Chapter 345 - Spy Ring

"There's nothing here, boss," said one of the men. It had been six hours since they arrived at Pilgrim's Hollow. The Boss was just under the shade, drinking a tall glass of the limited lemonade.

Now he threw that glass on the white marble floor in the middle of the ground. It shattered into about a hundred pieces. "What do you mean there's nothing here?"

The man in front of him scratched the back of his neck. "I think… whatever it is that the Qings were looking for… they got it."

The Boss took another glass from the small table beside him and threw it on the ground too. "I need that list!" he growled. He stood up and grabbed the man by the collar. "I will never live peacefully not until I know where it is! I'm going to kill that woman!"

The man in front of him felt like he was going to pee his pants. The Boss' face was only about three inches away from him. He could smell The Boss' bad breath and body odor. His yellowed spaced out teeth were almost at his eyes. "I-I thought she's already d-dead?" he spluttered.

The Boss pushed him away and he stumbled on his feet. "I don't know where the hell that woman is. I don't care if she's dead or alive. But that list… I have to have it." He paced. "I think… we should pay the Qings a visit."

**

"Here we are again," Qing Lok rolled his eyes at Wuming's remark that their mother was dead. "After everything you still think like that? Haven't you had enough proof?"

"I just don't leave in fairyland like you do," Wuming snorted.

Qing Chen closed his eyes, "That's enough. Don't you get tired just bickering about that?"

Everyone in the room turned quiet.

"We have a task at hand. Let's get back to it."

They all finished their snacks and worked back on creating the summary profiles. Some had great resumes. Wuming was kind of impressed to see some of the spies' papers and who they killed.

"This guy killed a man with a wooden spatula," he grinned at Addison who grinned back at him. 

"I have a girl who lead her lover to the bath and threw a plugged hairdryer in the water. She fried him and left their house to the flames."

Wuming chuckled. "Damn, I wish I meet more assassins. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"So that you could try to kill each other by the end of the night? I don't think so," Addison shook her head and started flipping the pages again, making sure she got the most important information.

"I don't see the connections," Qing Lok said with a hand holding his head upright. The caffeine was already starting to rub off. He was getting sleepy. "They don't even belong in the same intelligence organization."

"I think they're in the same spy ring," Qing Chen said. "What we don't know is their objective. But this is the only plausible reason why there are a bunch of spies from different organizations."

"So why are there doctors? Civilians?"

Qing Chen tapped the end of his pen on the table. "That's for us to find out."

**

Hours passed and they finally turned the last of the profiles in the "Done" pile. "Should we resume tomorrow?" But then he saw that the sun was already beginning to rise from their window. "Or should I say tonight?" 

"We going to work?" Feng Xuan asked Qing Chen, her head felt like it was ten tons.

Qing Chen smiled at his wife, dark circles under his eyes. "You've got some guts thinking about work just now. No, we're not going to work. We're going to sleep."

Everyone retreated in their bedrooms and the couple dropped down their bed. Feng Xuan closed her eyes and felt their tired burning. Even her body felt hot, like she was getting a fever of some sort.

They were quiet for so long that Feng Xuan thought that Qing Chen was already asleep. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Hmmm," she said, thinking. "I'm thinking about nothing. I'm enjoying the dark that my eyes are seeing right now."

"Me too," Qing Chen said.

But just then, something popped in Feng Xuan's mind. "I guess, I'm thinking that… if ever we're going to try to find my mother, I hope it would not be something like this. I don't think I can make this family go through something like this again."

Qing Chen frowned. "My father was willing to let us go through something like this," he said bitterly.

"Do you plan to talk to him about this?" she asked, opening her eyes so she could see the expression of his face. 

"In time." He didn't think his father was ready for this kind of conversation. To find out the real truth about his mother… he thought, it was not a conversation he was ready to have either.

**

"Sir, it's already done," said the man on the other end of the line. "The Qings are already nearing the answers."

The old man sighed and clutched the phone tighter in his hands. "Alright. Thank you."

"I will be sending you more updates soon, sir."

"Okay."

With another sigh, he ended the call then his ears were filled with the sound of the waves crushing on the shore. The woman at his side snuggled closer on his arm. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, yes. Nothing to worry about, my darling," he answered.

"Isn't this quite the life, my love?"

The old man thought about everything that happened in his sixty decades. "It sure is."

"Are you sad that it's almost at the end?"

The old man laughed. "I am going to live a long life. It is not like I am going to die tomorrow."

The woman, who had also aged since he last saw her, had wrinkles. "We never know, Zihao."

He smiled at her, "Of course not, Suyin."