Chapter 320: Foot in Both Camps
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Foot in both camps? Why did she say that?
Xiang Wan raised an eyebrow and sneered. However, before she could refute Cheng Xin, Cheng Zheng interrupted the two women.
“Enough!”
His face was grim, and he swept a glance at Cheng Xin whose face and neck were red from anger.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” He said in a low tone and pointed at the bowl that had fallen to the ground, but did not break into pieces. “Clean this up and you can get out of here!”
The words ‘get out of here’ angered Cheng Xin again.
“Why did I have to do that? Cheng Zheng, you’re helping outsiders to deal with your family?”
Cheng Zheng’s face was as sinister as thunder; a sign that he might blow his top anytime. “Cheng Xin, this is not a place for you to act wilfully!”
“I simply want to act willful, what are you going to do about it?”
“Wilful people are not suitable to work in Serious Crime Division One!”
Well, Cheng Zheng was certainly scary when he was cold and apathetic.
In addition, the supposed threat of not being to work in Serious Crime Division One… hit Cheng Xin on the right spot. Half of her anger, as well as half of her haughtiness, were gone once she heard that.
“Hmph! All of you don’t do your proper work but fuss around her all day, especially you. You already know she has a boyfriend, yet you still wanted to please her… Cheng Zheng, I’m now looking down on you. To think that I used to admire you so much when we’re young…”
Cheng Zheng looked at her. “You should say this to yourself.”
Cheng Xin’s expression changed. “You…”
“Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re thinking!” Cheng Zheng reb.u.t.ted her coldly.
Flames were as though pouring out of Cheng Xin’s eyes. She wished she could fight him.
When she thought of all those shameful things she did to please Bai Muchuan back in the Capital, and now that she was in front of Bai Muchuan’s girlfriend, she felt like she shouldn’t leave like this as her pride was hurt. For a moment, she couldn’t leave, yet she didn’t really want to stay either…
“Hurhur, since you liked to protect her, then continue doing so. You’re going to get hurt, mark my words…” She shouted, as she finally found an excuse to leave, and turned away.
“Come back here!” Cheng Zheng stopped here and pointed at the bowl on the ground. “Clean this up! Don’t let me repeat again!”
“…”
Cheng Xin bit her lower lip. She felt upset and humiliated.
He actually treated her this way.
He was the brother she admired since she was young!
He was so mean to her because of a lowly woman!
Water started to fill her eyes, but she was trying hard not to cry. Instead, she squatted down and picked up the bowl.
Before she left, she took a glance at Xiang Wan who was sitting on the bed. All the hatred and anger suddenly rushed up in her. On one hand, she suddenly realized that her own anger and behavior earlier somehow was low. On the other hand, she had lost face before Xiang Wan and couldn’t take it lying down.
“Crazy! All of you are crazy!”
She shouted at them and ran out of the house!
She threw the bowl on a corner of the wall. Then she looked at her hands, there was an unspeakable feeling of disgust and hatred…
She loathed that bowl, she loathed herself… that Cheng Zheng reprimanded her so badly in the presence of Bai Muchuan’s girlfriend…
No, it should be both of them working together to chastise her, and she was even forced to pick up the bowl.
Originally, she wanted to visit Xiang Wan as she wanted to look at her pathetic plight and offer some words of consolation… In the end, she couldn’t control her temper that things came to this. Cheng Xin did not know if she should regret or hate them for it.
Enduring her tears, she scrubbed her hands aggressively.
She did not seem to care even if the water was cold but kept scrubbing her hands.
It was like she was scrubbing off her bad luck.
“It’s so frustrating! A lowly woman who seduces one after another…”
“A pair of adulterers! No, she’s a wh.o.r.e… a wh.o.r.e who has no adulterer!”
“It’s so frustrating and annoying! Just what kind of jinxed place is this!?”
She took her phone and wanted to confide in her best friend about the incident. However, after typing several messages, she recalled that there was no internet. She was so angry that she stopped cussing and kept her mobile phone. Next, she left the house that she stayed.
It was very cold outside and was also snowing at the same time. The ground outside was wet.
Cheng Xin looked up at the sky.
The sky was gloomy and dreary.
Nothing could cheer her up.
It seemed that everyone was looking at her strangely with sympathy.
Cheng Xin thought so inside her head and started to feel upset. She felt that this place was unfriendly and none of them looked kind…
“Sister Cheng, where are you going?” The armed police officer on duty saw her and was surprised.
Cheng Xin did not even turn to look at him as she dashed out of the village. “I’m going for a walk—”
“Hey!” The officer ran after her for a few steps. “Captain Bai has ordered that no one should go out unnecessarily!”
“I could care less about him!”
Cheng Xin shouted back in reply. The winds soon covered her voice.
…
The forest was thick with shadows.
Salimu followed after Bai Muchuan and was puzzled. “Captain Bai, can we find the Dark Clan here?”
Bai Muchuan’s voice sounded cold. “Does it mean that if we can’t find them, we need not even try to look for them?”
Salimu could not understand. “But we’ve walked around this place many times already…”
Bai Muchuan turned around to look at him. “Are you sure about that?”
Urgh! Salimu curled into himself a little and shook his head. He was not so certain now.
This place was too mysterious!
Everywhere had looked the same, who would know if they had walked past it?
Bai Muchuan also looked at the rest of the men who had shown signs of exhaustion. “If this place contained the exit for the lake, there will definitely be another exit. I’ve been having suspicions that Brother Steel had deliberately lured us to the lake all along.”
“What’s their motive?”
“They either wanted to kill us off at the lake, or they simply wanted our focus away from their base to protect it.”
“Their base?” Would their base be in such a place?
Bai Muchuan took a look at the forest. “The place has a barrier that makes us go around in circles. If this barrier is naturally formed, it would be such a waste not to utilize it. We killed quite a number of their men; how would the Dark Clan not use it to exact revenge? If the barrier is actually man-made and if it was not used to protect their base, why waste the effort and money to build it in the first place?”
“So Brother Steel deliberately lured us away for the sake of protecting their base so as not to get exposed?”
“Of course. The base is his priority—the moment the police finds his base, that place is gone for good!”
Bai Muchuan paused for a while and continued, “Nevertheless, when they lured us into the forest, they shouldn’t have underestimated our prowess. They might have wanted to finish us off without anyone knowing what happened!”
Salimu furrowed his eyebrows. “So they should be hiding in their base now?”
“… The possibility of them doing so is very high.”
“Could they be hiding underground like those mice?”
“Even if they are hiding underground, we can still find them!”
As Bai Muchuan said so, Quan Shaoteng suddenly called for him. “Little Bai!”
His voice was filled with vigor with an element of surprise.
Everyone turned around together with Bai Muchuan.
When they entered the forest again, they had moved accordingly in a formation.
Quan Shaoteng’s position was in front of Bai Muchuan, towards the right. When Bai Muchuan came over to him, he pointed at the ground.
“Take a look at this!”
There was a symbol on the ground.
There was a big cross in a circle. One of the lines was an arrow.
Their training enabled them to ascertain that the symbol was freshly drawn.
“Dang! Is this being left behind deliberately?”
“Could it be Tu Liang?”
They had deemed that Brother Steel had caught Tu Liang since he had disappeared. Currently, they had no news of him.
Tu Liang was the most likely person to leave a guiding symbol in this forest.
“Mm.” Bai Muchuan squatted down and touched the symbol. “No matter who left it here, we have to go there!”
As they got a direction, in this huge area which was too enormous to be measured, they would make lesser detours.
“Even if it might be a trap! We have to jump into it!” Quan Shaoteng puffed a sigh.
“This jinxed place is really torturing!” Some of them concurred and asked jokingly. “Don’t everyone agree that our job is similar to being a commando?”
Quan Shaoteng took a look at them and looked up at the gloomy sky. “Besides being different in terms of physical fitness and resourcefulness,” he grunted, “we’re not much different.”
The team sighed. “…”
The team had just suffered a blow mentally.
“When I was in Red Thorn,” said Quan Shaoteng, “I thought I had done all of those difficult missions, and I thought I won’t be encountering anything new in the future. In the end, I, being the best in Serious Crime Division One, almost couldn’t keep everyone alive and kicking… The difficulty level is the same in Red Thorn, but I don’t have the same caliber of men.”
The team looked at each other in discomfort. “…”
Once again, the team suffered another mental blow.
Thud!
Bai Muchuan’s palm rested on Quan Shaoteng’s shoulder.
“Do you want me to send you back?”
Quan Shaoteng turned and saw his cold, chilly face. “Why not? Can you get me a helicopter too?”
Thud! Bai Muchuan pounded his shoulder once again. “Fine, I’ll leave this mission to you. Call for helicopter a.s.sistance!”
“…”
“This is not Red Thorn!” Bai Muchuan ‘consoled’ him. “You gotta accept the reality! Even though this is a poor deck of cards, we still need to play it nicely!”
“Captain Bai…” Salimu groaned unhappily behind. “What poor deck of cards? What are you talking about?”
“…”
After the team suffered umpteen times of mental blows…
Quan Shaoteng’s pair of fox-like eyes opened slightly. “Brothers, I’ve never treated Serious Crime Division One as Red Thorn,” he sighed, “if this is Red Thorn, we won’t be so unlucky. Just look at us, we’re dog-tired and haven’t even caught a Dark Clan member!”
“Hurhur!” Bai Muchuan said seriously, “Be rest a.s.sured that dogs are not as tired as you.”
“Fine then—” Quan Shaoteng pulled on the trigger gently and aimed at a spot somewhere in the forest. “But then again, it’s really challenging here in Serious Crime Division One! This young master is happy!”
Bai Muchuan gave a grunt and ignored him.
He continued to examine the ‘symbol’.
Behind him, Quan Shaoteng talked again. “Perhaps the only fly in the ointment—my teammates are like gooses. Isn’t there a saying on the internet that goes like this: I’m not afraid of G.o.d-like opponents but afraid of Goose-like teammates…”
Bai Muchuan straightened his back. “Are you talking about yourself?”
Quan Shaoteng chuckled and touched his ear stud before looking at Bai Muchuan in a supposedly charming manner.
“Have you ever seen a ‘goose’ that is so good looking?”
“…” Bai Muchuan grunted softly as his gaze swept past his face. “Thanks to you, I’ve finally witnessed it today.”