Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"Hmph." The bodyguard gave a cold snort. If he talked, then even if the middle-aged man let him go, he would still face certain death once he returned. Better to say nothing—there might yet be a way out. With that thought, the bodyguard studied the camper's structure from the corner of his eye, looking for a chance to escape.

The middle-aged man's eyes were sharp as could be. He saw the bodyguard's intent at once and sneered. "Don't even think about running. It's no use."

The bodyguard had been stalling for so long precisely to prepare himself. Yang Ce's kick had been no light matter; even after waking, he had been groggy and muddled, and only now had he finally recovered some of his strength.

While stalling the middle-aged man, the bodyguard was also sizing up his opponent's strength. After all, his external martial arts were not practiced in vain—the punishments inflicted on him earlier had been trifles in his eyes, mere stings that could not touch his core.

The middle-aged man knew something of interrogation techniques, but in the end he had never received Yang Ce's professional, systematic training in acupoint strikes. Apart from brute force, he had no other means at his disposal.

Such methods worked well enough on ordinary people, but against a bodyguard like this one, who did not fear a beating, they were rather like a man trying to cover himself with a garment too short for him.

The middle-aged man was in fact helpless. He had meant to pry something of value out of the bodyguard, but never expected his mouth to be this stubborn.

Just as the middle-aged man was pondering how to give this bodyguard a taste of something truly harsh, the bodyguard suddenly sprang up from the floor and swung his fist at him.

He had put nearly all his strength into that punch. If it landed on the middle-aged man, even without injury, he would not recover for quite some time. Just as the bodyguard was secretly exulting, however, the unexpected happened.

A dark muzzle was pointed straight at his forehead. The middle-aged man held the gun with a contemptuous sneer. "Move again and I'll shoot you dead where you stand."

The bodyguard had no choice but to freeze his fist in midair, unable to move. He had been careless. He had thought he could launch a desperate strike, never expecting the other man to have a gun. No matter how formidable one's fists and feet, they were no match for firearms.

In truth, if the middle-aged man had taken this bodyguard back to headquarters, there would have been many ways to make him talk. The difficulty lay in how to get him there. Returning on his own would have been no problem, but bringing a man along made things troublesome—there was no way but to smuggle him across.

The middle-aged man did not dare make the call himself. He first gave the bodyguard a shot of sleeping pills and let him drift off, then phoned Steward Mu. Steward Mu took the matter very seriously; after consulting the master, he told the middle-aged man, "Keep a close eye on this person for now. Don't let him get away, and don't let anything happen to him. The master will arrange for someone to meet you in Macau."

"Understood," the middle-aged man replied. If the master was arranging it personally, there should be no room for error.

The moment Zheng Shaopeng saw Yang Xu bijin tear through the two professional bodyguards his boss had sent, his courage split clean in two. He knew that even if he stayed, it would do no good—two bodyguards that formidable had been finished off, and he would be no help at all.

Trembling, Zheng Shaopeng stepped into a cramped little room. A man whose size he could not quite make out sat within, his face unreadable because he had disguised it.

"Why did you come back by yourself?" The man's voice was not loud, but it was severe, and it frightened Zheng Shaopeng badly.

"Boss, those two bodyguards were taken out by some Cheng Yaojin who came out of nowhere." Zheng Shaopeng carefully related the sequence of events to his boss.

"Taken out? Both of them?" The man's voice rose several degrees, as if he could not believe Zheng Shaopeng's words. Those two bodyguards were two aces up his sleeve—and they had been finished off just like that?

Both men were renegades from Shaolin Temple. They had learned martial arts there as children, but later broke the temple's rules, brawling and extorting money outside its walls, and were driven out the gates. Had the two not gotten themselves into trouble, the man could never have so easily brought them to heel.

Still, the man knew Zheng Shaopeng would not lie to him. Zheng Shaopeng might not have much nerve, but his loyalty was absolute. So he shifted his tone and asked, "Who was it?"

"I don't know either, but it definitely wasn't that Yang Ce fellow," Zheng Shaopeng said. "Maybe someone Wang Yanqiu brought with her."

"That doesn't add up. When Wang Yanqiu came, I investigated thoroughly—she was alone." The man frowned in puzzlement, then suddenly said, "Hmph, I see. So there's been an expert hidden at Wang Yanqiu's side all along. Damn it, I should have known. How could the eldest daughter of the Wang family possibly have no one protecting her?"

Zheng Shaopeng had no idea what his boss was talking about, but he did not dare ask, and merely stood carefully to one side.

"Forget it. This isn't your fault—it was my oversight." The man sighed. "I thought this was a fine opportunity, but now—forget killing two birds with one stone; I haven't even managed a single one. It seems finishing them off in the future won't be so easy."

"Thank you for your forgiveness, boss." Zheng Shaopeng said it again and again. It was all he could say, because the rest of what his boss said made no sense to him—though it was surely about the boss's enemies.

"Go be an advisor. I won't need you for what comes next." The man waved a hand.

"Boss, you're casting me aside?" Zheng Shaopeng asked in alarm.

"You're overthinking it." The man spoke mildly. "You've been exposed. I certainly can't use you as bait again. So from now on, just do your work steadily and honestly."

Hearing this, Zheng Shaopeng let out a long breath of relief. So the boss did not blame him after all—and he would never have to do such dangerous work again.

After Zheng Shaopeng left, the man slowly rose to his feet, drew back the curtain, and gazed out the window. With a faint sigh he murmured, "I thought I could finish them off easily this time. It seems I underestimated them."

Whether the two bodyguards were truly dead, the man no longer cared to find out. If not dead, they were certainly crippled, and no longer of any use to him. Besides, he was not afraid of them falling into Wang Yanqiu's hands—the two knew little enough to begin with, so it hardly mattered whose hands they landed in.

Yang Ce returned to the hotel. Zhang Bin and Wang Mei were both waiting anxiously for him. Wang Mei's parents were in Liu Jihao's clutches, and everything she did now filled her with frantic panic.

"Boss, you're finally back!" Zhang Bin had wanted to call when Yang Ce was so long in returning, but he thought better of it. If Yang Ce was all right, he would surely come back to the hotel; calling would have been useless.

"Mm. What's the situation?" Yang Shuo xuan did not rest. After taking off his coat, he sat down on the bed, meaning to think over just how to handle the business with Liu Jihao.

"Brother Yang." Wang Mei's voice was timid too. The boldness she had shown earlier when joking with Yan was now completely gone.

"Don't call me Brother Yang. Zhang Bin and I go way back—he calls me boss, and really that's just us fooling around." Yang Ce waved a hand. "You and Lele are sisters. From now on, just call me Yang Ce."

"Mm." Wang Mei nodded quickly. It seemed Yang Ce still valued Huang Yan a great deal, and she could not help feeling happy on Huang Yan's behalf.