In the corridor, Tang Hao tossed the body of the ninja cultivator aside. He turned around to run forward again.
He could not afford to dawdle anymore. He needed to find their leader to find out where Zhao Qingxue was.
Suddenly, he had an ominous premonition. He instinctively took a step back.
In the next moment, two blades silently pierced through the ceiling and the floor.
The two blades retreated again. When they appeared again, they once again pierced Tang Hao from the top and bottom.
“Dammit!” Tang Hao stepped backward again. He was getting frustrated.
The ways of the ninja cultivator were mysterious, though he had a rather simple and brute-force solution for that.
He flicked his wrists and ten jade talismans appeared in each hand. He threw them out in front of him.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The jade talismans exploded and the corridor was turned into a gaping hole. Two figures fell out and were sprawled on the floor. They were quite flustered.
“You’ve finally shown yourselves!” Tang Hao grunted coldly. He threw another two jade talismans and reduced them to ashes.
The security room once again fell into an eerie silence.
The screen was blurry because of the explosions, but they could still see what happened.
Grandmaster Oda’s smile froze on his face. He sucked in a mouthful of cold air out of shock.
A shiver coursed down his spine. He was thoroughly shaken.
‘That kid is too cruel!’
He thought about it carefully and realized that his chances of winning were slim even if he fought the kid himself. He might be killed instead.
His fear became greater when he thought of that. His heart was thumping hard.
‘No. This kid is too cruel. I’ve gotta run! If I don’t run now, surely I’ll be sent to my death!’ Grandmaster Oda thought.
He could not care less that his disciples died.
‘This matter has nothing to do with me anyway. I’m not going to throw away my life for this idiot,’ he thought again. With a flash, he disappeared and was nowhere to be seen.
Makoto Miki had not realized that yet. He was still stunned speechless by what he saw on the screen.
When he came to his senses and turned around, he was once again dumbstruck.
“Where’s the Grandmaster? Where is he?” He roared frantically.
The other people around him came to his senses too. They looked around the room and were confused.
‘Where is the Grandmaster?’
“Don’t tell me… the Grandmaster ran away?” One of them spoke with a trembling voice.
The room became silent again. They came to their senses at the same time and immediately made a mad dash toward the door.
Bang!
The door was kicked open from the outside and a figure came in.
Chapter 319 - The Warmth of That Kiss
The people who were running to the door immediately froze on the spot.
They trembled with pale faces. Some of them slumped on the floor.
They had witnessed everything earlier. They knew that they were no match for the kid’s power, and their only hope, Grandmaster Oda, had run away.
Their hearts were filled with despair.
Makoto Miki was also trembling. His heart was filled with fear and regret.
All this must have been caused by that female police officer. Unfortunately for him, the female police officer should be already sleeping with the fishes by then.
His only lifeline was gone.
“Where is she?” Tang Hao roared sternly as his gaze swept across the room. His eyes eventually fell on Makoto Miki.
Tang Hao walked up to him, grabbed his collar, and lifted him off the floor.
“I’m asking you, where is she?”
Tang Hao’s face was horrific when he asked that question.
“She’s… She’s been… taken away… She should be at the bottom of the sea by now. She’s dead!” Makoto Miki’s face was ashen when he said that. Suddenly, he realized something was wrong, and he quickly shook his head.
“No… No! She might be still alive! She’s thrown into the sea in a crate. She might be still alive!
“You can’t kill me. I know that there’s an informer in the police who wants to set her up. The informer gave us a phone call and told us about her.”
Tang Hao’s expression changed drastically when he heard that.
He had thought that Zhao Qingxue was discovered because she was careless. He did not expect that there was an informer among the police.
“We didn’t want to harm her at first, only drive her away. Unfortunately, she saw something that she wasn’t meant to,” Makoto Miki shouted frantically as though he was a drowning man grasping for a plank.
“Let me ask you then, where did your men throw her?” Tang Hao asked sternly.
“I… I don’t know. Nobody knows. They carried her on a helicopter. But it shouldn’t be too far away,” Makoto Miki said frantically.
Tang Hao furrowed his brows.
How was he going to find her? The sea was unimaginably vast. He did not know where to start searching.
“Where’s the helipad?”
“It’s at… at the stern!”
“If she’s dead, I want the entire Miki Group to die with her!” Tang Hao grunted. He then knocked Makoto Miki out with a karate chop.
He knocked out everyone else in the room, then rushed out of the door and toward the stern.
He faced the endless sea, closed his eyes, and cast the Heaven Eye and Earth Ear spell. His sight and hearing were enhanced by countless times and spread throughout the entire sea.
For a while, he could only hear the sound of the wind and waves.
A while later, he could hear the faint hum of a helicopter rotor.
He opened his eyes and dashed away from the cruise ship. Soon, he noticed a small white helicopter in the sky.
Ferocious gusts of wind immediately rose. He rode on the wind and clung onto the helicopter. Then, he opened the door and pulled the pilot out.
The helicopter pilot was utterly dumbstruck.
He was piloting a helicopter, so where did the person come from?
“Where is she? Where did you dump her?” Tang Hao roared.
The pilot was shocked but eventually came to his senses. With a trembling finger, he pointed behind him and spoke in halting Chinese, “Over… Over there. Not far away.”
The helicopter wobbled and began to lose altitude.
“Hmph,” Tang Hao grunted coldly. He dragged the pilot out of the helicopter and threw him into the sea. Then, he leaped off the helicopter, glided in the air for a while, and dove downward.
The crash of the waves rang loudly in his ears as he descended toward the bottom.
Meanwhile, in the dark and silent sea, a wooden crate was gradually sinking.
The crate was beginning to distort under the crushing water pressure. Seawater was gradually seeping through the cracks.
A figure was curled up in the box.
She was dressed in a red evening gown. Her jet-black hair was scattered across her face and shoulders. Her impeccable face was pale, and her half-shut eyes were unfocused.
Her ankles were chained to two steel balls.
She was in a daze. She wanted to move, but she had no strength. She could only watch helplessly as the box continued to distort and crack.
Cold seawater rushed in, threatening to drown her.
“Am I going to die?”
The thought came to her mind. Sorrow overcame her. She did not want to die, but there was nothing that she could do.
“So cold!” She shivered.
She was slowly losing consciousness.
Many memories flashed past in her mind. Different faces flew by like a carousel.
Finally, the images stopped at a young and handsome face.
She smiled.
Finally, the crate buckled under the pressur
e and splintered into many pieces. The ice-cold seawater swallowed her up.
Her red evening gown danced in the sea like a blooming rose.
She slowly sank into the pitch-black abyss below.
Her eyes slowly closed and her vision began to blur.
She could vaguely see a hand. The hand was shining brightly and was reaching out to her.
‘This is…’ She was shocked.
The hand that was reaching toward her touched her fingertips. As though being jolted by electricity, she trembled and her eyes struggled to open wide.
She saw a face.
‘It’s him! But why is he here?’ She thought, but she was already losing consciousness. Her eyelids became heavier and heavier and eventually closed.
At the moment she lost consciousness, she could vaguely feel something warm on her lips.
The two people locked in an embrace in the cold, dark sea.
Tang Hao transferred qi from his body to hers through the lips. Her ice-cold body slowly regained temperature. Then, he grabbed on her waist and swam toward the surface.
Splash!
They broke through the surface of the ocean. He took out a plank from his pocket dimension and placed her on it.
He felt her wrist for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe.
He pushed the plank and swam toward the cruise ship.
When he neared the cruise ship, he saw two military helicopters circling the ship. There was also a warship nearby. General Bai must have arrived.
Speedboats appeared from the cruise ship. Those were the people who tried to escape. However, the helicopters fired warning shots at them and forced them back.
A speedboat came and picked up Tang Hao and Zhao Qingxue.
Once on the warship, several paramedics came to bring Zhao Qingxue to the infirmary.
The warship anchored next to the cruise ship and set up a gangplank. Soldiers rushed across the gangplank +and captured the surviving Dongying people.
Tang Hao immediately went to the security control room, slapped Makoto Miki awake, and interrogated the truth out of him.
Chapter 320 - The Informer
Tang Hao threw Makoto Miki on the floor while the soldiers tied him up.
Makoto Miki was Miki Group’s point of contact in Huaxia, and he possessed all the information about the group’s criminal deeds. He was too precious to be killed off.
After his capture, Miki Group’s influence in Huaxia would be weakened if not wholly removed.
More soldiers rushed in and brought the other Miki Group minions out.
Suddenly, a soldier ran across the room.
Tang Hao followed him to the kitchen. There were many black bags placed where the food ingredients were stored. They opened to see that each of them contained a person. Some were male, some were female, and there were even children.
A quick count revealed that there were more than twenty people.
Tang Hao was livid when he saw the children.
‘They kidnap children too? These people are worse than animals!’
He took a deep breath to suppress the anger in his heart. He stepped forward to examine each of them and breathed a sigh of relief.
The people were still alive, albeit a little weak.
“Bring them out!” Tang Hao turned around and ordered the soldiers.
He returned to the deck. The bodies were all cleaned up. Only his Audi was left.
Several speedboats appeared from a distance. Zhao Wuyang and the others were on one of those speedboats.
Those people got on the cruise ship.
“Tang Hao, where’s my little sister?” Zhao Wuyang ran frantically to Tang Hao.
Tang Hao smiled. “She fainted earlier, but she’s fine. She’s being treated in the infirmary now.”
Everyone felt a heavy burden lifted from their shoulders when they heard that.
Zhao Wuyang was so happy that he almost cried.
“Thank you so much, Tang Hao!” Zhao Wuyang’s body was trembling with joy. He grabbed Tang Hao’s hands and shook them hard.
His eyes that were usually fierce like a tiger were brimming with tears.
“Don’t mention it. You should go check on her! Right, Captain Zhang, I want to ask you something else.”
“What is it?” Captain Zhang was surprised.
Tang Hao pulled him aside and whispered into his ear. “Does anyone else know about the mission tonight, other than the people in your squad?”
Captain Zhang’s expression changed drastically when he heard that.
He understood what Tang Hao was trying to imply.
“That’s impossible! Only the few of us know about the mission. I can confirm that we have no snitches in the squad,” Captain Zhang said.
“Are you sure that only your squad knows?” Tang Hao glanced at Captain Zhang’s squad.
Captain Zhang seemed to have remembered something. “Right, there are a few more people too.”
“Who are they?”
Captain Zhang spoke a few names.
Tang Hao’s expression changed when he heard the last name. “Jiang Yunbo?”
“Yes! He also knows about it. Why?” Captain Zhang asked doubtfully.
“That should be him!”
“What? How could that be?” Captain Zhang exclaimed in surprise.
“If you don’t believe me, you can try giving him a phone call and see how he reacts!” Tang Hao said coldly.
Captain Zhang furrowed his brows, thought for a while, and took out his phone. “I won’t forgive him if he’s the informer!
“Right! Do you have any evidence?”
Tang Hao shook his head. “No. He probably made the call from a public payphone. You can try bluffing him though, tell him that the call was recorded.”
Captain Zhang nodded. He went away with his phone.
He returned soon with an extremely dark and angry expression on his face.
“It’s him alright! Dammit, that animal! I should’ve known it was him. He’s been interested in Lil Zhao, but she has no interest in him and has rejected him many times.
“I didn’t expect him to set her up like this. He’s worse than an animal. I’ll bring my people over to arrest him now!”
Captain Zhang summoned his subordinates. They rode on a speedboat and headed toward the shore.
The call earlier must have alerted Jiang Yunbo. He must be preparing to escape.
Even if Captain Zhang had arrested him, he would not be punished by the law. There was no voice recording after all.
He could not be punished if there was no evidence.
Therefore, he had to die.
If he was trying to run away, then it would be the best opportunity to kill him. No one would suspect anything if he suddenly disappeared.
Tang Hao took a speedboat back to the shore. He borrowed a car and quickly headed toward Jiang Yunbo’s residential area.
Jiang Yunbo lived on the fifth floor. The light was still on, and someone was moving around.
About three minutes later, the person disappeared from sight. Someone left the apartment in another minute and headed toward the basement parking lot.
Tang Hao tailed that car once it exited the parking lot.
The cars left Provincial City. When they were in the countryside, Tang Hao floored the accelerator and caught up to the car in front. Jiang Yunbo noticed it very soon and tried to escape by driving faster.
The cars were tangled in a chase for a while. Eventually, Tang Hao caught up to it and rammed it off the road.
Jiang Yunbo’s car lost its balance and veered off the road. It ran into a tree.
Tang Hao got out of his car and walked toward it.
Jiang Yunbo was getting up. His forehead knocked on the steering wheel and was bleeding. He trembled when he saw Tang Hao walking over to him. He quickly undid his seatbelt and got out of the car.
“Running away?”
Tang Hao grunted coldly. He flicked his wrist and a silver throwing
knife shot out. It pierced Jiang Yunbo’s calf with a dull thud.
“Ahhh!” He screamed.
Jiang Yunbo fell on the ground. His face was contorted from pain.
“Don’t… Don’t kill me!” Jiang Yunbo begged as tears and snot flowed from his face.
Tang Hao remained impassive.
He fired a jade talisman at Jian Yunbo and reduced him to ashes.
After clearing the evidence, Tang Hao left the scene.
Whatever happened after that was none of his business. He returned to the port to retrieve his car and returned home.
He sat down cross-legged and started absorbing a spirit stone.
Chapter 321 - Zhao Qingxue’s Intention
Four days passed in the blink of an eye.
Those four days were uneventful for Tang Hao. He attended classes and cultivated every day.
The television, newspaper, and Internet were filled with news reports about Miki Group. That was the only thing everyone talked about.
It was a matter of time that Miki Group would disappear from Huaxia.
Zhao Qingxue had regained consciousness. Her recovery was swift.
Jiang Yunbo was nowhere to be found. He was put on the wanted list.
Tang Hao did not mind that those days were boring. He would not want something like that to happen again.
That night, Tang Hao cultivated just as usual.
He found a total of sixty-seven spirit stones in the cavern. If he continued absorbing the stones at the rate of five per day, it would still take him about two weeks to absorb everything. Only eight days had passed since the encounter, which meant that he had about half of the stones left.
He estimated that he would complete his current State when he absorbed all the stones.
Cultivation would become a lot more difficult after he completed the state of Qi Channeling. It was hard to cultivate in the State of Foundation Establishment in ancient times. Qi flow was thin and weak in modern times, which made cultivation even harder.
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