Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“A business trip? Then call him or text him, or video chat with him. How is it possible that you can’t get in contact with him?” Ma Qiqi’s eyes were open wide. She couldn’t believe what Yin Shixiong had just said. “Big Xiong, now is the era of the internet. How is it that we can’t get in touch with him?! Don’t tell me that he went to a desolate place on a business trip!”
Yin Shixiong smiled bitterly and raked his hands through his hair. He stopped explaining and said, “You don’t understand. Okay, we have arrived at your dormitory.” The female graduate students’ dormitory was just ahead. Yin Shixiong stopped the car.
Ma Qiqi didn’t really get it. However, she did know Huo Shao and Yin Shixiong were soldiers. Maybe they had difficulties that they were reluctant to discuss… She stopped inquiring. She quickly jumped out of the car and said, “Then Big Xiong, you should help Nianzhi. Bring her back soon!”
Yin Shixiong nodded. “Don’t worry, Qiqi, we will try our best.” He started the car the moment he finished talking, and then he drove off.
Ma Qiqi stood in front of the dormitory’s front desk and watched Yin Shixiong’s Jeep drive away until it was out of sight before going back to her dormitory.
…
Yin Shixiong sped down the road. His mind was playing the video he just saw over and over again. The more he thought about it, the more scared he got. The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t sit still. No, he must tell Huo Shao about this.
Yin Shixiong looked at the situation from a different angle. In the end, he came up with an idea. He turned the wheel and drove toward the military headquarters. At the time, it was already almost midnight. Most of the people at the military headquarters were already asleep.
Yin Shixiong drove all the way to General Ji’s door. As he got out of his car, he said to the guards, “Could you get General Ji for me, please? Just tell him Yin Shixiong is back. I need to ask for his advice concerning something important.”
The guards looked at him. One of them picked up the intercom. He called General Ji’s personal secretary to confirm that General Ji hadn’t gone to sleep. Only then was the call transferred there.
“Sir, there is a man claiming to be Lieutenant Colonel Yin Shixiong at the gate. He said he needs to ask you about something very important.”
General Ji was in the study. He took off his glasses. He rubbed his eyes and said, “Let him in.”
General Ji’s personal secretary took Yin Shixiong to the study.
“Hello, sir.”
“Take a seat.” General Ji nodded as he casually pointed to a soft stool in front of his desk.
With great manners, Yin Shixiong sat down on the chair. He had a stern expression as he said, “General Ji, Deputy Chief just called me back while I was abroad. I now understand what is going on. However, there is something that I want to confirm with General Ji.”
General Ji looked at his personal secretary. That person understood and turned and left. He even kindly closed the study’s door.
“Talk. What is it?” General Ji put on his glasses and looked at the documents in front of him again. He was showing an obvious expression that said he didn’t want to talk much.
When Yin Shixiong saw General Ji’s attitude, he knew he was going to have a hard time convincing General Ji, but when he thought of Gu Nianzhi and Huo Shao, he braced himself and said, “General Ji, this is an important issue. Not only did something happen to our field agents, but Gu Nianzhi was also…”
General Ji looked up from the documents with a deadpan expression.
The corner of Yin Shixiong’s mouth twitched, but he bravely continued and said, “Something this big has happened, but Deputy Chief told me that I can’t inform Huo Shao. I just want to confirm it. We really can’t inform Huo Shao?”
“Yes, you can’t. I said that.” General Ji said coldly, “Since you already know it, I will also warn you. If you dare tell Shaoheng about this before he returns, I will not go easy on you. Court martial was designed for people like you who feign compliance!”
Yin Shixiong’s heart jumped. He didn’t understand why General Ji said it in such a serious way… Feign compliance? It was almost as if he was saying they disobeyed orders. Of course, Yin Shixiong would not have it, so he stubbornly replied, “General Ji, I don’t understand. We never did anything that ‘feigned compliance.’”
“Hehe, never?” General Ji threw the document down and leaned against his chair. “You can say that you never did, but can you guarantee that others never did?!”
Yin Shixiong was speechless. Okay, It was true that he was not sure about the others, but he believed in Huo Shao, believed that he would never do anything that would hurt the country or the army. “General Ji…”
“Shut up!” General Ji suddenly became angry. He stood up from behind the desk and pointed at Yin Shixiong’s nose and asked him, “You said you didn’t. Then let me ask you, did you know about Gu Nianzhi not being Gu Xiangwen’s biological daughter?”
Yin Shixiong’s eyes suddenly widened. He was thoroughly shocked. “What?! Not his biological daughter?! Where, where, where…where did you hear this from?!”
Even Yin Shixiong didn’t know about it… and he was Huo Shaoheng’s personal secretary! He sure kept a tight lid on it! General Ji groaned to himself.
“Big Xiong, this is not professional of you. Your boss knows, but you don’t.” He clicked his tongue and continued, “Think about how it became the way it did, and then you can come back here to argue about whether Shaoheng should be informed.” General Ji waved his hand. “Leave. It’s really late, and I need to sleep.”
Yin Shixiong walked out of General Ji’s house and got into his car like he was sleepwalking. Then he started his car as if he were in a trance. He drove back to the Special Operation Forces’ Headquarters in that kind of mental state. Luckily, he did so without causing any accidents.
Back at the station, he went to the meeting room without thinking. He came back to his senses when he saw the meeting room was full of people. He nodded at everyone. “I have kept you waiting.”
All the people in the meeting room expressed that it was not a problem. They waited for him to start talking. Yin Shixiong took the water bottle on the desk, turned the cap, and drank half of the bottle. Only then did he start to talk to the people in the meeting room. “I went to see the vice president. After that, I went to see General Ji. That’s why it took so long.”
Everyone expressed that they understood. They didn’t look like they resented waiting. Yin Shixiong nodded once again and said, “First, we will handle the situation with the two missing field agents. I authorize you to dispatch someone to investigate everything concerning what happened. I want all the information concerning the situation before ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
From the strategic decision-making process to picking field agents and confirming the field agents’ location, as well as the last time the two field agents contacted them, all of that had to be in the report.
“Yes, sir.” Yin Shixiong’s men took the assignment, left the meeting room immediately, and started making preparations.
Yin Shixiong sat in the meeting room alone. He was exhausted. He covered his face with his hands and sat there silently for a moment before going back to his room to sleep.
…
Gu Nianzhi had been treating her wound at the blond woman’s place for two days. During these past two days, she had been putting medicine on the arm and had changed the bandage all by herself. It was a good thing that the wound was on her left arm. That way, bandaging it didn’t require much of an effort.
Actually, her wound was already healed by the second day. However, she didn’t want these people to know about her strange body, so Gu Nianzhi continued to pretend she needed to change her bandage and needed to put more medicine on it. She let her left arm hang and acted like someone who was severely wounded.
However, she felt that just taking care of her wound alone was too depressing. She needed something else to do. She found the lady boss and borrowed her laptop. She decided to kill some time by browsing online. The lady boss was very generous, letting her borrow the laptop. Gu Nianzhi spent most of her time on the laptop during the past two days, as she had nothing better to do.
In the beginning, she would often search about things related to Li Haiqing’s case. Who knew how much news and detailed case analysis she had looked at? There was nothing new to see. She searched the browser again. She wanted to see some “old news,” but when Gu Nianzhi was browsing for “old news,” she found something strange. She discovered that the search engine there couldn’t find all the news there was.
She searched for old news concerning Li Haiqing’s case. At first, she just wanted to have all the news related to this case starting from the beginning until now. After that, she would compile a list based on the timeline and see what kind of link there was between the news and the case. The result of her search was that Gu Nianzhi clearly realized that half of the news she had seen before was not there anymore. She could remember something just by seeing it once because her memory was better than most people’s.
The news concerning Li Haiqing’s case was related to the case she had. That was why she had read every one of those news articles before. When she searched for them again, she realized that the news from earlier had disappeared. Was it because those news articles had been deleted?
Couldn’t be… Why has only some of the news disappeared? Is there anything special concerning the news that disappeared? Gu Nianzhi closed her eyes as she laid there on the bed. She silently thought about it for a moment. Even though the news had disappeared from the internet, she still remembered the news she had scrolled through previously.
She tried to remember the content of every article. Gu Nianzhi suddenly opened her eyes. She had found the pattern! The new items that clearly existed before but had now disappeared from the search all had one thing in common. They all had the title, “Lawyer He” or the name, “He Zhichu” in it.
