Chapter 217 New Pit
April 7th, Tuesday.
On the first working day after the Qingming holiday, Han Jieli, leaning on a cane, slowly made his way into the headquarters building of the Western Supervision District.
“Chief Han, you’re out of the hospital so soon!”
“Hey, Han Jieli, lucky you!”
Along the way, young male and female officers eagerly greeted him, showing great enthusiasm for Han Jieli, who had been absent for a month.
“When did you come back? Why didn’t you rest a bit longer in the capital?”
At the corridor entrance, Han Jieli ran into Commander Wang Hongjun, who smiled and looked him over, gently patting Han Jieli on the shoulder, with a very friendly expression: “I’ll give you another half a month of leave. Don’t feel pressured to show up. I have a meeting now, we’ll talk later.”
Han Jieli smiled and watched Wang Hongjun walk away, then slowly made his way to the intelligence office floor, glancing at a closed door deep in the corridor, letting out a soft sigh.
It was said that Han Quan had finally woken up, but as feared, his brain was severely injured. He was not only completely paralyzed but also had lost most of his ability to communicate, and even his cognitive abilities might have been affected.
Director Li of the intelligence office had been promoted to Chief of Staff for the Western Supervision District, having been elevated in the heat of the moment. His excellent performance during the recent aerial strike operation made him quite popular.
However, the continuous incidents involving himself and Zhen Guangquan had created a very negative atmosphere within the Western Supervision District, causing the morale from that significant victory to plummet again.
Continuing on to a confidential meeting room where he often stayed, Han Jieli pushed aside his distractions, opened his laptop, connected to the internal secure network, and accessed the server of the General Intelligence Bureau at headquarters.
“I’m not asking you to forget to eat and sleep. You just got the cast off, you can rest for another half a month.”
On the screen, Ye Zhijun looked somewhat haggard, evidently having encountered some trouble.
“Director Ye, what happened?”
Han Jieli pondered for a moment, then quickly stood up to check the access control of the confidential meeting room before sitting back down and lowering his voice to speak to the screen.
“In the Southern Supervision District, your uncle Commander Han launched a encirclement operation last night, and the secretly reinforced Blood Dragon Squad special forces also participated… they clashed hard with the Liang family’s rebels, suffering significant losses.”
“The opponents used the Frankenstein serum again. The speed battalion was severely damaged, with over twenty officers and soldiers killed in action, and the squad leader of the Blood Dragon Squad supporting the operation was also seriously injured.”
“If it weren’t for killing a Baron of the Black Blood Clan, Old Han would have a tough time explaining this.”
Ye Zhijun gritted his teeth, looking somber: “It has been confirmed that many Black Blood Clan members from Southeast Asia have infiltrated and joined the Liang family! The Southwest has stabilized somewhat, but the southern issue is very serious.”
“The Frankenstein serum is an intractable problem. It’s no wonder the Wang family has been hesitant; they can’t afford to exhaust their resources like this.”
Both ends of the video fell into a brief silence.
“Without strict organizational management, a weapon like the Frankenstein serum cannot be easily deployed on a large scale, especially with the Black Blood Clan being so loosely organized. However, the major old-world blood families, including the Engel family, are all denying any connection.”
Ye Zhijun pointed at Han Jieli on screen with his pen, implying: “Little Han, the old chief has already intervened. The connections and cooperation between Dark Arrow and the Wang family must be re-established. I’ll notify you about the real meeting time. For now, don’t act rashly. Keep a low profile and focus on your recovery.”
“Understood, I’ll recuperate.”
Han Jieli quickly nodded with a smile.
“What do you understand!”
Ye Zhijun’s tone became harsher, “Are you secretly in contact with the Fearless Warriors? The Strategic Support Center has recordings. Are you trying to contact him about something you shouldn’t be discussing?”
Hmm, clever of you to know to use a new third-party phone. Are you afraid I’m monitoring you?
At this point, Ye Zhijun made a table-slapping gesture: “Han Jieli, I remind you not to interfere with the seed’s mission. You’re merely a facilitator and information bridge!”
I’m protecting the seed’s safety. Han Jieli sat up straight, his expression serious, “Before the mole within headquarters is identified, I’m worried the seed’s operational information could be exposed.”
Exposed? Have you already informed him about the mole? Won’t that interfere with his independent judgment? He was applying to review the lists of all missing personnel due to blood invasions from Dark Arrow over the past twenty years last night. You’re not aware?
Ye Zhijun realized something and started to look somewhat uneasy.
Meng Gewen has a new investigative direction, has he found clues regarding the three pieces of information he requested? Han Jieli was stunned for a moment, seeming somewhat surprised.
Don’t get distracted… Your last application to review the intelligence data from the former Su security agencies was rejected. It’s unavoidable; that’s top secret, and your level isn’t sufficient, even if you’re just a straw man now!
As Ye Zhijun spoke, he held up a work document in his hand, waving it in front of the camera.
Director Ye, the Wang family might know more than the former Su security agencies. If I could gather more information from the Wang family, wouldn’t that violate confidentiality protocols?
Ye Zhijun was stunned, shaking his head in self-mockery: If you can extract information from the Wang family, that’s quite an accomplishment! However, if the Wang family really knows anything, can you be sure what they tell you is the truth?
Han Jieli chuckled: “That’s still better than being completely in the dark. They sacrificed so many lives to counter the Japanese blood clan; if there are indeed secrets still kept, it only means the Wang family doesn’t genuinely trust Dark Arrow.”
The secret of the Ancestral Plan has an irresistible allure for ordinary people. I even believe the Wang family had long anticipated that Dark Arrow would one day have a mole, which is why they’ve been holding back.
Han Jieli’s voice was soft, but it struck Ye Zhijun like a hammer, leaving him momentarily dazed.
You’re not only bold but also quite incisive… Fine, the relationship between the first generation of old chiefs and the Wang family is quite complex; just be careful.
The secure communication ended, and Han Jieli stood up with a smile, checking the time, feeling it was about time to visit Wang Hongjun’s office.
In West G Province, W City, suburban area, a certain rural guesthouse near Xizhuangpan.
Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian had been waiting here for over a week. After teaming up with Zhuang Jianfei and others to ambush the Wang family last time, the two had maintained a low-key hidden status, even reducing contact with their own subordinates to a minimum.
Now, whether in Dark Arrow’s task list or on the Wang family’s hit list, both of them were among the most urgent targets. If it weren’t for still relying on Zhuang Jianfei to complete the final turnaround, they would have likely fled the country by now.
“Old Three, the risk in two G provinces has gotten too high. Dark Arrow’s monitoring and inspections are several levels above what they used to be. It’s difficult to even enter small towns if you don’t disguise yourself, let alone big cities.”
In the secluded guesthouse courtyard, Zhu Bixian sat at a mahjong table, frowning tightly, constantly fiddling with the mahjong tiles in his hand.
Disguised as a burly man, Cao Kuang had been gulping down beer, looking restless and even noticeably impatient: “I know, stop harping on it! Damn it, I thought it would be tough only in S Province; I didn’t expect Dark Arrow to be even crazier in the two G provinces!”
I heard the other day, Dark Arrow ambushed a member of the Liang family that was coming out; both sides ended up in a crazy fight, and many people died. Old Zhu, if that surnamed Zhuang doesn’t come in three days, we might have to make a run for it!
Zhu Bixian tossed the mahjong tiles aside with a scoff: “I’ve said for a long time that following someone with the surname Zhuang is too risky. The benefits he gives are many, but which of those matters are we risking our lives for…”
Just then, there was a knock at the courtyard door, accompanied by a heavy, chaotic aura.
“Boss Cao, Boss Zhu, Elder Zhuang has arrived…”
The door opened a crack, and Lin Guangtou, a baron hastily matured with a breakthrough drug, appeared, lowering his voice to report.
“Say what you have to say, why are you sneaking around?”
Cao Kuang threw the empty beer bottle he was holding out of irritation.
“Wait…” Zhu Bixian slowly stood up, pulling out his gun, his face serious, “Old Three, something feels off…”
The door opened fully, and Lin Guangtou submissively stood to the side, while Zhuang Jianfei, dressed in formal attire with a strange smile, slowly walked in, carrying a small leather suitcase, taking interest in the guesthouse courtyard around him.
“Lin Kun, what are you afraid of?”
Cao Kuang gave Zhuang Jianfei a sidelong glance without greeting him, instead staring intensely at his subordinate Lin Guangtou.
Lin Guangtou’s demeanor was clearly disordered, as if some psychological barrier had been broken, which made both Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian feel something was off, especially since they couldn’t see any of Cao Kuang’s other subordinates.
Lin Guangtou quickly lowered his head: “Boss, it’s nothing. I just ran into a patrol vehicle from Dark Arrow on the national highway outside…”
“Where are the others? Why haven’t they returned?”
Cao Kuang felt increasingly that something was strange about his subordinates today.
“They’re all on alert outside, and then they encountered Elder Zhuang…”
Lin Guangtou glanced at Zhuang Jianfei, shrinking back and backing out the door.
“Cao San Brother, Zhu Er Brother, there have been too many matters these past few days, causing a delay.”
Zhuang Jianfei went directly to sit beside Cao Kuang, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, “I came today to formally introduce you to a significant person, the new leader of the Black Dragon Society.”
Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian exchanged glances. The former began evaluating the surroundings while the latter clenched his gun, maintaining high vigilance.
“Didn’t we agree to wait until after resolving Feng Jiulong to discuss this? Why is this happening suddenly today? Also, why are my and Old Three’s men missing?”
Zhu Bixian couldn’t sense the presence of his subordinates guarding the perimeter, growing increasingly uneasy, even feeling an urge to flee the scene.
“Ha ha, once you meet him, you’ll understand.”
Zhuang Jianfei grabbed a bottle of beer from the table, smilingly pointing behind Cao Kuang.
A chill ran down both Cao and Zhu’s spines, and almost subconsciously, they broke through the chaos, igniting their boiling blood.
Suddenly, a strange yet familiar aura enveloped the entire guesthouse courtyard, bringing with it an extreme chill and cruelty.
Cao Kuang followed Zhuang Jianfei’s gaze and slowly turned around, abruptly realizing that in the corner of the guesthouse courtyard, a middle-aged man around fifty, dressed like a migrant worker, was comfortably lounging on a wicker chair.
The familiar body shape and facial features, except looking more than ten years younger than remembered, were unmistakably Qian Guilong, who had successfully ascended from dormancy.
“You bastard Zhuang, you tricked us!”
Cao Kuang practically leaped up, quickly drawing his gun to aim at Zhuang Jianfei while also keeping a close eye on the suddenly appeared Qian Guilong, his face revealing visible fear and anger.
Zhu Bixian also took several steps back, his expression fluctuating, silently staring at the familiar middle-aged man.
“Save your energy. The direction you’re aiming at is likely misguided. Zhuang Jianfei is Baron Yaping; if he intends to do anything to us, you won’t even perceive it.”
From the very start, he was deceiving our senses, helping that lord come in.
Zhu Bixian calmed down instead and took a slight step back, then took a deep breath, lowering his head towards the slowly walking migrant worker, speaking in a very calm tone: “Grandmaster, Lord Qian, it’s been ten years since we last met; you’ve finally successfully ascended to Baron.”
Cao Kuang began to tremble all over, turning to flee the courtyard, but the instant he moved, he found three more familiar boiling blood auras surrounding him, all belonging to his subordinate barons.
Yet at this moment, there was no longer any sign of compliance or flattery from these boiling blood auras, but rather a mix of complex emotions and hostility.
“You traitorous bastards…”
Cao Kuang looked despairingly at the three baron subordinates, including Lin Guangtou, all standing behind Qian Guilong, their heads bowed and silent.
It was clear that in the face of absolute power, the elite subordinates whom Cao Kuang had long regarded as loyal had abandoned him the moment Qian Guilong appeared.
The Black Blood Clan knows no loyalty; they only possess extreme self-serving interests.
Cao Kuang trembled, slowly kneeling on the ground, pale-faced, stammering: “Lord… Grandmaster, are you here to settle accounts with me and Zhu Er today?”
Qian Guilong remained silent, wearing a strange smile as he walked over to sit next to Zhuang Jianfei, then took out a long pipe and leisurely started smoking, embodying the mannerisms of a rural elder.
“Elder Zhuang, Grandmaster, you’ve gone to great lengths just to stage this? We little people just trying to make a living don’t warrant such effort, do we?”
Zhu Bixian gritted his teeth and finally sighed, lowering his gun and sinking down despondently.
It was almost a deadlock; knowledge of the betrayal by the three Black Dragon Society barons combined with the duo of Baron Zhuang Jianfei from Yaping and Baron Qian Guilong from Iberia left Zhu Bixian aware that he and Cao Kuang had virtually no chance of success.
“No, as we discussed before, the new Black Dragon Society will be rebuilt in West G Province, and then both the yao and the provinces will become your territory. The Hermit Alliance will withdraw from these two provinces, as agreed.”
“Lord Qian will naturally take up the position of Grandmaster, and the second master of the Liang family will become Vice Grandmaster. According to our commitment, both of you will also become the new Vice Grandmasters of the Black Dragon Society.”
“This is the reward for the achievements of your two older brothers, with growth and breakthrough drugs included. Our cooperation offers vast prospects, doesn’t it?”
As he spoke, Zhuang Jianfei placed the small leather suitcase on the table and lightly patted it.
Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian both paused, looking at the leisurely smoking Qian Guilong, completely baffled as to what this script was about.
The scene fell into silence; no one said a word, and one could hear a pin drop.
“Why don’t you thank Elder Zhuang quickly… with these good things, you must improve your team. Tsk tsk, your wings aren’t quite stiff yet, why are you always trying to take my place?”
A few minutes later, Qian Guilong tapped the pipe, as if reproaching his inept children, and gave a soft snort toward Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian.
“Grandmaster, you hold no grudges; from now on, Zhu Bixian and I will continue to follow your lead in making our way through the world…”
Zhu Bixian was the first to stand up, nearly bowing at ninety degrees, exuding an attitude of utmost respect while Cao Kuang bowed his head, trembling and completely afraid to look at Qian Guilong.
“Hmm, good, Zhu Er, before I fell into dormancy, you had just recently become a baron. It’s been ten years, and you’ve surprisingly become a viscount. Tsk tsk, you must have taken quite a bit of medicine; you know the old saying, ‘All medicine is poison; if you take too much, your flesh will get tough…’”
Qian Guilong walked up to Zhu Bixian, hands clasped behind his back, sniffing at the other and shaking his head repeatedly, looking quite regretful.
Another wave of goosebumps crept up Zhu Bixian’s back, and he quickly lowered his head, not daring to respond.
“Cao Sanwa, aren’t you going to learn from Zhu Er and express some loyalty to me? Look, the disciples inside and outside the Black Dragon Society are all saying how you’ve bullied your brothers in the past few years…”
Qian Guilong strolled over to Cao Kuang, placing a hand on his head, speaking earnestly.
With a thud, Cao Kuang fell to his knees, scared to tears, and could only bang his head repeatedly on the ground.
“Lord Qian, I won’t disturb your family matters; however, this time down south, we have two important tasks to accomplish.”
Zhuang Jianfei flicked away his cigarette, patted nonexistent dust off his suit, and stood up smiling.
“Hmm… charity begins at home, so let’s hear it.”
Qian Guilong suddenly lifted Cao Kuang, who was kneeling in front of him, and tossed him behind him.
“First, kill Feng Jiulong. Second, dig a pit for Dark Arrow, eliminating the elites of the Blood Dragon Squad! We’ll discuss the details later.”
Finishing, Zhuang Jianfei walked toward the gate of the guesthouse, not looking back.
“I’m already a baron, so it’ll take a long time to settle down; I won’t make it difficult for you. Here, you two drink this.”
In the courtyard, only the members of the Black Dragon Society remained. Qian Guilong sighed, pulling out two small glass bottles filled with blood from his pocket.
This made even the usually composed Zhu Bixian’s body go limp, collapsing to the ground, while Cao Kuang’s face turned to utter despair.
Zhu Bixian understood that those two bottles contained the blood taken from Qian Guilong when he broke through the boiling blood threshold. Any blood clan member who ingested this blood would completely become a pawn controlled by the other party’s life and death, incapable of reversing their fate.
This blood from the Iberian baron had a peculiar stench and was profoundly detested by all blood clan members other than the Iberians.
Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian knew that once they ingested this blood from Qian Guilong, they would create an irreversible dependency, unable to consume any other blood, or doing so would mean self-destructing their cultivation, even leading to terrible blood dissolution syndrome.
Blood slaves, the Iberian baron forces others into permanent subservience using the irreversible dependency of his unique blood.
However, activating the blood slave ability requires one to break through the boiling blood threshold, and extracting blood in this state is a high-risk process for the Iberian baron. Even a slight instability in the boiling blood could reduce their lifespan and irreversibly lower their boiling blood threshold.
In other words, unless there’s a necessity to control the other, the Iberian baron typically seldom uses the blood slave ability to avoid harming himself.
But conversely, becoming a blood slave to the Iberian baron isn’t entirely negative; at least moving forward, one’s growth rate would speed up thanks to the other’s blood.
“Drink up; it’ll expire in twenty-four hours. From now on, you’ll be my true nephews, and I won’t treat you unfairly.”
Qian Guilong grinned broadly, walking around the courtyard, observing the scenery.
“After all, keeping a life is leaving it up to whom to serve…”
Zhu Bixian regained his composure, forced a bitter smile, picked up the blood bottle from the table, uncorked it, enduring the incredibly foul odor, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes, he downed it.
Minutes later, both Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian were clutching their stomachs, rolling on the ground in pain. The former even began to foam at the mouth, convulsing all over.
And the three baron underlings of Cao Kuang stood behind Qian Guilong, gazing at the distressed Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian with expressions filled with bleak sympathy, each of them quaking in fear.
“Tsk tsk, not only did you act against your sworn brothers, but you also dared to cause trouble against the Blood Dragon Squad of Dark Arrow. Tsk tsk, Chu Dali, you’re quite the ambitious one…”
Sitting in the rocking chair, Qian Guilong puffed on the pipe, his eyes squinting into slits, not even glancing at Cao Kuang and Zhu Bixian.
