Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

"withdraw."

The cleaner in the bedroom locked the cello case and attached the external latch.

The four people did not enter through the door.

They attached the crate to the rappelling hook, and the silent winch above the exterior wall began to retrieve it.

The cello case was first hoisted out of the window.

Two cleaners escorted the container up to the rooftop.

The remaining two threw smoke canisters down the corridor, then climbed out of the broken window and escaped using ropes.

From breaking the window to evacuation, the entire process took less than three minutes.

The firefight is still going on downstairs.

Ali finally led Team B to clear out the first-floor lobby.

The ground was littered with fallen gangsters; not many were dead, but they had all lost their ability to fight.

Police sirens could be heard from several streets away on Hong Kong Island.

Ali didn't linger and led his men up to the third floor.

"Scar!"

The corridor was filled with smoke.

Scarface leaned against the wall, his face ashen, and pointed to the bedroom.

Ali rushed in, stepping on a floor full of broken glass.

The floor-to-ceiling windows are gone.

Rainwater swirled into the room, and the curtains were whipped about by the wind.

On the carpet beside the bed, there was still one of Gao Xiaofeng's slippers that she had dropped.

The baby's blanket was hanging halfway on the wardrobe door.

The smell of pepper spray makes your throat feel tight.

Ali walked to the window and looked down.

Only a few shallow scratches remain on the exterior wall.

The winch on the rooftop side had long been removed.

At the street corner downstairs, police lights pierced through the rain.

It was too late to chase after them.

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Team B members helped the scarred man up.

"Ali, the target is gone."

Ali took off his night vision goggles, and the veins on his forehead throbbed.

He didn't swear or smash anything.

Especially in times like these, it's crucial to stay calm and avoid making a rash decision.

He walked to the monitoring host, pulled out the burnt hard drive, and stuffed the spare encrypted record card into a waterproof bag.

He then opened the hidden compartment inside the wall.

There is a red emergency communication button inside.

This line connects directly to the Handong Provincial Military Region and is never used under normal circumstances.

Once pressed, the highest-level escort mission will fail.

Ali pressed his thumb on it.

The red light is on.

A piercing buzzing sound traveled through the encrypted link, across the strait, and straight to Handong.

At the same time.

Office building of the Handong Provincial Military Region.

3:17 a.m.

Only one desk lamp was on in the somber office.

On the table was a progress chart of the three major projects in Luzhou, with a copy of the Central Military Commission's memorandum pressed next to it.

Zhou Weiguo stood at the door, just about to report the routine security telegram from Hong Kong.

On the right side of the desk, the military-grade secure cell phone that had never rung before suddenly erupted with a piercing buzzing sound.

Shen Zhong sat heavily behind his desk. The pen that had been reviewing the Luzhou project implementation form stopped on the paper, and the ink smudged next to the words "preliminary funding supervision".

He didn't answer immediately.

Three seconds later, he picked up his phone and pressed the answer button.

"Sir, the safe house on Hong Kong Island has been breached."

The audio coming through the receiver wasn't in the usual reporting format; it was just a rapid current after suppressing the background noise.

"The target, Gao Xiaofeng, and her young son, were taken away by unidentified armed men. The other side used gang warfare to hold back the outside, while four people rappelled in from the rooftop. The operation lasted two minutes and forty-seven seconds."

The heavy pen tip drew a black line on the document.

Zhou Weiguo stood by the door, his back straightening unconsciously.

"casualties."

"Two of our personnel were seriously injured, but none died. Thirty-seven members of the opposing triad are incapacitated, and all four of the cleanup crew members have been evacuated. The on-site surveillance main unit was destroyed, and the spare recording card has been removed. Hong Kong Island police have cordoned off the streets."

Shen Zhong placed the phone on the table and turned on speakerphone.

"Send over the last footage."

"Uploaded in encrypted form."

The tactical terminal on the right side of the office lit up, projecting a picture of the damaged Hong Kong Island safe house onto the wall.

The French windows shattered into jagged edges, rainwater swept into the bedroom, a baby blanket hung on the cabinet door, and round powder from cutting the glass remained on the floor.

Shen Zhong stood up.

The hem of the pine-green military uniform lifted the documents on the corner of the table, and a few pages of paper fluttered to the ground.

Zhou Weiguo bent down to pick it up, but Shen Zhong raised his hand slightly.

"Notify the operations room to have all personnel in position."

"yes!"

Three minutes later.

The underground operations room of the Handong Provincial Military Region was fully lit.

In the spacious area, a huge electronic tactical screen flickered with a ghostly blue light, displaying a map of Hong Kong Island, sea routes, airport customs, dock berths, and satellite tracks simultaneously.

The duty officer didn't ask many questions.

As soon as they saw Shen Zhong walk in, the rhythm of the entire operations room was abruptly slowed down.

Shen Zhong stood in front of the main screen, his facial features under the brim of his military cap hard and heavy.

"Data on all departure ports on Hong Kong Island from midnight to 3:30 a.m.

The technical advisor taps on the keyboard.

"Sir, there are no records of Gao Xiaofeng and her child at any of the official ports of entry. There are no abnormalities at the airport, MTR, West Kowloon, or the Macau Ferry Terminal."

"Black Ships"

"We are currently checking the surveillance footage of small piers in the Victoria Harbour, Tuen Mun, Lau Fau Shan, and Ap Lei Chau areas. The other party has interfered with the footage, resulting in missing images for some sections."

Shen Zhong raised his hand and pointed to the bottom left corner of the screen.

"Missing time period".

The staff officer immediately magnified it.

"Between 2:09 and 2:26 a.m., surveillance cameras in three blocks simultaneously went down. At 2:31 a.m., a refrigerated truck entered the Saigon direction; at 2:57 a.m., radar detected a speedboat without AIS signal leaving the shore."

Zhou Weiguo stood beside Shen Zhong, his face tense.

"Sir, should we contact the Hong Kong Island Garrison Command to close the sea?"

Shen Zhong did not answer immediately.

He stared at the speedboat's wake.

On the screen, the red line runs southeast from the sea off Saigon, and the trajectory ends after entering the edge of the high seas.

"They're waiting for us to close the sea."

Shen Zhong spoke in a very flat tone, and his words were spoken in a very low voice.

"The cleaners don't use regular border crossings, don't enter the mainland, and don't stay on Hong Kong Island. They change ships after leaving the high seas. They either go to Southeast Asia or to the gray areas around Taiwan. The route may be cut off, but the destination will not be."

Zhou Weiguo picked up the tablet.

"I immediately contacted the Southern Theater Command and requested assistance from the sea and air forces."

"Use the pretext of military intelligence assistance, not a kidnapping report."

Shen Zhong turned around and walked to the sand table, picked up a red magnetic nail, and pressed it onto the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island.

"The other party wasn't after money."

No one answered in the operations room.

Shen Zhong continued speaking.

"Gao Xiaofeng has no commercial value, and her child has even less. Zhao Ruilong is crippled, Gao Xiaoqin has been arrested, and we have the Shanshui Group's accounting records. Kidnapping her won't save the Zhao family, nor will it save the Zhong family."

Zhou Weiguo reacted quickly.

"So you're going to use her to pressure Gao Yuliang?"

Shen Zhong pressed the second magnetic nail into the location of the Hantong Provincial Party Committee compound.

"Gao Yuliang."

As soon as those three words were uttered, the clicking of keyboards in the operations room slowed down by half a beat.

Zhou Weiguo's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"Sharikin?"

Shen Zhong raised his hand and placed the third magnetic nail in the direction of the capital.

"Sha Ruijin can't get the grey line in Hong Kong Island; he doesn't have the means. Zhong Xiaoai can, but she doesn't know the exact location of Gao Xiaofeng and her child's resettlement. The fact that the safe house location is being targeted means that someone in Handong has uncovered Gao Yuliang's trail."

Zhou Weiguo immediately opened the notebook.

"Very few people know any clues about Gao Xiaofeng. The remaining members of Zhao Ruilong's group, the Shanshui Special Task Force, the Hong Kong shady businesses, the Zhong family in Beijing…"

"There's also someone who just happened to come across the mountain and water files and was eager to climb up the ladder."

Shen Zhong walked back to the main screen.

On the screen, the list of members of the Shanshui Manor special task force was displayed.

Meng He, Zhao Donglai, Qi Tongwei, Zhao Donglai...

Zhou Weiguo stared at the name and muttered a curse under his breath.

"Zhao Donglai".

Shen Zhong offered no comment.

He picked up the red phone on the table.

"Connect to the military region's intelligence department."