Chapter 159: Leveling
The clamor of the barbecue stall seemed to quiet down a bit at this moment. The guys at the nearby tables also pricked up their ears. This melon sounded more and more high-end!
A subtle flicker finally appeared on Zhao Chen's face. It wasn't panic, but rather a kind of helplessness... similar to the feeling of "my wife caught me sharing an insignificant little secret." He raised his hand and naturally adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. His gaze remained calm, even tinged with a faint smile.
Just as he was about to speak—
"Buzz..."
The screen of the mobile phone he placed casually on the greasy table suddenly lit up silently!
A message push is clearly displayed on the lock screen interface!
Sender: "Bankrupt Pancake Man Foundation - Asset Liquidation Team"
The message was short and cold:
"Target: Gu Group."
"The core asset package (shipping, real estate, ports) has been frozen by offshore creditors."
"Place of Enforcement: Grand Court of the Cayman Islands."
Freezing Order Effective Time: 00:47 (GMT+8)
"Next step: Waiting for the judicial auction."
This message, lying on the greasy folding table, under the dim light of a cheap bulb, amid the urban atmosphere of barbecue and beer, was like an icy bomb from another dimension!
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
Yu Ling's gaze, like the most accurate probe, instantly captured that piece of information! Her pupils suddenly contracted!
"Grand Court of the Cayman Islands"? "Freeze of Gu Group's core assets"? "Bankrupt Pancake Man Foundation"? These keywords, combined, stirred up a storm in her mind!
All the doubts - the debt document from the Cayman Islands, Zhao Chen's powerful "friends", his seemingly coincidental methods of resolving the crisis... were instantly linked together by this piece of information, pointing to a suffocating truth!
Lidya Su saw it too! She was closer, so she could see it more clearly! "Holy shit!" She let out a short exclamation, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets! This…this amount of information was just too much!
The Gu family was raided already?! And they started in the Cayman Islands?! This foundation… what kind of monster is this foundation?!
Zhao Chen's reaction was astonishingly fast!
Almost at the same millisecond that Yu Ling and Su Xiao saw the message clearly, his finger had already flashed across the screen like lightning! Instead of clicking it, he pressed the side lock screen button extremely quickly!
“Click.”
The screen dimmed instantly and returned to darkness, as if the shocking message had never appeared.
The hustle and bustle of the barbecue stalls once again flooded into my eardrums.
Zhao Chen picked up his cell phone and put it into the pocket of his casual pants very naturally. His movements were smooth and there was even a hint of displeasure at being disturbed on his face.
He looked up at the shocked Yu Ling and the stunned Lidya Su, his brows slightly furrowed, his tone carrying a hint of impatience for being interrupted and a touch of just the right amount of confusion?
"Registered in the Cayman Islands?" He repeated Yu Ling's previous question, as if he had just realized it, then shook his head helplessly, with even a hint of self-deprecating smile on the corner of his mouth.
"Lingling, you're overthinking it. My friend is just a show-off, pretentious gaming power leveler! I met him playing Ark. He's got decent skills, but he's a bit of a fool."
He picked up the beer glass and took another sip, his tone joking with the words, "If you argue with an internet addict, you'll lose."
"He keeps bragging about having a company in the Cayman Islands and being some international financial giant... He even insisted on showing me his crappy offshore company registration documents to show off his pathetic English. That 'debt document'... he probably just scraped it off some template website and filled it out on his own, probably hoping I, a 'former colleague' (he thought I was just an ordinary coder), could help him 'optimize' it. But he left it on my desk and forgot to take it... leading to your misunderstanding."
He put down his glass and looked at Yu Ling, his eyes frank, with a hint of helplessness in them, "Look at all the weird friends I have." "It's just an online name, don't take it seriously. His game ID is 'World-Destroying Devil', do you think he looks like that?"
A fucking in-game leveling power-up! A fucking "world-destroying demon king"! A fucking template file filled out for fun!
Su Xiao felt like her CPU was about to explode from this outrageous explanation! She looked at Zhao Chen's serious face, which was full of nonsense, then at his pocket containing the phone with the "nuclear bomb information", and then at Yu Ling next to her, who had an expression that said "I don't believe you" but couldn't find a breakthrough, and was feeling very suffocated...
An overwhelming urge to flip the table washed over me! This man's mouth! Is it made of titanium?! Is it welded shut?!
"Agent?!" Su Xiao's voice changed, pointing at Zhao Chen's pocket, "Then what about the message he just sent you..."
"Notification from the gaming guild." Zhao Chen remained calm and composed, his response was surprisingly fast, as if he had already prepared the answer.
"A new dungeon, 'Gu's Ruins,' has opened in Ark of the End. I've been notified to go online and fight the boss to get the first kill." He even added, "Their guild is called 'The Bankrupt Pancake Man Foundation,' a bunch of chuunibyous."
Su Xiao: “…”
She felt like a monkey being played with. All her problems were like fists hitting cotton, no, hitting titanium alloy steel plates! They bounced back and hit her in the face!
She angrily grabbed a bunch of charred leeks, stuffed it into her mouth viciously, and chewed it hard, as if she was chewing Zhao Chen's titanium alloy lips.
Yu Ling didn't make a fuss like Lidya Su did. She just looked at Zhao Chen silently.
Anger, suspicion, grievance, and a hint of absurdity aroused by this extreme deception... all intertwined and swirled in her heart.
Zhao Chen's explanation was riddled with holes, like a leaky net. Yet, his composure and calmness made her doubt herself. Was she really just being overly suspicious? Was Gu Qianqian making her paranoid?
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