Heartache

In the distance, the dull thud of a crane hook colliding came, causing the wires hanging from the ceiling to fall and blue-white sparks to explode intermittently.

Yuzhen leaned back in the shadow of the scattered cargo boxes, fine beads of sweat from the back of her neck sticking to her stray hairs, and the hemp rope binding her hands, though worn rough from repeated rubbing, still prevented her from breaking free.

All he remembered was that as soon as he got ashore, after paying the bill, before he could even call Qing, he was bound and taken away with a black cloth over his head.

Suddenly, the sound of leather shoes crushing glass shards rang out from outside the iron gate, and Yuzhen reflexively tensed her back.

A pair of leather shoes came into view first, followed by a pair of worn-out sneakers.

The square-faced man stepped forward and helped him stand up straight. Yuzhen finally realized that it was already evening, and it was raining. And in front of him was the person he feared most.

Miles looked down at Yuuma and said, "Didn't you say you were going home? Why are you back in Wudong Port again?"

Harold untied the gag from his mouth, and the moment he opened his mouth, saliva spilled out first, making him look extremely disheveled.

Miles instinctively pulled away, his brow furrowing slightly: "You sneaked back, who are you looking for? Don't tell me you've gotten back to him?"

Yuzhen suddenly stared intently at Miles. Only he knew just how cold-blooded and terrifying this outwardly refined and proper businessman truly was.

Yuma looked directly at Miles and said, word by word, "No matter how much you monitor him or control him, he will never belong to you. Not now, not in the future, never."

Miles narrowed his eyes slightly: "Interesting. It was supposed to be a collaboration, but you infiltrated his inner circle for money, and now that you've got the money, you want to comfort yourself? Come to think of it, you've been quite incompetent in these past four years. If he didn't still like you, would you have been able to stay for so long?"

"I'm giving you one last chance to tell the truth." Miles leaned down. "What did you see the night you left Gan Valley?"

Yuzhen's pupils contracted sharply, and an overwhelming fear crept into her eyes once again.

In the pouring rain, he followed Milo and Blaise through the rainforest, watching them hastily bury the body bags in the ground. After they left, he stood frozen in fear, but then he witnessed the most horrifying scene of his life.

As the torrential rain continued to lash the ground, the body bags in the pit suddenly began to swell. Soon, a hand crawled out of the pit. Steven, whom he thought was dead, seemed to have suddenly regained consciousness from a seizure, his face pale as he clutched his neck and struggled to crawl out.

But Steven's climbing out stopped abruptly.

A flash of thunder, and in the pouring rain, Miles precisely stepped on Steven's hand, kicking him back into the pit of corpses.

"Since they're going to kill you, how can they let you down?"

Steven's instinctive howls were mercilessly swallowed by the torrential rain. Yuzhen would never forget the moment Miles stepped on Steven's chest, and as his breathing became obstructed, Steven had to free his hand from applying pressure to stop the bleeding to struggle. As a result, with the movement of his limbs, his blood pressure rose, and the original wound bled profusely again. The gushing blood continuously seeped into the red soil, only to be mercilessly washed away by the torrential rain.

Steven did not get another chance to experience a second instance of hemorrhagic shock and apparent death.

That scene was deeply etched into Yuzhen's mind. Countless chaotic thoughts compelled him to run back as fast as he could, to escape this evil cage.

But after he actually escaped Kaigang Valley, the direction of home and Wudong Port became a dilemma at his crossroads.

If he were to simply flee and disappear, he could almost foresee how Miles would exploit the secret of Qing's murder to endlessly coerce and control him.

Milo's life will be ruined.

He had to come back and tell Milo everything, even if Milo would never forgive him for his past actions.

Miles stared at every expression on Yuzhen's face and suddenly laughed: "How absurd. I followed you, but I never expected that you would see me in the end."

Yuzhen's body trembled slightly as he suddenly recalled that night when he respectfully reported to Miles that he would no longer accept surveillance missions. At that time, Miles's expression, standing in the rain, was no different from now, but Yuzhen glimpsed a hint of cruelty on the face before him.

Harold roughly searched Yuzhen's body and quickly found some things.

Miles pointed to one of the items and beckoned, "Give me that card."

Yuzhen struggled violently, and Harold immediately slapped him, making him dizzy and unable to move.

"He gave you the card? Does he have extra money to support you?" Miles examined the bank card from all angles. "Four years, and you've never told me about this. It seems you're hiding a lot from me."

“Check this card’s transaction history, starting from four years ago. Don’t overlook any clues,” Miles told Harold.

Harold glanced at Yuuma on the ground: "What should we do with him?"

Miles looked away and said calmly, "Since you like keeping secrets so much, then you might as well never speak at all."

Harold understood, and with a flick of his wrist, the folding knife popped out.

Yuzhen trembled with fear and tried to shrink back.

"Remember to clean it up; he still has a use for it." Miles walked away.

*

Since Miles expressed interest in collaborating with Green Contracts, the entire department has been focused on preparing for negotiations. Milo has been extremely busy, and it wasn't until Old Ruan was hospitalized that he realized he hadn't paid attention to anyone else for a long time.

When he arrived at the hospital, he didn't see anyone. He asked the doctor and learned that Blaze had taken the person back before him.

The church bar was temporarily closed. Milo pushed open the door and saw Old Ruan sitting on the sofa with a pale face. He felt a little sad.

As if remembering something, Milo frowned, "Where is Ruan Jiaming?"

Old Ruan shook his head and said, "Having raised him for a while, my relationship with him and his son has come to an end, and we're even now."

Blaze, who was standing nearby, noticed Milo's gaze and gestured, "He swindled all his money and ran away."

A fire ignited within Milo.

At the beginning of their encounter, a large part of the reason why Lao Ruan was willing to take on his mission was to fill Ruan Jiaming's bottomless pit. However, people who are addicted to gambling have lost their humanity to some extent. Even if they are brought back from the guillotine, it still cannot change their choices.

Milo looked at Blaise, somewhat surprised that he would still concern himself with Old Nguyen's affairs. For the moment, Milo wasn't sure if Blaise knew the true identities of Old Nguyen, Harold, and Chatchai. But upon reflection, he realized Blaise had already investigated Old Nguyen's background and probably hadn't found anything. Perhaps Blaise didn't even know that the three of them had been rescued by Suma.

Thinking this through, Milo had no intention of telling Blaise about it. He was currently short-handed and couldn't possibly risk letting Blaise leave.

Ignoring his fatigue, Milo unloaded his belongings and began to move around.

The bar has internal and external ledgers. The surface accounts are linked to the official tax system, while the core ledgers are in the hands of Milo himself. Every Wednesday morning, Lao Ruan would take the original vouchers from the safe in the back alley for backup.

"Old Ruan, have you checked the beverage invoices for the past few days yet?"

Old Ruan nodded.

Milo pushed open the warehouse door and checked the inventory, but his steps suddenly turned back. He glanced at the shelves and found several cases of bottled water on the shelves that should have been storing imported whiskey, with the "Kangtai Logistics" logo printed inconspicuously on the side of the cases.

Milo turned around alertly and walked to the bar, opened the computer and pulled up the bill, and quickly realized that something was wrong.

Three days ago, a regular bar customer suddenly topped up his membership in advance. When he paid the bill, he paid in cash and asked for a receipt. He then asked for his spending details as a VIP customer for the past three years, claiming that they were preparing for an anniversary celebration. The customer's name looked familiar to him; it was Kevin's personal secretary, whom he had contacted before.

Kangtai Logistics is a subsidiary of Longjin Financial Holdings responsible for bulk commodity transportation, and Kevin was the Kangtai Logistics manager that Miles met with a while ago.

If it's not a coincidence, this almost seems like a roundabout way of phishing to investigate accounts.

Various thoughts flashed through Milo's mind. He quickly typed on the keyboard, pulled up the bar's surveillance footage, and soon discovered that two days ago, the property management of the area where the bar was located notified all businesses to cooperate with the power maintenance. The maintenance time coincided perfectly with the fixed time period that Lao Ruan arranged for the quarterly financial data to be backed up to the cloud.

If... the power outage wasn't an accident but a hacker intrusion, wouldn't that mean the Church Bar's financial data could have been stolen?

Old Ruan noticed Milo's pale face and peered over. But he didn't understand these things; Milo always did exactly what he was told when it came to data-related tasks, so he couldn't understand why Milo was so nervous.

Blaze walked over to Milo and silently gestured: Is there a problem?

Milo forced himself to calm down.

He must be so busy lately. He's only been away for a few days, and it's just a couple of small things like pre-payment and power repairs, but he's already so anxious. He's probably just seeing threats everywhere.

Despite this thought, Milo still said to Old Ruan, "Let's close down for a while. We need to take everything from the Dark Pavilion in the warehouse and put it away..." As he said this, Milo looked at Blaise.

Blaise nodded.

Milo continued, "Just put it in room 2203 of the Happiness Building for now, and have the delivery workers move it to the door."

Blaise's pigeon coop was absolutely safe; he had the privilege of experiencing it once.

The phone rang, startling Milo. He closed his eyes, realizing he really needed to catch up on sleep. Seeing the caller ID, Milo didn't answer immediately, quietly turning off the ringer. He turned to Blaise and asked, "Is there any news about Yuu?"

Blaise glanced at Old Ruan somewhat awkwardly. Old Ruan knew that expression all too well; he'd seen it on little Blaise's face before. It was the expression of someone who hadn't done something well, felt guilty, and was afraid of being criticized. It was hard to imagine that such an expression would appear on Blaise's face now.

Milo understood and said with a headache, "Hurry up, okay?" The slower he went, the more afraid he was that something would happen to Yuzhen.

Blaise nodded and left without lingering.

Milo then picked up his phone, answered the call, and after a few words from the other end, he replied, "I'll be there right away."

After hanging up the phone, Old Ruan coughed a few times. Milo poured him a glass of warm water: "You should rest well. You don't need to worry about the rest."

Old Ruan's lips twitched. Seeing Milo's exhausted face, worn from days of overtime and sleepless nights, he suddenly found it hard to connect the person before him with the child in his memory. In the end, he could help so little; all these complicated, mind-numbing situations ultimately weighed on Milo's shoulders alone. Just as Milo himself had said, he had completely embarked on a path of no return. But the further he went, the more he could sense that Milo's smiles were becoming fewer and fewer, and that he was growing increasingly indifferent.

For example, he had actually seen traces of cigarette ash on Milo's fingers more than once.

Old Ruan sighed and said, "Be careful."

Milo understood what Lao Ruan was trying to say, but he didn't have any extra time to ramble on about feelings, so he nodded stiffly: "I understand."