Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Huo Shaoheng didn’t even look at Bai Jinyi and only spoke to Bai Changhui. He walked up two steps to pass the cordon, adjusting his white gloves, and gave Bai Changhui a smile. “Deputy Secretary-General Bai, did you obtain the Senate’s approval to come to our Special Operations Forces base?” The Imperial Government and the Military were forbidden to have private interactions. Approval from the Senate had to be granted and official records had to be made before the visit could be paid. Bai Changhui had rushed there and most certainly hadn’t gotten the chance to obtain Senate approval. However, he had a classified document in hand and wasn’t afraid of Huo Shaoheng’s interrogation.

“Major General Huo, don’t change the topic. I have here the legal documents signed by the Imperial Administration and the Military, which declare that Song Jinning is to be jointly supervised and treated by the Science and Technology Department and the Military. Hand her over.” Bai Changhui took out the papers to wave at Huo Shaoheng.

Huo Shaoheng lazily reached his hand out. “Is that the case? Why wasn’t I made aware of this document?”

“You didn’t know? Oh goodness! No wonder you were bold enough to grab her! Turns out you didn’t know!” Bai Changhui laughed so hard tears came out as he passed the document to him, “Fine, fine. It was all a misunderstanding. So, Major General Huo, you can hand her over now?”

Huo Shaoheng casually flipped through the document. There were over 20 pages, so he said to Bai Changhui. “But, this is serious! I have to carefully read through this and see if what you’re saying is right.”

Bai Chanhui waved his hand, “Go ahead and read it, I’ll wait here for you.”

Bai Jinyi also sighed in relief. As long they could keep Huo Shaoheng preoccupied here, there was no need to worry about Song Jinning being transferred away. Bai Jinyi believed that no one other than Huo Shaoheng would have the gall to do anything to Song Jinning.

Huo Shaoheng took the document, strolled through the caution line, and back to his bulletproof vehicle. He stretched out his legs and placed the papers on his knee, flipping through them page by page. Time passed by as Huo Shaoheng continued to glance at his watch. He had already seen a copy of this document from his Grandfather a long time ago and had read through it countless times before. He was familiar even with every single punctuation mark in it. Of course, he would never tell Bai Changhui that he had already seen this—he would not “purposely commit an offence.” If they sued him over it, he could absolutely use ignorance as a defence. Additionally, he held the rank of Major General and although his rank wasn’t as high as his father’s, General Huo Guanchen, he actually had a higher security clearance. Besides, as the head of the Special Operations Forces, it was reasonable for them to take over the matters related to that particular top secret military experiment.

Huo Shaoheng looked at the document as he contemplated how he would begin with removing the Science and Technology Department in order to forbid Bai Jianyi from interfering with his mother’s affairs again. He never waged uncertain wars, and always made sure his opponents would never recover once he started fighting.

…

Bai Changhui and Bai Jinyi had been standing in the cold for over half an hour, but had yet to see Hup Shaoheng return. They sensed that something wasn’t right.

“Brother, what’s going on with Huo Shaoheng? Why’s he taking so long to read just one document?” Bai Jinyi frowned. “It’s only twenty something pages, so it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes”

“You think everyone is a prodigy like you and can read so quickly?” Bai Changhui relaxed and began poking fun of Bai Jinyi. They belonged to the direct bloodline of the Bai family, with three brothers and a younger sister from the same mother. The siblings had been tight knit when they were young. Later, the siblings had drifted apart once they’d grown up and had their own families and careers. Bai Jinyi was the closest to her third brother, Bai Changhui. The oldest, Bai Jiancheng was the most reserved and introverted, the eldest of his generation. The second brother was Bai Yusheng, who had been the defector who had recently betrayed the nation and then suddenly died in a diving accident in South America. The third brother was Deputy Secretary-General of the Imperial Administration Secretariat, Bai Changhui. Because Bai Changhui and Bai Jinyi were the closest in age, they had played together when they were younger. After Bai Changhui got married, he had remained kind and paid attention to Bai Jinyi, unlike Bai Jiancheng and Bai Yusheng, who put their focus on their own families.

Bai Jinyi had been rather rebellious in her youth and had never settled down with a boyfriend. She’d ignored her family’s objections and had always maintained that she would rather be alone if she couldn’t be with the one she loved the most. Consequently, she finally had a real boyfriend 30 years later. To everyone’s shock, he had been none one other than the second son of the Huo’s, Huo Guanchen.

At the time, Huo Guangchen had only been divorced for half a year when he had started seeing Bai Jinyi. Bai Jinyi had had a tumultuous personal life but was the smartest and most academic of all the Bai children. She’d studied in top schools and had even completed a postdoctoral degree. At first, Bai Jianchen had been very supportive of Bai Jinyi’s academic pursuits and had said that the Bai family dabbled in everything except for academics. He had even helped her become the student of Song Haichuan, the renowned high energy physicist.

Twenty years passed and Bai Jinyi had already become the director of the High Energy Physics Sector of Imperial Science and Technology Department and was regarded as the nation’s top authority on high energy physics. Although Song Haichuan’s top secret military experiment had failed, the Imperial Military, Imperial Administration, and the highest level of the Imperial Senate had never intended to abandon it. They needed the experiment to continue and succeed, because various signs indicated that the United States was conducting similar experiments across the ocean. The Huaxia Empire once was more than 10 years ahead of the United States with this experiment, but had suffered a great loss when it failed. Song Haichuan, who had presided over the experiment, died on the spot. His daughter, Song Jinning, had developed serious mental illness, and the military representative, Huo Guanyuan, had died without a trace in the massive lab explosion. At the time, there had also been four Special Ops soldiers who were lost in action. Their bodies had been immediately reduced to ashes by the fire and little to no traces or remains were found.

According to military practice, the soldiers would be considered missing if bodies or remains couldn’t be recovered. As a result, Song Guanyuan’s family was told that he had gone missing. Bai Jinyi recalled all this and sighed softly. How desperately she wished that Huo Guanyuan had survived, but unfortunately the extent of the fire damage in the lab had been more than enough to tell her that her wish would never come true.

Bai Jinyi looked at Bai Changhui, “Brother, let’s go sit inside the car. It’s too cold out here.”

However, their car was parked inside the caution line, so they dared not run into the restricted area.

Bai Changhui ordered his subordinate to drive a small van over. “Let’s go sit there then.”

Bai Jinyi couldn’t afford to pick at anything now and only wanted to warm herself inside.

…

Huo Shaoheng sat inside his bulletproof car and spent a whole hour “reading” the entire classified document. By then, Chen Lie had been performing the surgery for two and a half hours. He just had to delay for half an hour more and the surgery would be complete. He slowly opened the car door and walked out steadily to stand outside and look across the caution line.

Yin Shixiong came over and whispered, “They went inside that van.”

Huo Shaoheng nodded and took a cigarette from his trouser pocket. Cupping his hand around the lighter, he lit the cigarette and smoked in the cold, the cigarette smoke trailing in the night air .

Bai Changhui and Bai Jinyi saw Huo Shaoheng come outside and were just about to go out when he started smoking. They shared a look and reluctantly sat back inside to wait for him to finish his cigarette.

“Brother, what do you think Huo Shaoheng is doing? He thinks that he can drag this on and that we won’t take away Song Jinning? How naive.” Bai Jinyi shook her head disdainfully, “He’s just like his old man. They don’t know how to think outside the box.”

“If his old man didn’t think outside the box, wouldn’t he have married you now?” Bai Changhui snorted. “I suggest you marry quickly, then adopt a boy from the extended Bai family as your son.”

Bai Jinyi glowered as she shook her head. “I don’t want to marry him.” At her age, marriage wasn’t the top priority anymore. She only cared about the experiment. She had made up her mind—once she took Song Jinning away from here, she wouldn’t care about her wellbeing anymore and would use the most extreme methods to stimulate Song Jinning’s brain cells. She would force her memories to be recovered and make her reveal the most critical data from the experiment. She was more confident in Song Jinning that even herself. After all, she had only truly learned what a genius girl was after meeting Song Jinning. Bai Jinyi had been called a prodigy for so many years of her life, but was nothing compared to Song Jinning.