely a group of ordinary believers. How could we possibly rebel?”

Wang Pingcheng looked toward the source of the voice and saw a young man wearing a red suit. His hair was slicked back, with three small braids tied at the back of his head.

The moment he saw Liu Zhian, Wang Pingcheng's brow furrowed. Why is he here? Has the Liu family also gotten involved?

As the only son of the main lineage of the Liu family's patriarch, Liu Zhian was someone Wang Pingcheng naturally recognized.

With a faint smile on his face, Liu Zhian walked over to Liu Qi's side.

He looked at the handcuffs in the tactical captain's hand, his smile vanishing as his voice turned cold. “Officer, my little brother doesn't seem to have committed any crime, so why are you handcuffing him? Do you think my Liu family has no influence in the government?”

The tactical captain turned his head, looking at Wang Pingcheng with a conflicted expression.

A colossus like the Liu family in Ningcheng was not someone a mere captain like him could afford to offend.

Wang Pingcheng stepped forward and stared at Liu Zhian. “So, this Church of the Earth Mother was set up by your Liu family? Where is Liu Jiyun? Tell him to come out!”

“Chief Wang, this church was started by us brothers. What, do you want to collect protection money? Just name your price and I'll give it to you!” Liu Qi sneered, rubbing his red cheek.

The moment the words left his mouth, Wang Pingcheng suddenly slapped him across the face again. “You don't have the right to speak here. If you interrupt again, I'll have you detained immediately!”

Liu Zhian hadn't expected Wang Pingcheng to suddenly strike someone like this.

He quickly reached out to hold back Liu Qi, who looked ready to murder someone. “Go wait in the back.”

Clenching his fists tightly, Liu Qi suddenly burst into laughter—a rather manic laugh. “Fine, fine, fine! I don't have the right!”

In his mind, he had already sentenced Wang Pingcheng to death. So what if he was the Chief? In the end, he was nothing but an ordinary human.