Chapter 23: Decisive Action
1240 Words
Chapter 23: Decisive Action
After returning home to Qianhai, Jiang Yue Sheng didn’t tell his grandmother the truth, fearing it would worry her. She still believed that, as he mentioned during their previous call, he was at a hotel working on a closed mission.
Now, the headquarters and research center of Hong Zhiyuan’s company had been sealed off, and Jiang Yue Sheng had not yet found a new job, so he was temporarily unemployed at home.
He had originally thought that he had infiltrated Hong Zhiyuan’s company and could take the opportunity to investigate the k********g that had happened to him. However, plans change faster than expected. With Hong Zhiyuan’s company now implicated in the large-scale k********g of programmers, his investigation seemed to have come to a halt.
He wasn’t sure whether the police’s involvement would uncover the mastermind behind it all, or if the people behind Hong Zhiyuan’s company were the same ones who had kidn*pped him before.
Why would they risk breaking the law to develop robots with human-like personalities?
Could it be that they kidn*pped me to threaten my mother for the same reason?
Thinking about this, Jiang Yue Sheng wanted to contact his mother to ask her opinion, but it was late at night, and she was probably asleep.
The next morning, he opened a small safe hidden under his bed and retrieved the special device for connecting with his mother. He began to call her.
"Mom..."
"Son, how have you been recently?"
"Not good, Mom!"
Jiang Yue Sheng told his mother everything that had happened recently.
After listening, Jiang Yue Sheng’s mother, Jiang Yu, immediately had a sinking feeling—her son’s identity had probably been exposed.
From his description, it seemed likely that Hong Zhiyuan’s group was connected to the k********g. While the recent a*******n wasn’t part of their plan to control the forbidden fruit, her son’s resistance had sabotaged their plan, and they would now try to track down his identity. His real identity might already be exposed.
Realizing this, Jiang Yu understood that their conversation might be monitored by the enemy, so she quickly ended the call.
Jiang Yue Sheng, initially thinking the call was dropped due to a network issue, tried calling her again. After several attempts, his mother still didn’t answer, which seemed strange to him.
Just as he was starting to feel confused and trying to figure out what to do next, he noticed the alert light on his left prosthetic limb blinking.
This was the first time the alert light had ever gone off since he had installed the prosthetic. This meant that his mother had sent a message through the satellite terminal on the prosthetic. To read it, he had to open a special app on his phone that his mother had created.
Jiang Yue Sheng quickly opened the app on his phone. The phone’s infrared had linked with the prosthetic, and soon a message appeared on the screen:
"You must take your grandmother and relocate immediately. Disappear for a while, now!"
Relocate? Immediately? Disappear?
Jiang Yue Sheng was taken aback, but he knew his mother would not use the prosthetic’s messaging terminal unless something urgent was happening.
He was momentarily unsure—where should they go? What should they bring? How should he explain it to his grandmother?
After a quick mental checklist, he rushed into his grandmother’s room.
"Grandma, Mom says we have to leave, right now!"
Jiang Hui was confused at first, not understanding what had happened, but she immediately realized something dangerous was afoot.
"What should we take?"
"Just your phone and a few clothes, nothing else."
With that, Jiang Yue Sheng rushed back to his room, stuffed the encrypted device for contacting his mother into the safe, and pressed the self-destruct button. The safe immediately spewed smoke from its seams.
He grabbed a small backpack with a few changes of clothes, took his phone, and dragged his grandmother out.
"How do we get out?"
"I don’t know!" Jiang Yue Sheng was also trying to figure out their next move.
Upon exiting the elevator, Jiang Yue Sheng quickly decided they couldn’t take a car for the journey, as vehicles had surveillance cameras and passenger records. They needed to walk.
He led his grandmother east along the street, thinking through their next steps.
"Can we take a shared bike?" Jiang Hui asked.
"No, using a shared bike will leave an identity trail."
Just then, Jiang Yue Sheng spotted a bicycle shop by the side of the road. He quickly pulled his grandmother toward it.
"We can buy bikes and pay offline with digital currency. Grandma, use your phone and turn off its network now."
Jiang Hui pulled out her phone and switched off the network. Jiang Yue Sheng also realized he should turn off his own phone’s network and turned it off completely.
They entered the bicycle shop, picked out two bikes, and paid using Jiang Hui’s offline digital wallet. Then they began riding toward the suburbs.
"Where will we stay tonight?" Jiang Hui asked.
"Stay..." Jiang Yue Sheng hesitated.
Where could they stay? He didn’t even know where to go.
They rode for the entire day, covering more than 100 kilometers, from Qianhai in Shenzhen to near Huizhou. Both were exhausted and hungry.
As nightfall approached, they knew they had to figure out food and shelter.
"Yue Sheng, let’s use my offline digital wallet to pay. The risk should be minimal," Jiang Hui suggested.
"Okay. We have no other choice."
They rode further and eventually reached the outskirts of Huizhou, where they saw a small Chaozhou restaurant. They parked their bikes and walked in.
In a hurry to eat, they ordered two large bowls of seafood noodles. Jiang Yue Sheng finished his in three minutes, wolfing it down.
It seemed they’d have to sleep on the streets tonight. After some discussion, they decided to buy blankets and sleep on the ground.
After purchasing the blankets, they found an overpass and decided to camp there for the night.
In the middle of the night, Jiang Yue Sheng was startled awake by the sound of footsteps. As soon as he opened his eyes, blinding lights hit him, and he couldn’t see anything.
"Jiang Yue Sheng!"
He heard someone shout his name.
A few people rushed over and tied him and his grandmother with ropes, putting hoods over their heads, before dragging them into a cargo truck parked under the overpass.
The truck drove for about an hour. Jiang Yue Sheng could hear scuffling and the sound of laser gunfire outside.
After a while, the fighting stopped, and the truck’s door opened. His hood was pulled off.
"Sir, sorry for the scare."
Before Jiang Yue Sheng could fully process the situation, two burly soldiers, looking like they belonged to the military, pulled him and his grandmother out of the truck and untied their ropes.
He saw several people lying on the ground nearby, and the truck was surrounded by four or five military vehicles.
"Mr. Jiang, you’ve been frightened."
"Mrs. Jiang, you’ve been frightened."
A middle-aged man who appeared to be a military officer approached and extended his hand.
Jiang Yue Sheng, instinctively shaking the officer’s hand, felt the firm grip.
"Mr. Jiang, please get in my vehicle. I’m here on orders to rescue you."
Jiang Yue Sheng glanced at his grandmother, realizing they had no other choice, and followed the officer to a military jeep.
- Writer
