chapter 40

Upon re-entering the main hall jubilantly, Li Xin noticed that the room that was previously filled with guests was now mostly empty, but for a handful of servants and guards . She knit her brows thoughtfully, swerving into the stairwell and climbing to the second floor . She had observed earlier that that was where the main fire extinguisher for the building was located .

She casually sauntered up to the extinguisher and slid an inconspicuous hand across the device, piercing a wire that connected it to an outlet behind the wall . Almost instantaneously, fire alarms sounded across the building and everything became enshrouded in mist that came from spouts in the ceiling .

In the building, shouts emanated from every direction: “Did a fire start? From where?” and frantic footsteps echoed all around .

A few seconds later, someone shouted, “It’s nothing, it’s all good! The extinguisher system malfunctioned is all . I guess it hasn’t gone under maintenance in a while . Everyone, keep going, everything is fine!”

Li Xin had managed to bring herself to the very top floor of the building in the chaos . She stood on the sixth floor looking disdainfully at the two unconscious men lying on the ground before her . She’d gotten rid of them with just a wooden staff . To think these people were underworld criminals, how pathetic .

Still muttering, she went to sit where the two men had been stationed: the building’s surveillance center . It was where she needed to be if she wanted to proceed with what she intended to do . Thankfully, she was a thief by profession and such a task was a piece of cake given its familiarity .

She eyed the twenty or so monitors before her, which covered every nook and cranny of the entire building . She smirked to herself . This was much faster than tediously combing through every room herself .

The footage on the monitors kept jumping from scene to scene, some of which made Li Xin blush furiously . There were dark, private areas where people were getting it on, entangled in sexual intercourse; she turned her head away until the scene changed .

Eventually, she found what she was looking for .

The woman whose wrist Qi Mo had broken, along with her companions whom had been dragged out with her, were currently located in some sort of torture room . They were surrounded by a crowd of sinister-looking men who were taking turns tormenting them . The sight made Li Xin grimace .

Upon closer observation, there was no anger or fear on the women’s faces and their screams held none either . Li Xin’s face tightened . If she had known it was going to be like this, she wouldn’t have risked coming to check on them . People needed to learn to love themselves instead of being codependent on others .

She was just about to swivel around and head out when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye . The girl whose wrist Qi Mo had broken was laying in a corner of the room on the screen, shrill screams coming out of her throat . Her entire body was covered in blood . The men around her were holding red-hot irons, walking towards her malevolently . Her body showed obvious signs of having been beaten severely; Qi Mo had broken one of her wrists, yet it became apparent that her other wrist had also been snapped .

Li Xin grit her teeth and let out a silent curse in her head .

When she had heard Feng Ji telling Qi Mo that he would deal with the girl appropriately, she’d known immediately that something bad was going to happen . And even though these women were in this profession and didn’t deserve to be pitied, they certainly didn’t deserve to die . Qi Mo was high up and powerful; Feng Ji would not easily spare someone who had offended him .

Li Xin didn’t consider herself a great person or someone with a vast amount of sympathy, but life was precious . Dying over such a tiny incident wasn’t worth it . This was why she had come .

She sighed, then inspected the computer and got herself into the system . She was lucky in that the men she had knocked out were already logged in, so it didn’t take too much effort . She located the power toggle for the torture room’s electric circuit and switched it off . Immediately, the monitor blacked out, indicating that she’d successfully shut off the lights in their room .

She reprogrammed several cameras through the system and meant to go in search of the girl, but all of a sudden she observed that the monitor revealed an infrared light in the pitch-black torture room . Infrared was something she was accustomed to, but it was strange that such high technology was placed in a torture room .

Frowning, she paused, deep in thought . It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t seen surveillance footage from the room Qi Mo was in . She turned back to the monitors and began searching carefully — it was impossible that their room was not under surveillance .

She finally found it at the very bottom below the computer in a position that was easily missed . On the screen, Qi Mo looked pissed off, his face taut . Feng Ji looked equally irked; the two men looked as if they were pointing daggers at each other out on a battlefield . Apparently after she left, something else had happened to make the tension between the two parties worse — it showed in the stiff way Yellow Falcon was holding himself .

It was obvious that Qi Mo had intended to take the Wind Clan territory from the start . He had only been waiting for the right moment to justify his actions . Li Xin crooked an eyebrow at Qi Mo’s calm, steady expression . She shook her head in pity at Feng Ji . The man had given Qi Mo the perfect opening with his invitation; it was like a chicken walking into a wolf’s den to say hello . He brought it upon himself .

She sighed again, but then she noticed something else . The monitor above Qi Mo showed a bunch of heavily armed men holding heavy assault weapons pointed towards the ground . The guns in their hands were extremely high tech . She wondered why they were pointing it at the floor .

Elsewhere, on another monitor, the same scene took place in another room, yet the men had their weapons pointed upwards towards the ceiling . A strange feeling took over as Li Xin’s gaze traveled between the screens, and then she stiffened .

There were men in every room surrounding the one Qi Mo was in, and their weapons were all pointed towards him . Everyone’s hands were on the triggers — they were simply waiting for a command . Li Xin wiped a hand over her forehead, which had suddenly broken out into cold sweat . To think that she had been in that dangerous room just a few moments ago… how terrifying . If Qi Mo made a single wrong move, he would be shot to smithereens .