Chapter 25

The incident took place elsewhere: in the hallway, in the smoking area. Surprisingly, Shan Li apologized, saying he didn't smoke, which was why he didn't bring a lighter and cigarette case. This was unusual for someone involved in finance and business, but not surprising.

In order to please his seniors, Xiang Mingqi usually carries a box of menthol cigarettes in his pocket.

"You are his colleague. I remember we met last time." The man's gaze lingered on the latter's shoulder.

There was a noticeable scratch, a dirty one, especially noticeable on the casual white T-shirt. It was easy to imagine how special his arrival was.

Xiang Mingqi pretended to pass the fire to his senior. The two stood very close, and his fingertips almost touched Pei Huai's upper lip. But his hands were shaking, and he missed the target several times.

So the flame rose less than a centimeter and then shrank back.

A sigh. Pei Huai tilted the cigarette to the upper right, raised his eyebrows and glared at him, then grabbed his wrist, brought it to him, and leaned over to light it.

He narrowed his eyes, his eyelashes trembling ever so slightly, and waited until a little nicotine entered his lungs before pushing his trembling hand aside.

"What are you afraid of?" Pei Huai asked him, exhaling a thin puff of white smoke.

Being stared at by Ququ, Xiang Mingqi was at a loss as to what to do. He raised his finger guiltily: "I, I'm worried that my shaking hands will burn your nose. Brother, your nose is so straight, I can't focus when I get close to your eyes..."

An uninteresting explanation.

Pei Huai pinched the butt of his cigarette and took a deep breath. His brows furrowed in a look of indescribable melancholy. Then, he turned his gaze toward the corridor, paying no attention to anyone.

"As far as I know, this performance is only open to a select audience. So," the man, who had been ignored for a long time, asked with a stiff smile from behind. During the physical contact between the two, he never averted his gaze once, but his expression gradually grew colder, and the tone of torture in his words became more blatant. "How did you get in?"

"I walked in. Otherwise, how could I?" Xiang Mingqi still put on a smile and put the cigarette box and lighter back into his jacket pocket. "Or would I have climbed in through the window?"

Pei Huai rarely glanced at him.

"Perhaps I didn't say it clearly last time." The questioner chuckled and looked him in the eye with a hint of arrogance. "The place I brought Mr. Pei to is not a place that anyone can set foot in. You seem to be trying too hard."

Xiang Mingqi had a big smile on his face: "Apart from the invitation and acting like a gentleman, your efforts seem even more insignificant than mine. At least, you don't know him as well as I do." He pointed his index finger at the cigarette box on his chest suggestively.

"No need to brag with me here. I'm afraid this is all you can do." Shan Li's words were subtle yet radical. It was as if a gentleman, always dressed in a suit, had taken off his suit, revealing the edges of his flesh. "I think we've been talking here for a while, Mr. Pei. The second half is about to begin." He turned his gaze back to the white-haired young man who had stayed out of the conversation and extended his hand kindly. "Or do you have other plans now?"

"I have to go." Pei Huai pressed the cigarette against the extinguisher on the trash can and walked past him, as if they were two strangers who had never met before. "The company has issued an emergency recall."

Shan Li withdrew his hand with pretended regret to express his understanding.

"Next time," he said, "let's find another opportunity to catch up."

Facing Xiang Mingqi's fiery stare, the man stepped forward, smoothed Pei Huai's collar, and smoothed out the creases on his shoulders inch by inch. His eyes were as gentle as a caress, "This part is a little wrinkled. Remember to go back and iron it for two or three minutes."

"...Thank you." Pei Huai passed by him without even looking up.

Ming Qi, who had been following behind his senior with a gloomy face, turned around and looked at him just before turning the corner. Facing the most hostile and jealous gaze, he flaunted his arm around his senior's waist, pulling him closer.

He mouthed.

This time, I won.

——Of course, he was dumped before he even walked out of the stairs.

After exiting the performance hall through a side door and taking two more buses, Pei Huai ignored Xiang Mingqi's constant complaints. He got straight to the point and gave him a quick refresher on Yu, Xi, Du, and Jia. Emergency missions typically didn't require detailed descriptions, as their uncertainty and risk far outweighed any other commission.

When arranging missions, Bangkok hotels generally don't assign newcomers to their teams, considering the high likelihood of casualties. But this time, their openness towards Xiang Mingqi was surprising.

Incidentally, the pay for emergency tasks is incredibly generous, and if completed successfully, it will never disappoint any employee.

After hearing these words, the young generation, still unaware of the seriousness of the situation, clapped excitedly and asked him, "Can this mean you can become rich overnight in Kensos and buy a house and a car?" Pei Huai didn't want to explain to the fool anymore, so he propped up his chin and looked out at the street scene.

The bus arrived at its destination quickly.

It's a factory area from the last century. Follow the navigation from west to south, go straight, turn right once, and you'll see a seven-story office building across the street from the shops.

It's small, surrounded by a square wall. About two-thirds of the site is used as a parking lot, but there are few cars parked there. The overall look is desolate and eerie.

The entrance is heavily guarded, with patrols taking place approximately every half an hour.

The two of them chose a cafe across from the main entrance and sat down. Xiang Mingqi ordered an iced lemon tea and a brownie at the counter, while Pei Huai only ordered a medium mocha, which he didn't drink much.

In the early stages of the investigation, the two men behaved very differently: Xiang Mingqi was enjoying a meal while talking about some grandiose plans about the universe and quantum physics; while Pei Huai was observing the structure of the office building through the floor-to-ceiling glass on his left.

Two people would be replaced at the main entrance at once. Both had standard gladiator builds and were armed, looking unlikely to be capable of a head-on assault. Pei Huai paused for a moment and analyzed the situation with his juniors: the branch company likely outsourced security to a company with unscrupulous methods.

Xiang Mingqi bit the straw and asked him why.

The former only shifted his gaze to one of them, clenched his paper cup, and twitched his chin: "That person's eyes are the eyes of an arsonist or murderer."

"Hey, how do you know this?"

“Yes,” he replied. “Where I used to live, there were a lot of people like that.”

Xiang Mingqi suddenly became interested and scribbled his fingers back and forth on the acrylic table nameplate. "Brother, what kind of place was that you lived in before? Were the people there simple and honest? Were they hospitable? Can I come and visit?"

"……Shut up."

"Hey, brother, every time you bring up a topic, you never tell me the details. You just keep me in suspense. You're such a jerk." Xiang Mingqi felt so sad after being scolded by him that he slumped back on the table, resting his chin on his crossed elbows. "Since you say it's hard to deal with, what should we do next?"

"Just wait here." After saying that, Pei Huai put down Mocha and stood up.

The questioner hadn't reacted yet and was still mumbling, "How about we wait and see when those guys get sleepy? Then we can—Hey, where are you going?"

Pei Huai threw him a pair of headphones.

"Contact us anytime if there's anything."

to be honest.

How on earth was he going to break into such an impregnable place? Xiang Mingqi clutched the earphones in his hand and opened his mouth but couldn't ask in time. In fact, he didn't need to ask.

Because fifteen minutes later, Pei Huai had already climbed into the office building from the first-floor window.

He disguised himself, knocked out a cleaner, dragged the unconscious innocent person into the ventilation duct, and quickly changed into work clothes.

This blue overalls was a size too small for him, and if he wasn't careful, a little bit of his wrist would show through the cuffs. He tied his hair up high, tucked it into his hat, and left the bathroom pushing the utility cart.

Compared to the previous time I'd entered the company headquarters under the guise of a reporter, the security arrangements on both sides were vastly different. Here, using a false identity wouldn't work. With dedicated security guards on nearly every floor, lies were easily exposed.

He took some effort and found out the location of the data room and office before someone fell unconscious.

"Brother, which floor are you on?" Xiang Mingqi's anxious voice came from inside the ear canal.

"The data room is on the third floor, and the office is on the seventh." Pei Huai pressed the microphone on his headset and connected to the local area network via Bluetooth. By connecting to the internal network, hackers could invade and spread viruses, causing the surveillance footage to play repeatedly. "...We're on the third floor."

It is not difficult to enter the data room. Just push the door and wait for the hacker to hack into the surveillance, and then you will have enough time to take a walk around this dark room.

But inside the cabinet door were mostly lists of personnel, not including management. These were non-staff employees of Jingshan Real Estate, used and discarded as needed. According to the files, after receiving a grant, they often chose to resign for various personal reasons—Pei Huai photographed them one by one.

Then he inserted the USB drive containing the cracked software into the desktop computer and read the data.

A series of footsteps were heard in the corridor.

"Hey, did you notice? The new cleaner who came today is quite pleasing to the eye. Although I didn't get to see her face, her chin and neck are as slender as someone walking on a catwalk. She even has a few streaks of white hair at the back. I bet she's a very handsome man."

"Look at your achievements. He's just a college student at best. I remember the section chief was in a hurry to hire cleaners recently, so it's not surprising that he had a college student. You said there are so many things students can do nowadays, why do they have to come here to work... Wait, why is the computer not turned off?"

Pei Huai crouched under the table, holding his claw knife in reverse and crossing it in front of his chest.

The intruder walked clockwise around the desk, inspecting the cabinets. He was like a feline with a deep, concave back, every inch of his fur radiating danger. He leaned against the desk, using his thick-soled boots to silently sneak up behind the two men, aiming his blade at one of them's Achilles tendon.

Before these two people attracted the guards, he could resolve the crisis in the most direct way.

But it's not the time to act yet. Alerting the enemy might get you into trouble.

The man was still oblivious to the danger approaching. "You forgot that Lao Liu is on duty today. That chain-smoker must have gone somewhere to smoke again. What's so strange about him having his computer on? Last time, his door was still open. When I walked in, the room reeked of alcohol, and he was lying on a chair, a bottle of baijiu in his hand. He was so handsome."

"That's right. Okay, let's get that employee's resignation done as soon as possible." Another person glanced at the neatly arranged documents, took one, and slammed it back into the cabinet door. "Let's go, let's go! If Old Liu sees us, he'll blame us for messing with his things."

After patrolling around, the other party did not touch the computer, so he left cursing.

Pei Huai quickly retracted his claw knife, raised his hand to support his head, and stood up from under the table with his body half twisted.

On the other end of the headphones, Xiang Mingqi slumped back in his chair, sweating all over, and took a bite of cake.

Ever since someone broke into the archives, he hadn't heard a single report from Pei Huai. All he could hear was the soft rustle of fabric and the sound of held breaths.

Everything was calm, like watching a leopard through a muted camera, lurking in the backlight, poised to leap and tear its prey to pieces.

Many times, my heart almost jumped into my throat.

"Time is running out. I'll handle it as soon as possible." Pei Huai unplugged the USB drive and confirmed that the data had been safely transmitted to the company headquarters.

Before leaving, he peered into the corridor from the wall to confirm that no one was there before continuing his exploration upstairs. At the entrance to the seventh-floor office, Pei Huai only spotted one guard.

Obviously, he only had half an hour left.

To prevent the other party from noticing, Pei Huai dodged behind him, twisted his fist, and wrapped a garrotte around his wrists, stretching it like a bowstring. He used all his strength to strangle him unconscious, then threw him into the last cubicle in the toilet, thus successfully entering the top-level office.

There are no cameras in this office, and its style can even be described as simple and old-fashioned.

The furniture was old-fashioned mahogany, in a standard minimalist style: a desk, a wooden cabinet for storing awards and ornaments, and banners adorning the walls. The entrance faced an unobstructed bay window. Nothing else.

Pei Huai said nothing and began to search the house. He knew very well that the search had to be completed before the guard's disappearance was discovered.

Fortunately, the search radius here was not large, and it was concentrated on the desk and the display case: there was nothing worth noting in the display case. However, to the right of the desk, he found a locked drawer, and the key was nowhere to be found.

He had no choice but to search through the other drawers for the documents, turn on the computer, insert the USB drive into the interface, and let it read the internal files automatically.

Pei Huai was about to get up and search for his keys when his headset suddenly rustled. As soon as he answered, he heard Xiang Mingqi's anxious shout.

"Brother, someone is coming. He went through a side door and is out of my sight! Brother——"

Just at this moment, the door of the office clicked and slowly opened.