This is a pretty description-heavy chapter – feel free to comment if you need any clarifications on anything and I’ll do my best to offer my interpretation hahaha. as for the science/tech stuff, I’m sure the author just wants us to pretend it all makes sense ･ᴗ･
Chapter 19: Unexpected Failure
The information Li Xin had received from Obsidian Alley didn"t say who was actually being sent on the latest mission, but females were always chosen before males; lately, that had meant either she or Sui Xin.
The job involved stealing a treasure that belonged to the Qi Clan. Which was to say, either they wanted to force her to come back to help Sui Xin, or they really wanted to send her friend to her grave. Antagonizing the lead crime syndicate was not a joke.
"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l."
Everything was to go down the next day. There was no time for Li Xin to prepare — no time to decide whether or not to even go, whether or not it was a ruse. It was hard to calm herself down to think rationally because it was Sui Xin. If the information was true, Li Xin wondered what the organization had over her partner that she would risk her life to run this errand. She couldn"t understand it.
Overhead, the sky was still dark. She and Sui Xin used to steal from their targets when they were at their most defenseless. Sui Xin would have chosen this time of day to make her move. Li Xin raised her head towards the pitch-black sky and made her decision. She would risk it and go check things out. If Sui Xin was really on this mission, then she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn’t go help her.
~~~
Hidden inside a safety deposit box on the 112th floor of a bank was a piece of jade from the Warring States period that the Qi Clan had just recently purchased from France. It was unknown how much they had spent on it, but Li Xin was sure it was of similar value to the Western Zhou jade she and Sui Xin had stolen for the organization during their last job, which was also the reason she felt that Sui Xin must have been the one sent on this mission. The two of them specialized in ancient antiques.
She wasn’t going to steal anything… just take a look, Li Xin thought as she made her way confidently into the building disguised as an employee. It was nighttime, but not everyone in the plaza worked from 9 to 5 — the janitors, for example.
She absentmindedly swished a cleaning cloth back and forth over the building"s doors and eyed the nearby surveillance cameras surrept.i.tiously. They looked like they had been manipulated using Sui Xin"s methods.
She decided to head up the building, her entire body tight and anxious.
Before getting off the elevator on the 112th floor, she ran her hands over all the other b.u.t.tons, making sure it would stop on every floor on its way down. Then, she carried her janitor"s bucket off the elevator with her and stepped into the hall, continuing forwards until she pa.s.sed what was definitely the entrance to the safety deposit room.
She narrowed her eyes, her facial features twisting in suspicion. Everything was going too smoothly. All was quiet, and there weren"t even any security guards patrolling the area. Li Xin wondered if that was because Sui Xin had gotten rid of them all, or if there was a more ominous reason.
She was still deep in thought when all of a sudden, she noticed a sliver in the entrance to the safety deposit room. The door had been broken into — the slit was tiny, but glaringly noticeable to any professional robber. Li Xin lowered her head and began wiping down a nearby gla.s.s window.
Suddenly, there came a sound of something snapping in place. It was faint, but the hall was so still and silent that Li Xin heard it very clearly. She grit her teeth and cursed. It had been too long, so the time-sensitive door of the safety deposit room shut, trapping everything and everyone inside it. It was now on total lockdown and it would be impossible to leave until an employee opened it the next day.
Meanwhile, the surveillance camera near her had started flashing as it came back online and began swiveling back and forth as it was programmed to. It seemed that she had underestimated the seriousness of the situation and overestimated the abilities of whoever had entered the safety deposit room.
Li Xin grit her teeth and made sure to keep her back to the camera as she pressed a switch on the watch she wore on her wrist at all times. It was a compressed computer system, used to hack into all surveillance systems — but there wasn’t enough time now to get into the building"s system. The only thing she could do was release a strong frequency to disrupt it and hope for the best.
The problem was that this would alert security to her presence. The frequency was powerful; in just an instant, the entire plaza"s security system was shut down again. And just as Li Xin predicted, the on-duty security team was instantaneously aware that someone had infiltrated the treasury and guards were already rushing towards the 112th floor.
Li Xin didn"t have time to worry about them. She clicked open the door of the safety deposit room with ease and peered into the dark empty s.p.a.ce. "Sui Xin, come out!" She whisper-shouted. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she stopped. "What are you doing here?"
She had been expecting to see Sui Xin, but there in the room was Fei Xin and her mentor.
It had been a trap. Ya; her informant in Obsidian Alley; it had all been a setup. It became apparent the moment she saw her mentor. They had lured her in using her relationship with Sui Xin.
Li Xin looked from Fei Xin"s smiling face to her mentor"s somber expression and whirled around, ready to hightail it out of there. Mu Ya, you a.s.shole, she thought. I"m going to kill you.
"You can"t run, Li Xin. We have you trapped. Where are you going to go? I…" The organization"s second-in-command trailed off suddenly. "What the h.e.l.l is going on here?" He had followed Li Xin out of the treasury. Incessant, shrill police sirens echoed all around them from outside the building. His face darkened.
Li Xin jumped out of the way to avoid an incoming kick from Fei Xin. While she didn"t know how to fight, she"d spent all these years acting as Sui Xin"s target during practice — avoiding a few hits was still feasible.
She laughed at her mentor"s stony face. "Despite all your tricks, Teacher, you forgot something. You should know how important Sui Xin is to me since you used her to lure me into your trap — but did you think I"d play around with her life? Let"s see which one of us gets out of this mess, shall we?" With that, she ran down the hall yelling, "Thief!"
Fei Xin and her mentor froze, their faces pale. They had predicted that Li Xin would come and rescue Sui Xin, but they had underestimated how close the two were; that Li Xin would go to such extremes to ensure the other girl"s safety. At this rate, all of them were going to get caught by the cops.
The organization"s second-in-command, a man who at the current moment had his face twisted in fury, waved a hand and all at once, a flurry of organization members who had been hidden in the dark flew down the hall towards Li Xin. Subduing her before the authorities got to the scene was going to take some work.
Unfortunately for Li Xin, the organization had come prepared while she had rushed over only with the intention of saving Sui Xin. They had the upper hand, and were so close to capturing her when the elevator dinged and its doors opened to reveal a team of security guards.
"Thieves! Catch them, they"re trying to kill me! Help!" Li Xin shouted, scrambling frantically towards the guards.
Her janitor"s outfit was an advantage in the chaos. All the security guards and police rushed to meet the organization"s people and she was left alone. The corners of her lips lifted and a bright smile split across her face. Everyone was too busy fighting each other to pay attention to her as she made her way to the end of the hall.
She didn"t see the pair of arms until it was too late.
She crashed headlong into someone"s arms, and in the next instant, a strong, full-bodied fragrance floated up her nose. Right before she pa.s.sed out, a single thought pa.s.sed through her mind: Well, s.h.i.t.
*This chapter’s t.i.tle is 阴沟翻船, which is an idiom. Lit. “(your) boat capsizing in a drain.”