228: Chapter 229 Awakening the Shen Family's Sharpest Hidden Blade

With a loud "bang," the already flimsy wooden door was forcefully pushed open by Hong Yun.

She couldn't even catch her breath, and her ankles, clad in high heels, throbbed with pain from sprinting along the rugged mountain paths.

But when she rushed into this old house of Wang Hanmei in the deep mountains of Zhejiang, she was met only with a room of icy, deathly silence.

The room was empty.

The enamel mug on the table had completely lost its warmth, and the few old coats that usually hung behind the door were also gone.

"Damn it!"

Hong Yun clenched her fists, her nails digging deeply into her palms, and cursed through gritted teeth:

"Still a step too late!"

Before Shen Du was taken away, when he forcibly shoved that encrypted phone into her hands, he had solemnly explained this most fatal hidden danger.

Once something happened internationally, those hostile forces hiding in the shadows domestically...

...would absolutely find every possible way to cross the blockade line to tip off the person most concerned for him, who was far away in the deep mountains.

After receiving the news, Hong Yun didn't dare to delay for a single moment and raced all the way here, but in the end, she was still half a day too late—the most critical half-day!

She couldn't panic; she had to intercept her.

Hong Yun took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the panic in her heart.

Without any hesitation, she turned and quickly rushed out of the old house, yanked the car door open, and sat in the back seat.

"Turn around! We're heading back to Shanghai tonight! Floor the gas pedal!"

She commanded the driver in the front seat sharply.

Then she immediately pulled out her phone, her fingers tapping rapidly on the screen, and dialed several numbers.

"Immediately check all vehicles leaving the town today heading towards Shanghai!

Find me the phone number of the local driver who picked up a woman in her forties!"

Hong Yun stared fixedly at the receding night scenery outside the window and issued orders:

"No matter what method you use, within five minutes, I need to lock onto their exact route!"

When Hong Yun's car finally screeched to a halt at the entrance of the alley outside the Shen Family old estate in Shanghai, the road ahead had been completely blocked off.

Fully armed security personnel had not only set up a cordon, but there were even faint signs of sentries deployed at several high points in the alley.

The entire old estate was currently in a state of suffocating martial law.

As soon as Hong Yun pushed open the car door, before she could even get close to the pair of stone lions in front of the main gate...

...two expressionless guards, like iron towers, instantly stepped across and blocked her firmly on the outside.

Listening to the muffled movements vaguely coming from the direction of the main house...

Hong Yun knew that the situation inside must have reached a complete stalemate.

She didn't hesitate at all and reached straight into her handbag.

She pulled out the encrypted phone that Shen Du had shoved into her hands before he left.

Without any nonsense, Hong Yun quickly unlocked it.

She directly dialed that internal dedicated line number in the address book.

The phone rang only once before it was instantly answered.

"Secretary Shen."

Facing the guards' oppressive gaze, Hong Yun spoke very quickly, yet her enunciation was exceptionally clear and firm:

"I am Hong Yun, from by Shen Du's side.

Before he was taken away, he handed this phone to me."

On the other end of the line, Secretary Shen Hai, who was being driven to distraction by the family deadlock in the main house, felt his breath hitch abruptly.

He stared fixedly at the highest-level authorization code displayed on his internal communicator, a flash of undisguisable shock passing through his eyes.

He never expected that at such a critical, life-or-death moment of a cross-border arrest...

...Shen Du would actually entrust his dedicated phone to a woman with no background whatsoever.

"I am at the cordon outside the main gate right now."

Hong Yun didn't give Secretary Shen Hai any time to weigh things or doubt her; she directly threw out the only chip that could break the deadlock at this moment:

"Let me in, and I can calm our mother down!"

The phone line instantly fell into a silence that lasted for several seconds.

In these few seconds, Secretary Shen Hai calculated rapidly in his mind.

Right now, the old man was being held over the fire, and the Shen Family was completely at their wits' end.

Facing this woman whom even Shen Du dared to entrust with his trump card, he could only choose to take a gamble.

"Hand the phone to the guard."

Secretary Shen Hai's hoarse voice finally came through the receiver, carrying a hint of desperate determination.

A moment later, the guards who had been blocking Hong Yun quickly lowered their weapons and stepped aside to clear a path.

Inside the gate, Secretary Shen Hai, his face grim, walked out quickly to meet her and brought Hong Yun directly into the deep estate that was the center of the storm.

Hong Yun followed behind Secretary Shen Hai and quickly stepped into the brightly lit main house.

The atmosphere inside the house was so oppressive it was almost suffocating.

The powerful old man sat stiffly on the grand armchair, his hands gripping his dragon-headed cane so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands were bulging.

And Wang Hanmei sat with her back straight, still kneeling firmly on the cold, golden brick floor.

Facing this kind of terrifying aura that was enough to crush any ordinary person...

...Hong Yun not only felt no stage fright, but she didn't even pause for a moment.

She walked straight to Wang Hanmei's side and suddenly bent down.

She forcefully grabbed Wang Hanmei's arms with both hands and firmly, without room for refusal, pulled her up from the ground.

"Mom, please don't be like this, come back with me."

Hong Yun's voice was crisp and firm, without any panic.

She naturally threw out a set of cold business logic.

Instantly reducing this earth-shattering deadlock into nothing more than an ordinary dispute:

"Shen Du is very safe right now; there is absolutely no danger to his life."

Hong Yun tightly held Wang Hanmei's slightly trembling hands, her speaking pace steady:

"This is just the most common competitive tactic in the business world; the other party is merely accusing us of infringing on commercial patents.

It is not some major crime like murder or arson.

Jiyuan Technology's multinational legal team has already gone over to handle it.

It won't be long before he walks out of there completely unharmed."

If these words had been spoken by Secretary Shen Hai or the old man, Wang Hanmei absolutely would not have believed a single word.

But as it happened, the person standing in front of her right now, comforting her with such a relaxed tone...

...was the woman whom Shen Du trusted above all else, the woman he even dared to entrust with his life-line trump card...

...and the "daughter-in-law" she had long since accepted in her heart.

Wang Hanmei steadied herself with the strength of Hong Yun's support.

Her gaze passed over Hong Yun's shoulder, keenly capturing the intense struggle and pain that flashed through the old man's eyes on the grand armchair.

Intuition made Wang Hanmei instantly clear-headed.

She immediately understood the trickery behind this.

If she didn't leave today, not only would Shen Du not be saved...

...the entire Shen Family would be completely dragged into an abyss of no return because of her desperate kneeling!

The old man on the grand armchair watched as Wang Hanmei was pulled up.

That stiff, iron-cast back finally relaxed, ever so slightly, in a way that was almost imperceptible.

His Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, and following the path Hong Yun had paved...

...he spoke slowly in a hoarse voice that even carried a hint of pleading:

"Hanmei... since you're already home, why not stay for a few days."

However, Wang Hanmei did not pause for even half a second.

She completely ignored this plea for her to stay, which had arrived more than twenty years too late.

She just grabbed Hong Yun's arm tightly in return and, with the help of her daughter-in-law, turned around stubbornly.

Without a shred of attachment, and without even looking back once.

Wang Hanmei stepped on the cold bluestone slabs and strode out of this deep estate without looking back.

The main house fell back into a deathly silence.

The old man stared fixedly outside the gate at that resolute figure gradually swallowed by the night.

The hands resting on the dragon-headed cane began to tremble violently and uncontrollably.

The pain in his heart was almost enough to tear his chest apart.

But he knew better than anyone.

What Shen Du was fighting to push forward outside was a battle to break the deadlock concerning the future lifeline of the entire Chinese semiconductor industry!

In order not to let the Shen Family fall into the death trap carefully dug by the enemy, and to protect this grand game of chess...

...he could only grit his teeth hard at this moment, swallowing the agonizing pain of separating from his own flesh and blood, along with the blood and flesh itself, back into his stomach!

Until the footsteps outside faded away completely, disappearing into the depths of the alley.

Secretary Shen Hai then walked back into the main house from outside with a grim face, lowering his voice to report the situation:

"It's been investigated clearly!

Someone is fanning the flames behind the scenes, deliberately using overseas media to draw the fire domestically, wanting to use public opinion to force us to protect Shen Du openly.

We absolutely must not get involved in this muddy water in any form, otherwise we will immediately fall into the pit they have dug!"

Having spent a lifetime rising and falling in the political arena, how could the old man not see through such a crude yet fatal trap?

He remained silent in the master chair for a long time, then slowly raised his head. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, stared fixedly at his eldest son:

"Do you really think that kid, Shen Du, has a ten-tenths chance of escaping unscathed from this multinational meat grinder all by himself?"

"Of course!"

Secretary Shen Hai didn't hesitate at all, nodding firmly and decisively:

"That kid is frighteningly smart! He never fights a battle unprepared. If he dares to enter the field as bait himself, it means this is absolutely the decisive blow he has long since planned! Think about it carefully. Since he stepped into Shanghai to manage operations personally, even when facing the biggest stakes, has he ever lost once?"

Faced with Secretary Shen Hai's unwavering reply, the trace of worry for his own flesh and blood in the old man's eyes was finally forcibly suppressed.

However, what surged up in its place was a thunderous rage at being schemed against by petty villains right at his own doorstep, even to the point of being forced to separate from his own flesh and blood!

"Bang!" The old man suddenly raised the dragon-headed cane in his hand, carrying the pent-up frustration and fury of the entire night, and slammed it hard against the hard gold brick floor.

"Tell the fourth one to get back here immediately!"

The old man gritted his teeth, squeezing out an extremely bloodthirsty order from his throat, word by word: "Go investigate! Dig three feet into the ground and find out exactly who is pulling the strings behind my back!"

The moment he heard the name "the fourth one," Secretary Shen Hai's pupils constricted sharply, and a chill involuntarily ran down his spine. He knew all too well what that name meant. It was the deepest, darkest, and sharpest hidden blade of the Shen Family. This time, the old man truly intended to kill!

In the dim and cramped underground dark room, a nauseatingly thick scent of blood filled the air.

"Drip..." Viscous blood droplets slid along the edge of the pure brass knuckle duster and slammed heavily onto the rough concrete floor.

Shen Hong, with his slightly curly, medium-length hair, shook his sore wrist out of boredom. He used the cold metal spikes of the knuckle duster to insultingly pat the cheek of the man in the interrogation chair. His tone was as friendly as if he were chatting with an old friend: "I told you earlier, spit out the list sooner, and you could suffer less. You just wouldn't believe me, why bother?"

The man, welded tightly to the iron chair, was now completely a bloody mess. He struggled to squeeze a mouthful of bloody spit from his throat, staring fixedly at Shen Hong, and used his last breath to curse through gritted teeth: "Someone like you... with absolutely no bottom line in your violent law enforcement... sooner or later, you will be brought to justice! Your end will definitely not be any better than mine!"

"Brought to justice?" Hearing these four words, Shen Hong not only showed no signs of being provoked, but instead grinned, revealing an arrogant and wicked smile in the dim light. He slowly leaned down, moved close to the man's ear, and crushed the other party's last line of psychological defense, word by word: "Listen well. First, if you hadn't already been completely condemned by those above, I wouldn't even have the spare time to look at you."

Shen Hong straightened up. He casually tossed the blood-stained knuckle duster onto the iron table nearby, making a crisp clattering sound. "Second..." He looked down condescendingly at the man, whose eyes were full of shock and despair, with a gaze as if he were looking at a cold corpse: "I am not some registered public official at all. You want to use rules to deal with me? You don't even have the qualifications to say that."

Shen Hong didn't even have the interest to spare another glance at the broken man in the chair. He grabbed a rough towel from the table, casually wiped the blood from the knuckle duster and the back of his hand, turned around, kicked open the heavy explosion-proof iron door, and strode out.

Outside the door, in the heavy night of the border town, several special agents in suits, wearing the highest-level internal badges of the Homeland Security Bureau on their chests, were waiting in formation, their nerves tense. Seeing Shen Hong walk out, the lead special agent immediately straightened his back. He looked at Shen Hong's blood-scented figure, his eyes filled with undisguised awe, and he subconsciously bowed his head slightly.

"The confession recording and the list are on the equipment inside." Shen Hong didn't even pause for half a step. He casually tossed the blood-wiped towel accurately into a trash can in the distance, and without looking back, gave a cold order: "The one inside only has one breath left; handle the remaining cleanup work yourselves. Don't bother me for the next few days."

"Understood! Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Shen!" The special agent in charge felt as if he had been granted an amnesty, his hands pressed tightly against his trouser seams, not daring to utter a single word of unnecessary nonsense.

Shen Hong ignored them, walking straight to the pure black heavy motorcycle in the courtyard. He swung his long leg over it, grabbed a tactical helmet, snapped it onto his head, and revved the throttle hard. "Vroom!" The deafening roar of the engine instantly tore through the oppressive night. Shen Hong didn't leave even a single extra glance. Driving the motorcycle like a manic beast of the dark night, with the exhaust pipe spitting tongues of blue flame, he sped off and disappeared at the end of the pitch-black street.

Half an hour later, at a noisy roadside food stall at the border, Shen Hong sat astride a cheap red plastic stool, devouring a handful of barbecue skewers. Just then, the specially encrypted phone in the inner pocket of his windbreaker suddenly lit up silently and vibrated briefly at a high frequency.

Shen Hong casually wiped the cumin from the corner of his mouth and took a glance at the phone. On the dark screen was a top-secret text message with only a single short line: "There has been an incident in Shanghai. The old man needs you to return immediately to investigate. This time, he is truly intent on killing."

The moment he saw the words "the old man," Shen Hong's chewing stopped abruptly. He subconsciously raised his hand and touched the horrifying scar on the back of his neck, left from a street fight in his early years. It was a mark left from when he was still a wandering orphan, living by stealing and robbing. If it hadn't been for the time he was blind enough to try stealing the old man's wallet, only to be exceptionally taken in by that old man and forced into special forces to rebuild his body and bones, his flesh and blood would have long since rotted in some gutter somewhere. As for himself, this sharp, hidden blade that couldn't see the light, he possessed an absolute, bone-deep loyalty only in front of that old man.

Shen Hong, who had originally planned to order another twenty skewers, didn't hesitate at all. He pulled two crumpled banknotes from his pocket and slapped them heavily onto the greasy tabletop with a "slap." "Keep the change." Shen Hong stood up abruptly and strode onto the heavy motorcycle. Accompanied by the deafening roar of the engine, the motorcycle tires rubbed against the ground, creating pungent white smoke.

Late at night, a few days later, in Shanghai, by the Huangpu River. The river wind, carrying damp moisture, whistled in his face. Shen Hong parked the heavy motorcycle, stained with the mud of a long journey, casually by the roadside, and leaned his tall body lazily against the metal railing by the river. He blocked the river wind with one hand and lit the half-smoked cigarette in his mouth with a "click." Then he took out his phone and dialed Secretary Shen Hai's top-secret direct line.

"Second Brother." As soon as the call connected, Shen Hong tilted his head back and slowly exhaled a plume of blue-white smoke toward the river. His tone revealed a sharp, bloodthirsty aura: "I haven't been back to Shanghai for a while. What kind of earth-shattering event happened at the old residence that required my hidden card to be slammed directly onto the table?"

Shen Hong knew clearly in his heart. For him, the hidden blade specifically responsible for doing "dirty work" for the Shen Family and handling extreme crises, to be unsheathed, it meant the situation had absolutely reached the point of a life-and-death struggle, where all pretenses had been completely cast aside.

"Where are you now?" Secretary Shen Hai's speech was extremely fast, revealing an extremely suppressed urgency. "By the Bund, just catching the wind." Shen Hong casually extinguished the burnt-out cigarette butt between his fingers against the cold railing.

"Stay there and don't move." Secretary Shen Hai hung up the phone without any hesitation, dropping only the last four words: "I'll be there immediately."