Elder brother's garrison

This criminal gang is determined to harm Miss Lu Ming at any cost. How could such an extreme organization accept an extreme fanatic of Miss Lu Ming?

This is something that cannot be explained logically or emotionally.

For example, if that fanatic fan found out that his team was going to harm Miss Luming, he would probably start fighting with his team before they even had a chance to make a move...

Such behavior is truly contradictory.

……

……

Ok?

Wait a minute.

As Xiaobai was thinking, she looked at Shenhai Chicheng's beautiful face and suddenly froze.

What did that threatening letter sent to Miss Luming say again?

If I remember correctly, it said something like, "Stop working now, or I'll ruin you..."

I'll ruin you...

Does "ruined you" not refer to physically harming Miss Luming, but rather to something else?

I'll ruin you...

I'll ruin your...job...star...

Ruined a job... ruined the most important thing for a celebrity?

What is the most important thing for a celebrity?

It should be appearance...?

Without harming Miss Luming herself, what other methods are there to influence her?

Xiao Bai lowered her head, covered her mouth, looked around the empty room, and finally her gaze settled on the dressing table, then fell on the makeup props scattered on it.

Makeup artist...?

For an instant.

Looking at the scattered makeup props in front of her, a chill ran down Xiaobai's spine.

Chapter 2432 The Unspeakable Secret

"Mr. Agent!" Xiaobai suddenly turned around and asked the agent anxiously, "Where is Miss Luming's makeup artist team now?"

"The makeup artist team?" The agent was taken aback, and subconsciously replied, "After finishing Lu Ming's styling for the advertisement shoot, they went back to the company on their own. What happened to Admiral Lu Lin?"

"Oh no, I feel something's wrong!" Xiaobai shook her head rapidly. She didn't have time to explain, but quickly asked, "Do you have any way to contact them right now?"

Does a phone call count?

"Quick, call them and ask where they are!" Xiaobai urged.

"Admiral Lu Lin, do you mean..." The agent looked at Xiao Bai's anxious expression and suddenly seemed to be reminded by Xiao Bai, his expression instantly becoming quite serious.

A very ominous feeling instantly enveloped the agent.

The agent quickly pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

The call was made quickly.

In the quiet lounge, the monotonous beeping of electronic signals echoed.

The beeping sound lasted for about twenty seconds in complete silence before being disconnected with a crisp "click".

The agent's face instantly turned ugly. He continued to dial the same number, but this time, all he heard was the message, "The number you dialed is currently switched off. Please try again later."

The agent hung up the phone.

The quiet lounge was shrouded in deathly silence, with only the faint sound of breathing remaining.

"What happened?" Saratoga was the first to break the silence and ask curiously.

"Saratoga, we were wrong." Xiaobai took a deep breath and said to Saratoga, "Miss Luming is not the criminals' target at all. The criminals' real target this time is Miss Luming's stylist team!"

"Huh?!" Saratoga's round eyes widened.

The ship girls also subconsciously looked at Lu Ming.

Surrounded by the crowd, Lu Ming's face was also full of astonishment. She stared blankly at Xiao Bai and her manager, looking even more shocked than when she was attacked by the fanatical fans.

"Miss Luming, do you have any other ways to contact the stylist team?" Xiaobai asked quickly.

"I... my phone..." Lu Ming stood there stunned for several seconds when Xiao Bai questioned her. She frantically pulled her phone out of her clothes and frantically searched through the records on the phone. "I, I have their private phone numbers..."

Lu Ming made several private phone calls in front of everyone.

However, the results of making the calls were invariably a message indicating that the phone was switched off.

Lu Ming lowered his head, his hands gripping his phone, his palms trembling slightly.

"Ms. Lu Ming, do your stylist team usually use their phones?" Xiao Bai asked.

“No, because of the nature of their work, our company requires them to keep their phones on 24/7.” Before Lu Ming could speak, the agent spoke up first, explaining to Xiao Bai and the others, “The first number we dialed was a work phone. Our company requires that phone to be fully charged before going out, the phone bill is paid on time, and the speakerphone volume is at its maximum—meaning that under normal circumstances, it’s impossible for that phone number to not go through.”

"What happened?" Upon hearing this, Kaga Fukami finally realized what was going on and couldn't help but ask.

Kaga Fukami was standing right next to Lu Ming. When Kaga Fukami uttered the words "may meet with misfortune," Lu Ming, who was staring blankly at his phone, suddenly trembled and almost dropped the phone.

"Kaga! Shh, shh!" Akagi quickly covered Kaga's mouth.

The group pulled Kaga Akami back a few steps and looked at Shikamei with concern.

At this moment, Lu Ming's gaze was somewhat unfocused. Although she hadn't been exercising, she was breathing heavily, and fine beads of sweat seeped from her forehead, sliding down her cheeks with slight trembling.

—This makes it seem as if he has suffered a great emotional upheaval.

"Admiral Lu Lin, I'm leaving Lu Ming in your care. I'm going out for a bit." The agent glanced at Lu Ming, then solemnly said to Xiao Bai.

"I'll go out with you too," Xiaobai quickly said.

“…Thank you.” The agent nodded gratefully, then pushed open the door to the lounge and walked out.

Xiaobai gestured for the ship girls to stay in the lounge, and then followed her manager out of the lounge.

Outside the break room, advertising company employees were tidying up the set, while the director was standing in the break room talking to two men in police uniforms.

The agent immediately ran towards the director.

"Oh my, isn't this the manager?!" The director, who was talking animatedly with the police officer, suddenly felt the surroundings darken. Curious, he turned his head and saw the manager's towering figure. He quickly flashed a fawning smile at the manager, "What a coincidence! You're here to give a statement to the police officer too?! Oh, speaking of statements, I was just recounting to the officer the whole process of how you subdued that fanatic fan! The manager's imposing posture was simply..."

Before the director could finish speaking, the agent gave him a brief nod as a greeting, and then looked at the two police officers standing to the side.

"Officer, I need to call the police."

The agent clearly conveyed to the two police officers that Lu Ming's styling team had gone missing.

Upon hearing that another case had occurred in Luming's area, both the police officer and the director were taken aback. However, the two officers quickly sharpened their eyes, put away their pens and paper, asked the agent about the incident, and then told him to wait there while they went to make a call to headquarters.

The director stared wide-eyed at his agent.

"Manager... what did you just say? Miss Lu Ming's styling team has gone missing?"

“We don’t know the specifics either, but this is a long story. Why don’t you go back and tell your staff not to leave here? Remember, don’t let anyone leave. The police might come to investigate later.” The agent said to the director. “One problem after another, this is troublesome.”

"Oh, okay, sure! I'll go right away!" The director nodded hurriedly, then turned and ran to the other employees.

The agent watched the director's departing figure with a sullen face, then lowered his head and dialed the company's number.

After confirming with the company that Lu Ming's styling team had not yet returned, the agent put down his phone with a somber expression and looked at Xiao Bai.

"Admiral Lu Lin, it seems you guessed right." The agent said to Xiao Bai, "This time, the criminal's target... is Lu Ming's styling team."

"I'm sorry, I was too slow to react..." Xiaobai bowed his head to his manager with a guilty look on his face.

"...Admiral Lu Lin, how did you realize this?" The agent didn't speak, but remained silent for a while before asking Xiao Bai.

“We misread the contents of that threatening letter. It said that if Miss Luming worked, they would ruin her,” Xiaobai said to the agent. “We always thought that ruining her meant physical harm, but I just realized that there are other ways to ruin Miss Luming besides physically harming her.”

"...Does this include targeting her styling team?"

"The most important thing for a celebrity is their face," Xiaobai said to her agent, pointing to her own face. "Even for a naturally beautiful woman like Miss Luming, the stylist team is extremely important to her. In a sense, they are the guarantee that Miss Luming can work normally. Compared to Miss Luming, who is under our strict surveillance and protection, those stylists are completely defenseless. The success rate of targeting them is more than a hundred times higher than the success rate of targeting Miss Luming herself!"

“So that’s how it is.” The agent closed his eyes, his brows furrowed. “...As Lu Ming’s agent, I’ve focused too much on Lu Ming himself, to the point that I’ve overlooked other possibilities...It was a major oversight of mine that this happened.”

“In that case, the reason why the person who attacked Miss Luming appeared before makes sense.” Xiaobai said to the manager, “That fanatic fan… was probably sent by the real criminal to distract us, and everything he did was to make us keep our attention on protecting Miss Luming.”

"That's despicable." The manager clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned blue and white from the force. "At first, I thought this was just a minor incident involving anti-fans, but now that it has affected the entire stylist team, it can't be treated like an ordinary matter—this is an extremely serious criminal activity!"

"Miss Luming looks quite devastated..." Xiaobai lowered her head and bit her fingertip, recalling Luming's reaction just now.

“It’s normal to be affected,” the agent replied. “If this matter had only involved Lu Ming herself, she wouldn’t have had such a strong emotional reaction, because she was prepared to be attacked by criminals from the beginning. But now the situation has clearly exceeded Lu Ming’s expectations. When innocent people are affected because of her, it’s natural for her to react this way… Moreover…”

At this point, the agent fell silent.

"What's more?" Xiao Bai understood the meaning behind the agent's words and looked up thoughtfully.

Chapter 2433 Lu Ming's Spiritual Power

"Hmm..." Xiaobai nodded.

"The reason they have this kind of relationship is because these stylists were all selected by Lu Ming through interviews," the agent explained to Xiao Bai. "Lu Ming values ​​a stylist's personality more than their skills. So, during interviews, she would deliberately choose girls who were unusually lively, kind-hearted, and helpful. Most of these girls are young people around Lu Ming's age, full of energy and sunshine. Most of them have just graduated from makeup school and are not quite as experienced as seasoned stylists, but Lu Ming likes them and wants them by her side. Over time, she has developed a very good relationship with these girls; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call them best friends."

"They're still good friends..." Xiaobai murmured.

“Yes,” the agent said to Xiaobai, “So if something happens to them, Luming will be hit even harder.”

"This is troublesome... although it was already troublesome to begin with..."

"so……"

The agent wanted to say something more to Xiaobai, but halfway through his sentence, he looked up and saw the two police officers who had just made the call hang up and walk towards him with serious expressions.

"Admiral Lu Lin, you should go back to the lounge first." The agent said to Xiao Bai, "I couldn't say many things in the room just now because Lu Ming was there. I'm very grateful that you came out to talk to me about these things... Lu Ming probably needs you a lot right now."

"...Me?" Xiaobai asked curiously.

"After all, you are the admiral," the agent said earnestly to Xiaobai.

"Uh...oh..." Xiaobai looked at the agent as if she understood but not quite.

After finishing their calls, the police officers returned to the manager and began to question him carefully about the styling team's disappearance. Because it was highly likely to be a major case like human trafficking, the police officers were extremely serious in their questioning, not daring to skip any questions. The manager temporarily took over the statement. Xiao Bai, who was fine for the time being, said goodbye to the police officers and the manager and returned to Lu Ming's lounge.

Back in the lounge.

As soon as Xiaobai entered, she saw Luming sitting in a chair, head down, holding a white mug. Her two ship girls and two abyssal deans were surrounding her, constantly comforting her.

Even with the constant concern of the ship girls and the abyssal deans, Lu Ming's mood, with her head down, did not seem to improve at all. The mug in her hand was still trembling slightly, with ripples of liquid spreading in circles.

"Ah, Admiral, you're finally back!" The ship girls were overjoyed to see Shiro return, as if they had seen a savior.

"Miss Lu Ming hasn't said a word since the beginning, she looks so scary!"

"Miss Shikamei seems to be completely ignoring what we're saying. Admiral, please come and take a look."

"Admiral..."

Xiaobai nodded to the ship girls who looked worried. She walked up to Luming, squatted down silently, and observed Luming's current state.

As Lu Ming's agent said, Lu Ming was indeed suffering a great mental blow at this moment. From Xiao Bai's perspective, Lu Ming's pupils were dilated, his lips were trembling, his handsome face was frighteningly pale, and his beautiful eyes seemed to be filled with tears, which were dripping down under the influence of gravity.

Xiao Bai waved her hand in front of Lu Ming.

Lu Ming did not respond.

After thinking for a while, Xiaobai placed her hands on Luming's hands and covered the mug with her.

Xiao Bai had touched Lu Ming's hands before. Most of the time, Lu Ming's palms were soft and warm, just like her personality, making people feel very comfortable.

But at this time.

Lu Ming's hands were frighteningly cold.

"My lord, how is it?" Akagi knelt down and asked with concern.

"...The agent has already called the police. He's outside talking to the police about this right now." Xiaobai shook her head and said to Shenhai Chicheng, "Miss Luming is currently in a state of extreme mental instability. The fact that the makeup team went missing has been a huge blow to her, to the point that she can't listen to anyone around her at all."

"Wow, the blow was really that big..."

"Those makeup artists are not just work partners, but also Miss Lu Ming's good friends," Xiao Bai explained.

"I see... no wonder." Everyone suddenly realized.

"Admiral, could you please calm Miss Shikamei down a little?" Akagi asked. "She's acting a bit scary."