In the dead of the night.

A Suburban Chevrolet was parked at the side of a road. At the end of the road was a village, which was bright with light. The occasional barking of dogs could be heard.

Xia Lei got out of the car and saw a stretch of forest.

Su Xiao walked out of the forest. She was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and skin tight denim shorts. She exuded youth and liveliness.

"I didn’t think that you’d call me so quickly," said Su Xiao. "I thought that it’d be tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow."

Xia Lei walked towards her. "Don’t talk nonsense. I’ve seen everything you sent me. Just say it. What do you want?"

"You’re being so direct?" Su Xiao seemed a bit startled.

"My patience is limited. You’d best say it before I change my mind," said Xia Lei.

Su Xiao smiled faintly. "All right, I’ll say it then. I want your Thunder Horse Military Factory, China Industrial Group, and Hanwu Weapons Company to merge together. You’ll be the chairman, but your total shares cannot exceed 20%.”

"And if I don’t agree?"

"If you don’t agree, then your research reports will be sent to the offices of a few certain organisations and you know what that means. There’s also Long Bing. She’s helped you with many things and also won’t be able to escape responsibility."

"Where is she now?" Xia Lei controlled the rage burning in his heart.

"Agree to my conditions and I’ll let you see her,” Su Xiao said before adding, "It’s useless to try and ask Shi Boren for help. He can’t do anything about this."

Bureau ZN was even more mysterious than Bureau 101 and also had more authority. It was not strange that Shi Boren wouldn’t be able to do anything.

"I agree to your conditions. Let me see her," said Xia Lei.

Xia Lei’s straightforward answer actually made Su Xiao feel like something was wrong. She stared at Xia Lei. "You... you’re really agreeing?"

Xia Lei’s voice was cold. "You guys will use whatever methods you have just to get what you want. You have information that can be used against me. Could I refuse?"

"Don’t misunderstand. This is good for everybody."

"Don’t make me sick. Take me to see Long Bing," said Xia Lei.

Su Xiao shook her head. "Absolutely not. You have to fulfil my conditions before you get what you want."

"Fine. Bring Long Bing to Thunder Horse Military Factory tomorrow and we’ll make an exchange there."

Su Xiao smiled faintly. "No problem. I’ll bring Long Bing over tomorrow morning."

"So you’re the one competing with Ling Han for the position of Bureau Chief of Bureau ZN, huh?" said Xia Lei. "Regardless of whether it’s you or Ling Hao, one of you guys will get promoted if you seize my Thunder Horse Military Factory, right?"

The smile on Su Xiao’s lips immediately disappeared, and the expression in her eyes changed. "You even know about this?"

"If you don’t want anybody to know about this, just don’t do it," said Xia Lei. "If I use this to my advantage and give this huge political-economical capital to Ling Hao, then I would also get what I want. You’d best not anger me, or you would have done all this work for nothing."

"You wouldn’t do that."

"Can you give a reason why I wouldn’t do that? At the very least, Ling Hao’s helped me before and we have friendly relations."

Su Xiao said, "Only three people know about your research report right now. If you want a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth person to know, then you can choose to side with Ling Han."

The only ones who knew about the report was Fan Fan, Xia Lei himself, and now Su Xiao, making it a total of three people. She was using it to blackmail him, so he truly had no other choice.

"All right. Tomorrow morning. I’ll wait for you at Thunder Horse MIlitary Factory. Bring Long Bing and the report, as well as any relevant files for our trade." Xia Lei said his piece and turned to leave.

Su Xiao watched him leave. She took out her phone and dialled a number when he was out of her sight. "He agreed. I’ll bring the contract to Thunder Horse Military Factory tomorrow morning. You... yeah, I got it."

A hundred meters outside, Xia Lei sat in the Chevrolet Suburban and stared at Su Xiao, reading her lips to see what she was saying.

Su Xiao put away her phone. The call was very short, only around a dozen seconds long.

Xia Lei started the car and made a U-turn, towards the Thunder Horse Military Factory.

Xia Lei gave Liang Siyao a call on his way there.

"Siyao, it’s me, Xia Lei."

"I know it’s you." It was Liang Siyao’s voice. "So you’re willing to give me a call now?"

"Let me ask you, when was the last time you saw Long Bing?"

"You called me to ask where Long Bing is?" Faint jealousy could be heard in Liang Siyao’s voice.

"This is very important. Tell me, when was the last time you saw her?" Xia Lei said.

Liang Siyao was silent for a few moments before she finally said, "Probably around yesterday. I didn’t see her in the office today. Did something happen to her?"

"She was taken away to be investigated."

"What? What’s going on?" Liang Siyao asked in astonishment.

Xia Lei sighed softly. "Because of me."

"I understand now. Do you need me to do anything?" Liang Siyao’s voice was filled with concern.

"Not for now. Pretend like you don’t know about this. Don’t ask about Long Bing’s whereabouts in Bureau 101 either. Just do what you’re supposed to," said Xia Lei.

"If... if I was also taken away, would you rescue me too?"

"I will." Xia Lei hung up.

Xia Lei went straight to the arms warehouse once he returned to Thunder Horse Military Factory. When he came out, he carried a plastic engineering box on his shoulder, with a heavy look on his face.

Xia Lei carried it back to the villa. The Special Forces soldier guard greeted him. "Mr Xia, what’s in the case?"

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"An XL2500 sniper rifle. I want to modify it," said Xia Lei.

The Special Forces soldier guard said, "Mr Xia, can you..."

Xia Lei suddenly burst out angrily, "Bastard! Do I need to get your consent to do something on my own property? Who do you guys think you are? Whoever it is who commands you, tell him to come personally to speak with me!"

The faces of the two Special Forces guards turned red. They were angry and resentful, but didn’t dare to get angry at Xia Lei, much less forcefully inspect what Xia Lei was carrying. They also knew full well that they didn’t have the right to forcefully inspect Xia Lei’s belongings.

Xia Lei snorted and carried the box into the villa.

The lights in Fan Fan’s laboratory were still on.

Fan Fan was blending a medicinal concoction together, looking very focused.

Xia Lei placed the box on the table before calling out, "I’m back."

Fan Fan only realised Xia Lei had come then, and turned to look at him before looking away again. "Wait a moment, I’ll be done with this soon," she said.

Xia Lei walked over and glanced at Fan Fan doing the blending, before turning to look at the monitor. The names of a few pharmaceuticals and their chemical formulas were displayed on the screen. It all looked very complex. But such a thing was only complex for others — in his eyes, these points of data weren’t anything profound at all. His brain just had to work for a bit, and he would understand.

But it was precisely these compounds which gave Xia Lei a shock. "Fan Fan, are you researching the antidote?"

"Yes. You can tell? Hehe." Fan Fan glanced back with a smile. "My hypothesis is correct and work also went very smoothly today. I reckon that I’ll be able to succeed if I have a bit more time."

"I thought you’ve already succeeded," said Xia Lei.

"How could it be that easy. This is a very complex bio-engineering process. I have to do everything step by step to figure out a proper prescription through a series of trial and error." At this point, she handed the mixture to Xia Lei and said with a smile, "You think this is a success? Let me tell you, if this is placed in my body, it would make my body inflamed."

Xia Lei looked at the monitor again, and his brain suddenly went deep into the field of biochemistry. Countless pharmaceuticals and biological materials with their formulas appeared in his mind. He used his mind to comb through each pharmaceutical and biological material’s formula, disassembling them and calculating how likely they were to fuse together.

It was failure after failure, but each failure gave another clue so that the next calculation and assembly could go in the correct direction. Fan Fan’s was right. All of these experiments really were to just find the proper prescription through a series of mistakes. Fan Fan needed to test them all bit by bit, but Xia Lei didn’t. As long as he did all the calculations inside his head, he could simulate the effects of the formula. Therefore, Fan Fan needed ten days to half a month, or perhaps even longer to finish creating the antidote, while he only needed about a few to ten minutes.

Fan Fan immersed herself in her work, while Xia Lei used his brain to do the same.

After ten minutes, Xia Lei let out a small sigh as he smiled. Ten minutes ago, he was infertile, but now, he had found a way for him to impregnate a woman. He only needed the required pharmaceuticals and bio-materials to create the antidote to stop his sperm cells from killing one another!

"What a pity. It was still a failure." Fan Fan set down the test tube with a gloomy look on her face.

She would never know that the experiment she had just done was actually just one of the thousand possible simulations which Xia Lei had run in his head!

"It doesn’t matter, we have time." Xia Lei reached out to stroke her head gently.

Fan Fan leaned her head on Xia Lei’s stomach. "How did the talk with you and that woman go?"

Xia Lei’s hand reached down into her collar, fondling her as he said, "We talked, and I’ve thought things through. I decided to merge Thunder Horse Military Factory, China Industrial Group, and Hanwu Weapons Company together to create Asia’s biggest military group."

"R, Really?" Fan Fan started to tremble, and the shaking carried through into her voice. "B, But you said th, that you w-weren’t ready— Nngh... It’s all my fault..."

Xia Lei’s voice was soft. "I already said that I don’t blame you. Creating Asia’s biggest military group is also my wish and the chance to achieve that wish is right in front of my eyes, so why wouldn’t I do so?"

"It’s good that you can think of it that way. I... Don’t torture me anymore. I want you." Fan Fan’s eyes were already glazed over. Apart from lust, there was only more lust and the sense of emptiness in her body only grew stronger.

Xia Lei grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up, and walked towards the door. He glanced at the plastic engineering box out of the corner of his eye as he walked out the door, and his lips curved in a small smile.