205: Chapter 205 Don't tell anyone

Li Li lay beside the edge of the breach.

Half a step further out, and it would be the twenty-fifth floor drop.

He was covered in dust, his clothes matted into a clump with blood and concrete powder.

His right palm was still bleeding, and his left wrist ached so much it was numb; even turning it slightly was a struggle.

Footsteps came from the direction of the collapsed corridor.

Very light.

But he heard them.

Li Li looked up.

An orange thin jacket.

Half of her ponytail had come undone.

No makeup on her face.

Jiang Rumu.

Li Li froze for half a second.

Everyone downstairs was evacuating; the Fire Department and Hong Kong Police were eager to drive everyone three streets away.

Yet here she was.

Coming straight up to the twenty-fifth floor.

Walking against the flow, huh?

Li Li propped himself up against the ruined wall, his legs a bit weak.

"How did you get up here?"

Jiang Rumu didn't answer.

She stood a few steps away, looking him over from head to toe.

His short, layered hair was matted down by dust. The old wound on his forehead had split open. There was blood on his jacket. His tactical vest was crooked. His pant legs were covered in debris.

He could still stand.

He could still talk.

He could still ask her how she got up here.

He was alive.

Jiang Rumu raised her hand.

Slap.

A slap landed on Li Li's left cheek.

A layer of dust puffed up from the impact.

Li Li was knocked sideways, his shoulder hitting the ruined wall.

He wasn't stunned by the blow.

He just didn't understand.

He had just climbed back in from the outside of the twenty-fifth floor, nearly losing his life. He hadn't even caught his breath, and what he got wasn't a paramedic, a commendation, or even a "Are you okay?"

It was a slap.

What kind of reward system is this?

He was still pondering this.

The next second, Jiang Rumu grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in.

Her lips pressed against his.

No preamble.

No nonsense.

Dust, blood, and sweat all mixed together.

She didn't pull away.

Li Li's brain stopped working.

His left cheek hurt.

His lips tasted sweet.

The slap was real.

The kiss was also real.

He had never seen this sequence of events before.

Work injury assessment one second, sugar-coated compensation the next?

He just wanted to move a little.

Jiang Rumu let go.

Li Li: "..."

He didn't get to taste it properly.

A limited-time trial, huh?

Jiang Rumu stepped back half a step, her voice very low.

"Don't take such risks in the future."

Li Li hadn't fully recovered his senses yet.

"Mm."

"Did you hear me?"

"Mm."

"Are you even listening?"

"Mm."

Jiang Rumu looked at him like this, her hand raising slightly again.

Li Li finally snapped to his senses.

"I heard you, no more risks."

Jiang Rumu stared at him for two seconds.

"You didn't save Su Wantang?"

When she arrived, she only saw Li Li lying by the edge of the breach.

Someone had fallen downstairs.

She didn't know what had happened in between.

She also didn't see Su Wantang let go at the end.

Li Li nodded.

He didn't explain.

He didn't say how Su Wantang had let go of his hand.

He didn't mention the phrase "Once having seen the vast ocean, the other waters are not worth looking at."

He didn't mention that final scream either.

She was dead.

The messy accounts of his predecessor should also end here.

Jiang Rumu didn't press him.

She just reached out and draped Li Li's left arm over her shoulder.

"Can you walk?"

Li Li nodded.

He had nodded more times tonight than in the past month combined.

The two of them walked through the wreckage of the banquet hall.

Broken glass covered the floor. Overturned chairs were stuck on the edge of the broken floorboards. Fragments of the crystal chandelier were scattered on the carpet, crunching underfoot.

Li Li didn't walk fast.

His left foot stepped on something.

He looked down.

A business card.

Gold-embossed lettering.

Shenghui Entertainment.

Zhou Hui.

The one he had placed at the end of the line tonight.

Li Li stepped over it.

He didn't stop.

On the helipad, the last Hong Kong Police helicopter was still waiting.

When the pilot saw the two of them come out, he immediately accelerated the rotors. The wind pressure kicked up dust, and Jiang Rumu's loose hair was blown to the side of her face.

Li Li pushed her up first, then grabbed the boarding ladder and climbed up himself.

His left wrist twitched.

Pain.

But he suddenly realized that he didn't subconsciously rotate his wrist anymore.

That habit had remained at the Mandarin Oriental along with Su Wantang.

The helicopter landed on the roof of The Landmark Mandarin Oriental.

The rotors didn't stop.

Three ambulances were already waiting below.

Two paramedics helped Li Li onto a stretcher, and Jiang Rumu got into the ambulance with him.

The door closed.

The siren wailed.

The paramedics measured his blood pressure, attached monitors, and shone a flashlight into his pupils.

Li Li's eyes felt sore from the glare.

"How is Hong Kong now?"

Jiang Rumu sat on the folding chair.

"I called my dad."

Li Li wasn't surprised at all.

General Jiang Zhan, Commander of the Beijing Garrison, newly promoted General.

Jiang Rumu's phone had a special frequency; even with civilian communications down, she could still make contact.

Other people's dads are backings.

Her dad is a mountain range.

Jiang Rumu put her phone back in her pocket.

"The Chief Executive has already requested aid from the mainland. Communications repair teams, firefighting reinforcements, and special forces have all arrived; signals will be restored soon."

Li Li nodded.

"Help me make another call."

Jiang Rumu didn't ask, just dialed.

After two rings, the call connected.

"Dad."

It was very noisy on the other end, and General Jiang Zhan's voice held suppressed anger.

"Mumu, where are you? Are you safe?"

"Safe, I'm in an ambulance."

"Are you hurt?"

"Not me, it's Li Li."

There was a pause on the other end for two seconds.

Jiang Rumu handed the phone to Li Li.

Li Li leaned back on the stretcher.

"Uncle Jiang, this is Li Li."

General Jiang Zhan didn't mince words when he spoke.

"Planes, missiles, emergency landings, hotels—are you planning to take down the entire Hong Kong security force by yourself?"

Li Li didn't take the bait.

"Uncle Jiang, I have a string of account numbers."

"What accounts?"

"The terrorists' financial accounts."

The phone went quiet.

Li Li recited the data marked by the system.

Two accounts.

One bank account.

One public chain wallet.

Inside were billions in cash and digital currency.

This was something the system had scanned when he was fighting the terrorists at the Mandarin Oriental. He hadn't had time to deal with it then, but now was the perfect time to hand it over.

After hearing this, General Jiang Zhan's voice darkened.

"Where did you get them?"

"Good luck, I happened to see them."

General Jiang Zhan didn't continue asking.

"I'll coordinate the freeze immediately. The bank accounts will be quick, and the on-chain assets won't be able to run either."

"Thank you, Uncle Jiang."

Li Li paused.

"There's one more thing, where is Snowden right now?"

The sound of General Jiang Zhan flipping through documents on the other end stopped.

"The Hong Kong Police are still interrogating him. The reason is the Cathay Pacific hijacking case; they are insisting on following local procedures first. After the interrogation, he will be handed over to the Hong Kong Garrison, and then brought back to the mainland."

Li Li didn't speak.

The procedure wasn't quite right.

Snowden is a CIA defector, holding global surveillance data from the United States.

A person like this shouldn't be stuck in procedures with the Hong Kong Police.

Especially in the situation tonight.

Terrorists, missiles, hotel explosions—everything happened all at once.

It was too coincidental.

Li Li was in pain all over, and his brain wasn't in the state to dig too deep.

"Understood, thank you, Uncle Jiang."

"Don't thank me. Give the phone to Mumu."

Li Li handed the phone back.

Jiang Rumu listened for a few sentences and only replied with one word.

"Mm."

Then she hung up.

She didn't say what General Jiang Zhan had instructed.

Li Li didn't ask either.

The ambulance turned into the hospital emergency entrance.

The stretcher was pushed in.

CT scan.

X-ray.

Complete blood count.

Full biochemistry panel.

ECG.

After the whole process was done, the attending physician stood in front of the light box holding the films, his expression very complex.

"Mr. Li, what did you experience tonight?"

Li Li lay on the hospital bed.

"Normal social interaction."

The physician's hand holding the films paused.

"You call this normal social interaction?"

"People here in Hong Kong are quite enthusiastic."

The physician flipped through the examination reports.

"Apart from a contusion on your left wrist and a few skin abrasions, no major problems were found."

He looked at the films again.

"Skull and brain are normal, chest and abdomen are normal, spine is normal."

The physician turned to look at Li Li.

Covered in dust and dirt, clothes torn in several places, and still covered in blood.

"Are you sure you just came from a collapsed building site?"

"Sure."

"Not just from the gym?"

"The gym isn't this expensive."

The physician was silent for a few seconds, then wrote a line on the medical record.

Physique is extraordinary, suggest further observation.

Li Li caught a glimpse of it but didn't say anything.

The nurse wrapped a fixation bandage on his left wrist.

Jiang Rumu stood by the side, never leaving.

Ding.

A blue light screen popped up in his mind.

[Mission Complete: Rescue Hostages at Mandarin Oriental Hotel]

[Rating: S]

[Reward 1: Biological Pupil Membrane — Can change iris color and texture, passes any biometric recognition system]

[Reward 2: Biological Fingerprint Membrane — Can copy and overwrite any fingerprint information]

[Reward 3: Body Stretching Technique — Height can be freely adjusted within a range of ±3cm]

Li Li stared at the third item for three seconds.

Plus or minus three centimeters.

In other words, he could go from 1.78m to 1.81m.

Or become 1.75m.

Just didn't know if other parts could be adjusted too.

He pushed that thought down.

Change iris.

Change fingerprints.

Change height.

Plus the previous makeup skills.

This isn't an entertainment reward.

This is an infiltration set.

Even the CIA's own mother would have to queue up for a paternity test first.

Coincidentally.

He was still carrying a CIA internal codename on his back.

Alpha-7.

The light screen disappeared.

Li Li was just about to close his eyes for a while when the phone in his pocket vibrated.

He took it out.

The screen lit up.

A 4G signal popped up in the top left corner.

Hong Kong communications had been restored.

Messages flooded in all at once.

From the variety show directing team.

From the Fire Department.

From the orphanage.

From Qin Xiaoshan.

And a bunch of "Are you still alive?"

Li Li couldn't be bothered to reply one by one.

He slid his finger down.

At the very bottom, there was a text message from an unknown number.

No origin.

No caller ID.

Only one line of text.

"Congratulations on becoming a big hero again! Want to know where Snowden went? Come to Macau for a game. Only you alone, don't tell anyone. Regardless of winning or losing, I will tell you where he went."

Li Li's hand stopped.

Where did he go?

General Jiang Zhan just said he was in the hands of the Hong Kong Police.

After interrogation, he would be handed over to the Hong Kong Garrison.

Now this text message says where he went.

Not "where is he".

It is "where did he go".

Li Li read the text message again.

Macau.

One person.

Tell him regardless of winning or losing.

A gambler wouldn't write like that.

Gamblers only care about how much money you bring.

This isn't an invitation to gamble.

This is fishing.

The bait is Snowden.

And he is the one being fished.

And the person fishing.

Yossi.

Then an address was sent over.

"Macau · MGM Cotai Casino · Table 14"