The First Order

The tour group arrived at Stronghold 73 on the same night. On their way here, another two vehicles suffered breakdowns. Fortunately, they had employed a mechanic and brought maintenance tools with them this time. Otherwise, they might have gotten delayed again.When they arrived at Stronghold 73, the outside of the stronghold was a different sight. There was not just a town outside now, but a large military encampment had been set up as well. It felt like thousands of troops were stationed out there.

If the tour group wanted to get into Stronghold 73, they would have to pass through this military encampment first. However, they got stopped at the entrance of the camp to be interrogated and inspected first.

There was no problem with their customs documents, but everyone would have to go through a body search as well. Fortunately, the military personnel here were a principled bunch. Seeing that there were women in the group, they sent the military camp’s female nurses to handle the body search for the women.

In the end, it was the plainclothes guards protecting Li Ran’s team who had their daggers and pistols all confiscated. They were told that they could come to the military camp to get them back once they left the stronghold.

What surprised Li Ran and the others was that not a single weapon was found on Zhou Yingxue and Ren Xiaosu.

However, they were still not allowed to enter the stronghold after the security checks were complete. As there was a curfew in the stronghold right now, they had to wait until daybreak in the military camp. Only after 7 AM would the stronghold’s gate be opened.

Seeing that the stronghold was right in front, and that they had already booked the hotel in advance, Li Ran could not stand it anymore. They were already exhausted from traveling for the entire day, yet they still had to wait in the barracks until daybreak?

But just as the soldier was done letting them know, a convoy passed through the military base and drove straight into the stronghold. After the stronghold’s gate was opened, it came back down again. Li Ran was stunned for a moment before asking, “Didn’t you say the stronghold gate would not be opened? Then what was with that convoy?”

“They’re our Zhou Consortium’s people,” the Zhou Consortium soldier said calmly.

It was only natural for the Zhou Consortium’s people to get privileged treatment at their own strongholds.

Li Ran asked Fang Zhi softly, “Can you contact the film crew in the stronghold and get them to think of a solution?”

In the end, Fang Zhi took the satellite phone and went outside to call the film crew. When he came back, he said helplessly, “They told us to settle such issues by ourselves.”

Li Ran went silent for a moment. She did not expect the film crew to be so heartless when the other party was clearly on good terms with the big shots of the Zhou Consortium. She thought for a while and said, “Try paying these soldiers and see if they can make an exception.”

But at such a time, no one dared to accept any bribes. The soldier explained that something big had just happened in the stronghold, and if they had read the newspapers, they would have known about the cave-in at East Lake. Therefore, no one dared to make any mistakes at a time like this.

They did not even dare to accept bribes!

Nothing could be done about the situation. At this moment, Li Ran was finally feeling a sense of helplessness in the face of a consortium. In the face of absolute military power, money and connections did not seem that useful anymore.

However, Ren Xiaosu did not mind at all. He just sat down at the side and continued reading the newspapers. It was as if the soldiers coming and going were invisible to him.

In the morning, Ren Xiaosu even shamelessly asked the officer for a copy of Hope Media’s newspaper after it was distributed in the base.

The Zhou Consortium troops were quite disciplined. They were only carrying out their duties by holding the tour group outside the stronghold. As there were also Li Ran’s fans within the base, no one would deliberately make things difficult for them.

Ren Xiaosu saw in today’s newspaper that the Zhou Consortium’s troops had intercepted and wiped out a small group of Pyro Company members that were preparing to pull out of the stronghold. However, they did not find any laboratory data on them.

This made Ren Xiaosu wonder if there was really any laboratory data in Stronghold 73 at all.

When the stronghold’s gate was opened, Li Ran and the others immediately entered the stronghold and headed to the hotel they had booked. In just one night, dark circles had already appeared under Li Ran’s eyes. Zhou Yingxue, on the other hand, seemed fine. After all, a supernatural being’s physical fitness far exceeded that of a normal person’s.

On the way to the hotel, Ren Xiaosu froze.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Yingxue asked.

Ren Xiaosu started rolling up the car window. Li Ran had already returned to her minivan, so he did not have to be so cautious with his words anymore. “Did you see that man? I want you to smear some of the four-leaf clover’s extract on him. I need to know his whereabouts.”

Zhou Yingxue nodded. “Alright, but, Master, who is that?”

“You don’t know him.” Ren Xiaosu said, “His name is Wang Congyang. I didn’t expect him to appear here.”

As they spoke, Zhou Yingxue’s car fell out of the convoy and stopped by the side.

Then she pretended she was going to buy breakfast and walked past Wang Congyang. Zhou Yingxue did not even come into contact with Wang Congyang and simply flicked a drop of clover extract onto his clothes.

After that, Zhou Yingxue continued to get breakfast before slowly walking back to the car. “Master, do you want buns or fried dough sticks? I bought some of each.”

“Buns, I guess,” Ren Xiaosu said with a frown.

From afar, Wang Congyang blended into the crowd after passing them by. He had quietly turned around to observe Zhou Yingxue buying breakfast before returning to her car. Then the car drove off and gradually disappeared from the streets.

Wang Congyang carefully checked himself to see if there was any tracking equipment placed on him. After confirming there was nothing, he smiled. He was probably being too suspicious.

When they arrived at the hotel, Li Ran did not even catch up on sleep and brought Fang Zhi straight out.

Zhou Yingxue was grumbling in Ren Xiaosu’s room, “She’s off to meet that director in private. She doesn’t want me to go with her as her bodyguard this time since she’s obviously afraid the director will take a fancy to me and invite me to play a role in his production. She’s so petty!”

Ren Xiaosu glanced at her and said with a smile, “You want to act in a movie? I do know a director myself, so if you really want to act in one, I can bring you to meet him when we’re done here. I saved his life once.”

Zhou Yingxue pursed her lips. “Master, when did you save a director? Why didn’t I know about it?”

“There’s a lot of things that you don’t know.” Ren Xiaosu turned around and asked, “Are you sure that everything’s OK with the four-leaf clover extract? Don’t make any mistakes on this matter. I’ll need you to lead me to him tonight so I can find out what he’s up to.”

“Is this Wang Congyang someone very important?” Zhou Yingxue asked.

“It’s not that he’s important; I just had a feud with him. But I’m more curious about what he’s doing here at Stronghold 73.” Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and said, “I saw him as well near East Lake the other time, but I lost track of his whereabouts during the chaotic battle. I’m very sure that he was there for the lab’s data, but now that the battle has concluded, why hasn’t he left yet? Stronghold 73 is obviously not a safe place anymore for supernatural beings to hang around. If anything goes wrong, the Zhou Consortium might even start hunting them down.”

So Ren Xiaosu wondered if the matter of the research laboratory was not over yet.

The answer to this question could only be revealed tonight.

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