The Overlord Flower's Guide to Intercepting a Woman's Wife's Death and the Male Lead&

He Yaozu stopped ahead and lifted a camouflage net covering withered grass and pebbles.

Below is an old-fashioned jeep.

The car paint was mottled, and the windshield was covered with a layer of alkali.

He squatted down on the hood of the car and touched it all over, then got up and opened the passenger door.

"Get in the car."

Su Xingmian crawled inside and placed the water bag on her knees.

She recognized the location; the crush marks she had detected with her demonic power belonged to this car, which had been hidden there for at least a week.

The headlights were on, and the engine noise was kept extremely low.

The jeep drove off in a south-southeast direction along a dry riverbed.

He Yaozu knew this terrain like the back of his hand.

He avoided potholes and accelerated directly where the riverbed was hard sand, turning the steering wheel precisely and quickly without hesitation.

He stopped at a fork in the road for two seconds, tapped his finger on the steering wheel, and chose the narrow road on the right.

Su Xingmian glanced at the wider and flatter road on the left and made the choice a habit.

It was pitch black outside the car window.

Su Xingmian pressed her forehead against the car window.

The demonic power was seeping down my back, clinging to the seat back, along the metal frame, through the chassis, and into the soil from the point where the tires rolled over the ground.

When both feet touch the ground, the demonic power flows freely.

Now, with metal and rubber in between, each penetration requires three times the effort.

But she can't stop.

If you stop, the old fox will lose track of you.

The car jolted, her forehead hit the glass, her stomach churned, she gagged, and covered her mouth with her hand.

He Yaozu glanced over out of the corner of his eye.

"Drink some water to help calm down."

Su Xingmian took the water bottle, sipped it slowly, her face pale, and forced a smile at him.

He Yaozu withdrew his gaze and continued to stare at the riverbed in front of him.

Su Xingmian screwed the kettle cap back on and leaned back against the car window.

The demonic power was squeezed out bit by bit, and with each bit squeezed out, his temples throbbed, making his vision blur.

The car bounced again.

He Yaozu glanced at her a second time, this time for half a second longer than before.

Su Xingmian didn't move, her breathing was shallow and even, as if she had fallen asleep from being jostled around.

He Yaozu looked away.

The car continued driving forward.

Nearly eight hours.

As dawn broke, He Yaozu parked his car in a sheltered ditch.

I turned off the engine, got out of the car to check the surroundings, and only returned to the driver's seat after confirming that there was nothing wrong.

"Rest for an hour, then continue walking after dawn."

Su Xingmian hummed in agreement, huddled in the passenger seat, and wrapped her cotton coat tightly around herself.

She was truly exhausted.

The petals of that domineering flower deep within my soul are curling inward one by one, and the roots are withering and shrinking back from the ends of the meridians, like a plant that has been uprooted and thrown into the scorching sun, its moisture being drained away little by little.

My limbs felt weak, my head felt stuffed with cotton, and even my thinking became sluggish.

Just when she thought she would just get through it by exhaustion.

A sudden surge of heat rose within my body.

From the deepest part of the root system.

From the very center of that domineering flower bud in the soul.

bloom.

Su Xingmian almost lost control of her expression, biting her lower lip and digging her nails into her palm.

merit.

A great deal of merit.

When you rescue someone from a cellar, the merit you accumulate is gentle and continuous, like spring rain seeping into the soil.

This time it's hot.

A scalding warm current flowed from the flower bud into every meridian, washing over every withered root. Wherever it reached, the withered demonic power began to surge wildly back.

The flower buds trembled, the roots grew wildly, and the veins were stretched open and filled.

Su Xingmian desperately pushed all her surging demonic power into the depths of the flower bud.

We cannot lose control here.

She buried her face in the collar of her cotton coat, her breathing quickened for a few seconds, then gradually subsided.

He Yaozu opened his eyes and glanced at her.

"cold?"

"Hmm... a little."

His voice was muffled inside his collar, with a nasal tone.

He Yaozu didn't say anything more and closed his eyes again.

Su Xingmian took a breath inside her cotton-padded coat.

A harbinger of a qualitative change in demonic power.

Not now, but soon.

She glanced at the ray of dawn on the horizon.

Old fox, you've made your move, haven't you?

Then I won't lose to you either.

*

Three signal flares tore through the night, their red light turning half the sky blood-red.

Liang Jin led two platoons to press forward from three directions simultaneously.

The outer outposts were silently removed fifteen minutes before the signal flare was launched.

Xiao Zhao's elite squad did a perfect job; not a single whistle was missed.

When the leader rushed out of the shed, his belt was not fastened properly, and he let out a roar with his bare chest. Two soldiers pinned him to the ground on either side, pressing his face directly into the sand.

He was still struggling, spitting sand and cursing.

"Laozi...Sir...Ugh...Ugh..."

Liang Jin ignored him and turned to shout at the communications officer.

"Report your numbers!"

"The east side is cleared, ten in total!"

"Seven on the south side!"

"Five on the west side, all lying down!"

Liang Jin kicked open the door of the shack.

Thirteen girls were crammed into a mud house of less than twenty square meters.

Several of them were already unable to stand up, leaning against the wall, their eyes staring blankly at the doorway.

Liang Jin clenched his fist, then released it.

"Medic!"

Zhou Bingwen arrived with the follow-up troops.

When he rushed into the hideout with his first-aid kit on his back, the first thing he did was scan everyone's faces.

No.

He looked at every face, but not his second sister-in-law.

Zhou Bingwen stood there, feeling as if someone had squeezed his chest.

"Dr. Zhou, there are wounded soldiers over here!"

He gritted his teeth, squatted down, and opened the first-aid kit.

He put a simple IV drip on a severely dehydrated girl and temporarily immobilized another girl with a broken wrist.

After working for more than half an hour and dealing with the most urgent matters, he straightened up and walked deeper into the hideout.

At the entrance to the stone chamber, Zhou Bingheng squatted on the ground, pinching a piece of metal the size of a fingernail between two fingers.

Zhou Bingwen stood by the door frame and looked at him for two seconds.

"The wounded are all stable."

Zhou Bingheng nodded without looking up.

Zhou Bingwen opened his mouth, then closed it again, turned around and left.

When Liang Jin led the team to close in, Zhou Bingheng did not go to the front line.

He went straight into the empty stone chamber at the deepest part of the stronghold.

The lantern hung on the crossbeam, its light casting a stark white glow on the plaster wall.

There was nothing on the table, the cup was upside down, and the tabletop was wiped clean.

He no longer looked at the handwritten documents that had been burned.

Zhou Bingheng held up a flashlight and carefully examined the metal fragments he had scraped out of the crack in the rock.

Copper contacts.

Radio station parts.

He turned it over, and the light shone on the back, revealing a layer of pale green corrosion on the surface.

Zhou Bingheng brought the fragment close to his nose and smelled it.

His sense of smell was exceptionally keen; this wasn't the smell of salt or alkali.

It has the sour taste of plants.

He put the fragments into his shirt pocket and buttoned it up.

He Yaozu retreated calmly, taking at least eight hours.

Right under the spy's nose, in some way he couldn't explain, she disabled an encrypted radio station.

This forced Ho Yiu-tsu to initiate the evacuation plan at least twelve hours in advance.

Zhou Bingheng came out of the stone chamber and instructed Liang Jin to deal with the mess at the hideout.

He drove his jeep out of the base by himself and headed out along the gravel road in the south-southeast direction.

The headlights swept across the Gobi Desert on both sides and discovered a body that had been dead for more than eight hours.

At the three-kilometer mark, he took his foot off the accelerator.

A clump of reeds by the roadside, its branches pointing about five degrees south.

The prevailing wind direction on the western foothills of the Helan Mountains is northwest, so plants should naturally be turned to face southeast.

Facing due south is incorrect.

He didn't stop and kept driving forward.

Fifty meters later, another clump appeared.

Same direction, same angle.

Zhou Bingheng pulled the car over to the side of the road, turned off the engine, and got out.

I squatted down next to the clump of sand sage and reached out to brush aside a branch.

Let go.

The branch slowly bounced back.

Normal sand wormwood has excellent elasticity and immediately returns to its original position after being separated.

This cluster of plants rebounded slowly, as if it had been held in place by some force, and only began to loosen after that force dissipated.

Dry, without water stains, rope marks, or any physical marks of human fixation.

But it was fixed in place.

He stood up and looked out in the due south direction.

The Gobi Desert stretched to the horizon in the morning light, with alternating rows of gray-white gravel and dark shrubs. No car lights or human figures could be seen.

However, every fifty meters or so, there would be a clump of plants that had deviated in the same direction and at the same angle.

For several kilometers in a row, all facing due south.

This is not something that wind power can do.

Zhou Bingheng got back into the car, his hands on the steering wheel, but did not start the engine immediately.

I lightly rubbed my fingertips against the leather cover of the steering wheel.

Turn the steering wheel due south.

He stepped on the gas, and the jeep plunged deep into the Gobi Desert.

The car was traveling twice as fast as it had come.

He didn't know how she did it.

He could understand the crumbs of brown sugar biscuits.

He couldn't understand why the plants all deflected.

But he doesn't need to understand.

He just needs to follow this road and keep driving forward.

She was in front.