...
Sasa was driving steadily over here.
Shen Ruxu's side, however, was a completely different story.
The black commercial van sped through the city streets. Shen Ruxu had one hand resting on the steering wheel while the other skipped songs on the car's screen.
The scenery outside the window wildly retreated, and traffic lights flashed by one after another. The car swayed from side to side, racing at breakneck speed.
Shen Zhizhao regretted getting into this shady car countless times. He closed his eyes, his voice inexplicably dangerous: Have you ever actually seen a human drive, Shen Ruxu?
Shen Ruxu turned a deaf ear, ignoring the life or death of his older and younger brothers. He was just having a great time driving on the road: Fun, right? I am a soul racer.
Second Brother, Shen Xun looked at the retreating scenery outside the window, his voice sounding as if it had crawled up from underground.
The young man was pale-faced and eerily cold: If I die on the road because of your drag racing, I will not let you off even if I become a ghost.
He would stare at Shen Ruxu forever.
Forever and ever.
...
This sudden remark gave Shen Ruxu an inexplicable suffocating feeling of being haunted by a male ghost. He replied carelessly with a grin: Relax, I know what I am doing.
Then he stepped on the gas pedal, and the speed increased even more.
Li Jianwei did not tell anyone when he ran.
He only brought Chen Yu.
Before Li Jianwei came, he pushed that old man out as a scapegoat, but the fact that his biological father was the former leader was not a secret in the earliest days.
A bunch of old fogies who had not died off completely also knew his identity clearly.
Many organizations were well aware of who he was, just waiting to catch him after something happened.
Li Jianwei tensed his expression, locked the car doors, and constantly observed his surroundings.
At first, Chen Yu only thought the teacher had given him a mission, and Li Jianwei was his partner this time.
What is the mission this time? Chen Yu asked on the road.
Li Jianwei did not answer.
He slammed the gas pedal to the floor, racing wildly on a sloped road that was completely unsuitable for high-speed driving.
Gravel hit the chassis with a crackling sound, and the car bumped as if it were going to fall apart.
That road was very hard to navigate.
Yet Li Jianwei drove like a madman, the tires rolling over gravel and potholes, kicking up a sky full of dust.
He occasionally glanced at the rearview mirror, adjusted his direction, changed lanes, and accelerated.
Chen Yu finally realized something was wrong.
Who are you trying to shake off? he asked.
Li Jianwei still did not answer.
Chen Yu's heart sank, and he understood that whatever he said now was too late.
Wanting to get off a pirate ship after boarding it was undoubtedly a fool's dream.
While in the car, he had heard the law enforcement broadcast through Li Jianwei's car radio. Although no names were mentioned, he was more familiar with those codenames than anyone else.
His photo and arrest warrant were probably lying on the desks of the law enforcement departments right now.
He could not go back.
The Que Organization was finished.
Right now, he could only follow Li Jianwei to the bitter end.
I want to know if Sasa and Shen Yi are okay? The two of them are still inside... I do not have friends, but they are people I have known for a long time. Do you know how they are doing now? Chen Yu was still asking on the road.
Li Jianwei was already irritated from driving. Hearing him say this, he could not help but sneer: You really are a good companion, Chen Yu. Disaster is imminent, and you are still thinking about others.
Chen Yu still somewhat cared about the lives of his acquaintances.
Li Jianwei, however, could abandon everyone in the Que Organization without hesitation.
However, in Li Jianwei's original plan, that strange female assassin was not included.
He had told her many times that she could leave.
But she simply would not go.
Li Jianwei drove the car, speeding rapidly and racing with the surrounding cars, until he was forcefully blocked by a vehicle ahead. The man slammed on the brakes and closed his eyes.
He accepted his fate.
He and Chen Yu were dragged out of the car and shoved into another black commercial van.
A man was already sitting inside the vehicle. He had clearly been waiting for a long time. The moment he saw Li Jianwei, the malice in his expression practically overflowed: Li Jianwei, you are quite good at running, aren't you?
Is this guy your subordinate?
He lifted his chin, looking at Chen Yu.
Chen Yu's mouth twitched. He had already figured out Li Jianwei's identity while in the car.
He should have been shocked, but given the current situation, even feeling shock was a waste. All that remained was an unprecedented emptiness.
... Yes, he is my boss. Afraid of getting beaten, Chen Yu answered in a low voice. He glanced at their expressions and continued: I can provide you with a few pieces of intelligence to prove my value. The Que Organization's warehouse in the south of the city, their financial transactions with foreign forces, and a batch of goods that have not been sold yet, I know the exact locations of all of them.
He tossed out the information item by item. Sure enough, the attitudes of the others in the car toward him softened considerably.
They had no deep-seated hatred for Chen Yu.
As long as Chen Yu had use value, he could survive temporarily and even avoid being abused.
Li Jianwei was not so lucky.
When he was taken out of the car, he was greeted by familiar and ferocious faces.
Over the years, the organizations he had secretly ruined, and the rivals he had caused to go bankrupt or end up in prison, numbered at least eighty if not a hundred.
Every single one of them wished they could eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Li Jianwei had a photographic memory. He had an extremely deep impression of everyone he had ever met, even if it was just from a file.
He knew that the person who came today hated him especially.
Now that you have fallen into my hands, I will torture you to death, Li Jianwei.
The man crouched down, grabbed Li Jianwei by the hair, and forced his face up.
Li Jianwei remained expressionless.
That completely unbothered demeanor was more hateful than any provocation.
The man instantly flew into a rage and kicked Li Jianwei in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
The back of Li Jianwei's head hit the concrete floor with a muffled thud. Before he could recover, a hand had already pressed down on his head.
Smashing it fiercely against the ground.
Bang.
His mouth was filled with the taste of blood.
The tip of his tongue had hit his teeth, tearing a gash.
Warm liquid trickled down the corner of his mouth.
A second time.
A third time.
Li Jianwei's vision began to blur, and his ears were ringing, but he did not utter a single sound the entire time.
When Chen Yu was escorted out of the car, this was the scene he saw.
His heart turned half cold.
Chen Yu did not sympathize with Li Jianwei, but seeing the fox mourn the death of the hare, he knew that with Li Jianwei meeting such an end, his own future would not be much better. Once he lost his use value, his only fate would be death.
He wanted to put up a dying struggle, to see if he could leave some clues for whoever might come to rescue him.
But in their line of work, being caught or dying at the hands of other organizations was entirely normal.
Let alone a rescue, at most, partners would only care a little about each other's whereabouts.
A rescue was a fantasy.
Chen Yu gave up on the idea. Keeping his head down, he silently followed them inside under the escort of the people behind him.
Unlike Chen Yu's resignation, however.
As he was about to be escorted into their destination, Li Jianwei slowed his pace.
He knew that he would definitely be searched once inside. When that happened, the tracker Shen Yi had given him, which he had hidden in a secret compartment, would undoubtedly be discovered by them.
Once discovered, they would immediately relocate.
All his previous efforts, deliberately leaving traces and keeping the tracker within a traceable range, would be completely in vain.
Li Jianwei had to dispose of the tracker before then.
He absolutely could not keep it on his person; it would be too easily discovered, and the signal would be blocked anyway.
He could only drop it outside.
But with his hands tied behind his back and guards escorting him from both the front and rear, how could he drop it?
As he got out of the car, Li Jianwei deliberately stalled for time, his gaze sweeping rapidly across his surroundings. If he could just create a little chaos before then, it would give him a chance to throw the device away.
He turned his head and looked at the man beside him.
This guy was probably the one who hated him the most among this group.
Three months ago, Li Jianwei had dismantled one of this man's illegal trading networks, causing him to suffer disastrous losses.
"What are you looking at?" The man noticed Li Jianwei's gaze and glared back with a frown.
Li Jianwei did not look away.
"I'm looking at a piece of trash," he said, every word like a poisoned needle. "Your business was ruined by me alone, and you actually still have the nerve to keep living?"
Everyone stopped in their tracks.
The man's face went from red to white, the veins on his temples throbbing.
"Say that again?"
"Are you deaf?" Li Jianwei's tone was flat. "I said, you are a piece of trash. No wonder you can never accomplish anything."
The moment the last word dropped, the man's rationality completely snapped.
He lunged forward in a single stride, grabbed Li Jianwei by the collar, and violently yanked him away from his escorts.
Dragged along, Li Jianwei stumbled a few steps before his back slammed hard against the ground.
A fist smashed into his face.
The sound was exceptionally crisp in the night wind.
With his hands tied and his center of gravity unsteady, Li Jianwei crashed onto the gravel ground. His spine pressed against the sharp, jagged stones, hurting so much he almost cried out. Curling his body, he rapidly moved his hands behind his back. He pushed open the tracker's casing with his fingers, and the tiny circular chip fell into his palm.
The gravel ground was the perfect cover; there were similarly sized stones everywhere, so no one would notice.
The man kicked him two more times, once in the side of the waist, and once on the calf.
Taking advantage of the momentum, Li Jianwei rolled over, opened his fingers, and let the chip drop silently into the pile of gravel.
Having done all this, he closed his eyes and endured the rest of the punches and kicks.
"Spit, you piece of scum." After the man had beaten him enough, he spat next to him, turned around, and went back into the building.
Li Jianwei's face was covered in blood, and a cut at the corner of his mouth was dripping beads of blood. Lying on the ground, he looked as if he was on his last breath.
Chen Yu was brought out from behind the iron gate and froze for a moment when he saw his miserable state.
"Why did you have to do that?"
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, Chen Yu hurried over to help him up, asking through gritted teeth, "What good does provoking them do us?"
Li Jianwei could not say a single word. His throat was filled with bloody froth, and every breath felt like swallowing razor blades.
Faced with Chen Yu's question of why he had to do that, Li Jianwei closed his eyes.
"I don't want to die."
This thought echoed repeatedly in his blurred consciousness.
Li Jianwei had all the information regarding the Shen family in his hands.
He had collected this data for a long time, from public commercial information to underground rumors, from the public whereabouts of family members to shady transaction records.
He had spent a long time compiling them into a single volume.
And what was certain was this.
There was not a single girl named Shen Yi in this family.
Not one matched.
To say he was not disappointed would be a lie. After planning for so long, the person he finally found who might be connected to the Shen family turned out to be a fake.
But before leaving, he still grabbed Chen Yu to keep him company.
And he specifically left a note for Shen Yi.
What was this? A desperate measure in a time of crisis?
Perhaps it was.
...But then again, perhaps it wasn't?
