Chapter 40: Evergreen Dragons.

Qin Qianyu delivered all the goods and put them all into seperate lockers throughout the station.

She also left them all a note stating that until the delivery of purchases can be rectified, all orders from this city would be suspended.

Qin Qianyu boarded the train again and head home. On the journey home, she received several messages stating they have collected their goods and to also tell her their conjecture on who could be behind the thefts.

All of them said the same thing, The Evergreen Dragons.

Qin Qianyu hadn't heard of them before, so she decided to do some follow up research and find out the truth regarding her stolen products.

Qin Qianyu made it home and went straight to bed.

In the morning she followed her normal routine and then headed to the studio.

She was semi excited as grandpa Wú had told her he would take her to the firing range.

She gave Saan his morning cuddles before starting her own personal training. She started off with hand to hand and form training before moving on to several weapons.

She decided to train in two weapons every second day starting this day to not only help build muscle memory, but, to keep her training fresh.

On the off days she would train her other arts such as apothecary and her needle work.

"Fantastic! You're on form today. Come let's have breakfast."

Grandpa Wú handed Qin Qianyu a damp towel to wipe her sweat before the pair along with Bai Saan sat down to enjoy their meal.

After washing up, Qin Qianyu and Grandpa Wú headed off to an area outside of the city. Skin they arrived at a stadium sized arena.

"Fired up?"

Qin Qianyu mumbled as she read the sign at the entranceway. Grandpa Wú told that it was the name of the range. She rolled her eyes at him. She realised that much.

Grandpa Wú said nothing and led her inside to fill in a few forms and to register.

"If you're frightened at any time we can leave so don't push yourself okay.

Qin Qianyu nodded her answer. She knew and truly understood the implications of firearms and what they were capable of, but she wasn't apprehensive towards it all though.

Grandpa Wú led Qin Qianyu to an indoor and covered section of the firing range that was designated for hand guns.

The pair continued on. They found their stall where an employee of the range was waiting for them. After introductions were done, the trio engaged in idle chitchat for a while due to the area being reset.

Qin Qianyu and Grandpa Wú learnt that this instructor was once a career soldier, he only left after being injured during selections for the four winds task force.

He was aiming for a spot in Azure Dragon Team but because he had a run in with a certain someone, his dream ended there.

He was actually shot by this person but they claimed it to be an accidental discharge but he knew better, they were too determined to gain a spot in ADT.

Hearing the story from the instructor, she couldn't help but think of the handsome wolf as she knew he was the commander of ADT.

She started wondering about the incident that caused the instructor to have to retire from his career.

"I wonder if the shooter got in? Is t it a bad thing if they did?"

Once the range cleared and the siren went off it meant that Qin Qianyu could now get down to business.

The instructor started detailing the 5 different handguns that he had brought out and Qin Qianyu absorbed the information like a new sponge.

After that Grandpa Wú produced a case, inside housed dual handguns.

The instructor was new to this, many of the gun enthusiasts bought guns from their collection to the range.

"Grandpa Wú, what's this?"

"A pair of Steinbrenner's, these are a 9mm handguns."

Grandpa Wú introduced the handgun and gave a brief history about it.

After that he gave a safety lecture for that particular weapon then allowed Qin Qianyu to handle it on her own.

Qin Qianyu assumed the posture Grandpa Wú had taught her and following the explanation on firing she did so accordingly.

Qin Qianyu fired off a single shot first just to feel the force and reaction she should expect when firing off more rounds thereafter.

Several people were a little disappointed that the recoil didn't force the gun to kick back and hit her in the face. There was a running gag at this particular firing range, members would often bet on when a female came to the range. 9 times out of 10 the recoil from the weapons here, especially the handguns caused many bleeding noses of those women. However, it didn't happen this time.

"Hmm, her posturing and handling strength are both very excellent,"

"Mhm, did you notice how she test fired a single shot first then readjusted her stance for the following shots.

Qin Qianyu followed the safety procedures and handed the gun back. She gave Grandpa Wú feedback then went on to test fire all of the handguns that the instructor had shown.

Suddenly a commotion rang out not far from Qin Qianyu. She looked over in that direction and was a little surprised at what she saw,

"Shenlong beauty!"

The person Qin Qianyu saw was Lieutenant Zhang Qingmei. The one very same one from Shenlong base.

Then something else caught her eye, she saw the instructor that had been with them the entire day stagger as he clenched his hand tightly as he balled them into fist.

"Wait! . . Could it be that the person that had intentionally shot Instructor Mu was the beauty of Shenlong?"

Seeing Instructor Mu's reaction she knew in her heart that it was probably true.

Instructor Mu excused himself and headed off in another direction.

People started to discuss what had actually transpired that caused the ruckus.

From the conversation, Qin Qianyu was able to extrapolate that Lieutenant Zhang Qingmei was here because her grandfather had set her up on a blind date in the guise of teaching a friend's grandchild how to shoot.

She just didn't think that grandchild to be in his 30s and would be such an irritating playboy.

The date seemed to have been a little handsy to which Zhang Qingmei found offence so she dislocated his shoulder before taking out a knee.

Qin Qianyu recalled that the feeling she got when she first met Zhang Qingmei. The woman, seemed to only have eyes for the handsome wolf.

This was probably why she acted out like she did. It seemed like the guy couldn't take the hint that she wasn't interested in him now, or would be in the future.

Her heart and mind was already set in stone for another and nothing could or would break that stone.

Qin Qianyu and Grandpa Wú paid no mind to the ruckus Zhang Qingmei was making, or rather her blind date was making as he lay on the ground wallowing in pain and regret.

The pair went about the day test firing several firearms so that Qin Qianyu could get familiar and accustomed to their weight, size, recoil and so on.

Their session came to an end and were being walked out by their instructor.

Qin Qianyu watched as he swung his right leg wide as he walked. She noticed that it couldn't bend at the knee and the only pivot point was at the hip.

"Would you try for ADT again if your injury was ever fully healed?"

"No, I wouldn't,"

"Oh? How come?"

"Well, as sad as it is to say, In our country, it's extremely difficult for those of us that have disabilities to find any form of employment, all the bullying, discrimination and prejudice, all of that, is so rampant, yet, these guys here gave me an opportunity to still be human by treating me like a human despite my legs hobble and my body's waddle."

The instructor said with an honest smile. Qin Qianyu nodded and reciprocated his smile with one of her own as she added,

"I can't promise that I'll come often, but when I do, please do take care of me,"

"Heh! I think just after this session alone you can already take over from me and work as a senior instructor."

"Tsk! Look at you,"

Grandpa Wú chimed in angrily, he only did so because he felt his position as Qin Qianyu's master being threatened.

Both Qin Qianyu and the instructor were confused, only because they didn't know his true thoughts.

Qin Qianyu and Grandpa Wú left Fired Up and after showing Grandpa Wú home, Qin Qianyu went to the library to study for a few hours before heading home herself.

Over the following few days, Qin Qianyu had her routine set. She would then in between her daily trainings go to the library to study or research the Evergreen Dragons.

After Qin Qianyu had gotten a fairly decent idea of the Evergreen Dragons she set in motion a plan.

Qin Qianyu sent another package with a bunch of pills to Evergreen city, but there wasn't just pills inside. With a few items she had bought from Neon alley, she made a tracker and attached it to the bottom of the jar the pills were in.

Qin Qianyu boarded the train and an hour later she was leaving Evergreen station and made her towards the industrial district using her shadowless steps.

From there she snuck into a building and stuck to the shadows. She soon came to where the signal inside the jar was the strongest.

It was inside a makeshift lab, with a quick scan, Qin Qianyu quickly found her other products.

"Seems these guys are trying to figure out the recipe for these pills. To bad for them though. Just because you have the ingredients doesn't mean the process would automatically follow."

There were several workers in the lab all of them going about their own work.

One was doing spectral analysis on a batch of pills, another was cataloging certain findings and a third was conducting tests with several samples.

"Man! I can't make heads or tales out of these readings. It's like the people you made this used a method of processing that defies logic,"

"Huh!?"

"Look! The reading shows that there's traces of silver, but then this shows that there's no silver at all! Then there's this!"

The middle aged technician handed over a printout. It was a pictograph mixture of all the catalogued elements found inside the 5 forms pill.

What confused them was that fact that none of the elements present in the pill were in conflict with each other as they should be normally.

"Is it the machine!?"

"I thought so too, I had spent all day yesterday and the day before doing the recalibration on it. I tested it, and found no problems! It's these pills I tell you."

" . . . "

"Well, how is complaining solving the problem? You fools realise that if we don't show them any kind of progress no one will be sweeping our graves this time next year, you two do know what that means right!?"

The third lab tech announced, the other two went quiet.

"No one will come because no one would no we died! We won't even know how we died!"

The silence was deafening for those men. It didn't last long as one became frustrated and started to complain again,

"Gong Mi, you said that this would be an easy job with a large payout! But, this is anything but! Now I'm being told that if we can't deliver on what the bosses want then I have to die!? . . Shouldn't you have told me this first!?"

Qin Qianyu listened on not paying any mind to the dilemma the men were facing, there was no way that they didn't know what they were getting themselves into given their skill sets and who their employer's are.

"What's the point in blaming me!? We are all in the same boat, we all have to cope with this!"

" . . . "

"Blame is also a coping mechanism,"

Qin Qianyu said to herself as she continued to listen on. Soon she understood what they were trying to do.

The gang had come up with 3 things that they wanted these men to achieve.

The first idea involved creating a reproduction of the 5 form pill that they would market and sell as a form of supplement.

The second idea, was to create a high stimulus party drug from the extrapolated data of the 5 form pill.

And the final one was to make a poisonous version of these to sell to rivals and trouble makers but blame the original creator of and for making them, namely Qin Qianyu herself so as to throw off the heat from any other gang or powerful entity such as prosecutors and police then she would be used as the sacrificial lamb and scapegoat.

Qin Qianyu smirked,

"Heh! First you rob me then you want to stiff me too? I should bring Bai Saan out for some exercise,"

After listening to the men for some time, a gang member came to collect them.

He was taking them to one of their clubhouses to discuss what they've done to date with one of the bosses.

Qin Qianyu collected her product when the men all left then she followed them and they went into the CBD towards the entertainment district. She watched alas they all entered into a night club.

This club belonged to the Evergreen Dragons, they had taken it over from another raising gang in this province.

Qin Qianyu recalled the information she had gathered about the Evergreen Dragons.

They started off small and like all small gangs they grew as their influence grew. They even became bolder because they grew so big in such a small time.

This of course caused internal troubles, many in the gang became dissatisfied and so, funds being the main motivation, followed closely by woman, for all their bickering and such.

Because of all this, the heads employed the hierarchical system. When this came into play it quickly fixed what they needed the most, stability.

The founding members of the gang all came from the same village and now each of them control a portion of the gang each.