Chapter 108: Difficult to Guard Against Inner Thieves
November 26, Tuesday, raining.
At a high-end restaurant in the aviation port high-tech industrial park of S District, City C.
Miss Tian, still elegant and beautiful, sat anxiously in her seat, glancing nervously toward the door. She probably didn’t know why the second young master Zhong, who had not contacted her for months, would suddenly invite her to dinner.
A few months ago, Miss Tian was transferred from the high-end headquarters administrative center to the logistical department at the production base as a business vice president.
Although this job transfer directly elevated her position, increasing her power and benefits significantly, making her the envy of many, Miss Tian felt that she had somehow been affected by some whispers, which led her to distance herself from the more prestigious headquarters.
Could it be that someone was jealous of my close relationship with the second young master Zhong?
Just thinking about the dashing and suave second young master Zhong made Miss Tian’s heart race.
She couldn’t dare to dream of marrying into the Zhong family like a carp leaping over the dragon gate, but even if she could be the other’s lover for a few years, that would at least secure her a life free from financial worries.
After a lunch one time, the second young master Zhong had taken her to a hotel near the headquarters, just when she was shy yet feeling accomplished, but a farcical scene unfolded: the second young master Zhong actually had diarrhea!
Zhong Jing had to make three trips to the bathroom in their room, each time lingering for several minutes. The only outcomes were some ambiguous chatting and keeping certain topics confidential, and in a daze, over half an hour passed.
Every time she thought back on it, she found it both regrettable and absurd.
“Sorry, Miss Tian, the rain has caused some traffic congestion on the road.”
A figure appeared before her, and when Miss Tian turned her head, she saw a familiar, handsome face filled with a charming smile.
“Mr. Zhong, I’ve only been in the company for less than two years. Please don’t call me ‘Miss’ or anything, it makes me a bit shy…”
Miss Tian’s face turned red instantly, and she shyly fiddled with the hem of her professional skirt, not daring to look up:
“Can we… change the way we address each other? Can I just call you Zhong Shao?”
“Suit yourself. I’m sincerely sorry, Miss Tian. Last time at the group headquarters, I asked you to provide some unauthorized information retrieval services, which caused you to be transferred here to endure hardship.”
Zhong Jing looked sincerely at her face, his tone filled with genuine remorse: “Had I known, I should have gone directly to my father, so you wouldn’t have left any handles for others to gossip. Once you accumulate some frontline work experience, I’ll mention to my father next year about transferring you back to headquarters.”
I knew it! It must have been those green tea bitches at the administrative center who caused this… Miss Tian’s heart became clear, and she was even more grateful for Zhong Jing’s regard for her.
In fact, if she could climb to a higher position, such as a supervisor at the administrative center, does it really matter if she was Zhong Shao’s lover… Miss Tian began to imagine wildly again.
“The thing is, my father wants me to be involved in some matters related to the investment construction of the joint production line with Jian Yue Pharmaceutical. I’d like to understand the personnel management experience related to production, such as the shift timings and human resources allocation for each department.”
Zhong Jing, holding the menu, casually gestured towards the waiter while explaining the purpose of their lunch meeting.
The dishes were all from the highest grade batch, the atmosphere was warm and inviting, and Zhong Jing continued with his affectionate and considerate remarks without repeating himself. Miss Tian felt very happy, talked a lot, and the so-called understanding without words seemed to hint once more about taking a brief rest nearby…
More than half an hour later, Zhong Jing, having barely touched his food, left the restaurant with a strange smile, preparing to have another meal.
Meanwhile, a certain light golden-haired girl waiting in his car had an empty stomach.
……
At 12:30 AM, the continuous winter rain had not stopped. On the rooftop of a building on the outskirts of the aviation port industrial park, a man and a woman appeared.
Zhong Jing was still in formal attire, but Jiang Yao beside him was dressed in a form-fitting black combat suit, the tightly fitted uniform accentuating her curves, causing him to glance several times.
Jiang Yao knelt on one leg, pulling a long tactical cloak from a black box to wear it, tightening her belt, and putting on a special bulletproof chest protector… As she donned piece after piece of equipment, in no time, an impressive warrior girl appeared before Zhong Jing.
With her hair tied back and a hair tie held in her mouth, she prepared to put her long hair into a bun. Upon lifting her head, she found Zhong Jing staring at her with great interest.
“Why are you staring like a pervert again… This happens every time, isn’t it annoying?”
Jiang Yao blushed as she finished fixing her hair, and finally hung a dagger on the outside of her long legs, mumbling unintelligibly, her cheeks still flushed with embarrassment.
“It’s so dark, and it’s not like I can see clearly. I’m just imagining.”
Zhong Jing touched his nose, turning toward the direction of the group’s production base, still defending himself: “Besides, I have never participated in any of Huaxin’s previous missions, so it’s rare to see you dress like this. Looking at you doesn’t cost me anything…”
Jiang Yao rolled her eyes and jumped up and down a couple of times to loosen her waist and arms, then her expression turned worried: “Zhong Jing, what if I get what we need? What will you do… Your dad will definitely know it’s related to you and might think of other things.”
“Haha, whatever he imagines won’t matter. He wouldn’t call the police on me, right? No matter what foolish thing I do, I can only be on the same level as him.”
Glancing at the watch, still about ten minutes from the action time, Zhong Jing lit a cigarette and leaned against the rooftop railing, passing the last moments.
He thought Hekita Haruka had entered my home, and would he keep burying his head in the sand without telling me the truth about the Zhong family? Maybe just in these years, knowing or not knowing doesn’t make a difference anyway…
The winter night wind was cold, the night sky clear, and a sharp crescent moon hung silently in the sky, with sharp edges that seemed indifferent and demanding. The faint silver light brushed across Zhong Jing’s face, making even the hint of a smile seem sinister, mixed with a touch of loneliness.
The night before last, when Zhong Jing accurately named a certain raw material, his father Zhong Hai’s face, refined over years of cultivation, was filled with panic, followed by uncontrollable fear and anger.
Zhong Jing could already imagine how his father would react upon finding that something was missing from the warehouse.
The scene fell quiet for several minutes, and it was only when Zhong Jing dropped his cigarette butt that Jiang Yao hesitantly spoke: “Zhong Jing… the pharmaceutical raw material you mentioned, something like R what what, is it… made from the bones of the blood family?”
“What bones?”
The half-literate interruption shattered the conversation.
“Red bone marrow cell extraction agent, abbreviated RMCE, must be kept in a refrigerated environment… I don’t know what it looks like. But it can indeed save lives—there are not only Zheng Laoge and Xiao Dongjie who need it, but many ordinary people with immune disorders, too.”
Looking back at the uneasy expression on the girl’s face, Zhong Jing smiled somewhat stiffly: “Actually, you don’t need to dwell on what it’s made of. The key is that it can save Zheng Laoge. I can only rely on you for this; I’m not familiar with anyone else.”
“Finally, safety comes first. If you can’t get it, give up immediately. Otherwise, Jiang Yao will hold a gun at me.”
Does he trust me that much? Jiang Yao smiled and said nothing more, glanced at her tactical watch, took a deep breath, pulled up her mask, gently waved to Zhong Jing, and vanished.
……
Jiang Yao’s ghost-like figure swiftly leaped forward under the weak night light. The only few-meter-high wall held no barrier meaning in her eyes.
In no time, she found the raw material warehouse’s logistics area at Zhong Pharmaceutical Group’s production base. After comparing the map, she spotted a large building made of thick steel and concrete, almost over five stories tall, standing out from the surrounding structures.
The timing was precise—at 1:15 AM, a security guard with a flashlight slowly walked by, simply making a round before leisurely moving away.
Following the pipeline straight up to the roof, she easily located the warehouse skylight, unfastened the rope at her waist, and secured it. Jiang Yao’s delicate body floated into the pitch-black warehouse like a butterfly.
With just a few meters left to the ground, Jiang Yao let go and let herself fall, landing in a crouched position, her body remaining still. She then closed her eyes and began to change her night vision capabilities at a microscopic level.
Compared to ordinary people who can perceive light wavelengths up to 800nm at most, higher-level blood families already have strong night vision capabilities. Knights can even see infrared light exceeding 900nm easily through microscopic transformation in their retinas.
When she opened her eyes again, the dark world had undergone amazing changes, but what she saw before her made Jiang Yao’s lips twitch.
“Zhong Jing’s dad made such a fuss out of it… This isn’t a warehouse, it’s a prison!”
Zhong Jing had specifically instructed her beforehand about the infrared laser alarm system present in the warehouse, but the sight before her still made Jiang Yao laugh and cry at the same time, endlessly complaining.
Thin red beams of light crisscrossed her vision everywhere; while they weren’t densely packed to the point of being unmanageable, they were absurdly ridiculous to Jiang Yao’s eyes.
When she looked up at her surroundings, several infrared cameras were very conspicuous, hanging in several corners of the warehouse walls.
Cautiously navigating around the beams of infrared light, which were laden with malice towards normal people, and avoiding the closest cameras, Jiang Yao finally spotted an enormous object in a corner, resembling a large refrigeration cabinet.
However, this position was absolutely impossible to evade the cameras. If it were seen by the guard monitoring the production base, it wouldn’t take more than five minutes for the night security to arrive.
Taking a deep breath again, Jiang Yao slowly bent down to gather her strength, then launched herself out, rolling over the last beam of infrared light and pressing her body against the side of the refrigeration cabinet. At that moment, her silhouette was already on a certain monitor display.
Quickly pushing open the cabinet’s cover, a plume of dry ice mist erupted, revealing a cylindrical small package. Jiang Yao only glanced at it, then grabbed three and stuffed them into the backpack at her waist, activating her boiling blood and sprinting back towards the point she had entered the warehouse, not caring about the infrared laser alarm anymore.
The shrill alarm rang out echoing inside and outside the warehouse. Jiang Yao leapt through the air, grabbing the rope, gliding up like a nimble cat, and then jumped down from the warehouse a dozen meters high, her body vanishing into the darkness as she rolled upon landing.
Everything went very smoothly; if she could run another two hundred meters, she could scale the outer wall and blend into the dense greenery outside the industrial park. A slight smile of triumph appeared at the corner of Jiang Yao’s mouth beneath her mask.
Suddenly, a strange wave of pheromones approached from the lateral front and was rushing over with great speed.
Already activated with low-intensity boiling blood, Jiang Yao was startled and instinctively drew her dagger from the side of her thigh, then swiftly turned her body to try to change direction and gain distance from the approaching figure.
A tall shadow revealed itself in front of her, dressed in a security uniform with a mask on his face, also running rapidly to block her.
It was an unfamiliar blood family knight, seemingly of mid-level? What the hell, there’s actually a hidden identity blood family security guard in Zhong Pharmaceutical Group!?
The distance was closing quickly, the increasingly clear pheromone presence and the overall attire made Jiang Yao even more astonished.
“Damn it!”
Jiang Yao cursed inwardly, disregarding everything, she charged right in!
Boiling blood, which was initially suppressed at the lowest intensity, suddenly surged. Jiang Yao’s semi-barony aura erupted like a hurricane, creating an invisible shockwave rippling through the night.
Seven or eight meters away, the unfamiliar mid-level knight revealed a horrified expression in his uncovered eyes.
Jiang Yao made a forceful charge, causing the strange mid-level knight to let out a muffled grunt as his powerful body flew backward, estimating that he wouldn’t be able to land without flying seven or eight meters in the air.
At the moment of landing, Jiang Yao lowered her center of gravity, bouncing off the ground once again, propelling herself toward the body that was still retreating mid-air, her right arm gripping the dagger had already begun to pull back to build up power.
This was Jiang Yao’s signature close-combat press attack strategy—over the past six months, apart from a time when she evenly matched against Jiang Yan during practice, possibly only Zhao Peng could reluctantly withstand her attacks, supposedly tried and true, seldom encountering anyone able to match.
From the moment Jiang Yao initiated her assault to now, only a few seconds had passed.
Seven meters, six meters, five meters…
Suddenly, the unfamiliar mid-level knight, still flying backward in mid-air, flashed a cold smile, revealing a silenced handgun.
In the muted “pff” sound, the bullets fired from the silenced pistol directly blocked Jiang Yao’s advance.
In the rapid transition of offense and defense, the strange mid-level knight fired seven rounds, hitting Jiang Yao with consecutive shots to her chest, shoulder, and abdomen—such a terrifying hit rate indicated that this person’s practical shooting skills were extremely high, and their mental fortitude was exceptional.
Apart from the two bullets that hit her chest which were mitigated by the special protective armor and didn’t cause much harm, Jiang Yao felt intense pain in her left shoulder and abdominal area, as if a burning red steel nail were forcibly drilling into her body.
The ultra-luxurious silver bullets, more extravagant than silver-plated ones, directly penetrated Jiang Yao’s tactical cloak and the black tactical gear underneath, filling the air with the acrid stench of blood as charred, black blood mist sprayed out from the wounds.
Jiang Yao gritted her teeth, quickly using the method Zhao Peng had taught her to control her muscle tissues, tightly locking the silver bullet that had begun to carbuncle and necrotize.
The boiling blood continued unabated; Jiang Yao, enduring the excruciating pain and the pervasive intense heat enveloping her body, crashed into the unfamiliar mid-level knight once more, forcing him into the nearby greenery.
Covering her wound, Jiang Yao no longer rushed forward but executed a roll into the other side of the greenery, swiftly drawing the silenced pistol from her outer thigh, quickly loading it.
“Hey lady, we’re both here for profits—share a bit with me, and I’ll leave… you’re half a baron, I’m not your opponent, but you have several silver bullets in your body. If you keep boiling blood, you won’t have a good time either…”
From about ten meters away in the greenery, the voice of the strange mid-level knight was low, carrying a hoarse wheezing, indicating he was likely suffering from at least a rib fracture that damaged his lung, also seriously injured.
“What lady!? Get lost! Dream on!”
Enduring the sharp pain in her shoulder and abdomen, Jiang Yao, filled with inexplicable anger, continuously squeezed the trigger toward the direction of the voice, releasing all her bullets like a venting machine.
In the distance behind her, the sound of a patrol vehicle echoed, along with several beams of flashlight light, but there was no movement in the greenery on the other side.
The bullets seemed all to miss, and Jiang Yao felt no effective pheromone presence waves. It appeared the opponent had also injected a complete set of blood family drugs to conceal themselves, successfully escaping her effective sensory range after disengaging from boiling blood.
Clearly, this mysterious person was fiercely skilled and extremely professional in combat, posing a greater threat than any blood family knight Jiang Yao had encountered.
Replacing her magazine, Jiang Yao leaned exhaustedly against a small bush, expelling her boiling blood and gasping for air.
“He’s clearly just a mid-level knight, but his reflexes and skills are so impressive… Is he also sneaking in to steal the drugs?”
The carbonized wounds were no longer bleeding, saving her time to clean up the scene. Shaking her trembling hands, Jiang Yao pulled out an injector from her waist, jabbed it into her thigh, and, propping herself up, moved towards the distant wall.
A minute later, a tragic wail echoed from the greenery not far from the warehouse.
“Hey, someone help me!”
Several beams of flashlight swept in, revealing a night security guard clutching his chest, wailing in pain, his expression exaggerated.
“Hey, weren’t you patrolling in the south zone? Why are you here? You usually act so tough; couldn’t you stop that girl?”
“I couldn’t see a thing—out of nowhere, I just took a hit… It hurts, hurts, don’t touch my chest, I think my ribs are broken…”
In the chaotic dialogue, the injured guard was supported by two others, slowly making his way out. As he turned back, he glanced into the dark depths behind, a grave expression on his face.
“Strange, doesn’t seem like a black blood family; could it be someone from the Wang family? Doesn’t quite seem like that either… Quite clever, never revealing their true identity…”
Muttering things only he could hear, the injured guard, with exaggerated grimaces, was carried into the rest area by other security personnel, waiting for the arrival of the ambulance.
