Chapter 56

"Manager Hana, how did you find me here?"

Chen Fei was a bit puzzled. He had gone out alone and was captured by these unidentified armed personnel at Teacher Shen Fei's school, but this female executive manager had found him so quickly. Even if he hadn't suddenly fought back, it wouldn't have taken long for him to regain his freedom.

"Your phone was in a video call with the cafeteria chef Abel. The AP end installed has a signal direction-finding function, and your health band also has internet and location functions."

Hana Gager shrugged. Chen Fei's question wasn't hard to answer.

If this guy hadn't set up network relays and been in a video call with Chef Abel, the 911 Air Base wouldn't have known he was being held by unidentified armed personnel in the first place.

The repurposed AP end wasn't a household model and had some special functions, which were now activated and put to use. This was an unexpected bonus that Chen Fei hadn't anticipated.

"So that's how it is!"

Chen Fei suddenly understood.

He suddenly noticed some movement on the cave ceiling and looked up.

Several black, spider-like mechanical bodies with eight legs were quickly climbing on the rock surface, following the direction in which Executive Manager Hana Gager had left, soon disappearing from Chen Fei's sight.

It turned out that this female executive manager relied not only on her abilities but also on some technological equipment.

Neither the 911 Air Base nor the higher-level Tianqi Defense Group could be considered pushovers for the people living in the Hindu Kush region. Once they got serious, these armed personnel who tried to kidnap Chen Fei and Shen Fei would be completely wiped out.

Chen Fei and Shen Fei searched the cave, which was over a hundred meters deep, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

These unidentified armed personnel had not kidnapped the elementary school students; they had only brought the two of them here.

Hana Gager's team was on-site collecting evidence and analyzing the background of these people.

Daring to target their employees, neither the 911 Air Base nor the Tianqi Defense Group would let this slide.

As Chen Fei had guessed, these armed personnel, although they looked like ordinary bandits in the Hindu Kush region—disheveled, ragged, and armed with old, homemade AKs—still had many suspicious details.

The AK-47s they carried were only made to look old on the outside. The internal firing pin, recoil spring, and rifling were all new, with little wear. Even the ammunition was fresh from the production line, a luxury configuration for real bandits who only had old, patched-up AKs and handmade ammunition.

The AK-47s scattered in the Hindu Kush region mostly had poor accuracy, with bullets flying wildly after leaving the barrel. Many could only fire single shots, and jamming was common. Occasionally, the barrel would explode. If they fired continuously, the barrel would turn red and soften due to poor material quality, increasing the risk of accidents.

Items like incapacitating rounds, field rations, small radios, and satellite phones were not something ordinary bandits could possess.

Other details, such as clean and tidy socks and nearly new mountain boots, raised more questions. Who would make themselves look ragged on the outside but have such high-quality equipment on the inside, deliberately making it look old and dirty? This was clearly a sign of something more sinister.

These details and suspicious points increasingly pointed to one possibility: these armed personnel, dressed to look like local bandits, were executing a secret infiltration mission.

Hana Gager's team found some special-purpose needles among the captured items, which made Chen Fei break out in a cold sweat. His and Teacher Shen Fei's kidnapping was not an accident but a premeditated act.

These armed personnel had a specific goal, possibly to gather information from the 911 Air Base.

"P-99 Suggestion Needles, Chen Fei, did you say anything you shouldn't have?"

The one-eyed executive manager looked away from the brick-sized, self-powered low-temperature storage box and turned to Chen Fei, who was not far away.

The metal box, which could maintain a temperature of 4-6 degrees Celsius for at least 24 hours when fully charged, contained ten thin syringes and twenty vials of liquid.

"P-99 Suggestion Needles," as the name suggested, did not sound good.

Chen Fei quickly shook his head. "No, absolutely not. That guy only hit me twice, and I didn't say a word. I just took him out."

He had indeed acted on the principle of taking action at the slightest provocation, giving the other party no chance to threaten or inject him with the needles.

The other party probably never expected that this seemingly harmless young man, even when bound and immobilized, could still take his life with a single slap, turning him into a pile of flesh.

"Good job!"

Hana Gager nodded, not doubting him much.

Apart from firing the "Dragon Slayer Missile" to take down the gold dragon Bit, this new college graduate, who had only been on the job for a month, had no further contact with the gold dragon. By the time he returned to the air base from the international medical ship, the gold dragon's remains had already been mostly collected by a professional team from the Tianqi Defense Group.

A multi-tasking mechanic had neither the time nor the opportunity to come into contact with such things. Even if these bandits had used the needles on Chen Fei, they would not have obtained any information they wanted, even if they used all of them.

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By now, it was completely dark, and the strong smell of blood and gunpowder still lingered in the cave, making it unbearable to stay.

Teacher Shen Fei, wrapped in a blanket, sat at the cave entrance with Chen Fei and asked, puzzled, "What did these guys want to do?"

She was very worried about her students, wondering if they were injured, if they had returned home, and if they had alerted nearby Patan villages.

However, the 911 Air Base was still searching the area around the school for any remaining threats. They would only allow Shen Fei to return to her school after confirming it was safe.

The school's windows had been shattered by the incapacitating rounds, and the air base personnel were helping to replace them, which would take some time.

"I don't know!"

Chen Fei shrugged. He guessed it might be related to the gold dragon's remains, or perhaps some secret equipment or confidential information from the 911 Air Base or the higher-level Tianqi Defense Group.

However, none of these were things he, a small-time figure, could be concerned about.

A gust of wind brought a burnt smell, and in the distance, flames rose, with black smoke billowing. Hana Gager's team, after collecting fingerprints, iris patterns, facial infrared features, and genetic samples, began to burn the bodies.

Although they were on opposing sides, leaving the bodies to rot in the wilderness was not a good outcome. It was better to burn them to ashes, returning them to dust and earth, out of humanitarian spirit.

"Ugh! It smells awful!"

Teacher Shen Fei instinctively covered her nose and mouth.

"I thought it would smell like grilled meat, but it's just foul. Ha ha ha, novels are all lies."

Chen Fei, who had narrowly escaped death, still had the spirit to make a dark joke.

Shen Fei said gloomily, "That joke isn't funny at all."

She was not as fierce and decisive as when she had kicked the armed personnel in the groin.

The female executive manager, who had just finished a call, walked over to Chen Fei and Shen Fei and said, "We just received word that there are no remaining threats. It's safe now. Do you two want to go back, or wait until morning?"

The A-39B "Big Mouth" light turboprop attack aircraft, equipped with a reconnaissance pod, had searched the 100-kilometer radius around the 911 Air Base and Tampar Primary School. As an attack aircraft specialized in ground operations, it was well-suited for this task.

As the two kidnapped victims, staying there wouldn't help much.

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