Chapter 78 Internal Strife
Upon hearing about the reward, the henchmen wielding iron bars and machetes became excited and immediately split up to search for the kidnapper who was hiding in the shadows and toying with them.
Li Ran wanted to follow Zhao Jin, but Zhao Jin frowned and said, "It's more efficient for us to split up. Just keep in touch by phone."
After sending Li Ran away, Zhao Jincai followed Brother Tao down the stairs.
"About the profit sharing..." Zhao Jin lowered his voice and gestured a number to Tao Ge.
Tao understood immediately.
Zhao Jin extorted far more than five million from Song Wenxian.
To buy Xiao Yuqing's and the kidnappers' lives, he also had to give Tao Ge and his underlings a share of the reward, and he still wanted to pocket a cut. How could five million be enough?
Zhao Jin concealed his expression and sneered inwardly.
Over the years, by operating in the gray area, he has amassed enough wealth to live a carefree life for the rest of his days.
Once Song Wenxian transfers the embezzled funds back, he will immediately leave the country.
Nobody can threaten him!
...
Li Ran hesitated for a moment, then finally caught up with a small team and walked into the stairwell on the other side.
As soon as I turned into the stairwell, I felt a whooshing sound of a stick being swung around the back of my head.
Li Ran's eyes widened, and then with a "bang," she fell headfirst down the stairs.
The gang of thugs who were running up the stairs heard the noise coming from around the corner below and immediately sent one of their underlings back to check.
"Pfft."
From the darkness, a pair of iron-like hands reached out, one hand tightly covering the underling's mouth and nose, the other swiftly and accurately plunging the blade into his artery.
"What's going on?" The gang leader noticed that his underlings hadn't returned yet and sensed something was wrong. "We just sent him to check out the situation down there, why hasn't he come back yet?"
There was no response from the other end of the walkie-talkie for a long time.
"Let's go down and take a look," he decided immediately. "Tell the boss to bring his men this way!"
As soon as they returned to the stairwell, they smelled the stench of blood in the air and immediately became alert.
"The target is here?" They felt their blood boil, gripped their knives tightly, and rushed down the stairs.
"Get out here!!!"
As they rushed down the stairs, all they saw were bloodstains covering the walls and the body of their underling.
"What happened?" They were only shocked for a moment before they followed the messy bloody footprints on the ground.
"Boss!" The leader called out as he chased after them, contacting Brother Tao, "I've found something!!!"
"But there might be more than one person on the other side, and..."
A scream came from behind.
The leader stopped the car, turned around, and stared into the eyes of a corpse lying on the stairs, its eyes wide open in death.
A man's figure flashed above the corpse, then disappeared from his sight, seemingly running upstairs.
The one leaning precariously on the stairs was their henchman, who was running at the very back.
“Damn…” A bead of cold sweat dripped from the leader’s forehead.
The fact that two people were killed in just a few minutes was something he found hard to accept.
Who exactly is this person?
Brother Tao led his men to their floor in a hurry.
The murderer seemed to have only shown himself once before disappearing again.
"Brother Tao, he's hiding on this floor! We saw him running up here!" Seeing their leader arrive, the man felt reassured. "I've already ordered the other brothers to block all the stairwells on this floor. He can't escape!"
Tao's expression was sinister. "Don't leave an inch of ground untouched! Anyone who dares to kill me, I think they're tired of living and want to be reincarnated!!!"
Upon receiving the order, the others immediately dispersed and began searching inch by inch within the unfinished surface.
The sound of countless footsteps drew closer.
Li Ran had a splitting headache. He had just opened his eyes and was about to raise his hand to rub the back of his head when a bright flashlight suddenly shone in front of him, almost blinding him.
The thing in his hand clattered to the ground, and Li Ran instinctively raised his hand to cover his eyes.
strangeness.
Why do I smell so strongly of blood?
But he doesn't seem to be injured...
"Bang!"
Li Ran was kicked to the corner of the wall.
"Zhao Jin!!!" Brother Tao grabbed the dazed Zhao Jin beside him, his expression ferocious. "Explain yourself! Why did your men attack my men?!"
Zhao Jin was so shocked by the scene before him that he couldn't think straight.
Li Ran was covered in blood, with a blood-soaked machete lying beside him, and behind him... a fresh corpse lying in a pool of blood.
Zhao Jin was all too familiar with the tattoos on the corpse.
He's Tao's underling.
Anyone who saw this scene would think that Li Ran was the one who did it.
"I...I don't know," Zhao Jin said, bewildered. "How could it be Li Ran...how could it be..."
Li Ran turned around and saw the corpse beside him. She screamed in fright and scrambled towards Brother Tao and the others, yelling, "What happened? How did someone die?!"
"You're pretending to be someone else!" An angry henchman kicked Li Ran. "You're a fucking mole?!"
Before Li Ran could react, he was surrounded and punched and kicked by the furious gangsters.
"No!" Li Ran screamed, clutching his head, "I didn't kill him!!!"
"Brother Tao," Zhao Jin, his mind still reeling, stammered as he tried to reason with the furious Brother Tao, "You know how cowardly Li Ran is, how could he possibly kill someone?"
"Besides, we're in this together, I would never betray you!!!"
Just as Brother Tao was about to say something, the underling who went to examine the body exclaimed, "Boss!!! Isn't this Xiao Yuqing?!"
The two people arguing were taken aback.
Zhao Jin was thrown hard to the ground. Seeing that Brother Tao was heading straight for the stairwell, he didn't care about anything else and got up to follow him.
“Yes,” Zhao Jin said with a complicated expression, “it’s Xiao Yuqing.”
Xiao Yuqing was already barely breathing. She leaned against a corner of the stairwell, still wearing the rope used to tie her up. Beneath her was a pool of thick, discolored blood. Her hands were tightly clutching the knife that had sunk into her abdomen, and her face was deathly pale.
When the woman's unfocused pupils saw Zhao Jin, a surge of immense anger suddenly erupted, "Zhao... Zhao..."
Zhao Jin had a bad feeling.
Brother Tao had already stepped forward. "Zhao what?"
"You...you motherfucker..." Blood continued to spill from the corner of the woman's mouth, her eyes twisted with unyielding malice and resentment. "You...you betrayed me after using me...you staged this whole thing...to silence me...I..."
The words the kidnapper said before she was stabbed and thrown down were etched into her mind like a curse.
It was Zhao Jin... who hired someone to tie her up...
She'd worked for them for so long, doing all sorts of dirty work, and in the end, just because someone was watching her and fearing she'd reveal their secrets, they hired someone to kill her!
She'll haunt these people even as a ghost...
Even as a ghost, I wouldn't...
Tao wanted to ask more questions, but then he saw the woman's head tilt to the side and then stop breathing.
They're completely dead.
"Zhao Jin?" Brother Tao turned around, his voice much calmer now.
Zhao Jin subconsciously took a step back.
"Brother Tao, it really wasn't..." Li Ran's joints were aching terribly. Just as he was about to struggle to get up, Brother Tao, who was passing by, swiftly struck him down with a knife, ending his life.
The man, looking utterly incredulous, knelt down abruptly, crashing onto the dust-covered ground and raising a small cloud of dust.
Tao Ge kept his eyes straight ahead, the machete in his hand still dripping blood, as he approached Zhao Jin step by step.
"You're quite capable," the man said calmly, as if making a casual conversation. "You dare to try and double-cross me?"
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