Chapter 24: She Is Dead

Blood had soaked the ground, staining it crimson.

No one knew, upon witnessing the figure falling from the heights of the building.

It crashed down violently.

Falling to the earth.

And just as she was about to hit the ground, the blood-stained face of the girl flashed across the man's eyes for an instant.

So quick, dazzling, utterly unexpected.

His pupils contracted; Yu Mo, who was holding a gun and had just shot down two black-clad bodyguards of the group, frowned in shock as he witnessed the scene of someone falling from the middle floors of the skyscraper.

His heart seized, constricting sharply!

Who was that?!

Because the two of them had fallen from the upper floors, shattering the transparent glass—glass threaded with lights—the electrical system was damaged, plunging the entire building into darkness.

"Captain Qin!" At that moment, a man in a black Interpol uniform ran up to Yu Mo. Seeing the corpses strewn across the stairwell on the third floor and that nearly all enemies had been eliminated, he called out.

"We've taken control of most of District A, but the elevators leading to the upper floors of these dozen or so towers have all been cut off! We can't go up, and we can't get out!"

The whole building was sealed; they were all trapped inside.

Just moments ago, Yu Mo, the chief bodyguard who had been at Shen Chaoxi's side, was now holding a gun and shooting down his own men.

But that wasn’t right.

They weren’t his own men.

The ones he shot were members of the W Group.

But he was not!

As it turned out, Yu Mo was never a denizen of the criminal underworld as Gong Shenxi had first assumed—a brooding, dangerous outlaw who had offended the gangs of Yingdu.

He had appeared in Dongzhou three years ago, hunted during a mission, and by sheer chance was saved by Gong Shenxi.

Thus, he seized the opportunity to stay in Dongzhou, serving as Gong Shenxi's personal bodyguard, all the while searching for a chance to obtain evidence of W Group's criminal activities.

That night in Sand City, while escorting Gong Shenxi back to Yingdu, he saw the weather forecast message on his phone: rain at 8:59 p.m.—the signal for tonight’s operation.

He was Captain Qin Mo, leader of the First Criminal Police Unit of Eastern Nation!

Yu Mo, Qin Mo—who could imagine they were one and the same?

The heiress of the W Group likely never understood, even unto death, why the man she had saved—the one who managed the group's affairs for her, stood by her through blood and turmoil, and protected her safety—would be her enemy.

That one day, he would orchestrate an assault on W Group from within and without.

That slender figure flashed across Yu Mo's eyes, falling from the high tower.

Blood.

For a moment, it seemed to splash before his eyes, rendering him utterly motionless.

He looked down toward the base of the building.

It was pitch black.

Blood pooled everywhere.

Among those who witnessed Shen Chaoxi's fall, besides these men, was Lu Yunzhou, who was in the document storage room on the penultimate thirty-third floor, retrieving decades of W Group's data and gathering evidence of their crimes.

The building's glass design allowed for a view far below.

As that figure plummeted, they were in the midst of cracking passwords and decrypting all the confidential files of W Group.

Naturally, they witnessed the body falling, like a butterfly with broken wings facing the abyss and death.

"Captain? Isn't she the heiress of W Group?"

A team member standing nearby, monitoring the situation outside, asked in confusion.

"Did they have an internal conflict?"

"But that shouldn't be." For something like tonight to happen, how could they—? Had the infighting within W Group rotted to such an extent?

Chen Yu froze by the glass railing, his face pale. Seeing the blood-soaked scene below, his eyes tightened.

"Boss!"

Jiang Chen, looking down from several stories up, was terrified.

Clutching his gun, he dashed toward the ground floor.

To others, Shen Chaoxi was the heiress of W Group; no one knew why she had fallen from the heights, but it appeared she had quarreled with someone and both had fallen together.

But only Jiang Chen—his youthful, handsome face now seemed covered in a layer of frost, terror etched deeply—recognized the scene.

Such a moment, he had witnessed once before.

He could not—would not—allow it to happen again.

"Boss—"

His desperate cry was swallowed by the smoke-filled corridors of the skyscraper.

The entire building was sealed.

Faced with the sudden anomaly, the building was locked down.

Those inside sensed they were in danger, but did not know that soon, the entire building would explode.

All of them would die here in the end.

"Zhou Xu!"

"For this operation, be extra careful."

"Don't worry, Sister Xi, I promise to complete the mission!"

"To serve the nation, to honor the First Military District—"

The youth's voice seemed to drift from afar, falling into Shen Chaoxi's ears.

She had fallen from the heights, drenched in blood, lying in a pool of it.

Her fingers trembled.

With a bloodied arm, she propped herself up, crawling from the gore and corpses.

Her consciousness was dim, her vision blurred, pitch black.

"Boss!"

Jiang Chen rushed over.

Seeing the unsteady figure standing in the first-floor lobby, he rushed forward, gun in hand, catching the girl as she collapsed.

"Boss, are you alright?..."

Jiang Chen supported Shen Chaoxi’s shoulders, his eyes lowered, tense with worry.

"Jiang Chen."

Shen Chaoxi's bloodied hand, her entire arm lacerated by glass, blood pouring from her body, her mind hazy—she told him, "Go to the top floor!"

"Take me, quickly..."

"Boss?" Jiang Chen was frantic; she was already so badly wounded.

Why go to the top floor?

Shen Chaoxi, covered in blood, said weakly,

"W Group has activated the self-destruct protocol. The whole building will explode in fifteen minutes."

If she didn’t stop it, "We’ll all die!"

Only she knew the Old Buddha’s scheme.

He meant for everyone to die here.

"What?"

Jiang Chen’s eyes darkened instantly.

No one knew.

The criminal mastermind they had been hunting within W Group had died in the topmost suite.

Died without a sound.

Died in his favorite armchair in his study.

Motionless.

Eyes staring wide open.

A military knife plunged into his chest.

He had not managed to escape via the helicopter waiting on the rooftop.

A gruesome scene.

The stench of blood filled the entire space.

Supported by Jiang Chen, Shen Chaoxi reached the top floor.

Having spent years inside W Group, she naturally knew how to reach it.

The others, meanwhile, were trapped within the building, unable to ascend or escape.

"Warning—"

"Warning—"

"All operational spaces within the building are locked!"

"Self-destruct countdown: ten minutes!"

Suddenly, alarms sounded on the top floor, red lights flashing, casting an eerie atmosphere throughout the building.

In the pitch-black darkness, the alarms echoed without pause.

Now, hearing the mechanical reminders, they realized—

W Group was cutting off all hope, activating the self-destruct program to perish together with them.

But then, a bloodied arm climbed onto the glass door, entering the control room on the penultimate floor.

Shen Chaoxi braced herself before the computer.

Her bloody fingers struck the keyboard.

On the screen, data flickered wildly—garbled, unreadable.

Jiang Chen frowned.

"Boss, it’s all gibberish. Looks like when they designed this protocol, they meant for the self-destruct to be irreversible once triggered..."

"No."

Shen Chaoxi’s pale face, still flecked with warm blood, was set with resolve.

Her clear, cold eyes were fixed on the computer screen.

Her bloodied fingers raced against the clock.

"Any program, so long as it’s man-made, can be cracked!"

"It can be disabled!"

No matter how formidable, how terrifying the system, there would always be traces.

She would set the scrambled data right.

She would restore order from chaos.