Qian Duoduo, dressed in a Tang suit, looked a little worse for wear. Dust from the villa had smeared his face, but he still issued rapid orders. "Ba Fu, count the blast points and report our current situation. Any casualties? Send people to watch over the fortress as well."
Owning an estate that covered an entire mountain had its drawbacks. It was too big. When something happened, someone had to tally it all up. The young man called Ba Fu typed nonstop on his laptop, logging and relaying updates. All six hundred-plus personnel on Xishan snapped into high-speed motion.
Su Xiangnan frowned. Something was wrong. He had never once ordered anyone to blow up gas cylinders.
Just as he was about to say so, his phone rang. It was Jing Shu's number.
A choked voice came through the line. "Dad, it's me. I'm with Jing Shu. We're safe. Where are you?"
Everyone let out a collective breath. The little ancestor was fine.
Relief melted the old steel in Su Xiangnan's chest. "Good. Where are you? What about A Gou and the other bodyguards? I will send people to pick you up immediately. I am at Qian's guest villa right now."
A Gou might well be a traitor.
"A Gou and the bodyguards are dead. Jing Shu says the people who kidnapped me probably wanted to trigger a civil war between you two. Don't believe the bad guys. You are walking into their trap. Where am I? I don't know. After we came up from the passage, we ended up in a place that feels like a castle."
"Keep your phone on. I will locate you. I will not clash with Lao Qian. Stay where you are and don't move. I am bringing people to get you right now."
There were too many suspicious points, but nothing mattered more than his daughter's safety. "Quick, triangulate Jing Shu's phone."
Qian Duoduo's head filled with questions. How could Su Xiangnan's daughter be inside the fortress? Hadn't she fled into the underground passage? How did she come up into the fortress after that? He felt as if he was missing a crucial thread.
Was this a honey trap?
"Since your daughter is safe, stop the bombardment outside," he said, voice edged with impatience. "Energy is tight. To feed the artificial sun, you and I both have to supply a lot."
Su Xiangnan hurried to explain. "The blasts outside were not my orders. The first explosion wasn't either. You heard it, someone kidnapped my daughter to frame you. Now that she has escaped, there is no reason to keep blowing up your place. Someone wants us to fight each other so they can profit from the chaos."
Now it was Qian Duoduo's turn to give a cold laugh. He waved a hand. "Ba Fu, brief Brother Su on what you found."
"Mr. Su, we just received word that more than twenty of the people you brought surfaced from the underground passage, lit gas cylinders at several points, then ran. So far they have destroyed one Livestock Breeding Center, one farm, and three houses. Our Civil Security Force has been dispatched to arrest them."
"This is a setup. Someone is framing me. Lao Qian, I need to pick up my daughter first. We can talk after I have her," Su Xiangnan said, lowering his tone now that he grasped the ploy.
"All right, let's go together and see what tricks you have planned." Qian Duoduo chose to go because the incident was inside the fortress. He could afford to lose the rest of Xishan, but not the fortress. He also feared any sleight of hand from Su Xiangnan. In their circle, no one played schemes more than that man.
"For safety, I will leave these gas cylinders here," Su Xiangnan suggested.
"No. You will bring them with you. I will feel safer watching them," Qian Duoduo said. He would not dare let Su Xiangnan leave a pile of gas cylinders behind. What if they went off here?
They set out in force toward the location pinged by Jing Shu's phone. Good news met them on the way. A government unit had finally bypassed the blocked roads and arrived.
Qian Duoduo let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. "Quick, have them come with us to the fortress." With a backbone in place, even if Su Xiangnan wanted to blow up Xishan, he would think twice.
With that army present, who would dare lay a hand on him?
Following Jing Shu's coordinates, they arrived at Qian Duoduo's fortress.
"Since when did my own fortress have an underground passage? Is this real?" His expression shifted. He ordered Wu Fu to protect the young miss and young master, then sent others to search the fortress.
…
"Wait here for your dad," Jing Shu said. She left Su Mali the new phone with a fresh SIM card, plus a compressed biscuit to nibble slowly.
"Where are you going? This really is Qian Duoduo's home. What are those people trying to do?" Su Mali clutched at Jing Shu's sleeve. If she were left alone, her sense of safety vanished. It was terrifying.
"I need to take another look. There should be more than one passage." Jing Shu had remembered something.
"But we only saw one when we came up. Let the adults handle this. What can we do?"
It might even be that this passage was part of Lin Yi's plan. The more Jing Shu thought about it, the more she felt that she and Su Mali had been used as chess pieces.
If they left it to Qian Duoduo and the others to handle, by the time they got here, it would be too late. A suspicion had taken root in Jing Shu's mind and was growing out of control.
As they had neared the exit earlier, the world outside had rumbled so loudly that they heard it even inside the tunnel. Jing Shu realized something outside was being bombed. Su Mali had said it was probably her father losing his temper and trying to blow up Xishan. She had been so spurred that she forced her exhausted body to run. The route was more than a dozen kilometers. It was hard going.
Jing Shu had mixed a little Spirit Spring into Su Mali's compressed biscuit. Otherwise she would never have made it in time.
"I will be right back. If I don't go, we might all die. I suspect Lin Yi is going to blow up Xishan." With that, she turned and headed back down into the passage. Tears welled in Su Mali's eyes, but she could only wait for her father.
Jing Shu had not wanted to wade into this mess. But the blasts reminded her of a line that Zhetian had trumpeted a year ago, the line that had set the internet ablaze: blow up Xishan, blow up Qian Duoduo's old residence, rob the richest man.
Back then it had sounded laughable to her. Who was Qian Duoduo? There were more than six hundred people on Xishan, all there to serve one family of four.