Chapter 172: Let the harvest begin!
Chapter 172: Let the harvest begin!
Looking at that flickering light into the distance, the corners of Xia Fei’s lips curled to form a strange smirk.
Silently slipping over to Avril’s side, he used his hand to cover her mouth.
The coarse hand was a sharp contrast to Avril’s soft and delicate skin. She abruptly opened her eyes as her pupils constricted in shock and complete puzzlement.
“Do you trust me?” asked Xia Fei in a hushed voice.
Avril did not understand what Xia Fei meant, nodding her head blankly.
“Good. I will now be taking you away from here. Can you stay quiet?” Xia Fei released his hand from her mouth as he asked this question.
“You’re taking me away? Then, will I still be coming back?” Avril asked, confused.
Xia Fei did not know whether to laugh or cry at Avril’s naivety. “It’s only for a few days. You’ll come back very soon.”
“Oh.” Avril could not explain why this revelation actually made her slightly disappointed.
‘Well, I’ll be able to spend time alone with Xia Fei for a few days. Hehe.’ Avril could not help but giggle to herself when she thought about this.
Xia Fei took out a piece of black sharkskin cloth and wrapped it around Avril before taking her into his arms. This sort of fabric was of great protective quality. Not only was its defense high, it also had great air permeability, so Avril would not feel at all suffocating inside.
“You may feel quite a bit of rocking when I start running, but please bear with it.”
“Okay, I trust you,” Avril said, her cheeks flushing.
The reinforced glass in the room, which was almost ten centimeters thick, was known as impenetrable to laserfire. Xia Fei took out a device about the size of a go piece from his spatial ring and stuck it to the glass.
This was an ultrasonic oscillator, able to instantly unleash an unimaginably high vibration frequency, which would shatter even sturdy tritanium alloy.
This device was expensive and there was no way to purchase it without the right connections. Thuram had sent three his way after learning about Xia Fei’s plan. He could easily obtain items that most would be unable to get their hands on since he was the weapons and equipment’s head quartermaster in the Adjudicator Union at the end of the day.
Standing ten meters away, Xia Fei held Avril tightly in his arms as he crouched low, adopting a stance ready to launch himself off.
With a light tap on his microcomputer, the ultrasonic oscillator promptly activated.
Ultrasonic was a high-frequency soundwave that human ears could not perceive.
There was a crisp sound, then several thin cracks appeared on that ten-centimeter-thick reinforced glass.
Celestial Moon was abruptly unsheathed.
The eighteen disc blades came rushing out, striking the glass surface from eighteen different angles in an attempt to shatter it.
Just as the powerful Celestial Moon managed to reduce the reinforced glass into shard fragments, Xia Fei pumped strength to his two legs and leaped off the sixth floor like a bolt of lightning.
Everything happened so suddenly, and couple with how no one was expecting Xia Fei to take advantage of the night to abscond with Avril, by the time these bodyguards from the Jian Family reacted, he had already hopped onto a small shuttle, which had been waiting some distance away, and disappeared into the darkness.
Turning on his communicator, Xia Fei gave out his order to the image of Ling Xiao’s head. “Begin the harvest operation.”
“Understood,” Ling Xiao roused.
As Xia Fei turned off the screen, Avril poked her head out from within his arms. She felt utterly cozy being in his embrace, even somewhat reluctant to leave it.
“Harvest?” Avril inquisitively asked.
Xia Fei smiled. “It’s nothing. I’ve cast a net by the sea, and now it’s time to catch the fish.”
Avril knew Xia Fei was being evasive, but she did not press the issue. In her eyes, the things men must do were different from what women ought to do; thus, there were plenty of things she did not need to know. What mattered to her was just knowing that Xia Fei would never harm her.
“So where are we heading off?” Avril asked, still blushing.
Upon thinking that she would be able to spend several days of unconstrained solitude with Xia Fei, Avril could not help but feel excited. After all, she had lived in a sheltered home since she was young and seldom had the chance to see the outside; this was not mentioning she would be spending this free time with her favorite person.
Actually, she did not really like the life she was presently leading. She believed that happiness could be found in exploring space alone like what Xia Fei was doing; in fact, her yearning for him must have stemmed from him possessing what she could not have: freedom.
There was no such thing as a love that started without reason. Avril was like a captive housecat, every day walking in the villa. One day, when this domesticated housecat bumped into a reckless, feral cat, an inexplicable chemistry sprouted.
The feral cat was completely different from this domestic cat, flaunting the rules, daringly barging into places that it liked. Though it had scars all over, the feral cat did not care two hoots. Both the housecat and the feral cat were felines, though they shared absolutely nothing in common. Avril found everything about Xia Fei refreshing, causing her to become unknowingly attracted toward him, enticing her in more and more.
However, if that had just been it, it would have been enough to make Avril fall for Xia Fei. What was crucial was when Xia Fei appeared in her direst strait, taking her life back from the knife’s edge at all cost.
All the previous points from before finally had accumulated to that one moment, forming a single string that bound Avril’s heart closely to his.
Though Avril was not too knowledgeable of the world, she could vaguely sense that there was no way for her to extricate herself from this. Besides, she did not wish to do so.
Xia Fei set Avril in the seat. This made her pout, however, for she thought that it was nowhere as comfortable as being in his arms.
“I’ll take you to somewhere fun. You’ll know in a second.” Xia Fei mysteriously chuckled.
Avril nodded eagerly, softly muttering, “I’m willing to go wherever you take me.”
...
As Xia Fei expected, the seemingly strict security in that hospital was still full of loopholes. Xia Fei barely wasted any effort yet managed to sneak Avril out. Several minutes later, the entire hospital was thrown into a fit of chaos.
All the bodyguards were for naught, which was also why Xia Fei had decided to bring Avril away from that place. Someone among the guards could be a Plumager, and once the harvest operation began, those wicked people might retaliate with reckless abandon, and that would undoubtedly put Avril in danger.
Xia Fei had always been a paranoid skeptic, so he would definitely not let his woman be exposed to danger—not now, not in the future, not ever.
The entire harvest operation was under Xia Fei’s control, so it was only right for him to be there, but Xia Fei did not even hesitate to be by Avril’s side, protecting her, instead. To him, there was nothing more important than her safety, so even if this operation ended in a failure, he would still prioritize her safety over everything else.
Back in the hospital, the exasperated Pang Xing pulled out his communicator to report this matter to Newman. He had trusted Xia Fei this entire time, but Xia Fei had managed to pull one over him this time. He was even wishing death upon the man at this moment, hurtling curses Xia Fei a million times over. What he had no idea was, since Xia Fei dared to make such a move, he would not even care about being cursed. He did not even care for his own life, so why would he mind if he was being cursed?
...
In the dark of the night, an electronic communicator tracker cordon was already searching within a twenty-kilometer radius. Every communication would be tapped and their position locked on. The control on them could even be forcibly taken over.
Ling Xiao was seated imposingly inside the makeshift command center. He was being extremely serious in his attitude. According to the rank assigned to this operation, he was originally unqualified to take overall command, but he had no idea what Xia Fei said to Thuram, for Thuram had actually listened to Xia Fei’s suggestion and handed command to him.
Ling Xiao was extremely grateful for this opportunity. All this time, he had only been in command of his team of three brothers, and this was actually the first time he had a contingent that numbered over a hundred warriors for this large-scale operation. If he were to succeed here, he had no doubt that he would receive Thuram’s praise, as well as the high possibility of being promoted to an elite commander of dozens of teams from a lowly team leader.
“The first signal has been sent, and it’s the Jian family’s head butler Pang Xing contacting Newman,” one of the staff anxiously reported.
“Listen in on the content of the call and record everything down,” Ling Xiao deeply commanded. Despite his calm appearance, his palm was already clammy with sweat.
“A second call signal has been sent,” another staff in charge of monitoring the trackers reported.
“Who’s it from?”
“A bodyguard by the name of Long Ze. He’s currently connecting to Old Patriarch Ernst.”
“Monitor it. There’s no need to block the signal.”
Not only was there a mole of the Plumagers among the bodyguards, there would also be secret agents from the core members of the Jian household. There was not much to be said about the first communicator call; Pang Xing had just taken up the post of the head butler today, so he was of course the first to report this incident to the Jian family, but the second call was a little unorthodox. This bodyguard by the name of Long Ze was also working for the Old Patriarch in secret, reporting straight to the big boss the moment something happened.
Xia Fei’s goal was not to weed out these people, however, but to uncover the identity of the Plumager’s two moles who were hiding within the family. It was as the saying went: ‘Cleaning from the inside is the most important’. The two moles hiding within the family were like thorns in Xia Fei’s flesh. There was no way he could be at ease until they were taken care of.
That was why Xia Fei had arranged such an operation, personally whisking away Avril to create a commotion in the Jian family, using this chance to create another situation to whack those spies.
Of course, Xia Fei had made arrangements for Zhou Yuqing and the Plumagers in the other location as well.
Following which, the monitoring staff picked up communication signals one after another. What none of them had expected was the fact there were not only people planted by the family themselves; there were also those from other companies, other families, and the classified investigations department. All of them immediately reported to their respective bosses about the news of the family heiress, Avril, getting abducted.
The Jian family was huge, so of course there were plenty of eyes belonging to the various powers in the Alliance; it was quite normal for the different circles to insert their men in, either to obtain some business secrets or other news.
This time, Xia Fei’s harvest operation caused all the spies to come out of the woodworks. All of them, be they beneficial or otherwise, must be taken care of. This could be considered as an unexpected bonus.
Trying to get a job as the Jian family’s bodyguard was no easy task. Candidates needed to go through several stages of selection process. With Xia Fei having managed to clear them all out at one go, it might take a very long time before those powerful figures and organizations could injecg spies in the family.
Several minutes passed, and the Plumagers’ moles had yet to make an attempt to connect to the outside. This caused Ling Xiao to worry somewhat, using a communicator to get in touch with Xia Fei. “Brother Xia, it’s been ten minutes, yet we haven’t gotten any news on those Plumagers.”
Xia Fei was unperturbed. “There’s no hurry. Keep an eye on the nets we have outside. If I’m not mistaken, they will have some news transmitted very soon.”
Ling Xiao nodded. He admired Xia Fei’s composure greatly. The young man had managed to draw such a plan in a short time, and it was not just a single net, but many others, each linked to the other which could be closed altogether.
It was truly such an ingenious series of harvest.