66: Chapter 66 Two Aircraft Carriers Deployed!

Bumpy.

Violent, irregular jolting.

His tailbone was poked by something hard, causing enough pain to wake Li Li instantly.

Not a boat.

It's a car.

His hands were tied behind his back, nylon zip ties digging into his wrists. His back was against the leather seat, his body swaying with the vehicle. His mouth wasn't gagged, but there was a small piece of medical tape on his neck—used to hold residual medication.

Professional.

Li Li turned his left wrist. The zip tie was too tight, making his bone ache.

To his left, Jiang Rumu was leaning against the car window. Her eyes were closed, breathing steady. That 1.4 million red dress was now so dirty that the brand's legal department would collectively need to write resignation letters.

Still asleep.

Outside the car window were nothing but low shrubs and gravel roads. Occasionally a crooked tree flashed by, and the muggy air of the tropical jungle poured in from the half-open window, sticking to his skin.

In the front driver's seat, Delia was steering with one hand.

She had changed out of her bathrobe into a dark grey short-sleeved T-shirt, desert camo cargo pants, with her pant legs tucked into old military boots. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail.

She saw Li Li open his eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Morning."

Li Li scanned the car interior.

It was an old Toyota Land Cruiser with a modified chassis, the shock absorption was outrageously bad, and folding knives, two bottles of mineral water, and a bag of dates were stuffed in the gaps of the back seat.

There was something else, too.

Under his butt, deep in the seat gap, there was a hard protrusion with a regular shape and metallic texture.

That was what had poked him awake just now.

Li Li stretched his fingers half an inch toward that direction under the restraint of the zip tie.

"Don't move."

Delia's Arabic floated over from the front. Calm, even a bit lazy.

"The time isn't right yet."

Li Li stopped his fingers.

He didn't press for answers.

If a spy hides something under your butt and specifically warns you that "the time isn't right"—it's either a bomb or a life-saving tool.

If it were a bomb, she wouldn't have warned him.

Li Li pulled his fingers back and leaned against the seat back.

He memorized the location.

"Is this way of speaking something you learned from your Mossad instructor? Leaving half of every sentence out."

"No. I learned it from my mom."

Delia stared at the gravel road ahead.

"She said this every time she tricked me into taking medicine—'Don't spit it out now, wait until you're better and you'll know how sweet this medicine is.'"

"And the result?"

"It was so bitter I cried for three days."

The vegetation outside the car window grew denser. The air carried a scent of damp humus.

This wasn't the landscape of the UAE, nor was it the arid Gobi of Oman.

Masirah Island.

Tropical monsoon climate zone.

They had already arrived on the island.

Li Li turned his head to look at Jiang Rumu. Her head knocked against the car window with every jolt, the loose hair on her forehead trembling.

"Your dosage of the sedative was too heavy for her."

"Standard dosage. She weighs twenty kilograms less than you, it's normal for her to wake up late. Ten more minutes."

Li Li withdrew his gaze.

Ten minutes.

He started reviewing the information.

Embassy procedures usually take at least forty-eight hours. But with a top celebrity from the East missing in a Middle East war zone, and a live broadcast of a "civilian" headshotting two agents with an assault rifle in two seconds—

This couldn't be covered up.

It absolutely couldn't be covered up.

The system panel in his brain flashed, the SSS-level main quest progress bar still hung in the corner, showing "In Progress."

The task description was still that line that made his blood pressure spike:

[Main Quest · SSS Level: Win back Jiang Rumu's heart]

[Task Reward: Jiang Rumu is the reward, what else do you want?]

Li Li cursed in his heart.

She was right there, tied up, in the back of a broken Land Cruiser, driving into the depths of some unknown jungle.

I want to win her back, but at least give me a percentage of progress.

The system ignored him.

"Mr. Li."

Delia suddenly spoke.

"That live stream of yours, the whole world is watching it right now."

Li Li opened his eyes.

Delia picked up her phone from the passenger seat and held it up to the rearview mirror.

The screen displayed an Arabic news website, with a blurry screenshot in the headline—the first-person view of him kicking open the back door of the Oasis Hotel with an HK416.

The translated headline read:

[Middle East Battlefield Mist: East's "Civilian Influencer" Single-handedly Raids Spy Stronghold, Rescues Eight Hostages]

Li Li scanned it.

"News efficiency is quite high."

"Not just this."

Delia swiped the screen.

Another one.

In Chinese.

[Breaking! Spokesperson for the East's Ministry of National Defense confirms: To protect the safety of our citizens in the Middle East, the 001 Aircraft Carrier battle group and the 004 Aircraft Carrier battle group have entered the Indian Ocean!]

The image was a satellite photo.

Two aircraft carrier battle groups lined up in the Indian Ocean. Carrier-based aircraft were neatly arranged on the decks. 054A frigates, 052D destroyers, 055 destroyers, and 901 supply ships surrounded them as escorts.

Li Li stared at that photo.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

He did the math in his head.

001 plus 004, dual aircraft carrier battle groups. A standard configuration of at least six destroyers, four frigates, two nuclear-powered attack submarines, with a total of over one hundred carrier-based aircraft.

This formation was not for evacuation.

This was showing their hand.

The East was telling the whole world: Touch my people, and you can't afford the price.

The system panel suddenly popped up a line of text.

Ding—

[Hidden achievement triggered: Heavy Weaponry of the Nation · Coming for You]

[Description: Your actions triggered the trans-oceanic movement of dual aircraft carrier battle groups. Congratulations, you are the first influencer in the world to make two aircraft carriers act as delivery boys.]

[Reward: Dual aircraft carrier coordinate positioning]

Li Li: "..."

"Dual aircraft carriers." He pressed his surging emotions into those three words.

"Mm." Delia threw the phone back onto the passenger seat. "To evacuate you, your East has brought out half of its inventory. The joint fleet of Israel and the US military in the Persian Gulf has been stuck on the east side of the Strait of Hormuz, not daring to move."

She paused.

"Do you know what this means?"

"It means that after I go back, the military will likely invite me for tea."

"More than that."

Delia braked to avoid a lizard crossing the road.

"It means you are now the most valuable chess piece in the world. An East citizen with eighty million live viewers and two aircraft carrier battle groups standing behind them."

"And I—"

She looked at Li Li in the rearview mirror.

"—am taking you to a place even the aircraft carriers can't reach."

Li Li turned his left wrist.

"Where exactly are you taking me?"

Delia didn't answer.

The car slowed down, and the Land Cruiser stopped at a fork in the road covered by vines. The road ahead disappeared into dense tropical vegetation, leaving only two repeatedly crushed ruts.

Delia turned off the engine. Pulled the key.

She turned around, knelt on the driver's seat, and rested her arms on the headrest.

Her Arabic became very slow. Popping out one word at a time.

"Mr. Li. I will only say the following once."

"You are the bait."

Silence.

Only the layered insect sounds in the jungle.

"I need a fish big enough to catch an even bigger fish. You and your Ms. Jiang together, are that fish."

Li Li leaned against the seat, not moving.

His brain was working at high speed.

Bait.

The fish she wanted to catch—not people from Oman, not people from the East. It was people from Mossad.

In the Oasis Hotel bathroom, the tone she used when reciting the Mossad motto in Hebrew. It wasn't agreement, it was mockery.

A Israel spy, mocking her own master's motto.

There was only one possibility.

She wasn't working for Mossad.

She was hunting someone inside Mossad.

And she needed a hostage valuable enough to draw that person out.

"When you know what you should do—" Delia's voice lowered further, "You have two minutes. Run in the direction of the sun, take her with you, don't look back."

Li Li stared at her.

"So you aren't a spy for Israel."

"I am, I've sold a lot of information."

Delia answered extremely quickly.

"At the same time, I'm not."

She took a date out of her cargo pant pocket, peeled it, and popped it into her mouth.

"You can hate me. When this is over, you can kill me if you want. But before that—"

She handed the remaining half of the date to the back row.

"Cooperate with me."

Li Li stared at that half date.

Beside him, Jiang Rumu's fingers moved.

Delia's gaze swept over.

She took the date back and ate it herself. She turned back to the front row and restarted the engine.

"What was that saying in your East—"

The Land Cruiser crushed the ruts and drove deep into the jungle. Dense branches and leaves closed in, the cabin grew dark.

"Boarded a pirate ship."

Back row.

Jiang Rumu's eyes opened.

She didn't make a sound. Her gaze moved from the strange jungle outside the window to her own bound hands, then to the back of the head of the woman with the ponytail in the front row.

Finally, it landed on Li Li.

Li Li tilted his head slightly towards her.

Very small range.

Jiang Rumu's body moved half an inch towards him. Her shoulder leaned against him. The 1.4 million red dress rubbed against the Kevlar bulletproof vest, making a faint friction sound.

Didn't speak.

But that half-inch distance was more effective than any line she had ever said before.

Li Li didn't move.

Let her lean.

The Land Cruiser drove deeper and deeper.

The jungle grew darker and darker.

Delia suddenly dropped the speed to twenty yards.

Her right hand moved off the steering wheel, silently reaching under the passenger seat.

Li Li saw this movement in the rearview mirror.

At the same time—

A low, rhythmic mechanical roar came from the depths of the jungle.

Not an engine.

It was a generator.

A high-power diesel generator.

Delia's hand retracted from under the passenger seat. A headset was in her fingertips, which she stuffed into her left ear.

She didn't look back.

But in the rearview mirror, her expression changed.

All the previous madness, laziness, and carelessness—

All faded away.

The thing that remained made Li Li's back press against the seat, squeezing out a thin layer of sweat.