Zhao Lifei didn"t hear the shuffling outside of the room. She was deeply engrossed in setting up the technical devices for the powerpoint and ensuring everything would run smoothly for the next meeting. Surprisingly, it was with Ling Conglomerate.
She only noticed the changes when the door to the meeting room opened. Multiple pairs of shoes thumped on the ground. Turning around, her eyebrows quirked up. Who were these people? Dressed in h.o.m.ogenous black suits with wires curling up to their ears, she understood they were bodyguards. What were they doing in here? She didn"t give them an order.
"What"s going on?" Zhao Lifei edged closer and closer to the coathanger. None of these men looked familiar.
Then the door slammed shut. Her eyes widened when they simultaneously placed on gas masks. She had to get out of here as soon as possible. These were not Yang Feng"s nor her grandfather"s men.
Ps.h.!.+
Smoke grenades were tossed onto the floor and in five seconds, her instincts kicked in as did the hazy smoke. White clouds soon flooded the room. She barely took one step forward before her vision turned dizzy. Even so, she launched herself at one of the men. She had just enough strength left to grab the pin on the chest pocket of his suit. But right after, she lost all strength and it fell onto the floor, just like her slumped body.
Zhao Lifei woke up and found herself tied to a hard mattress. Her eyes stared up and she squeezed it shut when the surgical lighting blinded her. s.h.i.+fting her head to the side, she tried to see what was going on. In the corner of the room, men and women dressed in white lab gowns were discussing something. On the other side of the room, there were a group of nurses preparing what looked to be pieces of surgical equipment. Why did this give her a strange sense of déjà vu?
"I reckon we should increase the dosage. The one we previously gave to her was suitable because she was a child at the time. Now, she"s a grown adult."
"But the first one was heavily monitored by a different boss than the one from today."
"They"re extremely close acquaintances. It will be fine."
After a few more moments pa.s.sed filled indistinct discussions, the doctors finally concluded to increase her dosage.
Zhao Lifei opened her mouth, then realized it was duct-taped. Her tongue could taste a ball of something placed into her lips and her eyes widened in horror.
Everything about this place was familiar.
She tried to wriggle in the bed and move her wrists but found they were chained on the bed with ropes and leather belts. This place felt and looked like a mental inst.i.tution that did unorthodox medical procedures on helpless victims.
"She"s awake." A male anesthesiologist said when he noticed her futile attempts to struggle out of her restraints.
He prepared the sedation syringe on the side and began to calculate the appropriate level of anesthesia to give her. Even though she was brought here against her will, they were not inhumane. They had been specifically hired to do this and the large sum of money transferred to their accounts ensured that no harm was to come to her. None of them wanted to force this on her, but it seemed they had no other choice. They didn"t have the power to go against their higher-ups.
"The commissioner requested we can only sedate her as a last resort. Start the anesthesia process." One of the female doctors spoke up, tugging her surgical gloves higher up.
At the sound of that, Zhao Lifei struggled even more. She tried to scream into the ball-gag. Her voice was m.u.f.fled and resembled that of a squabbling chicken. The male anesthesiologist wheeled the machine towards her.
"You will be fine. We"re not taking out your organs or anything to sell on the black market. This is only a procedure to...well, you don"t have to know. Nonetheless, please relax. It will make this process a lot easier for you."
Zhao Lifei stubbornly shook her head to which the man pursed his lips.
"Then I will have to sedate you. It won"t be good for your system. Everything will be fine after this surgery. Trust me. I have a decade of experience. None of the doctors here are unorthodox. We"re all highly skilled. Now, please relax."
Zhao Lifei wanted to refuse but the moment the oxygen mask was placed over her nose and mouth, she began to lose consciousness. She tried to fight against it, but her eyes were growing heavier with each pa.s.sing second. In thirty seconds, her eyes fluttered shut and she slipped into a world of darkness.
"Are you sure this will work? She had regained partial memory of her childhood." A hardened voice spoke through the speaker. A person was watching the procedure from the viewing room.
"Please rest a.s.sured. The technology back then was 90% accurate. We have been perfecting this method for over a decade now."
The switch to all of the machines was then turned on and the doctors were fully prepared to go through the procedure. The lights in the background dimmed. All hands were on deck. A minute pa.s.sed and the surgical sign was turned on.
In a quiet office, a man was leisurely taking a sip of lemon water as his eyes skimmed over the stock market. Today marked the fall of an Empire that should"ve been dead a long time ago. Within twenty-four hours, the Zhengs have lost a major portion of their value, and within the next few hours, they will slowly lose everything.
Yang Feng must thank Zhao Lifei. Just as she had gone on his phone, he had gone onto her laptop when she was sleeping the night before. There, he easily bypa.s.sed her security questions and pa.s.sword.
He figured the former Vice President of Zheng Corporation would have intel on everything there was to know about the enormous company. Not to his surprise, he found jackpot in a heavily encrypted folder. He was finally able to crack it this morning. She was quite an intelligent woman. The folder contained one hundred mini-folders that opened up to even more folders. Every single one of them had pa.s.scodes, some were easy, some were too hard.
His men had spent the entire night and morning combing through everything until he finally discovered the folder that contained all of Zheng Corporation"s deepest, darkest secrets. From scandals to under-the-table business transactions.
If the stock market did not drown them, law enforcement will clamp down onto them. Fortunately, that was never Yang Feng"s plan. He preferred to go for a slow-torturous death over a swift one. He preferred to take his sweet time draining the blood instead of watching it all gush out at once.
Zheng Corporation will soon be ruined forever and it would all be because of one man.
He stared out of his window and smiled to himself. The sun was setting now. It was time to return home to his lovely wife. He could not wait to tell her the fantastic news. Setting the iced lemon water down onto the table, he shut off his laptop and grabbed his coat.
"What did you just say?!" Chen Gaonan"s face was ash-white. He was on the verge of puking and his hands were shaking. If he wasn"t sitting down, his knees would"ve given out from underneath him. He broke out into buckets of cold sweat.
Su Meixiu had returned to the office a long time ago. The loud commotion from the Head Secretary"s desk confused her. She raised her head, her brows knitting together in worry. "Did something happen to their investment, companies, or projects?"
A single envelope was sitting on her desk. She had been debating the entire day on whether or not she should turn it in. It was a resignation letter. She had drafted it a long time ago and finalized it the night of her rejection, but never found the courage to hand it in.
"That"s impossible." Chen Gaonan wanted to cry and look for his mother. He was going to die today. He was going to die! His Boss was the exact type to shoot the messenger! Slamming his hand onto his desk, he struggled to keep his composure.
"The Lady-Boss is never allowed to go anywhere without her bodyguards and shadow men! How is it that all of them disappeared in just three hours?" Chen Gaonan ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t! This was not looking good.
"New people were a.s.signed to her? No, that shouldn"t be possible… Wait what?! The transmission was hacked?! By whom?" The transmission was what regulated the missions and tasks a.s.signed to each member of the Underworld.
"What is it?" Yang Feng came out of his office just in time to see his secretary on the verge of losing his mind.
Chen Gaonan"s entire body stiffened. A s.h.i.+ver ran down his spine. He was trembling like a dead leaf bracing the autumn wind. He was going to die today. Everyone was going to die today. Heads would roll. Blood would spill. This city would be painted crimson red.
"S-sir…" Chen Gaonan"s face was filled with anguish. "T-the Lady-Boss… S-she has been kidnapped."
And then all h.e.l.l broke loose.