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

Tan Guiren almost fainted from anger at Brother Hong’s words. Using all her strength, she pushed Brother Hong’s hands away and told him coldly, “Stop dreaming! You want to use me in exchange for the freedom of a political criminal? Do you think you or I have such importance? No one would give a damn about you!”

“Haha… no one? Your father is about to be Prime Minister of the Hua Xia Empire. You think they wouldn’t exchange you for him?!”

“Shameless! My dad wouldn’t!” Tan Guiren raised her head, and a look of determination flashed across her pretty face. “You want to use me to threaten them? I’d rather die!”

“Die? Why would I let you die so easily? Let me tell you, Miss Tan, the toughest thing isn’t to die, it’s to live!” Brother Hong gave Tan Guiren a lecherous look and pushed her forward. “Go to the bathroom! Your blood is almost staining the floor.”

Tan Guiren looked down in shock. It was only then that she realized her period had already stained the legs of her pants. The light blue pajama pants that she had been wearing for more than a month were already stained so red that it looked like an American flag. Tan Guiren grabbed a sanitary pad and ran to the bathroom.

Bam! She slammed the door shut, leaned against it, covered her face, and began crying again. However, she did not dare to cry out loud. She merely sobbed and slid down the door to the floor. She cried for a while before getting cleaned up.

…

It was evening on the second day. Many people were looking for leads on the missing person in Central Park. The police station in the west Manhattan district received another anonymous message. This time around, though, the person spoke to Tan Guiren’s father, Tan Dongbang, directly. “Your daughter is in our hands. We will let her go safely as long as you release the political criminal, Yin Youqin, who is locked up in Qing City Prison.”

The whole world went crazy with discussion the moment this message was announced. Everyone wanted to know who “Yin Youqin” was, including some of the people in the Hua Xia Empire’s higher management. From their knowledge, this “Yin Youqin” wasn’t a political criminal and was not locked up in Qing City Prison. He was a secretly hidden, high-ranking American spy. The Americans had placed him in the Hua Xia Empire. A couple of years ago, Huo Shaoheng, the founder of the Special Forces, captured him in the dark and had him locked up in the special prison in the Special Forces’ compound.

…

General Ji, who received this piece of information, called the committee of the Military Supreme Council for an urgent meeting. He looked extremely upset during the meeting. Who in the world spread the news that Yin Youqin was in their hands?!

“General Ji, this piece of information was most likely spread by Bai Yusheng, the convict who escaped.” Huo Shaoheng’s father, Huo Guanchen, bowed and leaned on the meeting table. “However, thankfully his rank was not high enough. All he knew was that we had captured the guy, but he did not know where the guy was locked up. He also didn’t know this person’s true identity.”

“He doesn’t, but the CIA knows. The guy was one of the chess pieces placed by the CIA, so how would they not know?” General Ji looked sterner than before. He clenched his fist and trembled with anger. “Sh*t! Shaoheng is in America. Should we inform him about this?”

Huo Guanchen responded immediately. “Of course. This concerns him. We should inform him immediately.”

“No. It’s midnight in America now. If we inform him in the afternoon, he’ll know when he wakes up tomorrow morning.” General Ji looked at his watch and heaved a sigh of relief.

However, what they didn’t know was that by the time they were done with their discussion and got their approval to notify Huo Shaoheng, he had already begun the operation.

It was already two o’clock in the afternoon when Yin Shixiong received a phone call from the Military Supreme Council. “Notify Mr. Huo now?!” Yin Shixiong was shocked beyond words when he received the call. “Okay, okay! I’ll contact them now!” Yin Shixiong immediately used their private line to contact Huo Shaoheng and Zhao Liangze. However, no matter how he tried, he was put through to a voice message. “Good day, the number you’ve just dialed is not within a network with service.”

Yin Shixiong sat on his office chair, his face as white as a sheet. Anyone who saw him would’ve thought that he was about to pass out, because he knew this was a code within the Special Forces. When they received this message when they wanted to contact their comrades, it meant that they were already in operation. No one was supposed to answer any calls at that juncture.

This was a solid rule.

Yin Shixiong was panicking. He was at a loss as to what to do. He attempted to not give up by calling over and over again, and he even tried calling their branch office in America, but he was directed to the same message. This meant the same fate for them.

This was the only time that Huo Shaoheng had activated almost the entire Special Forces team based in America, as it was a major operation. Therefore, Yin Shixiong couldn’t contact anyone, no one at all.

He felt hopeless. Looking up at the sky, he prayed relentlessly for their mission to not be of any relevance to the kidnapping. However, he knew that it was futile. He knew better than anyone why Huo Shaoheng and Zhao Liangze had taken the trip to America. They wouldn’t be trapped in this situation if not for Tan Dongbang’s daughter, Tan Guiren!

After panicking for a while, Yin Shixiong finally called General Ji and told him the truth. “General Ji, I think we’re too late. I’ve tried for almost an hour, but no one picked up. I was repeatedly sent to the voicemail that says that the number I dialed was not within a network with service…”

General Ji fell to his seat and was at a loss for words as well. Of course he understood what that message meant…”The operation has begun?” General Ji mumbled, looking as though he had suddenly aged tremendously. The wrinkles on his face seemed extremely deeply etched into his face. Eyes that used to twinkle seemed to be in a daze now.

General Ji snapped back to reality and commanded Yin Shixiong loudly, “Call! Keep calling until someone actually picks up!”

“Yes, sir!”

…

While Yin Shixiong feverishly tried to call Huo Shaoheng and Zhao Liangze, the duo was already in the midst of leading the men of team A and B from their American branch office and entering the Bronx in the middle of the night.

It was two o’clock in the morning, the time when people were the most worn out. Even if there was anyone on night shift or anyone who was used to staying up late, this time was the hardest to be awake. Even though their eyes might be open, they wouldn’t be able to focus well. They might be sitting at the door, guarding the building, but they were already in their dreamland somewhere far away.

The Special Forces team A had already climbed up the buildings surrounding the “ivory tower” and were hiding in the rooftops. They’d already set up their snipers, awaiting instructions from their observer who was hiding nearby, measuring the wind speed, temperature, and humidity in order to provide the snipers the information they needed to have the best shot.

Zhao Liangze was leading team A, while Huo Shaoheng personally led team B. They wore black sports attire, protected by bulletproof vests and helmets that covered the bottom half of their faces. Over the top half of their faces were huge pairs of night vision goggles. They wore leather gloves that didn’t cover their fingers and even had bulletproof wrist guards for protection. Each of them carried a semi-automatic sniper rifle and an entire row of bullets, just like soldiers who were at war on the front line. However, they were crouched low, moving quickly to the six-story building.

There were two guards behind the main door, but they had already fallen asleep while hugging their guns. Perhaps they had become complacent that nothing would go wrong, as they had been there for more than a month, and nothing had happened.

Huo Shaoheng was walking in front of the team. Reaching the entrance, he produced a small piece of metal wire and turned it around in the main door’s keyhole. The door opened. The sound of the door opening alerted the guards, but their minds were not fast enough to sober up before they were knocked out by the slashing of knives on their necks from their opponents’ hands! Their blood shot out like arrows.

Huo Shaoheng dodged the blood, retracted his arms, and threw the knives with blood on the ground. Then, in a flash, he went up the stairs. It was really dark in the building. There were no lights. Or maybe there were, but they had gone out and no one had fixed them. However, for team B with their night vision goggles, this place had the perfect lighting.

They followed closely behind Huo Shaoheng up the stairs. From the second level on, they began carrying out the operation according to their plan. They locked the four rooms one by one on the second level and took out their special gas blowers. They began blowing gas into the rooms. The gas contained anesthetics. They spread slowly into the rooms, and those who were inside were knocked out by the fumes before they could realize anything was amiss.

Huo Shaoheng brought four of the elites from Team B with him and headed towards the third level. There were only three rooms on the third level. Among them was an extremely big one that had many cages inside. That was the room Tan Guiren was in. The other two rooms housed the elites of the kidnappers.

The Special Forces were not that kind with the elites. They kicked the door open, took out their guns and shot continuously. Even the mice in the room couldn’t escape the bullets, much less the people. Even though they had fixed silencers on their weapons, the soft thuds of their gunshots traveled into the silence of the night.

Brother Hong, who was sleeping on the fourth level, was jolted awake. Even though the thudding sounds were extremely soft by the time they traveled to his ears, his fighting experience all these years told him that something was happening in the building!

Retrieving the gun under his pillow and carrying a rifle on his back, he opened the door and had just arrived at the corridor when he felt that someone was coming towards him from the other end of the corridor. He raised his gun without thinking and began shooting, not expecting that the opponent was faster than he was and had stronger arms!

A series of bullets flew towards him, and there was a fire fight in the corridor. Brother Hong only managed to roll across the floor and return to his own room. Giving the door a kick, he closed the door tightly and leapt towards the window. He could get to the room with the cages from that window, which was the room with Tan Guiren and the kids.

At that time, Huo Shaoheng had just managed to open the lock to that room. The door clicked and opened. Tan Guiren, who was losing sleep due to feeling extremely tortured because of her period, jumped. She turned around and saw a man who was extremely tall, wearing a helmet and a huge pair of goggles. She couldn’t see what he looked like. Tan Guiren’s heart began thumping. She thought that her heart was going to leap out of her throat.

Huo Shaoheng walked directly towards the cage with Tan Guiren and held up his gun. Firing towards the lock, it fell on the floor with a clank. He opened the cage swiftly and reached out to Tan Guiren. “Miss Tan? Follow me, quick. Your father sent me to get you out.”