63: Chapter 63 Bathroom Showdown! The Mad Princess's Decisive First Strike

The back door of the Oasis Hotel was pushed open silently.

The hallway was pitch black. There were no emergency lights. The air was filled with the moldy smell of cheap carpet, mixed with a faint scent of blood.

Li Li held his HK416 at the ready.

His tactical boots stepped onto the marble floor, heel first, rolling onto the toes, without making a single sound of friction.

This was a typical small Middle East resort hotel, a two-story structure. The lobby connected to the reception desk, with the elevator to the left of the desk and the fire escape to the right.

A dim, yellowish light shone from the end of the hallway.

The reception.

An Arabic woman wearing a hotel uniform stood behind the counter, her hands gripping the marble surface so hard her ten fingers were shaking as if electrified. Two buttons had been torn off her uniform, and the neckline was wide open.

She heard the extremely faint sound of footsteps.

She looked up.

She saw a man covered in blood and gunpowder residue, wearing a black tactical vest, emerging from the darkness with an assault rifle.

The woman's first reaction was to open her mouth.

The scream had not yet escaped her throat.

Li Li lowered his muzzle, raised his left hand, held up an index finger, and gently pressed it against his lips.

His index finger was still stained with semi-dried blood.

The woman forced the scream back down, violently covered her mouth with both hands, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Li Li approached. His stride was short but extremely fast.

"How many people upstairs?"

Arabic. A pure, local accent. The volume was lowered so only the two of them could hear.

The woman froze for a moment, then extended her right hand.

First, she signaled five. Then she signaled five again. She wanted to continue, but Li Li stopped her; foreigners' hand gestures were too troublesome.

"Where?"

The woman pointed her finger up at the ceiling. The second floor.

"Guard positions."

The woman squeezed out a few broken syllables from her throat. "The, the stairwell… there should be one."

"Bang."

Li Li knocked the receptionist unconscious; who knew if she was an accomplice?

He took half a step back and turned to look at the elevator on the left.

It was an old-fashioned elevator that would make a crisp "ding" sound when it arrived. The sound wasn't loud, but in such a deathly silent environment, it was enough to act as a sonic stun grenade.

Li Li walked to the elevator. He pressed the up button. The indicator light turned on, and the car slowly rose.

He didn't enter. He turned around, took the stairs two at a time, and slipped silently into the fire escape on the right.

He slung the HK416 behind his back. His right hand drew the glock 17 from his waist, while his left hand pulled a cylindrical silencer from the inside of his tactical vest.

He aligned it with the muzzle. He twisted it. Two and a half turns, perfectly sealed.

His footsteps were extremely light as he crept up along the wall.

At the corner of the stairs, Li Li stopped. A mechanical engaging sound came from above.

Ding. The elevator had arrived.

Immediately following was the extremely clear metallic friction of a bolt being pulled. The guard had taken the bait.

Li Li leaned out half his body.

At the second-floor stairwell, a man wearing a black tactical suit was half-crouched on the carpet. The micro-submachine gun in his hands was aimed directly at the newly opened elevator door.

The elevator was empty. The man froze for 0.3 seconds, then leaned his head forward.

Pfft. The silencer compressed the gunshot into a dull cough.

A 9mm Parabellum round flew out from the side-rear, precisely drilling into the man's temple. The sound of shattering bone was completely drowned out by the bullet's muzzle velocity.

The man's body instantly lost all support and toppled forward.

Li Li charged up the steps in three strides. His left hand grabbed the back of the man's collar, while his right hand steadily caught the butt of the submachine gun that was about to hit the floor.

One hundred and sixty jin of dead weight. The veins in Li Li's arm bulged as he forcibly lifted the corpse and slowly placed it into a plastic chair at the stairwell.

He leaned the head back and rested the arms on the armrests. From a distance, it looked no different from taking a nap. As long as one didn't look at the bullet hole still spurting blood.

Li Li holstered his gun. His gaze swept across the second-floor hallway. There were five rooms on each side, numbered from 201 to 210.

201. The door was slightly ajar, letting out light. Li Li gently nudged the door open with his gun barrel. A standard double room.

Someone was lying on the carpet. Yin Ruoying.

That high-end couture gown that had looked so glamorous at the banquet was now wrinkled like a rag, covered in mud and unknown stains. Her hands were tied behind her back with thick industrial nylon zip ties, and her ankles were tightly bound as well. Her mouth was stuffed with a rag, wrapped with three layers of black electrical tape on the outside. She was unconscious, breathing steadily.

Li Li's gaze swept over her without pausing. The sound of running water came from the direction of the bathroom. The door was half-open.

Li Li tucked the glock 17 back into his waist and picked up a heavy ceramic vase from the entryway shelf with his left hand. He weighed it in his hand; the weight was sufficient.

He walked toward the bathroom. The faucet was running, and a tall, dark figure was facing away from the door, bending over the sink to clean blood off their face. A black tactical vest and a submachine gun were tossed on the floor.

Li Li stepped into the bathroom silently. Right foot, left foot. He stood steady in two steps. He swung the vase with his left hand.

The porcelain whistled through the air and smashed precisely onto the back of that fuzzy head. Crack! The vase shattered into pieces.

The man's head jerked forward, smashing directly into the mirror above the sink. Shards of glass fell everywhere. He didn't even make a sound; his legs went limp, and he slid down along the vanity, slumping onto the floor, motionless.

Li Li looked down. On the inside of the man's right arm was a tattoo in Hebrew. The motto of Mossad — "By way of deception, thou shalt do war."

Identity confirmed. He fired a follow-up shot. Sayonara.

Li Li fished a master key card out of the man's pocket and exited the bathroom.

Yin Ruoying was still lying on the carpet. Li Li ignored her; untying her now was useless, as the woman would only scream and cause trouble if she woke up.

He pushed open the door of 201 and continued forward. It was time to open the blind boxes.

202. The key card opened the door. Qi Wanyin. She was leaning on the floor by the bed, hands tied behind her back, with a female producer wearing a Production Team uniform lying beside her. Both had their eyes closed. There was no one else in the room. He retreated and closed the door.

203. An empty room, with only an unconscious male cameraman from the Production Team.

204. Two female staff members, tied up and gagged.

205. A young woman from Oman, wearing a gorgeous banquet gown, slumped on the sofa. He didn't recognize her; he tied her up.

206. Empty.

207. An old Arabic man in a white robe, lying on the bed, wearing a flashy gold Rolex on his wrist. He didn't recognize him; he tied him up.

208. Fang Ruowei and Wen Ditang were lying side by side on the carpet. Wen Ditang's fishtail braid was mostly undone, and Fang Ruowei's conspicuous clavicle chain had left a red mark. Both were alive, both unconscious.

209. Empty. All nine rooms cleared. Jiang Rumu was not there.

Li Li stood in the hallway. No system notification sounded in his mind, but that inexplicable feeling of irritability began to crawl up his spine.

Only one last room remained. 210. At the end of the hallway. The door was wide open.

Li Li slowed his pace, raised the HK416 again, and pressed the stock firmly into his shoulder pocket. One step, two steps, three steps. The muzzle crossed the doorframe. He scanned the entire room.

No one was on the bed; the quilt was neat, and there wasn't even a wrinkle on the pillow. But the bathroom door was half-open. The sound of water. The shower was running. Dense steam spilled out from the gap in the door, condensing into wisps of white mist in the cold air of the hallway.

Li Li walked into the room. He closed the door behind him without locking it. He pulled out the glock 17; the metal threading at the front of the silencer still held the residual warmth from the last unlucky bastard.

He walked toward the bathroom. The shower curtain was half-drawn, and the frosted glass and water mist blurred the outline inside. A figure. Clearly defined curves, extremely slender. It was definitely not one of the burly Mossad agents.

Just as Li Li stepped into the bathroom, he stepped into a puddle of water. The sound of water stopped. The person behind the shower curtain didn't move.

A woman's voice rang out, unhurried, even carrying a hint of casual laziness. Arabic.

"Could you please get me my bathrobe?" She paused for half a second. "Mr. Li."

Li Li's muzzle hung in mid-air, not deviating in the slightest. Water droplets from the other side of the shower curtain slid down the waterproof fabric and hit the wet tiles. One drop, two drops. The entire bathroom was so quiet that he could hear the gurgling of residual water in the pipes.

Li Li's hand gripping the Glock was steady as a rock. "You've mistaken me for someone else."

A faint laugh came from behind the shower curtain. The curtain was pushed open a crack from the inside. A wet hand reached out. Slender, fingertips stained with water droplets, with a very faint old scar on the ring finger. It was a mark left from years of pruning flowers.

Princess Delia. Half of her face emerged from the edge of the shower curtain. Gone was the silent mask from the banquet, and gone was the submissive, humble demeanor. Her wet hair clung to her forehead and cheeks, and a pair of extremely bright eyes stared straight at Li Li. She showed no fear.

"An internet celebrity from Dongda, or should I say, a hidden special operations master?"

Delia pulled the shower curtain all the way open. Steam billowed. She stood there just like that. Her body was wrapped only in a thin bath towel that barely covered her vital areas. "The bathrobe is on the shelf to your left," she said.

Li Li lowered his muzzle by half an inch, aiming at the center of her eyebrows. "A fringe princess of Oman, a Mossad spy, leisurely taking a shower here—do the dead people outside know about this?"

The curve of Delia's mouth widened. She completely ignored the muzzle pressed against her forehead and took a step forward. Water droplets slid down her collarbone and into the edge of her bath towel.

"They don't need to know, because the dead are the best at keeping secrets."

She recited that Mossad motto in Hebrew, her tone full of mockery.

Li Li silently pressed the hammer down with his thumb. "Give me one reason not to kill you."

Delia extended that hand with the old scar and gently rested it on the barrel of the Glock. She looked at Li Li. "You have no choice. Either you come with me, or you kill me." "Only I know where your Jiang Rumu has been taken."