Hong Kong variety show: The mastermind behind the scenes is emerging.

The top floor of a village house in Tai Po, New Territories.

This was a safe house that Thiago had prepared in advance. The landlord had supposedly made a fortune and gone to Fukagawa to retire, so the house was listed for rent by a small agency. The rent was paid annually, and he always used cash, making it impossible to trace.

The room was dimly lit. Thiago sat on the edge of the bed, slurping down the last bowl of instant noodle soup. He broke the plastic fork in two and threw it into the trash bag.

Harrison sat by the window, disassembled a P226, laid it on a dirty towel, and mechanically wiped it again and again with a cloth stained with gun oil.

This is the third time today. Wipe, assemble, pull the sleeve, fire a blank shot, and then disassemble again.

"Stop wiping," Thiago said in a hoarse voice.

Harrison's hands didn't stop moving: "What else can I do besides cleaning the gun?"

Thiago opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing. He simply lay back down on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling fan above him.

The ceiling fan creaked and groaned as it spun, dust accumulating on its blades; with each rotation, a grain of dust would fall off.

During those three days of isolation, he counted everything in the house that he could count: 420 floor tiles, eleven boxes of instant noodles left, the kettle had been boiled nine times, and the ceiling fan rotated 37 times per minute.

He felt he was going to go crazy if he didn't do something.

Logically speaking, staying indoors for three days is nothing to a professional intelligence officer. He once spent ten days in Istanbul and even huddled in a basement in Beirut for fourteen days without seeing the light of day, conditions ten times worse than what he was experiencing now.

What truly torments people like being devoured by ants is not the harsh environment or instant noodles, but the complete loss of contact.

Since their successful escape, Thiago and Harrison have been hiding in this safe house under the cover of night for three days, and he has been unable to contact either of them.

Over the past three days, he dialed a total of seventeen numbers—the middle and senior management of Station H, the 24-hour hotline, and the dead mailbox channel—and without exception, all of them became dead numbers.

Although Thiago didn't know how H-site had been wiped out, he could guess that he must have become a "wandering ghost".

Finally, Thiago took a deep breath, got up, and pulled an old-fashioned mobile phone from the crack in the tattered mattress. The black plastic casing was worn and faded, and it felt heavy in his hand.

This was his last line—an encrypted connection directly to headquarters in London. Using this line was tantamount to personally announcing to headquarters: H-site is gone.

The dial tone rang for a long time, so long that Thiago's heart almost sank into an icy abyss, before it was finally answered.

"...Speak." Mrs. M's voice came from thousands of kilometers away, as if through ice.

"Madam, it's me."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, followed by a cold laugh.

"It's been three days, and you're only just now remembering to call me. Thiago, I'm very disappointed."

Thiago gripped the phone tightly: "Madam, H station... is it gone?"

"What do you think?" Mrs. M's voice was calm and even. "You were caught red-handed breaking into someone's server room, and the whole thing was even filmed! You've become famous in London now. Even the Prime Minister knows about you and has held three meetings specifically for you."

Thiago closed his eyes briefly: "Madam, it's all my fault. I'm willing to take full responsibility, but please find a way... to bring Harrison back to the mainland."

"You'll take responsibility? Can you afford to take responsibility?!" Mrs. M's voice suddenly rose. "Do you know how much the headquarters and the cabinet have paid to clean up the mess you've made? And Golden Harvest has said that they want to hand over both of you to them for disposal."

Hearing this, Thiago's hand holding the phone trembled slightly, and his voice revealed a hint of urgency and fear: "Madam, I will take responsibility for my actions, but Harrison was only following orders... and he saved my life. Please think of a way."

Just then, Harrison walked over from the window and spoke up: "Madam, I am Harrison. I am willing to be handed over as a prisoner as long as it can protect the interests of the Japanese Empire. But Thiago is the deputy station chief of Station H and a rare intelligence expert. His value far exceeds mine. I hope you—"

"Shut up, Harrison!" Thiago growled, trying to stop him.

On the other end of the phone, Mrs. M listened quietly to the argument between the two without saying a word.

Suddenly, she let out a short laugh, interrupting their conversation.

"Madam?" Thiago asked tentatively, somewhat puzzled by the laughter.

"Who said we were handing them over?"

Thiago was stunned.

"The Japanese Empire has never been one to yield," Mrs. M's voice regained its composure. "Listen, two days from now, at three in the morning, a smuggling boat will dock at the old pier opposite Sam Mun Tsai in Tai Po District. The smuggler is called Uncle Shrimp. The code word is: 'Three boxes of instant noodles, spicy.' The smuggler will take you to India, from where you will transfer and fly directly to the mainland."

Thiago's throat bobbed: "Madam..."

"You owe me more than this," Mrs. M said coldly, "come back alive."

pat.

The phone hangs up.

Thiago, clutching the now-busy cell phone, sat blankly on the tin bed, motionless for a long time.

He had always thought of himself as nothing more than a disposable consumable. This was the first time in all his years in the industry that he had truly felt treated as a "person" by the headquarters.

……

Two days later, at 2 a.m., Thiago and Harrison quietly pushed open the door and went downstairs.

At two o'clock in the morning, the streets of Tai Po were completely silent; not even the sound of dogs barking could be heard. They walked close to the wall, circled two intersections, and finally hailed a taxi on the roadside.

"Sanmenzai," Thiago said in broken Cantonese.

The driver nodded, puffing on his cigarette, then floored the accelerator, and the taxi roared off.

There weren't many people around at night, so the driver drove very fast and took them to their destination in less than twenty minutes.

The driver stopped the car at the intersection of a dirt road and waved his hand, saying, "It's difficult to drive in there. You can get out and leave."

Faced with the driver's laziness, the two didn't dare to cause any trouble, obediently paid the fare and got out of the car, arriving at the old pier opposite Sanmenzai according to their memory.

Despite being called a dock, it's really just an abandoned loading and unloading point. It was used to transport sand and gravel in the past, but after the sand and gravel plant went bankrupt, it was completely abandoned. The iron frames are rusted black, tattered fishing nets are tangled on the bollards, and the sea breeze carries a fishy smell that hits you in gusts.

The two squatted down on the rocks by the dock, and Harrison took out his watch and glanced at it—2:30.

"Half an hour left," he said in a low voice.

Thiago didn't answer, but just stared intently at the pitch-black sea, feeling a vague unease for some reason.

2:40, 2:50, 3:00.

Apart from the rolling black waves, there wasn't a single ship in sight on the sea.

At 3:10, Harrison's hand rested on the gun at his waist: "The ship is late."

"Smuggling ships are never on time," Thiago comforted him, but his voice was tighter than he had expected.

Just then, they heard a sound.

It wasn't the sound from the sea, it was from the shore.

The low growl of an engine came from afar, growing louder and louder as it approached.

The next moment, the bright headlights tore through the night, crossed the fields, rolled over the bumpy dirt road, and rushed straight toward the dock.

It was those three familiar armored vehicles again, painted in matte black, with the Jiahe Security logo on the front of the vehicles flashing in the lights.

The convoy stopped at the dock entrance, and then the doors opened. A burly man with an iron tower jumped out, walked to a spot five or six steps away from Thiago, tilted his head, and grinned.

"We meet again."

Thiago's mind went blank.

So that's how it is... Mrs. M never intended to save them.

All those smuggling boats, all those transits through India, all that "the British Empire never bows its head"—it's all fake.

MI6 had already decided to hand them over, but they were afraid that the guys would hide or try to escape after they found out they had been abandoned. That's why they came up with this plan to make them obediently walk into this trap.

Thiago stood in the sea breeze, his back feeling chilly layer by layer.

He is not afraid of death.

From the very first day he and Harrison started this line of work, they were prepared to risk their lives.

They even expressed their willingness to be captured, exchanged, and to bear everything for the Empire over the phone.

But Mrs. M wouldn't even give them a chance to make a dignified sacrifice—she wanted to treat them like two cards, to play them out clearly, and to make them walk onto the table on their own.

"The people at your headquarters," Tian Yangyong said slowly and deliberately, his tone mocking, "are more capable of doing business than we at Jiahe."

"How much did she... sell me for?" Thiago asked slowly, his voice so calm that even he was surprised.

"You don't need to worry about that," Tian Yangyong said. "Someone else is worried about it before you are."

Thiago didn't ask any more questions. The last glimmer of light in his eyes was completely extinguished, leaving only endless coldness and despair.

Harrison's hand was still on the gun. Tian Yangyong glanced at him and said, "Take your hand off."

Harrison gritted his teeth and didn't move.

Thiago raised his hand, pressed Harrison's wrist, and slowly shook his head, as if to tell him: Forget it, it's pointless.

Harrison was silent for two seconds, then slowly removed his hand from the gun.

A group of elite Jiahe Security personnel swarmed forward, swiftly disarming the two men and thoroughly searching their bodies. Then, Tian Yangyong personally came over, first handcuffing Thiago, then squatting down to add another pair to his ankles.

Then came Harrison, who was equally skilled with both hands and feet.

"Last time you got away, and I got a scolding from my second brother," Tian Yangyong straightened up, dusting off his hands. "Let's see how you run this time."

The convoy slowly turned around, drove out of the pier, onto Ting Kok Road, and headed towards Tai Po Market.

At the abandoned dock, the tide was rising wave after wave up the stone steps, submerging the bottom of the half-wrecked boat.

It was as if nothing had happened.