Chapter 17 New Mission

Even though Jiang Cheng and the others had been very careful on their escape route, they were still unlucky enough to be caught by the gray-uniformed police. What frustrated them even more was that these police were simply lying in wait, guarding the exit of a secluded alley.

Faced with the dark muzzles of the guns, they immediately gave up resisting.

They were then押回巡捕房 (yā huí xún bǔ fáng, escorted back to the police station) and locked back in the dim cell.

"Damn it, I knew we should have taken another route," Ding Zhenzong muttered, squatting on the ground.

Yao Shunyu leaned against the wall next to the iron gate, playing with a grayish-brown potato in his hand, which was their lunch. "Trust me, taking another route would have been the same. No matter which route we took, or even if we hid in the crowd, we would have been caught. That's how the mission is arranged."

"I agree with Yao Shunyu. The mission isn't over yet. Guiche won't let us off so easily," Li Bai said, tilting his head towards the iron gate. His white coat was out of place in the dirty cell.

Jiang Cheng didn't participate in this pointless discussion. His mind was filled with the information Fatty had told him: Bai Yu was a ghost, and Yuan Shanyuan, who was with Bai Yu, was also highly suspicious.

His first feeling was that Bai Yu's existence was similar to Wu's, both belonging to the realm of the uncanny. But if that were the case, something didn't add up. Why could Bai Yu appear freely at the beginning of the instance, while Wu couldn't?

Jiang Cheng called out to Wu countless times in his heart, but as before, it was like a stone sinking into the sea, with no response.

Based on the previous phenomena, it could be deduced that as long as they entered the domain of this bus, powerful and uncanny beings like Wu would be suppressed. He didn't believe that this Bai Yu could be so much stronger than Wu.

But now, besides being wary of Bai Yu and Yuan Shanyuan, he didn't have a better option. As long as he could hold out until Wu appeared, his and Fatty's safety would be more assured. At the same time, he could also ask Wu what exactly Bai Yu was.

Fatty was sitting next to Jiang Cheng, his head lowered, his hands on his knees, looking very depressed and silent.

Jiang Cheng knew without guessing that he was thinking about Li Shanru. Jiang Cheng couldn't say he could see through this woman, especially after she was willing to risk her life to lure away the ghost horse and save Fatty. That was beyond Jiang Cheng's imagination.

After a moment of silence, he picked up his phone and sent Fatty a message: "Don't think about it anymore. You did what you thought you should do, and she did what she thought she should do. I and you are very grateful to her."

There were other people around, so it wasn't convenient for them to talk, so they had to communicate via phone.

"Who hid the alarm clock in our room?" Fatty typed. That person almost killed him and the doctor. He typed quickly, followed by another message: "Could it be Yao Shunyu?"

"Possibly, but it's unlikely," Jiang Cheng replied.

"What about Ding Zhenzong? He was eavesdropping outside the door before," Fatty recalled Ding Zhenzong's hypocritical face and felt more and more suspicious of him.

After hesitating for a moment, Jiang Cheng continued typing: "Don't just focus on those two. Compared to them, Bai Yu and Yuan Shanyuan are the real threats. Think about the trigger for our attack."

"You just got information about Bai Yu from Li Shanru, and then we were attacked. Don't you think that's too coincidental?" Jiang Cheng clicked send.

Fatty's eyes widened. "It is too coincidental..."

"I'm just giving an example. These people all have a reason to attack us, or rather, a reason to attack their teammates, because they all hope for some accident, an accident that would allow Li Shanru to survive," Jiang Cheng's meaning was clear: someone could die in Li Shanru's place.

"Why?" Fatty didn't understand.

"Because as long as Li Shanru is alive, the remaining teammates will have an extra get-out-of-jail-free card, and one that doesn't carry the burden of moral condemnation. Everyone will carry Li Shanru, who is like a useless person, and as long as they encounter an unsolvable crisis, they can throw her out to ward off the disaster. Who wouldn't want such a meat shield to survive?" Jiang Cheng's thinking was clear. He understood what these teammates were thinking too well.

After understanding Jiang Cheng's explanation, the hairs on Fatty's back stood on end. He always tended to think the best of people, but the doctor always mercilessly burst his bubbles of idealism, telling him about the complexity and cruelty of the human heart.

"Also, don't think about who's harming us, and then try to find this person and so on. It's meaningless. I just hope we can survive, you and me, we both have to leave here alive."

"Being too hung up on revenge will first of all make it difficult to find this person, and secondly, it will only alienate us from our teammates, which won't do us any good."

Fatty admired Jiang Cheng's clear head. No matter how unfavorable the situation, he could calmly analyze the pros and cons, and then choose the right path.

But honestly, the current doctor, compared to the past, has lost that mechanical precision and cold-bloodedness. He now hesitates, struggles, and even occasionally has confusion in his eyes.

But Fatty prefers the current doctor. In his words, the current doctor is more humane.

He doesn't care if the doctor is a human or something else. In short, the doctor is the doctor, always his best friend, his most reliable brother.

Just as Fatty was thinking, in a distant corner, an eye was peering at him coldly through the water on the ground. That eye slowly narrowed, as if it saw something incomprehensible in him.

The silence was broken, and a series of footsteps came from behind the dark iron gate.

The footsteps were heavy, as if the person was wearing thick boots.

"Creak—"

The iron gate opened, and the long-lost light shone in, making it difficult for everyone to open their eyes for a moment.

"Everyone out, everyone out!" the man shouted loudly. "You people are pretty lucky. Someone is willing to pay to bail you out."

"Bullshit." Yao Shunyu threw the potato away, patted his butt, and stood up, saying in a low voice, "Do you think I want to go out? Bullshit lucky bail, it's just that a new mission has come knocking."

"What are you muttering about, you rebellious bastard?" the man in the police uniform pointed at Yao Shunyu, his eyes bulging out.

Looking at the man's violent face and the whip clenched in his right hand, Yao Shunyu didn't say a word.

After finally getting out of the police station, a man walked up to them and asked anxiously, "Are you the masters invited by Boss Wu? Please come with me quickly, my young master is already..."

"Sorry, you've mistaken us," Ding Zhenzong tried to take a different approach.

"Oh, oh, I'm so sorry." The man nodded understandingly, then craned his neck and shouted at the police behind the gate, "Hey, wrong person, wrong person. The people I'm looking for aren't them. And don't bother locking these people back up. I'll add some money and have them all shot."