Judging from Simon Moore's behavior after the shooting, he forced John Robinson's men to lay down their weapons, resulting in all four of them being killed by William Clark. Even after that, Simon Moore still took great risks to have his own men discard their firearms. Considering the safety of his goddaughter seems like a very reasonable explanation, but given Simon Moore's calm and experienced nature, his actions don't quite match up. Logan Reed clearly remembered Grace Young's counterattack, which was also extremely risky under those circumstances. What exactly prompted her to do so? Who gave her such great courage?

After the patrol officers arrived, the first to be cleared of suspicion were Simon Moore and Grace Young—the former's status and position spoke for themselves, and Grace Young happened to be one of tonight's victims. Yet Logan Reed realized things weren't so simple if you looked at tonight's assassination from another angle. The person who brought the victim John Robinson to the scene was Simon Moore. After William Clark succeeded in the assassination, he used Grace Young to threaten John Robinson's men into laying down their weapons. If he himself hadn't intervened, would Grace Young's desperate counterattack have ended in failure? And would William Clark have succeeded in taking her hostage and escaping?

"Answer me!" Grace Young's eyes flashed with an unprecedented sharpness.

Logan Reed reached out and picked up the qipao, poking his right index finger through the overlapping hole in the fabric.

To Grace Young, this gesture seemed full of ambiguous suggestion. Her pretty face flushed for no reason, and she snatched the qipao back: "Compensate me!"

Logan Reed said, "Miss Ye, you didn't invite me here just to compensate you for a qipao, did you?"

Grace Young was about to speak when someone walked in from outside, leaned in and whispered something in her ear. After that person left, Grace Young said softly, "I'll take you somewhere."

Logan Reed smiled and said, "In the middle of the night, I'm really not that interested. Why don't you just send me home, Miss Ye?" He yawned as he finished.

Grace Young said, "You'll definitely be interested!"

Logan Reed hadn't expected Grace Young to take him to his own little chapel this time. The chapel was brightly lit. Logan Reed distinctly remembered locking the door before he left. Besides himself, only the old priest, now bedridden, had a key to this small chapel. The blind man, though his best buddy and a frequent visitor, didn't have a key either. Besides, the blind man disliked bright lights—even if he had sneaked in, he wouldn't have turned on all the lights like this.

Logan Reed had already begun speculating in his mind. This must have something to do with Grace Young. Earlier at the Blue Mill, she had him get in the car but left the blind man behind. Her real intention might not have been to talk to him, but to separate the two and deal with them one by one. As they left, he saw in the rearview mirror that Simon Moore's men had surrounded the blind man. It seemed highly likely the blind man had already been subdued. Was it because his own intervention had affected the assassination?

On second thought, that didn't seem right. Although he had shot and wounded William Clark, he hadn't changed the outcome: the Jiangbei warlord John Robinson still died on the spot, and the killer escaped successfully. Even if he noticed suspicious behavior from Simon Moore and Grace Young, he hadn't told anyone, so why would they suspect him? Moreover, the blind man hadn't acted at all during the whole process, so why target both of them? Ruling out this possibility, Logan Reed quickly deduced that the reason he and the blind man had drawn Grace Young's attention was most likely related to the wallet the blind man had stolen.

The chapel's main door was locked from the inside. Grace Young politely knocked on the door. Someone inside peered out through the crack, then opened the door. For the first time, Logan Reed felt like a guest in his own chapel, as if he had suddenly become an outsider.

The small chapel where Logan Reed served was extremely inconspicuous, with a maximum capacity of only fifty people even when full. Because of its small size, simple environment, and the main building being in disrepair for years, after the fall of the Qing dynasty, there was a trend of building grander and more magnificent churches in the French Concession. The foreign priests with blond hair and blue eyes seemed far more persuasive in preaching than the native Chinese. After the old priest became paralyzed, most of the congregation was drawn away to other large churches in the French Concession. Even on grand occasions like Christmas or Easter, the small chapel rarely saw a full house. The young pastor Logan Reed was far less respected than the elderly, white-haired, trembling old priest before him. He wasn't known for his sermons, but rather for mingling with wealthy ladies and socialites. If not for the occasional sound of piano and hymns during services, the French Concession would have almost forgotten the existence of this little chapel.

There were a dozen or so people sitting in the chapel, and a man was hanging from the beam, currently the center of everyone's attention.

As soon as Logan Reed walked in, he recognized that the man hanging was the blind man. Now, the blind man was tightly bound, hanging upside down from the beam, his head more than a meter above the ground. His once plump, pale face had turned purplish-red from prolonged congestion. His small eyes were bloodshot and bulging, making one worry that they might pop out of their sockets at any moment.

Chapter 0007 Soft and Hard Tactics (Part 1)