Bright as Daylight, Armed Helicopters Search the Entire City The Mad Dash of the Lady...

On the highway, beneath a pitch-black night that seemed ready to swallow everything whole, two cars were pulled over to the side of the road.

"Why aren't we moving?"

Lin Baizhi was sitting in the back seat with her arms crossed, her tone laced with obvious urgency and confusion.

Ever since they got off the plane, Lin Baizhi had immediately ordered her people to tail Shen Qinghan's group, who had already left the airport ahead of them.

The information she had access to was limited, but that certain problem child clearly knew far more. The young lady was fumbling her way across the river by feeling the stones, while Sister Lin was fumbling her way across the river by feeling the young lady...

"Miss, there's something up ahead. Under no circumstances should you get out of the car!"

The female bodyguard acting as their driver spoke in a heavy, solemn tone. As a professional bodyguard, her instinct was screaming that there was something extremely dangerous up ahead.

"Something out there? So what if there's something? I refuse to believe Shen Qinghan and her group don't have guns!"

Lin Baizhi sounded thoroughly annoyed. In her mind, even if they ran into something dangerous, it could only be some kind of wild beast, a wolf? Or maybe a Tibetan brown bear?

Wild beasts were only dangerous in a relative sense. In the face of the truth that firearms brought, they only needed a single burst of bullets, not even a full magazine...

The thought that these brainless brutes were delaying her from finding her brother made them deserve nothing less than death.

*Click!*

Lin Baizhi fished a black briefcase out from under the car seat. When she popped it open, a black pistol with a silencer nestled neatly inside.

She chambered a round and flipped off the safety.

Shen Qinghan, you useless thing, a few dumb animals have you all spooked like this?

A look of disdain crossed Lin Baizhi's face. She rolled down the sunroof, craning to see past the front of the car, raised her pistol, and took aim...

"Huh? What on earth is that?" Lin Baizhi had now caught a clear glimpse of the pitch-black monster crossing the highway not far ahead.

Its eyes glowed eerie emerald green, it moved with the speed of a phantom, and it was carrying a person slung over its back?

And that person looked... dead.

In that instant, Lin Baizhi finally understood why Shen Qinghan and her group had stopped dead in their tracks. Faced with a thing like that, no one would dare make a reckless move even if they had a gun in their hand.

At this distance, that hulking dark mass could cover the gap between them in mere seconds if it decided to charge. Once you pulled the trigger, there was no taking it back.

Lin Baizhi couldn't even keep her pistol steady on the target. It was far too fast.

In the blink of an eye, the monster vanished from the highway and into the woods. The rustling sounds from the trees grew fainter and fainter, and in less than half a minute, they disappeared completely.

Only after the monster had vanished into the trees did the short-haired woman finally let out a long breath of relief. She lifted her foot, which had been hovering ready to slam down on the gas pedal the whole time.

Her back was already soaked through with cold sweat. The fear that creature had struck into her was like nothing she had ever felt before. At first, she had clung to a sliver of hope that it was just some wild animal out foraging for food.

But the second she saw the person slung over its shoulder, that last shred of hope was shattered to pieces.

Luckily, it seemed the monster was just passing through and hadn't noticed their car at all. If it had so much as shifted a single step in their direction, she would have slammed the gas pedal to the floor without a second thought and sped their young master out of there.

She wouldn't have hesitated for even a heartbeat.

Thank goodness... it was just passing by.

"Young Master, let's wait a bit before we drive past, give that monster a little more time to get far away from us," the short-haired woman said as she relaxed in the driver's seat. She lifted her head to glance at the rearview mirror, checking on her young master in the back.

Shen Qinghan was sitting in the back row, a look of confusion creeping into her usual calm eyes. She stared fixedly in the direction the monster had fled, unmoving, as if deep in thought.

Was it just her imagination? Why... did that thing feel so strangely familiar?

Even though the entire encounter had lasted less than a few breaths, too fast for her to make out any clear details, leaving only a blurry afterimage in her mind... Shen Qinghan's sharp, perceptive mind had still caught the odd inconsistency in those few frames of memory. She was staring blankly off into space now, trying to work out where that strange sense of familiarity was coming from.

"Chase after it," Shen Qinghan said evenly.

After thinking it over for a long while, the young lady had come to a conclusion... she needed to get a closer look to be sure.

She couldn't possibly remember what it was just based on those few fleeting details. A few more glances should do the trick.

The short-haired woman froze, completely bewildered. Chase... chase after it? Young Master, are you being serious right now?

The short-haired woman glanced at the flat, yellow sand-dusted highway stretching out ahead, then looked over at the dark, dense woods beside the road, teeming with snakes, bugs, and rats, the rustling sounds drifting out nonstop. She sank into a heavy silence.

If they went in there, they might never find their way back out.

"..."

Shen Qinghan frowned slightly. "You can't do it?"

"Young Master, it... it's a bit difficult, but we can try," the short-haired woman forced out through gritted teeth. She was already kicking herself for not stashing a Thompson submachine gun in the car before they left.

If she had, they could just go on a full-on rampage. No monster would stand a chance, a full burst of bullets would wipe out any threat, no matter what it was...

But the problem was, all she had on her right now was this lousy "firestick". It didn't seem nearly enough to take on that thing.

"Forget it then, keep driving," Shen Qinghan said just as the short-haired woman was about to turn the car around to give it a try.

The second she heard those words, the short-haired woman felt an enormous wave of relief wash over her. That monster they had just encountered was terrifying beyond belief, and on top of that, she was responsible for keeping her young master safe. If anything happened to her young master, even a thousand deaths wouldn't be enough to atone for her failure.

If only the head of the family was here right now...

The thought popped unbidden into the short-haired woman's mind. If their head of the family was here, he would have jumped out of the car the second that monster appeared, and charged straight at it with eyes shining like he'd found his long-lost soulmate.

He'd be yelling at the top of his lungs as he ran, "This creature is fated to be mine!" Then he'd whack it over the head with a burlap sack to knock it out, drag it back home, and keep it as a pet.

It'd better be well-behaved. If it wasn't, he'd beat it to death on the spot.

Sigh.

The short-haired woman sighed. It's a shame, their head of the family isn't here...

I wonder how he's doing right now. Sigh.

Another day spent missing the head of the family...

The car rumbled to life. After their short pause, they continued down the sand-covered highway, heading for the bus stop.

According to the information provided by Brother Dou, the full travel route Ye Cheng took to come to the northwest had been mapped out and handed to the young lady. Now the short-haired woman was driving along this exact route, searching for any trace of him.

Every populated area along the way required them to get out of the car and conduct a thorough search. If they found any clues, they would arrange for more people to come back and investigate the area in depth later.

This was a remote, desolate region. Their people had already been dispatched to all the larger surrounding cities to carry out a full, carpet-style search.

But because of the military zone restrictions in this part of the northwest, they couldn't use helicopters or large-scale satellite surveillance, so they had to fall back on the most primitive, hands-on method of searching one location at a time...

*RUMBLE-*

The deafening, terrifying sound wave from the armed helicopters spread for several kilometers. One, two, three... Countless searchlights flickered to life, casting beams in every direction, turning the sky bright in an instant, as if it were broad daylight!

Even the street lamps along the road were shifted from their lowest illumination setting all the way to maximum, chasing away every last trace of darkness.

"Young Master, something's wrong — it's the military!"

They had only driven a short distance when the short-haired woman slammed on the brakes. The armed helicopter hovering in the sky drew closer and closer, heading straight for their location, before stopping at a safe distance and holding its position.

The short-haired woman narrowed her eyes and hurriedly stowed her pistol away... They were in trouble now.

Two fully armed soldiers jumped down from the helicopter, walked over to the car, and gestured for them to turn off the engine and stay put.

"Tap tap tap!"

The window was rapped on. The soldier had a stern look on his face, and the short-haired woman rolled the glass down.

"Here's my pass, my driver's license..." The short-haired woman handled this with practiced ease, handing over her ID card, driver's license, and a special cross-regional travel permit for the Northwestern region all at once.

These documents had already been prepared by the Shen family's people as soon as they got off the plane.

The Northwest was a desolate place, that much was true, and that desolation was largely shaped by its unique cultural context and geographical conditions. If the local conditions were any better, it would never have ended up in its current run-down, half-dead state.

The soldier went through the routine check, flipping through the documents the short-haired woman had handed over, and a look of surprise flashed across his face. The driver's license and other standard documents were nothing out of the ordinary, but he hadn't expected this woman to have access to such a special restricted pass.

That meant she had connections higher up...

People with that kind of clearance didn't need to be subjected to strict, repeated searches, since they had already been vetted by the authorities above.

The soldier gave all the documents back to the short-haired woman, saluted, and asked, "Did you notice anything unusual during your drive just now?"

The soldier phrased the question very tactfully, which was exactly the script his superiors had instructed him to use. Revealing too much information would only cause unnecessary trouble and public panic.

The moment she heard the word "unusual", the short-haired woman's pupils constricted sharply, and the scene she had just experienced a little while earlier flashed across her mind.

"Did something happen?" the short-haired woman asked.

Before she could figure out if this would get her into trouble, the safest move was to play dumb, so she could adjust her response flexibly later and decide what information to share.

The soldier hesitated for a moment, but considering the special pass she held, he decided to tell her a partial version of the truth.

"A large wild beast has been spotted in the area, and there have already been reports of it attacking people. To prevent more casualties, we're moving in to neutralize it."

Yeah right, the short-haired woman thought, no one in their right mind would buy that.

What kind of large wild beast would warrant this kind of massive show of force? Armed helicopters? Those weren't some remote-controlled toys! This was like using a cannon to swat a mosquito.

"Just now, as we were driving over, we thought we saw some movement in the woods over that way. We weren't sure if it was the beast you're talking about," the short-haired woman said, pointing in the direction they had come from.

The soldier's face lit up. He asked a few more detailed questions, and after gathering all the information he needed, he saluted again.

"Thank you so much for your help. To avoid getting hurt by the beast, we suggest you find a place to rest temporarily and resume your journey tomorrow."

"Alright, thank you, we'll be careful," the short-haired woman replied.

The soldier didn't insist on detaining them any longer, as if he had run into plenty of similar situations before.

After saying his thanks, he left with his comrade who had been standing guard nearby. They climbed back onto the helicopter, which then took off and flew in the direction the short-haired woman had pointed out.

The roar of the helicopter's engines faded further and further into the distance.

As soon as the soldiers were out of sight, the short-haired woman let out a long breath of relief. "Young Master, we're so lucky we didn't chase after that thing earlier. I have no idea what kind of monster broke out of the military's custody, but we're lucky it didn't attack us."

There was clear relief in her tone. If the military had to send an entire armed unit to hunt this thing down, there was no way it was just some ordinary wild beast.

The short-haired woman could see that logic clearly, and Shen Qinghan could too. He had been sitting quietly in the back seat the whole time, not saying a single word, just watching the soldiers conduct their search.

Piecing together what he had seen earlier with the soldiers' current operation, a new line of thought began to form in his mind.

He remembered correctly... that Naturally Evil Obasan was supposed to be somewhere in the Northwest, wasn't it? She had disappeared for quite some time...

A glint of peculiar light flickered in Shen Qinghan's calm eyes as he began cross-referencing the clues.

...

Meanwhile, on the other side.

"Ugh, this is never ending! Are they serious? They even brought in armed helicopters!" Du Wanyi cursed out loud, picking up her pace even faster.