Chapter 60: Meeting

The traffic is bustling on the road.

The night silently descends.

Hoang Tuan took off his glasses, put down the comic book in his hand, and rubbed his tired, swollen eyes.

The comic book was placed on the table.

He lay flat on the small wooden bed.

"Why is the print quality of this comic so bad? Even the pirated ones are not this blurry by just looking at the pictures."

He murmured to himself.

The comic book on the table, except for the clear cover, had a messy content inside, as if it was jumbled up.

Even if he loved manga, he couldn't deny that the content inside was difficult to read.

"What's wrong with this? Go find the owner and get a refund!"

"Even if I can't get a refund, I should at least exchange it for another one..."

Hoang Tuan got up from the bed, glanced at the dimly lit street outside, picked up his shoes beside the bed, and stuffed the comic book into his hands.

On the table.

When he picked up the comic book, he noticed the dark blue bag there, but he didn't think much about it. He just assumed that his mom had left the bag there unused in his room. He didn't like to tidy up and had no obsessive-compulsive disorder about cleanliness. Now it was in his room. Whatever...

After his mom took the little girl out, she hadn't come back yet.

Hoang Lan was still sitting on the sofa, watching a boring romantic movie on TV with her cousin.

They occasionally exchanged a few words.

For example, praising the appearance of a male lead in a certain movie as "smart" in the real world at this time.

Their father wasn't home.

The absence of both parents was exactly what he wanted.

Now he didn't need to come up with excuses to go out anymore.

"Brother, go out for a while. If mom comes back, tell her I went to read books at the library."

Hoang Tuan walked to the door and said to Hoang Lan.

Hoang Lan looked at her brother with a strange expression.

"Is it not allowed?"

Hoang Tuan asked.

"Brother, do you think your reason sounds reasonable... Besides, the library is closed now, where are you going to read?"

Hoang Lan reluctantly replied.

Hoang Tuan paused for a moment; it seemed that his little sister was right.

He used a casual excuse.

"Then, just say I'm going down to the entertainment area."

He added this sentence.

Before Hoang Lan could say anything else, Hoang Tuan opened the door and walked out.

His mother could come back at any time.

As long as he was quick and lucky enough, maybe his mother would not be back yet when he returned.

Not far from this building on the left side, there was an entertainment area with some simple exercise equipment initially used for the elderly to entertain and exercise.

But due to the simple construction, they weren't attractive enough compared to chess tables or small stone benches for chatting, so very few people played with them.

Accordingly, time passed.

Most of the equipment had rusted and even broken without anyone repairing it.

Only a few iron columns remained there to do push-ups.

On the night breeze of October, feeling quite cold, Hoang Tuan wrapped his coat tightly and hurriedly walked through the entertainment area, heading towards the comic book store not far from the school.

Car horns were honking continuously.

On the narrow road, there were quite a lot of traffic jams, as if all the cars were lined up, and the end couldn't be seen.

He passed by a store playing popular songs of recent years on the speaker.

After nearly fifteen minutes, Hoang Tuan finally reached the comic book store.

"Boss?"

The store was still open.

Because this store was a small shop converted from a family's house, and their room was behind the store.

Therefore, even during the National Day holiday, this small shop would not be closed...

Hoang Tuan walked into the store with the comic book in his hand and called the boss inside.

Shortly after, the boss pulled the curtain behind the door and came out with a bowl of braised pork rice.

"What do you want to buy?"

The boss looked at Hoang Tuan and asked.

"Boss, look at the comic book you sold me a few days ago. The image quality is a bit blurry, and I can't read anything clearly. Can you exchange it for me?"

Hoang Tuan earned money by helping his classmates copy homework, so he often came to this store to buy comic books, and he knew the boss a little.

As he spoke, he handed the book in his hand to the other person to take a look.

"Blurry?"

The boss was a bit puzzled.

He put down the chopsticks in his hand, flipped through a couple of pages of the comic, and said, "No problem, you can see it clearly."

"Are all the pirated copies printed like this?"

The boss had no reservations about selling pirated copies.

He also knew that Hoang Tuan was well aware that this was a pirated copy.

Nowadays, the prices of genuine comics were getting higher and higher. As a small shop selling miscellaneous items near the school, the boss knew that he couldn't sell many of the genuine ones. On the contrary, these pirated ones were more appealing to students.

"No, this one is really different from before. Did you change your supplier?"

Hoang Tuan looked at the comic book in his hand.

He really couldn't accept the blurry images in his sight.

He felt that it was completely different from the one he bought before.

"There's no difference. I got them from the same place as before."

The boss closed the comic book and genuinely didn't feel anything different.

"Or you can exchange it for another one. I can't really see it clearly. As long as you exchange it for any volume that matches this one, it's fine," Hoang Tuan said.

"Okay, wait a moment."

The boss put the comic book on the shelf and started searching from the other side, preparing to get some other volumes for Hoang Tuan.

These ones had no packaging.

Even if they had been read, it didn't matter.

As long as they weren't torn and hadn't been soaked in water, the boss generally would exchange them for any volume.

Anyway, they were just a few thousand dong each.

But...

While Hoang Tuan was waiting for the exchange, a man in a suit walked into the store.

Hoang Tuan heard footsteps behind him and instinctively turned around to look.

It didn't matter if he didn't look, but when he saw the man, he took a step back in fear...

He saw that the man in the suit was covered in blood, and there were many bloodstains on his lips. He picked up the money on the table and said to the shopkeeper.

"Boss, get me a pack of tissues."

"Ten thousand dong for one pack."

He said as he seemed to notice Hoang Tuan's gaze...

He frowned and looked at Hoang Tuan.

"What are you looking at?"