Chapter 740: Pursuit and Betrayal

At 1:12 a. m., an abandoned cement factory in the suburbs of Jing.

Lao Ba crouched in the shadow of the factory's outer wall, the night‑vision goggles' lenses glowing a faint green. A tiny earpiece in his ear carried Lin Dongfan's calm voice:

"The location shows Liu Shu's phone signal last appeared near Warehouse No. 3 in the factory, but it's been stationary for twenty‑seven minutes; he may have ditched the phone."

"Understood." Lao Ba replied softly, taking off the night‑vision goggles and switching to thermal imaging.

The factory is vast; abandoned since its closure in the 1990s, it is littered with collapsed workshops and rusted equipment.

On the thermal‑imaging screen, three faint heat sources appeared near Warehouse No. 3—two stationary, one moving slowly.

"Three people." Lao Ba said into the earpiece: "Two are guarding the warehouse door, one is moving inside. Liu Shu might still be alive."

"Don't startle the snake." Lin Dongfan's voice paused: "First find Lao San—his disappearance is too suspicious."

Lao Ba's eyes turned cold.

Indeed suspicious.

Four bodyguards—three killed on the spot, only Lao San missing.

No sign of him alive, no corpse if dead.

If it were a professional hit to clean up, there'd be no need to leave a witness.

Unless……

Lao San isn't a victim—he's an insider.

"Boss, if Lao San has turned traitor…" Lao Ba's voice sank.

"Then we go by the rules." Lin Dongfan spoke calmly, but Lao Ba heard the chill beneath: "Alive, we want the body; dead, we want the corpse."

"Understood."

Lao Ba turned off the thermal imager, pulled a climbing rope from his pack, and silently scaled the three‑meter‑high wall. Landing on broken concrete, he made only a faint "crack".

He didn't head straight for Warehouse No. 3, but circled toward the factory's interior power distribution room.

The attack happened after the villa lost power, so the enemy must have cut the electricity first.

Lao Ba had checked the villa's breaker box; it wasn't an external outage but someone inside pulling the main switch—and the only person who could have done that was Lao San, who had claimed he was going to "inspect the wiring."

The door to the power distribution room stood ajar.

Lao Ba pressed his side against the door, listened for a few seconds—no breathing inside—then slowly pushed it open, his flashlight beam sweeping over the dust‑covered control console.

Fresh footprints marked the floor.

They belonged to more than one person.

Lao Ba crouched and lightly touched the edge of a print with his fingertip.

The soil was damp, strewn with grass clippings—brought in from the villa's backyard lawn. The prints varied in size; at least three people had been here.

On the console, the main switch handle bore clear fingerprints, a patch of dust wiped away.

Lao Ba pulled a UV light from his pocket and shone it on the handle.

Fluorescent powder revealed a clear print—right hand, index finger and thumb. Lao Ba recognized it: Lao San's right hand has a scar in the thumb‑web, giving the print a characteristic gap.

Sure enough, it was him.

Lao Ba took out his phone to photograph the evidence, then, as he was about to leave, caught a glint out of the corner of his eye beneath the console.

He crouched.

Reaching into the gap, he felt out a small object.

It was a button.

Black, an ordinary shirt button.

But Lao Ba instantly recognized it as the button from the black tactical shirt Lao San often wore—the second cuff button—since Lao San habitually bites his buttons, leaving tiny tooth marks on its edge.

The button was stained with a speck of dark red.

Lao Ba leaned in and smelled it.

It smelled of blood.

Had Lao San been wounded? Or… was this someone else's blood?

He pocketed the button, withdrew from the power distribution room, and crept toward Warehouse No. 3.

The warehouse is a two‑story brick‑and‑concrete building, its windows boarded up with planks.

Sure enough, two men guarded the door, dressed in black combat gear, masks on their faces, holding modified micro‑submachine guns.

Lao Ba hid behind a scrap pile twenty meters away and observed them through binoculars.

The two stood in a professional left‑right stance, covering the whole entrance, but their attention clearly wasn't on watch—they kept glancing inside the warehouse, as if waiting for something.

Lao Ba switched earpiece channels: "Boss, I've confirmed Lao San's betrayal. His fingerprints are in the power distribution room, and I found his shirt button there, stained with blood."

The other end of the line fell silent for two seconds.

"Can you tell whether it was voluntary or forced?" Lin Dongfan asked.

Lao Ba stared at the tooth marks on the button—Lao San bites his buttons when nervous, a habit of years. If he'd been coerced, the button wouldn't show such deep bites.

"It's likely voluntary." Lao Ba reported truthfully: "He bites his buttons when nervous, and this one bears deep tooth marks."

"... Got it." Lin Dongfan's voice gave nothing away: "Stick to the original plan—rescue Liu Shu. If we run into Lao San, handle him however we must."

"Yes."

Lao Ba ended the call and began calculating his approach.

A frontal assault won't work—they have heavy firepower.

We have to outsmart them.

He surveyed the warehouse's surroundings: to the left stood a row of abandoned staff dormitories, their second‑floor windows facing the warehouse door; to the right lay the raw‑material storage area, piled with rusted iron drums.

Lao Ba's gaze fell on the iron drums.

Most of those drums are rusted through, possibly still holding chemical residue.

If we could make a little disturbance……

He took out a small remote control device from his backpack and also took out several stun grenades. The stun grenades were specially made; their power was not great, but their sound and flash effects were extremely strong.

Lao Ba, under the cover of night, silently went around to the back of the material storage yard.

He chose two iron barrels in the most awkward positions, fixed the stun grenades to their inner walls, and set the remote control device with a delay.

Then he retreated to the staff dormitory building and climbed up to the second floor.

From this angle, he could just see the warehouse gate and the rear side of the two guards.

Lao Ba set up his sniper rifle—not a real gun, but a modified tranquilizer gun with a range of fifty meters; a hit incapacitates a person within three seconds.

He glanced at the time: 1:37 a. m.

"Three, two, one……"

His finger pressed the remote control button.

"Boom! Boom!"

Two muffled thuds came from the material storage yard, followed by the clatter of iron barrels rolling over. The guards instantly turned, pointing their guns at the source of the sound.

Now.

Lao Ba pulled the trigger.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

Two soft gunshots.

The two guards' bodies stiffened, and they almost simultaneously collapsed to the ground.

Lao Ba did not act immediately, but continued observing for thirty seconds. There was no reaction inside the warehouse, and the moving heat source remained in place.

Something's off.

Too smooth.

A professional assassin wouldn't be so easily lured away by the 'lure the tiger away from the mountain' tactic, unless……

This is a trap!

Lao Ba stared at the warehouse gate and suddenly realized—they were waiting for him to go in!

He snorted coldly, took out a small drone from his backpack—palm-sized, with a silent motor. He piloted the drone toward the warehouse, slipping it through a crack in the broken window.

The drone's feed showed: the warehouse's first floor was empty, except for some discarded machine tools. Liu Shu was tied to a chair in the corner, a cloth stuffed in his mouth, unconscious.

That moving heat source was on the second floor.

Lao Ba piloted the drone up to the second floor.

In the feed, Lao San sat behind a battered desk, his face pallid, a bandage wrapped around his forehead, blood seeping through.

His right hand gripped a pistol, the muzzle pressed against the desktop, his fingers trembling slightly.

A person sat opposite him.

Wearing a black windbreaker, his back to the drone's camera.

But Lao Ba recognized that silhouette—it was Xu Jijun's female bodyguard, Su Jin.