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Chapter 292 Hidden Passage
"What?" Honglian and Lin Qing jumped out of the car at the same time and looked in the direction of the daily chemical factory.

Sure enough, black smoke rose from the horizon.

Although they could not see the flames, the jet-black column of smoke was clearly unusual.

Even outside the Third Ring Road, such a scene attracts a lot of attention, with people coming out of their shops and discussing the black smoke.

"Officer Tian, ​​how much longer until your men arrive?" Honglian ran back to the car and asked through the car radio.

"About an hour. What's wrong? You sound like you're in a hurry... According to the plan, shouldn't the arrest be carried out after nine o'clock at night?" Tian Zhenggang replied.

During the day, the main task is to find the source of the smell and identify the suspect. If a factory is identified as a suspect, the police will mobilize manpower to surround it and take formal action after 9:00 AM. This is also to avoid accidentally injuring innocent bystanders when having a direct confrontation with the ability users in the city.

But plans are clearly not as fast as changes.

"The news may have leaked. There has just been a fire at Hongda Chemical Plant. We must act immediately!"

"What? A fire? Wait! I need to ask my superiors—"

Before the other party could finish speaking, Honglian hung up the call.

"Miss Lin, get in the car! We'll have to go ahead now!"

"Isn't this a bit inappropriate?" Wang Baihu was immediately at his wit's end. "We don't represent any government agency or belong to any law enforcement organization. Is it appropriate for us to just rush in and arrest people?!"

"Who cares? Can't we just happen to be passing by?" Seeing Lin Qing climb back into the medical pod, Honglian stepped on the gas, and the car roared as it headed straight for the chemical plant.

Just passing by the Third Ring Road? Even a primary school student wouldn't believe that, let alone the team leader. However, Wang Baihu didn't have a better option, so he quickly pulled out a mask and sunglasses and handed them to the other person, saying, "Cover yourself up properly, don't get photographed."

Inside the carriage, Lin Qing also informed Chen Xuan of this news.

"Work stopped in the morning, and a fire broke out in the afternoon?" Chen Xuan clicked his tongue. "They reacted pretty quickly... Where do you think the news leaked from?"

“The police station is the prime suspect. They have a cooperative relationship with the authorities, so there’s a possibility they’re being wiretapped,” Lin Qing said, following Xiao Lü’s analysis. “The second prime suspects are Hong Lian and Wang Baihu… It’s not that they leaked information on their own, but the authorities might be able to track their movements through other means.”

"I thought so too." Chen Xuan smiled as expected. "Isn't this exactly what we wanted?"

The leak wasn't unexpected for either of them. Chen Xuan had considered the possibility of a leak when the plan was first formulated—if this matter was truly related to the Weixian Agency, then the public operation would inevitably leak to them. However, catching the real culprit wasn't Chen Xuan's primary objective; as long as he could arouse Honglian's suspicion of the agency, the purpose of this operation would be achieved.

“But you heard what she said to me just now…” Lin Qing said uncertainly, “Logically speaking, her rebuttal is quite reasonable, and this is not in line with the style of the organization.”

“The organization you know is that colossal entity that once lurked underwater. When they decided to surface, they were fully prepared, and their methods, strength, and confidence are unmatched by any organization today.” Chen Xuan remained noncommittal. “History is already changing, and we will always be facing the organizations of today.”

"..." Lin Qing paused for a moment, then suddenly chuckled, "I feel like your fighting spirit is even stronger than mine now."

"Ahem, I just—"

“No, this is good.” She interrupted, “Never compromise, whether it’s against the organization or those behemoths trying to monopolize the world. Fighting is the only way to win. I’ll go into the chemical factory with Honglian later, and you can support me outside.”

"I know that if anything dangerous or uncontrollable happens, remember to call me immediately."

Chen Xuan drove a small car from Beitianyuan, keeping a distance of about two kilometers from Lin Qing. He only needed five minutes to get to Hongda Daily Chemical Factory.

As they were talking, Honglian had already driven to the factory gate.

The security guard was anxiously making a phone call at the gate. When he saw the car approaching, he quickly waved to signal it to stop.

But Honglian was too lazy to waste her breath arguing with him.

She floored the accelerator, yelling, "Hold on tight!"

The front of the car smashed through the gate railing with unstoppable force, and the spherical stone blocks were also smashed and scattered everywhere! Although the car's bumper was deeply dented as a result, it wasn't her own car, so who would care? After passing through the gate, she steadied the trembling car and moved forward along the factory road—from this angle, she could see that three buildings in the factory were on fire, and thick smoke was pouring out of the windows, and the driver's cab was immediately filled with a foul smell of smoke.

"Can Guagua pinpoint the source of the smell?" Honglian asked, hoping to give it a try.

Unexpectedly, a definite answer was given very quickly: "Go to the middle house!"

Hongda Chemicals is a bottling plant. The factory area is not large; the three buildings are basically flat-roofed factory buildings, surrounded by piles of colorful iron drums—who knows what they contained? Fortunately, the fire did not spread to the roadside and remained confined to the interior of the buildings. Due to the factory's closure and shutdown, all the factory gates were tightly closed, and there was not a single employee to be seen on the street.

This relieved Honglian of any worries.

She turned the steering wheel and crashed directly into the main entrance of Building No. 2, bursting into the building!
As fresh air rushed in, the flickering flames suddenly became brighter.

"Take it easy! If the factory explodes, we're all doomed!" Wang Baihu said nervously. "It's not that serious," Honglian scoffed. "This fire looks like it just started. If it drags on for another hour, then we're really doomed."

The moment I opened the car door, the February chill vanished, replaced by the warm feeling of the flames baking my skin. To be honest, the temperature was quite comfortable.

The real threat was the smell of smoke—without the car's filter to purify it, Honglian was immediately choked by the pungent odor and coughed several times. The air was not only filled with a nauseating rubbery smell, but also mixed with several other strange, indescribable odors, making it almost impossible to breathe. This was only the early stage of the fire; once the flames spread throughout the entire factory, these chemical fumes would be deadly even to those with special abilities.

Lin Qing also jumped out of the tail hatch with Guagua. Facing the unnatural flames, Guagua did not show any fear, but instead seemed somewhat excited.

"It seems we haven't come to the wrong place," Lin Qing said, looking around.

The huge room was divided into several sections by the assembly line. On one side stood several huge mixing tanks, and on the other side were various pre-packaged laundry detergents.

If production hadn't been interrupted, this place would surely be filled with the fragrance of laundry detergent. Even after they stopped work for so long, Lin Qing could still smell a hint of fragrance amidst the overwhelming smell of smoke.

"Don't you find it choking?" Honglian covered her face, looking at Lin Qing with some surprise.

"My nose is rather...slow to react," the latter replied dismissively.

“Now is not the time to worry about that!” Wang Baihu interjected. “What’s next? Guagua is no longer of any use!”

"Quack?" Quack tilted its head.

"Have you arrived at the factory yet?" Lin Qing asked Chen Xuan quietly.

"Three minutes left."

When it comes to search capabilities, the Heavenly Cloud Technique is undoubtedly the most reliable choice at present—there must be living people in the prison, and the Heavenly Cloud Technique can sense living people.

However, after pausing for a moment, Chen Xuan chattered away a couple more times.

"Uh, what are you talking about?"

"I'm helping Guagua translate. It just heard Wang Baihu mention it... What? Okay." Chen Xuan changed the subject. "Guagua said it knows what's special about this place."

Lin Qing was taken aback. "Are you sure?"

The quack over there has already started running.

"Cuck!"

"Hey, where is it going? Stop! Don't run around, it's dangerous here!" Wang Baihu said urgently.

"Follow it!" Lin Qing said decisively, "It's guiding us!"

The other two were skeptical, but seeing that Lin Qing had already followed, they couldn't stay behind.

The quack didn't run too far, it jumped over two conveyor belts and stopped about fifty meters away. Then it raised its head and cried out, and kept stomping its feet on the ground.

Thump, thump—the sound was dull and hollow.

Honglian immediately realized that the floorboards were hollow underneath.

"A movable cover made of cement?" Lin Qing had already guessed the answer. It was impossible to lift such a large floor panel by manpower alone; it must be driven by a hydraulic mechanism. Now that the factory was on fire, the power was probably already cut off, so they had to resort to force.

She was about to try the folding knife on her arm when she saw Honglian pull a coin out of her pocket. "Get out of the way!"

Then she tapped the ground with one finger and tossed a coin in the direction of the flames.

The next second, the huge concrete floor disappeared, replaced by the coin she had just tossed, and the two- or three-ton cover plate fell straight into the fire, smashing a bunch of equipment and extinguishing the fire by a small amount!

"Beautiful!" Lin Qing couldn't help but exclaim.

An underground passage entrance, large enough for five people to walk side by side, appeared before them.

"Quack!" the quack chirped proudly.

"How did it know?" Lin Qing asked curiously.

Chen Xuan's answer was somewhat serious: "It said it smelled blood."

(End of this chapter)