198: Chapter 198 is finished.

Zhang Heng and He Hai responded by getting out of the car, once again cautiously moving the eight heavy black canvas bags down one by one.

Keeping their steps steady to avoid making noise from any bumps, they walked straight into the residence and headed down the stairs to the basement storage room on the first negative floor.

The storage room was spacious, dry, well-ventilated, temperature-controlled, and shielded from light. Its excellent sealing and high level of concealment for storing personal and valuable items meant outsiders had no way of entering.

The two men lined up the eight canvas bags along the inner wall, arranging them neatly with even spacing. Throughout the process, they strictly followed the rules, not looking around or touching anything unnecessarily.

After finishing everything, they silently exited the storage room, closed the door, and bid farewell to Jiang Chen along with Lu Zheng before driving away from Yujiang Bay in a low-key manner.

Meanwhile, at the abandoned grain and oil storage park in the western suburbs.

At 4:30 PM, a dilapidated electric tricycle wobbled its way onto the gravel path of the park. The cargo bed held half a crate of bulk white liquor and several packed plastic food containers.

Two people were sitting on the vehicle: one with dark skin and a lean build was Liu Si, and the other with broad shoulders, a thick waist, and a face full of fierce flesh was Sun Dabiao.

These two were the local liaisons responsible for guarding this batch of goods. They had been eating and drinking at a local restaurant in the city center until after 3:00 PM, then found a mahjong parlor to play a few rounds before slowly heading back.

The higher-ups had assigned them to stay in Jiang City to watch over this batch of goods for nearly two months. Their days had been dull and frustrating. Today, they had finally found an excuse to slip out and relax; having had their fill of food and wine, they were in high spirits.

"Old Liu, when do you think this crappy job will end? Guarding this godforsaken place every day where you don't even see a living soul."

Sun Dabiao let out a wine-induced burp, a toothpick dangling from his mouth, his tone full of impatience.

Liu Si parked the tricycle at the warehouse entrance, pulled out the key and stuffed it into his pocket, then cursed with a smile, "What the hell are you in a hurry for? Didn't the higher-ups say? Once this heat dies down and the goods are transported, the two of us will each get this much."

He held up three fingers and waved them in front of Sun Dabiao, lowering his voice, "When the time comes, we'll take the money back to our hometown and do whatever we want."

Hearing this, Sun Dabiao grinned and jumped down from the cargo bed. He wobbled over to the door of Warehouse No. 3 and was about to pull the key from his pocket when his expression suddenly changed.

The door lock, which he usually kept secured by twisting thin iron wire around it, actually had the wire loosened. It hung loosely on the rusted handle, clearly having been tampered with.

Most of his drunken stupor instantly evaporated from the shock. He snapped his head around and growled at Liu Si, "Old Liu! Someone touched the door!"

Liu Si was just getting off the tricycle with the takeout boxes when he heard this, and the smile on his face froze abruptly.

He threw the lunch boxes aside, rushed to the door in a few steps, and reached out to touch the wire. His heart sank instantly.

The wire had been untwisted by someone with clean and efficient technique; it was definitely not a mark of natural loosening from wind or rain.

The two looked at each other, seeing the same terror in each other's eyes.

Liu Si gritted his teeth and suddenly pushed open the iron door.

The old iron door made a piercing grinding sound. The interior of the warehouse was still dimly lit and smelled of mold; everything looked the same as when they had left.

But how could the two of them care about that now? They bolted toward the southeast corner of the warehouse.

Running to the steel frame of the abandoned conveyor belt, their steps came to a sudden halt as their minds exploded with a buzzing sound.

The five damaged wooden pallets were still in place, and the moldy old sacks were still stacked on top of them. Everything looked untouched.

But when Liu Si crouched down and lifted the bottom layer of sacks with trembling hands, his pupils suddenly constricted.

It was empty underneath.

The eight black thickened canvas bags—a full thirty million—had vanished into thin air.

He frantically threw aside all the sacks, moved the pallets to one side, and turned the entire southeast corner upside down. Aside from years of accumulated dust and fragments of moldy sacks, there was nothing.

Sun Dabiao was now completely sober. Bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, and his lips trembled as he repeatedly muttered the same phrase: "How is it possible... how is it possible... it was still here when we left at noon..."

Like headless flies, the two of them searched frantically through the warehouse, overturning abandoned equipment, wooden pallets, and sacks. The kicked-up dust made them cough repeatedly, but no matter how they searched, those eight heavy canvas bags were nowhere to be found.

The entire process was so clean it was hair-raising.

There were no signs of the lock being picked, no signs of forced entry, and not even a single extra footprint left behind.

The items had simply vanished into thin air, as if they had never existed.

"It's over... it's completely over..." Sun Dabiao's legs went weak, and he slumped onto the dust-covered concrete floor, his face as white as paper.

Liu Si wasn't doing any better. Cold sweat soaked through his clothes, and both of his hands were shaking uncontrollably.

He forced himself to calm down, trembling as he pulled out his phone and dialed the number of their contact above.

The phone rang for a full five or six times before being picked up. A low, raspy voice came from the other end: "What is it?"

Liu Si swallowed hard, his voice changing pitch: "Brother... something... something big has happened..."

He tremulously explained the situation. The other end of the phone went silent for a full ten-plus seconds.

During those ten-plus seconds, Liu Si felt like his heart was about to jump out of his throat, and his hand holding the phone shook so much he could barely keep a grip.

Then, a voice cold to the bone came from the other side: "The two of you, stay exactly where you are. Don't move, don't call the police, and don't contact anyone. If anyone dares to run, I'll make his whole family be buried with him."

The call hung up.

Liu Si and Sun Dabiao sat slumped in the dim warehouse, their faces ashen.

Meanwhile, in an office over two thousand kilometers away from Jiang City, a cold-faced middle-aged man in a gray shirt slowly put down his phone, his face so grim it looked like it could drip ink.

Three other people were sitting in the office. Seeing their boss's expression change after the call, they all put down their teacups, and the atmosphere suddenly froze.

The middle-aged man took a deep breath and suddenly grabbed the purple clay teapot from the table, smashing it hard onto the ground. The piercing sound of shattering porcelain made the three people present shudder.

His chest heaved violently, his teeth were clenched, and the veins on his temples bulged. It took a long time before he squeezed out a sentence through his teeth: "The goods at the hiding spot... have been taken."

As soon as these words were spoken, a deathly silence filled the office.

A bald man sitting on the left stood up abruptly, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"How is that possible?! I chose that place myself; there isn't a soul for miles around. Only Liu Si and Sun Dabiao were guarding it. Who could have found it?!"

The middle-aged man slowly closed his eyes, his voice raspy and sinister.

"That's exactly the problem. The intruders didn't touch anything irrelevant in the warehouse and didn't leave a single trace. They went specifically for those goods. Precise, clean, and efficient—it's as if they knew exactly where the goods were hidden beforehand."

He slowly opened his eyes, which were filled with suppressed, extreme rage and malice. "Those two useless wastes went out to drink at noon, giving someone a full four-hour window. Four hours is enough for someone to drive a truck in and empty the entire warehouse."

The bald man's face also became extremely ugly. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't.

"Lao Liu, take some men and go there yourself. Leave tonight."

When the middle-aged man spoke again, his voice had regained its calm, but it was cold enough to make one's spine tingle.

"Bring those two wastes back to me and question them thoroughly. Also, go over every detail of the hiding spot and every person who handled the goods, one by one."

He paused, his sinister gaze sweeping across everyone present, his voice low like muffled thunder. "Thirty million is a small matter, but I suspect someone on the inside has turned traitor and leaked the information. If this isn't cleared up, no one will have peace."

The bald man called Lao Liu nodded heavily and stood up to push open the door and leave without a word.

The remaining two sat in their seats, not daring to breathe loudly. The only sound in the office was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

The middle-aged man stood alone by the window, watching the sky outside gradually darken, his gaze terrifyingly gloomy.

That batch of goods was his trump card, which he had painstakingly split and brought into the country through cross-border channels and hidden in Jiang City. He had thought it was foolproof, never expecting someone to intercept it so precisely.

What alarmed him even more was that the opponent's actions were too professional.

They left no traceable clues, didn't alert anyone, and even those two idiots Liu Si and Sun Dabiao only discovered the goods were gone after returning to the warehouse.

"Who exactly is it..." he muttered to himself, his knuckles turning white from clenching.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Jiang City's Yujiang Bay, Jiang Chen was sitting leisurely on the living room sofa. Beside him was a cup of freshly brewed Longjing Tea, the steam curling up from the cup.

Outside the window, the setting sun slanted down, its golden afterglow spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the entire living room in warmth and tranquility.

He picked up the teacup and took a light sip, his expression calm and composed, no different from any other Sunday evening in the past.