“How come I feel like the Masked Man has become a different person?”
Gu Lian shook her head and walked out of the restroom, immediately feeling mentally exhausted. Sure enough, doing this kind of thing was tiring. Was it really this hard to just retire and live in peace?
“Friend, shall we continue?”
The guard smiled as he approached. Gu Ye sighed, her face once again blooming with a brilliant ‘smile’.
“Lead the way.”
“Alright then, follow me, brother.”
The guard, acting like a total idiot, called out ‘brother’. It had to be said, this guy really had a future ahead of him—the kind of future that was pitch dark.
Right now, Gu Lian needed to scatter the magnetic grenades in her hand. These things were only the size of marbles but could be intelligently detonated via her wristwatch, with power equivalent to the egg-shaped grenades from half a century ago.
Whether she could escape and kill Weikede depended on these magnetic grenades. She hoped they wouldn’t let her down.
Especially since the meeting with Weikede was scheduled for seven o’clock tonight. Originally, finding the documents should have been the hardest part. But according to the Masked Man’s reply, finding the documents wasn’t the hardest part; figuring out how to infiltrate the underground base had become the most difficult thing.
The entrance to the underground base was inside Weikede’s office. That entrance required a password. The password was manageable, but how to actually open the entrance had now become the biggest immediate problem.
Gu Lian followed the guard aimlessly as they wandered around the large compound. During this time, the guy even took her to a foot soak place to relax. As soon as they left the foot soak place, he took her to a massage parlor.
The entire time, Gu Lian just leaned back on the sofa, feigning sleep and resting, completely ignoring the guard beside her who was moaning in pleasure from the massage.
Even while ‘sleeping’, hearing those sounds made Gu Lian’s mouth twitch uncontrollably. ‘Damn it, is he showing me around the compound, or is he here to enjoy himself?’
If she didn’t need to take action either tonight or tomorrow night, requiring her to conserve her energy, she really would have wanted to grind this asshole to dust.
At seven in the evening, a somewhat mentally broken Gu Lian arrived at the sandcastle in the central district of the large compound. This was the very center of the entire compound. Weikede lived and worked here, and the entrance to the underground base was also located here.
The sandcastle’s footprint wasn’t as large as one might imagine; visually, it occupied at most only about 700 square meters of land. Besides Weikede, there were also several elders who held high positions within the compound inside.
“Friend, I can only escort you this far.”
“Get lost.”
Pushing open the sandcastle’s door, Gu Lian walked in with a headache. She really didn’t want to hear that idiot behind her say another word; it was just lowering her IQ.
She had initially thought this guy was quite talkative and had high emotional intelligence. Who could have guessed his IQ was infinitely close to zero? It was utterly baffling.
The entire morning, the only proper place he took her to was their training ground. Everything else was either massages, foot soaks, or small vendor gathering spots.
Although he indirectly passed by those important areas, he really went out of his way to avoid them!
Several armed personnel who had been waiting for some time stepped aside, creating a passage. At the end of the passage was a wooden door.
The fully armed guards stood by the walls. They felt somewhat uneasy at heart but silently admired Gu Lian for daring to come alone to negotiate business here. Backing, personal strength, and courage—all were indispensable.
No one knew if they would be the next to drop dead in this chaotic place.
Gu Lian headed straight for Weikede’s office. Pushing open the wooden door, inside were two sofas facing each other. On the sofa directly opposite sat a middle-aged to elderly man with long, grayish-white hair and a face full of wrinkles. Yet, his body sat ramrod straight, and his crossed legs emphasized his domineering and冷酷 demeanor.
“You are…”
“Gu Lian.”
“Oh, Gu Lian, is it? Very pleased to meet you.”
Weikede’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was full of vigor. However, those icy eyes indicated he was still hale and hearty despite his age.
“Sit.”
Weikede slowly raised his hand, picking up a glass of red wine from the coffee table and taking a small sip.
“Let’s skip the pleasantries. I’m here to discuss cooperation with you.”
Gu Lian sat on the sofa. Her tone couldn’t be called enthusiastic, but it wasn’t cold either. If she acted too enthusiastically now, those fully armed guards outside would definitely point their guns at her head. And if she acted too coldly, then the subsequent matters couldn’t be discussed, and this mission would be declared a failure outright.
“So direct. Then let’s get straight to the point. What do you want to cooperate with me on?”
Weikede’s smile was amiable—the kind of amiable that devoured people without spitting out the bones.
“As everyone knows, I’m just a messenger. The person discussing cooperation with you isn’t me.”
Gu Lian picked up the red wine from the table and poured a bit into the empty glass in front of her.
“Heh heh… I was already prepared. You people from the great nations always like to rely on the convenience of technology.”
With his opening words, Weikede stated he had already guessed the specific mode of this discussion.
Tap, tap, tap~
The sound of leather shoes stepping on wooden boards echoed in the corridor. The door handle turned downward, and the wooden door was pushed open.
A guard holding a tablet computer bowed slightly, walked between Gu Lian and Weikede, set the computer down. On the black screen, a window with a white border flashed.
Pulling the computer over, Gu Lian quickly inputted the port number sent by the Masked Man.
The originally pitch-black screen lit up. A screen of crackling static snow began to cover the entire computer screen. After a moment, the crackling sound gradually faded. In a somewhat dimly lit room, a man wearing a mask was seen leaning on a sofa.
‘Was it an illusion?’ Gu Lian felt like the Masked Man seemed different, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had changed.
Shaking her head to dispel the strange thoughts, Gu Lian adjusted the computer’s position, then leaned back on the sofa herself to conserve her energy. The current situation was no longer her responsibility.
“Hello, Chief Weikede. I apologize that our first meeting is in this form, but it can’t be helped.”
In the video, the Masked Man played with a gold coin in his hand. He said he was apologizing, but there was no sincerity in it.
“Some things are indeed beyond one’s control. The Mountain Kingdom is very poor. The food is only enough to fill one jackal. It’s merely the survival of the fittest.”
Weikede set down his wine glass and leaned back on the sofa, completely relaxed.
“Money, weapons, food—I can provide them all to you, and at 30 percent below market price. Do you want it?”
The Masked Man suddenly laughed. The amiable smile on Weikede’s face gradually faded, replaced by seriousness and冷酷.
“Friend, what would I, Weikede, need to pay?”
“Nothing at all. I just need to see your sincerity.”
“…”
Weikede didn’t speak. Things of value often aren’t expensive, but sometimes, free is the most expensive of all.
“Hahaha, I’m just joking with you. I want your administrative authority in the Gold Coast. You should understand the significance of your location there.”
…
For a while, the Masked Man and Weikede went back and forth, their smiles growing brighter and brighter. Meanwhile, Gu Lian, who was listening on the side, felt a bead of sweat trickle down her forehead.
She felt inexplicably panicked right now. ‘Did the Masked Man eat some kind of miracle grow or something? It’s only been two days since we last saw each other. Why has his cunning become so formidable?’