Chapter 29
As dawn approached, a small vehicular vehicle led a luxury minivan into Moon Bay.
"You just let people know your home address like that?" Chi Xia couldn't help but ask Xin Ran, who was lying on her back eating grapes.
The He family's imported grapes are as big as apples, and a bunch of grapes fills the back of the table like a bunch of giant bananas. Xin Ran has already eaten two; the flesh is sweet, soft, and juicy, with an unforgettable aroma. The key is their superb grafting technique; each bunch has several different flavors and colors—blue, purple, red, and green—like opening a blind box.
Xin Ran was eating her third piece when she glanced at the car following closely behind. "Isn't Moon Bay a place for humans to live? What are you afraid of? I'd even dare to bring someone of unknown origin like you home. The He family is at least a well-known family in the New Territories. Want a grape the size of a bowl? The skin isn't sour, it's crisp and sweet, and it's seedless."
Professional assassins usually hide their addresses, so why is Xin Ran acting so blatantly? Could it be that she misjudged the situation?
Chi Xia turned her head behind her, and the bunch of juicy grapes looked tempting. She reached out to pick one and eat it. "Which color tastes better?"
Xin Ran: "I ate the red, blue, and purple ones. You eat the green one and tell me what flavor it is in a bit."
Chi Xia picked a green one, took a bite, and found it perfectly balanced between sweet and sour, leaving a lingering fragrance on her lips and teeth. No wonder Xin Ran couldn't stop eating it.
"We have arrived at our destination. Please prepare to disembark."
After the small hospital van stopped, the two got out of the car. Xin Ran gave a few casual instructions and stood at the door eating grapes with Chi Xia. They watched as the servants carried the large and small boxes sent by the He family to the back warehouse and neatly placed them under the eaves. They also helped to unload the gifts sent by Xiao Ai's family from the trunk of the small hospital van.
The two waved goodbye to the He family's servants. Xin Ran looked at the eaves piled high with gifts and said, "How about we postpone our home visit plans for now?"
Chi Xia swallowed the last bite of grape and, in the quiet night, asked a question fraught with danger, "Where is the Rubik's Cube?"
The air seemed to freeze for a moment after she said that.
Xin Ran took another bite of grapes, her smile slowly fading. "So eager, do you know the girl I mentioned?"
Chi Xia remained silent, quietly watching Xin Ran.
Xin Ran chewed the grapes slowly, the fresh juice quenching his taste buds. His bright and sharp eyes met Chi Xia's, and he saw a sense of certainty in Chi Xia's calm eyes. This confidence was inexplicably admirable.
"So you really do know that girl," Xin Ran concluded. "Let me warn you beforehand, she died a horrible death. Are you sure you want to see it?"
Chi Xia: "Confirmed."
It is said that the basements of wealthy people are hidden worlds, with all sorts of compartments and mezzanines, used to hide things that cannot be seen by others.
Xin Ran, who bought a house in an area teeming with the wealthy, yet worked like a slave and displayed a stingy and miserly demeanor, could hardly be considered a rich person. His basement had no partitions or mezzanine, yet the entire place was utterly unsightly.
In the dim light, the tools used by those "special talents" on the shelf gleamed with an unusual luster.
Chi Xia identified several items: a "master key" for prying open doors, a "useful rope" for lowering windows, "gecko shoes" for climbing walls, and a row of metal rods of varying sizes and thicknesses, as well as a flashlight for detecting light...
"Scared?" Xin Ran teased with a smile when she saw that she was staring at her intently.
Chi Xia pointed at his room and asked, "These are your...hobbies?"
"I don't believe you can't tell. My main profession is actually that of a master thief with a code of honor."
From this perspective, Xin Ran's overall performance does indeed match that of a thief, but is he really a thief?
"A master thief? What did you steal?"
"All the valuables upstairs are things I pilfered, including that six-figure bottle of whiskey we opened last time." As he spoke, Xin Ran patted his all-black "armor," which was covered in a layer of dust, indicating that his main job had been neglected for a long time.
Behind the bulletproof night suit was a circular table with three curved computers on it. Chi Xia followed Xin Ran inside, and a holographic monitoring room was presented in three dimensions.
Chi Xia was quite convinced that Xin Ran was a thief. "The security of wealthy families is top-notch. With such a good track record, your skills must be exceptional."
"Hey, I'm not going to steal from living people's homes."
"What do you mean by that?"
Xin Ran reached out and picked up an ornament from the computer desk. Chi Xia's gaze followed his movement and fell on the mechanical heart ornament made of rare metal. She frowned; she felt like she had seen this thing somewhere before.
Xin Ran fiddled with the ornament. "Does it look familiar?"
Chi Xia tried hard to recall, and Xin Ran said, "This is an ornament on Deputy Director Lin's desk. It's the only one of its kind in the entire New Territories because it contains a chip that has copied the resurrection talent."
Chi Xia was speechless. She stared at Xin Ran, a colleague who was both familiar and unfamiliar to her, with a chill running down her spine.
“He died once, I know that, I recognized his face the moment I saw it that night. What I’m curious about is, how did you know that too?”
Chi Xia stared blankly at the ornament. "You said you don't steal from living people, so this ornament was taken from Lin Mu's house after he died?"
Xin Ran: "That's right. I answered your question, now it's your turn to answer mine. How do you know he has already died once?"
If Xin Ran is indeed a thief, then he has already confessed to me, so perhaps I can too...
“I used to work at a funeral home, and I was the one who received him.”
Xin Ran frowned. "Really? I've always been very honest with you. Are you sure you want to keep teasing me?"
Chi Xia nodded, calmly meeting Xin Ran's questioning gaze. Even if Xin Ran confessed, she couldn't take the risk.
"I was indeed a mortician."
"You mean, just because you received him at the funeral home, a group of people are causing a car accident and an explosion around you? What level of mortician are you? What grudge do you have against these people? Is it worth them making such a fuss?"
Chi Xia hadn't expected Xin Ran to be so perceptive. He seemed to have figured out a crucial detail as well. Seeing Chi Xia's calm expression, Xin Ran gave up, moved the mouse to the mirrorless Rubik's Cube he had repaired, and opened the video recorded inside.
"I've already watched this video once, you can watch it yourself."
After saying that, Xin Ran got up and left.
After Chi Xia and Xin Ran closed the basement door, they watched the video intently. The woman in the video, dressed in rags and chased by a pack of vicious dogs and masked men in an abandoned warehouse, was indeed the missing sister.
Chi Xia couldn't help but reach out to touch the holographic woman. Her face was covered in wounds, some scabbed over, others still fresh. Her black bodysuit was torn, revealing white flesh and red blood. The wounds, of varying sizes, kept oozing blood as she ran.
There was a door ahead. The sisters rushed towards it, and Chi Xia's heart clenched as she watched them desperately pull on the chain holding the door bolt. The vicious dog and the man approached from behind, baring its teeth filled with fresh flesh and blood, its fur smeared with blood that seemed to still be steaming...
Chi Xia clenched her fists, unable to resist the urge to smash those beasts to death with each punch, but the helplessness of her sisters inside was already a foregone conclusion in the recording.
The sisters turned around in terror and saw the vicious dog, less than two meters tall, kick open the door. Chi Xia breathed a sigh of relief, but behind the door was another warehouse, which seemed to emit a foul stench. The sisters gagged as a physiological reaction and quickly covered their mouths. They turned to look and saw the man with the vicious dog closing the door they had just kicked open, leaving them alone in the new warehouse.
A bad feeling arose simultaneously in the hearts of the sisters and Chi Xia.
The sisters looked up and saw an indistinct black mist at the far end of the huge warehouse. As a beam of red light shone in through the side door, the black mist made a buzzing sound.
"Run!" Chi Xia recognized what it was and shouted urgently.
The sisters stood there for a few seconds, their pupils contracted, and they turned around in fright to bang on the door they had been trying to go back, but the door was locked from the other side. No matter how hard they shook and kicked it, the two doors that were locked together showed no sign of opening.
"Buzz!" A deafening low-frequency vibration approached, and those mutated mosquitoes with mouthparts fifty centimeters long stared intently at their bleeding sisters with red eyes.
"As long as you recruit one member of the organization, I'll give you a quick death. How about it? Have you thought it through?" An electronic voice came from behind the door. The electronic voice was specially made, and the mutated red-eyed mosquito was very excited to hear it, so it vibrated faster.
The sisters pressed themselves tightly against the door, gritting their teeth and refusing to beg for mercy. But the fist-sized mosquitoes had already filled every inch of the space around them. They were just waiting for the person behind the door to give the order, and they would be riddled with holes by these mutated mosquitoes!
"You've probably heard of Trichogramma mosquitoes, right? One bite can send you from heaven to hell with its intense itching and pain. Do you believe these mosquitoes in front of you can turn you into a water balloon in an instant?"
The sister naturally knew that she had seen the video that had gone viral online before. A man was locked in a mutated Trichogramma mosquito incubator. Ten seconds later, the man, who had been bitten by hundreds of Trichogramma mosquitoes, was covered in blisters. The venom scavenged the moisture from the man's body, forcibly separating the skin and flesh. The moisture infected with the venom released neurotoxins, torturing the man to the point of wishing he were dead.
The horrific sight of the man crashing to his death inside the incubator made her vomit for a whole day.
The sisters seemed to realize that the stench they had smelled when they came in was the putrid smell of venom oozing from the broken skin after being bitten by red-eyed mosquitoes.
The sister leaned against the door and began to vomit; the smell felt like needles piercing her flesh.
"I'll count to three. I've given you far too much time." The voice from behind the door was like a demon's whisper, urging the sisters to die.
Chi Xia's tears fell uncontrollably. She wanted to tell her sister that she would understand even if she had to betray her in this situation.
However, after vomiting, the sisters did not hesitate and instead slammed their heads against the door, killing themselves.
"What a stinking rock in a latrine! Enjoy."
At the man's command, the red-eyed mosquitoes swarmed in, not even sparing the sisters' corpses.
Chi Xia's shoulders were trembling. Restraint was muscle memory, but the anger and grief combined made her crush the armrest of the chair.
Watching her sister quickly swell into a water balloon, Chi Xia bit her hand and cried uncontrollably.
She could guess that her sister was in the same profession. After being roommates for so long, her sister must have guessed her identity as well. However, even though her sister humiliated her to death, she did not expose her and left her a way out by leaving her with her meager remaining assets.
"We just share the same hobby, that's all, yet you're so protective of me. I don't even know your name!"
Xin Ran listened to the subtle sounds inside from outside the door, silently extinguished his cigarette, went to the upper liquor cabinet, took out the most expensive bottle of whiskey, opened it, and waited.
A short while later, Chi Xia, having composed herself, came up and became that expressionless, blank-faced female teacher again.
Xin Ran looked at her, "Come over for a drink?"
Chi Xia sat down. "Okay."
Not only was she calm, but her tone was also extremely composed. If Xin Ran hadn't been standing outside the door at the time, she would have almost thought that the girl's death had no effect on her at all.
Xin Ran couldn't help but admire her. How could a girl be so strong? What had she been through?
Xin Ran poured her a large glass, "Try it."
Chi Xia picked up her glass and took a sip. "Hmm, not bad, thank you."
“I used to follow a bunch of assassins around, ransack the homes of the guys they killed, and take their best stuff.” Xin Ran held up his wine glass. “This bottle was hidden in the cellar by a dead old man who molested children in a nursing home.”
It turned out to be an acquaintance. Chi Xia glanced at Xin Ran indifferently. How did this guy come up with the idea of raiding the homes of the dead? Assassin organizations only target people with resources and wealth. You can imagine how rich his harvest will be when he raids these people's homes. No wonder he was able to take over the large villa in Moon Bay and spend money like water on renovations.
Chi Xia had to admit that this person was too clever; how could someone be so cunning?
And why is she only thinking about killing the target and getting the bounty? It's really infuriating to compare yourself to others.
Xin Ran: "That old man deserved to die. I found a photo album in his study with private photos of 103 children, recording when and where he molested each child."
Chi Xia was dumbfounded. Even she, the person involved in the crime, had not investigated this information in such detail!
"Xin Ran, why did you think of raiding these people's homes?"
"Want to know?"
Chi Xia gulped down a mouthful of wine, sat down on the floor from the sofa, grabbed her long wig that was soaked with sweat and tears, threw it on the ground, and turned to look at Xin Ran with her neat and short hair. "Look at you, just say what you want to say."
Xin Ran was somewhat surprised. Someone who hangs around in front of you every day, wearing glasses and a wig, makes such a noticeable difference between when they're not wearing them. In an instant, they transform from a dull and wooden person into a refined, beautiful, and spirited girl.
What are you looking at?
Xin Ran looked away. "Why do you have short hair? Well, my ideal type is short hair."
Chi Xia was amused by him, "Oh, so your ideal type is someone with short hair who is more common among men."
"Nonsense, I don't like men at all. I'm straight, do you understand what straight men are?"
Chi Xia's smile was overshadowed by bitterness. "If we're not going to talk, let's drink. I want to get drunk."
Xin Ran poured her another cup. "Who is that girl to you?"
Chi Xia's eyes reddened again. "Roommate."
"Knowing that she was killed like this, do you want to do something?"
Chi Xia raised her bloodshot eyes, looking at Xin Ran with despair and determination, and calmly said, "I will make them pay the price."
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