Chapter 472 - It's My Fault

The rest of the family was already home when the alarm sounded inside the whole house. It was like Qing Chen's stomach turned to ice when he heard that certain sound. 

He quickly ordered people. He looked at the huge screen projected on the wall. "Where is he?!"

He heard shuffling feet as the screen showed a map and a red blinking dot telling them where Qing Lok was. 

"What's happening?" Wuming voice asked, getting inside the computer room.

"Lok pressed the emergency buŧŧon." Qing Chen's mind was racing. "Connect me."

An icon of a phone showed on the screen and it was answered on the second ring. "What happened?!" Qing Chen quickly asked.

Qing Lok's tight voice answered them. "I think La Hiena's here," he said.

"What happened to you? Who's driving?"

"Meilien is," he said. "I've been shot, Chen."

"Get me a doctor!" he quickly ordered to one of the people, his pulse growing faster. It was like his heart dropped to the floor. "Where were you shot?"

"On the side. You'll get a better look later."

"He's fine," said Wuming quietly and placed a hand on Qing Chen's shoulder. "He's fine enough that he can talk." Wuming took over the phone call. "Where did this happen?"

Qing Lok named the restaurant.

Feng Xuan quickly pulled out her phone, dialing a number that they called for these situations.

"I'm going," announced Wuming.

Qing Chen did not want for his other brother to go, but Wuming was not asking for permission. "Okay," he answered with a nod.

"Bring people. They got big guns," rasped Qing Lok over the phone.

"He's almost home," Qing Chen said, following the red dot with his eyes like it was going to blink out of existence.

Wuming started to move. "Addie, you coming with me?"

"Of course," Addison replied.

"Chen," Feng Xuan, "police is already on the line."

He sighed and took the phone call.

===========

When Qing Lok finally arrived at the house, he was quickly carried to the sanitized room. They were already at that level of preparedness for this war that they had a mini hospital in their home.

Feng Xuan was alarmed at the amount of blood that covered half the shirt of Qing Lok. He looked pale and slightly delirious as he was transferred to an operating table. She did not dare cross the threshold. 

"Is he going to be fine?" she asked Qing Chen who shut the door.

"I hope so," he only answered, but he also looked forlorn.

Feng Xuan dropped on the floor where Liu Meilien had been crying. Her beautiful slim fingers stained with Qing Lok's blood as well as her dress. "It's my fault," her voice sounded like sandpaper.

"It's not your fault," Feng Xuan quickly consoled.

"We shouldn't have gone to that restaurant."

"I don't think that really mattered," said Qing Chen. "They were probably following you already and saw that as a chance."

"It's my fault then. All because I wanted to eat there."

Feng Xuan ran her hand through her sister's thick hair. "None of us see it that way. Now we know that La Hiena is here."

Liu Meilien pulled her hands away from her face, all scrunched up and red. Tears and snot mixing on her skin. "What if he dies?"

"He's not going to die," said Qing Chen. "We've seen worse people come out alive. Don't worry so much."

"I am the worst!" said Liu Meilien, wailing more.

Qing Chen pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Feng Xuan. She flicked it open and wiped her sister's face. "Don't blame yourself," she said. "He's going to be fine."

"What was I thinking?" Liu Meilien asked, taking the handkerchief. "We should've just went home."

Qing Chen's phone started blaring and he started down the hallway and back to the computer room. "Talk to me," he answered.

"I don't know where they are," Wuming said. "How's Lok?"

"He's still breathing, I think." He snapped his fingers at the people, making them hurry to tracking the cameras from all over the place. He saw the feed from when they were shooting Qing Lok's car. They were really trying to shower it with bullets. "They're on foot."

The men dispersed in different directions in the dark alleyways where the cameras did not reach them. It only made the tech-savvy people in the room curse. It just turned their job ten times harder as those alleyways lead to more exits. It was like a maze.

"Nothing till now?" Wuming asked.

Then Qing Chen realized why. "The sewers."

Wuming ġrȯȧnėd loudly.

"Just come home," said Qing Chen. "I'll send more men out there to scour the underground."

"Fine," said Wuming. "But the moment I hear word on who these motherf—rs are, I'm going to tear their faces off."

When the phone call ended, Qing Chen ordered. "Get me a map of the sewers." It was immediately pulled up and one of them traced and marked to which streets the men disappeared to. "I want a team down there now! Look at the transportation routes, anyone who looks suspicious, flag them."

Feng Xuan's hand ran down his back. "Got any ideas how they got here?"

"None at all." They were keeping a close eye on every possible transportation that lands immediately in Chengshi and also in nearby cities. "Somehow they escaped our eye."

Qing Chen faced her and ran his hand over her smooth skin. Her warmth brought him comfort. At least she was still here. "We're going to have to dig deeper."

Feng Xuan said to the team, "Get us a copy of every suspicious person who entered the city for the past week and their mode of transportation."

"We're going to need more men."

"Yep, and lots of them."

Qing Chen took one of the folders and looked over the papers. "I wonder how on earth they got in here without us knowing."

And the answer would surprise them all.