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

The sunset in Rome is beautiful, with orange-red rays spreading across the earth and turning the Tiber River into a flowing, shimmering gold. Occasionally, flocks of birds returning to their nests fly over the towers of the ancient castle, their wings tracing long, darkening arcs.

But Jackie had no desire to appreciate it, because he had been hanging there for almost a day.

At this moment, his hands were tied behind his back, and a sturdy hemp rope was tied around his wrists. The other end of the rope was fixed to a stone eagle claw on the edge of the terrace.

The person who tied him up was very professional. Jackie could barely touch the protruding cracks on the edge of the terrace with his feet, but he had to keep on tiptoe. If he relaxed, he would be suspended in mid-air, swaying back and forth.

"Alan, you bastard..." Jackie muttered under his breath, his voice broken by the cold wind, "I knew it... as long as I get involved with a jinx like you, I'm sure to end up in trouble..."

After cursing, Jackie gritted her teeth and tried to struggle a few more times, but the rope didn't budge.

Desperate, Jackie strained to lift her stiff neck and shouted again into the depths of the castle, "Is anyone there?! I can't hold on much longer! At least give me some water—"

Still, no one paid him any attention.

"It's over... I'm really going to die here this time..." Jackie slumped his head, his consciousness beginning to fade.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but just when he thought he was really going to die on this cliff edge, the heavy oak door on the inside of the terrace was finally pushed open.

Jackie struggled to lift his eyelids. Through his blurry vision, he saw a figure walk to the edge of the terrace and glance down at him. The person was wearing a dark, high-necked jacket, with a tall and straight figure. His face was not clearly visible in the twilight, but the composed aura made Jackie feel inexplicably familiar.

Tian Yangyi did not immediately begin to untie the ropes. Instead, he bowed slightly to the figure standing under the warm yellow light inside the door and said respectfully, "Madam, I apologize for disturbing you. The boss sent me to pick someone up."

A languid female voice came from the shadows inside the door, tinged with a nonchalant laugh: "Take him away. If you leave him hanging any longer, he'll become a seagull's breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Yes." Tian Yangyi then waved his hand, and two subordinates stepped forward, neatly untied the knots on Jackie's wrists, and pulled him up by supporting his arms on the left and right.

The moment his feet touched the ground, Jackie slid down like a lump of mud, and only the two people supporting him prevented him from collapsing.

He was then half-dragged, half-carried across the terrace and along the corridor to the parking lot on the side of the castle. A dark gray sedan was already running and waiting by the roadside, its headlights casting two parallel beams of warm white light in the twilight.

Jackie was shoved into the back seat, the door closed, and the car passed through the wrought-iron gates of Lubers Castle, driving along the cypress-lined driveway into the nighttime outskirts of Rome.

He leaned back in his seat and finally closed his eyes in peace.

……

Jackie had a dream while she was fast asleep.

In his dream, he returned to his beloved Jeep. For some reason, Alan was sitting in the passenger seat, pointing at the map and muttering things like "turn left," "no, it's over there," and "Can't you watch where you're driving?"

Jackie couldn't stand his noise anymore and turned around to argue with him, only to find that he had somehow flown out of the car and was falling off a cliff.

"Alan!"

Jackie suddenly opened her eyes and sat up, panting heavily, her forehead covered in cold sweat.

Several seconds passed before he slowly realized that it was just a dream.

He looked down at himself—a thin blanket covered him, a light yellow bandage wrapped around his wrist, and the air was filled with the smell of disinfectant and some kind of ointment.

The ceiling was white, the walls were light gray, and against the wall stood a metal bunk bed and a simple medical cart.

He was once again lying in the medical ward of the Jiahe Security Base.

Jackie let out a breath, took a moment to catch her breath, then threw off the blanket, got out of bed, and stepped out through the door in the disposable slippers placed beside the bed.

After asking two passing doctors, Jackie successfully arrived at Tian Yangyi's office.

Upon entering, one sees Tian Yangyi sitting behind a desk, looking down at a document. A teacup on the desk is steaming, and a black landline phone sits beside it.

Upon seeing Jackie appear at the door, Tian Yangyi slowly raised his head.

"woke up?"

"I'm awake." Jackie leaned against the doorframe, rubbing her still sore shoulders. "Is there anything to eat? I'm starving."

"This is all we have." Tianyangyi pointed to the biscuits on the corner of the table.

Jackie didn't stand on ceremony. She walked over, grabbed a piece, stuffed it into her mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and then grabbed a second piece.

"How did you offend that lady?" Tian Yangyi picked up his teacup, took a sip, and asked. "If you hadn't been quick-witted enough to mention my boss's name at the last minute, you'd probably be chopped up and fed to sharks by now."

Jackie swallowed the cookie with difficulty, sighed, and squatted down against the edge of the desk, looking aggrieved: "It's a long story..."

"Then let's get straight to the point," Tian Yangyi said, picking up his teacup. "The boss is waiting for my reply."

Jackie stuffed the rest of the cookies into her mouth in one go, chewed them a few times mumbledly, swallowed them, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and reorganized her thoughts.

"A month ago, I took on a business deal in South Africa."

……

A month ago, in a desolate area about 300 kilometers north of Johannesburg, South Africa, Jackie drove his beloved little Jeep along a dirt road with barely visible surfaces.

A local guide was sitting in the passenger seat, giving him directions in English with a heavy accent.

"It's behind that hill," the guide said. "Are you sure you want to go? Those people aren't easy to talk to."

"It's okay, my biggest strength is that I'm easy to talk to," Jackie said with a smile, pressing the accelerator even harder.

Their destination was a local tribe in the mountains of South Africa. That tribe was said to possess a component called "God's Armament," an ancient relic believed to have been accidentally lost by Nac during their evacuation and possessing mysterious powers.

The person who commissioned him to find this item was a mysterious collector, and the reward was so high that Jackie felt it would be worth it even if he were bitten by a lion.

Upon reaching the outskirts of the tribe, Jackie parked the car and rummaged through the trunk to retrieve a pre-prepared outfit—a pair of enormous wings made of feathers and wire, tied to the shoulders with strips of cloth, making him look like a bird messenger from some mythology.

"Do I look like an angel to you?" he asked the guide, turning around.

Director Xiang glanced at him, paused for two seconds, and said, "...Like a turkey that's been hit by a car."

"You don't know anything, this is art." Jackie straightened his wings, took a deep breath, and swaggered toward the tribe's entrance.

His plan was simple: pretend to be a messenger from heaven and infiltrate the tribe. Jackie believed that if he could bluff enough, they would hand over the goods without hesitation.

To prevent any mishaps, he even memorized a few local phrases before coming, preparing to use them to fool people at a crucial moment.

However, plans can never keep up with changes.

As he climbed the chosen, high ridge, spread his wings, and leaped with all his might, preparing to perform a magnificent "descent" using the pre-tied steel ropes—the wire structure on his wings snapped with a "crack" because it couldn't withstand the high-altitude wind pressure.

The left wing drooped down crookedly, while the right wing lashed out at his face, feathers and wires covering his face and making him see stars. He lost his balance in mid-air and, like a hen with a broken wing, crashed haphazardly onto the roof of a thatched hut on the edge of the tribe.

The tribespeople were taken aback at first, then erupted in deafening laughter. Several burly, shirtless men grabbed spears and sticks and surrounded him.

"Misunderstanding! Misunderstanding! I, I, I was just passing by!" Jackie scrambled out of the haystack, grinned sheepishly as he ripped off the broken wing hanging on his head, and took off running wildly toward the interior of the tribe.

The guards were not about to let him go. They chased after him with their spears, shouting as they went. The commotion grew louder and louder, and soon the entire tribe was alerted.

"What bad luck! What bad luck! What bad luck!"

Jackie cursed under his breath, then abruptly turned into a narrow alley, climbed over a low fence, and slipped into a warehouse area made of bark and thatch.

The warehouse area was dimly lit and filled with various pottery jars and wicker boxes, the air thick with the scent of hay and some kind of spice. Jackie crouched behind an overturned wooden crate, holding her breath as she listened to the footsteps and shouts outside rushing in from afar and then gradually fading away, before finally letting out a sigh of relief.

However, just as he was about to stand up, he felt a round, cold, and slippery sensation under his foot. Looking down, he saw a python as thick as his thigh curled up in the hay, dozing. Startled awake by Jackie's foot, it raised its head high, its eerie green vertical pupils meeting his eyes.

"What bad luck! What bad luck! What bad luck!"

Jackie's face turned pale instantly, and he burst out of the warehouse at the fastest speed of his career.

In the ensuing darkness, he didn't know how long he ran under the cover of night, how many times he fell, or how many cuts he got from tree branches. In the end, he stumbled upon a shrine built into a stone wall.

The shrine was small, with ancient patterns carved on the walls, and a black stone box placed on the stone platform in the center.

Jackie used her small crowbar to unlock the stone box. Inside lay a simple iron sword, about half an arm's length long, covered with a layer of dark green rust, but the mysterious patterns on the spine of the sword still gleamed darkly in the firelight.

He carefully took out the iron sword, wrapped it up, and put it into his backpack.

"Good heavens," Jackie chuckled bitterly, "I almost lost my life today because of this thing."

After obtaining the sword, Jackie dared not linger. He slipped out of the tribe's outskirts along the shadows of the stone wall, raced back to where the jeep was parked, started the engine, and sped away into the night.

……

"And then?" Tian Yangyi asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Then I drove back to Europe that night,” Jackie said. “The next day I handed the items over to that mysterious collector and received the remaining payment. I was thinking I could finally get some rest, but when I entered my little villa in Johannesburg, I saw a letter on the coffee table.”

At this point, Jackie also dropped his signature nonchalant and playful demeanor, and his expression became serious.

"Inside, besides a boastful and narcissistic self-introduction, there was also a photo—Alan tied to a chair, gag in his mouth, with a gun pointed at his head. On the back of the photo was written: 'Three pieces of God's armor for your friend's life.'"

Tian Yangyi put down his teacup: "Who is Alan?"

"My good buddies from Hong Kong Island, we even formed a band together," Jackie explained with a wry smile. "Although we fell out over a pretty girl, we're still friends, so I can't just stand by and watch them die."

"So you decided to steal Mrs. Sophia's collection?"

"I had no choice!" Jackie slapped her thigh. "I did some research and found out that the mysterious collector was actually Madam Lubbers, her butler, and as far as I know, she has at least two items. I figured that with such a large family, losing one or two things isn't a big deal. I could just borrow them, and return them after I saved someone..."

Tian Yangyi looked at him without saying a word, his eyes conveying a sense of "Are you really not using your brain?"

Jackie felt a little guilty under his gaze and touched her nose: "...I admit I didn't think things through."

"You didn't just fail to consider things thoroughly," Tian Yangyi said with a cold snort, his face expressionless, "you're just stupid!"

Jackie hung her head and didn't argue.

After listening, Tian Yangyi tapped his fingers lightly twice on the desk: "So, what's the name of the organization that kidnapped your friend?"

Jackie raised her head, her expression becoming more serious: "The Last Days Evangelical Fellowship."