"What took you so long?"
A whole two hours. It was a bit longer than Wang Jian had anticipated.
Xu Qian and Cai Qiong were sitting in the living room watching TV, eating waterlon and cracking sunflower seeds.
The mont Wang Jian returned, Xu Qian’s first question was, "Did you check everything?"
"Yes." Wang Jian nodded, not elaborating. He didn’t dare look at Xu Qian for too long and went straight to the sofa, where he picked up a slice of waterlon and started chewing.
"I was asking if you went to both Xiao Yu’s house and Liping’s house. Why just a ’yes’?"
Hearing this, Wang Jian finished a bite of waterlon, then intentionally turned his head to look directly at her. "Of course I did," he said matter-of-factly. "I was just being very thorough with my inspection, which is why it took so long."
"Hmm?" Xu Qian’s intuition told her that sothing was off about Wang Jian. But she couldn’t find any holes in his story, and he seed perfectly normal. So, Xu Qian fell silent, deciding not to press the issue, though she ntally filed away her suspicion.
Beside them, Cai Qiong chuckled. "That slice has a lot of seeds. You’re spitting them everywhere."
Wang Jian looked down and, sure enough, saw several waterlon seeds scattered on the floor. I was too flustered to pay attention to details like that.
After quickly finishing his slice of waterlon, Wang Jian went back to his room to rest. By the ti he woke up again, it was already dark outside.
While he was sleeping, neither Cai Qiong nor Xu Qian had been idle. Xu Qian was cleaning the house, while Cai Qiong was jotting things down in a small notebook. A laptop sat beside her, playing videos she had recorded with her cara, all of them featuring Wang Jian.
In fact, her cara had fallen on the mountain when she was being chased the day before. If the police hadn’t arrived and she hadn’t found it on the road while they were searching for people, all these videos would have been lost. After all, when your life is on the line, videos are the last thing on your mind.
Cai Qiong was now reviewing yesterday’s footage, her attention completely fixated on Wang Jian. Watching his image in the videos, she saw that he had handled everything calmly from start to finish. Such composure was strange to see in a practitioner of Chinese dicine. Moreover, a practitioner of Chinese dicine wouldn’t have Wang Jian’s kind of physical skills. Just from watching these videos, nobody would ever associate him with Chinese dicine. Even if she said he was, people would surely argue, "You clearly don’t understand Chinese dicine. How could a practitioner be like that?"
At this thought, Cai Qiong’s lips involuntarily curled into a smile. She wasn’t actually watching the video anymore; she had paused her note-taking, her analysis of Wang Jian temporarily on hold. Her mind had drifted to the mont when Wang Jian had touched her leg. That guy is no saint! Even though he held back, I’m Cai Qiong. Of course, I could tell he was attracted to my body at that mont. It seems I still have so allure.
Cai Qiong muttered "Hahahaha" to herself, a smile occasionally gracing her lips before she would abruptly cover her face with a shriek and throw herself onto the bed. It was clear she was feeling more bashful than anything, but whatever she was thinking remained her secret.
...
After leaving the Cai Family estate, Feng Yan and his team went directly to the General Hospital. Their sole objective was to start their investigation with Zhao Chunming and Li Shuang to determine Gao Yang’s exact situation.
After confirming that their findings largely matched what Wang Jian and the others had reported, Feng Yan’s team focused their investigation entirely on Gao Yang, placing him under round-the-clock surveillance.
While Wang Jian was sleeping, Feng Yan’s team, disguised as maintenance technicians, had already installed listening devices in Gao Yang’s office. They even posed as telecommunications workers to install equipnt in his ho. If anything happened with Gao Yang, they would know imdiately.
The group rented an apartnt in Gao Yang’s residential complex, in the building adjacent to his, using it as a temporary base of operations. The furniture in the room had been pushed aside, and a complete set of professional equipnt was laid out on the coffee table and sofa.
These devices were the handiwork of Feng Yan’s teammate. Despite his acne-covered face and narrow, single-lidded eyes that gave him a sowhat sleazy appearance at first glance, to Feng Yan, he was a priceless asset.
"Cai Kai, are you getting a signal?" Feng Yan had just returned from installing the last of the equipnt. The first thing he did was pat Cai Kai on the shoulder, lean in, and stare intently at the monitor.
Cai Kai chuckled. "Captain, with on the job, do you even need to ask? All signals are coming through now. We have ten video feeds and four audio signals: one in his lighter, one in his phone, one on his belt, and another in his watch. According to the plan, we also planted a tracker in his car. If we lose the signal, we can pivot and hack into other devices belonging to people around him. Modern smartphones and smartwatches can all be used as listening devices. It just takes a bit of effort to hack them."
Cai Kai spoke with excitent, but Feng Yan didn’t understand any of the technical jargon. His gaze simply swept across the various monitors. Seeing that all the caras he had installed were online, he nodded. "Good work, Cai. When we get back to base, I’ll have the head chef cook a special al for you."
"No way, Captain..." Cai Kai smiled at the ntion of returning to base. "You’ve got to at least treat to a big al out here." With that, he blinked, thinking of their local contact. "Our liaison for this mission, Wang Jian, seems pretty well-off."
As soon as the words were out, Feng Yan slapped him on the back of the head, laughing as he chided, "I know what you’re thinking, but your calculations are off. That young man isn’t so rich kid. If my information is correct, he’s just a practitioner of Chinese dicine."
"A practitioner of Chinese dicine?" Could the information Feng Yan received be wrong? Impossible.
Cai Kai rubbed the back of his head, a puzzled look on his face. Feng Yan saw it and continued to explain, "The place we landed was the Cai Family’s estate, so it was a bit luxurious. This Gu Poison incident is related to the Cai Family, and Wang Jian is the one treating them."
"Whoa!" Cai Kai muttered, "Are practitioners of Chinese dicine really this amazing now? Enough to have connections with our military region?"
This comnt silenced Feng Yan as well. It was sothing he couldn’t figure out either. It wasn’t just Wang Jian; even the Cai Family shouldn’t have any ties to the military. From his investigation, there was nothing particularly special about Wang Jian. He was just an ordinary practitioner of Chinese dicine who had graduated from a dical university. Other than having disappeared for a few months during his university years, nothing about his background was out of the ordinary. Feng Yan was confident in his ability to dig up information on soone; it was an incredibly simple task for him. He had even looked into Wang Jian’s grandparents and found no noteworthy connections.
However, a soldier’s curiosity was unimportant. What mattered was following orders. So, despite being full of questions, Feng Yan didn’t investigate further. Compared to Wang Jian, the matter of the Gu Poison harming people was clearly more critical.
While Feng Yan and Cai Kai were talking, the other two team mbers who had gone out for reconnaissance and tracking returned. They were in plain clothes, their postures lazy and relaxed. If not for the look in their eyes, you would never guess they were soldiers. Even Wang Deqiang, the best fighter on their team, currently had the sa air as a slob from an internet cafe.
Feng Yan looked up at Wang Deqiang. "How’s it looking?"
"The guy didn’t leave any tracks. He went to his company, ssed around with his secretary for a bit, and ca back," Wang Deqiang said, slumping onto the sofa. He pointed at the monitor. "Look at this ugly guy, with that drained expression on his face. He can’t possibly be the one who wields the Gu Poison. There has to be soone else behind him. But I didn’t find him making contact with anyone suspicious today."
After hearing Wang Deqiang’s report, Feng Yan nodded. "Then it seems Wang Jian and the others were right. This Gao Yang is just a puppet. The real target is the poisoner pulling the strings from behind the scenes."
"According to the latest intelligence, sothing like this happened here thirty years ago." Feng Yan produced a stack of files that had been specially delivered to them upon their arrival. "But the incident thirty years ago affected almost everyone. The investigation at the ti concluded that soone had poisoned the groundwater, which is how so many people were hard.
"The Chief said we have to handle this with extre care. We absolutely cannot let it turn into a repeat of thirty years ago.
"If necessary, depending on the situation, the possibility of on-the-spot elimination has not been ruled out."
Hearing this, Wang Deqiang and the other two n exchanged glances. On a dostic mission, orders for on-site execution were almost unheard of. It showed just how seriously the higher-ups were taking this.
Feng Yan took a deep breath. "As you all see, this mission isn’t about serving any single individual. It’s for the citizens of Shanhai City. That’s a population of over ten million people. Even if only one-thousandth of them are at risk, that’s still ten thousand lives.
"Therefore, we must succeed. Failure is not an option. We have to nip this in the bud before the situation deteriorates.
"We’ll work in shifts. Qiangzi and Cai Kai take the first watch. Jia Dong and I will take the second.
"Jia Dong is our sniper. Find so ti today to get the sniper rifle. We can’t rule out the need for it.
"Everyone, stay sharp. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
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