I Eat My Own Jealousy Chapter 74.2
Part 2
Zong Ye’s expression remained unchanged. “What do you want? To lock me in here? This place doesn’t look like something you threw together in a hurry. If I’m not mistaken, this really is your actual black market headquarters.”
Horton’s face fell, his hand tightening its grip on the armrest. His voice dropped into a sinister register, “If I didn’t let you see the real headquarters, how could I successfully lure you down here?”
When he found out Zong Ye was attending the wedding, he had considered building a fake base to bait him. But Zong Ye was far too vigilant. The underground path to the base was long, and if Zong Ye sensed even a fraction of a discrepancy, the entire plan would crumble.
For Zong Ye, this was his best chance to uncover the black market’s subterranean headquarters. And for Horton, it was his absolute best chance to eliminate Zong Ye. He had let Zong Ye and Lanno slip away by pure luck last time. This time, failure was not an option.
“Even if you lured me here, what can you do? Colin is already bringing his men…” Zong Ye’s words broke off abruptly. He realized something was terribly wrong. Colin had sent a message from the entrance saying they had found it, but at least ten minutes had passed, and there was dead silence outside.
His communicator beeped. It was Colin: “The greenhouse basement is just a storage room filled with junk. Where exactly are you?”
Zong Ye’s jaw tightened, his gaze snapping up to glare at Horton. “This isn’t beneath your estate.”
Horton laughed delightfully, “Of course it’s beneath my estate. It’s just that I happen to own two identical estates. One is known to the public, and the other I built in absolute secrecy.”
“I knew there was an underground passage beneath my estate ages ago. So, when I built the headquarters, I deliberately found a location to construct an identical estate, and then diverted the tunnel here. It was all for this exact day.” The triumph on Horton’s face practically overflowed. “Even if your men dig three feet under that estate, they will never find you.”
“Telling me all this—aren’t you afraid I’ll leak the information? Planet Rhine isn’t that large. It won’t take long to locate this place.” As soon as Zong Ye finished speaking, the message he attempted to send showed a failure notification. At the same time, a muffled rumbling echoed from outside, accompanied by the panicked screams of the crowd.
Without needing an order, the subordinate beside Zong Ye immediately rushed out to investigate.
Leaning against the sofa, Horton watched him with utter composure. “You can try. How could that bunch of trash at the Academy of Sciences ever compare to the scientists I’ve cultivated? Since I’ve let you in, there is no way I’m letting you walk out alive.”
The subordinate who went out quickly returned, reporting to Zong Ye, “All the exits have been completely sealed off.”
Horton burst into uproarious laughter. “Once these underground blast doors lock from the outside, it is impossible to open them from within. Marshal Zong Ye, I hope you thoroughly enjoy your final moments.”
Zong Ye furrowed his brows, staring him down. “Where is Lanno? I want to see him.”
A flash of irritation darted through Horton’s eyes before he swiftly masked it, returning to his cold demeanor. “Once the Marshal is dead, you’ll see him soon enough.”
Zong Ye keenly caught the shift in emotion in the man’s eyes, his mind racing. Could it be that Lanno and Jian Ning hadn’t fallen into his hands?
“Goodbye, Marshal Zong Ye.” As if someone had approached to report something, Horton coldly terminated the transmission.
“Marshal, we can’t get out.” The adjutant and the other subordinate hastily pushed open the door, panic lacing their voices.
Zong Ye glanced at the female researcher shivering in the corner. He bent down and hoisted her up. “Where is the control room for the underground facilities? Take me there.”
“Hurry up.” A subordinate grabbed the female researcher from him, yanked the door open, and forced her to lead the way.
In the corridor outside, terrified researchers and staff members were sprinting back and forth in complete disarray, their screams and wails blending into a chaotic din. The adjutant gripped his energy gun tightly as he walked beside Zong Ye, his expression grim. “These people were all working for General Horton, and he just abandoned them like trash.”
Zong Ye followed the female researcher down the stairs, his eyes dark and his lips pressed into a thin line. Horton had truly paid a massive price. To avoid suspicion and finally eliminate him, Horton was willing to sacrifice the headquarters and the personnel he had spent years cultivating, burying all these people alongside him. If he could be this ruthless to his own, there was zero chance he would spare Lanno. Even if Lanno and Jian Ning hadn’t been captured yet, they were likely in extreme danger.
He had to re-establish contact with the surface. With that thought, Zong Ye quickened his pace.
All around them was the constant drip-drop of water. Hearing the footsteps of their pursuers fade away, Jian Ning supported Lanno and peeked out from behind a massive boulder. Seeing that the coast was clear, he hurriedly helped Lanno stumble away in the opposite direction.
Rewind to an hour ago. He and Lanno had entered the tunnel and walked for about ten minutes when Lanno needed to pee and found a corner. The tunnel was too dark, and due to its age, there were fissures in the ground. Without paying attention, Lanno missed his footing and plummeted into a crevice below.
Down in the crevice, Lanno discovered that someone had also been excavating tunnels there, but compared to the ones above, these looked like they were dug within the last few years. Curious after hearing this, Jian Ning climbed down to take a look as well.
After checking it out, they planned to wait right there for Zong Ye to share the discovery. But the moment they climbed back up, they ran into a group of men who clearly weren’t Zong Ye’s subordinates. Without a single word, the men opened fire, intending to kill them. In a panic, the two were forced to retreat back down into the crevice to escape the slaughter.
The men chased them down. They were all armed to the teeth and possessed A-grade mental power. Jian Ning and Lanno stood no chance in a direct fight. Lanno took a hit to his calf from an energy gun, and Jian Ning had to rapidly cultivate plant vines to stall the attackers, allowing him to drag Lanno away.
Who knew who had dug these tunnels—they were completely erratic, zig-zagging in random directions. After fleeing for a while, Jian Ning was completely disoriented, unable to find the path they had initially taken down. There was absolutely no signal here, making it impossible to even send an SOS from the communicator.
Hearing Lanno gasping for breath from exhaustion, Jian Ning helped him sit down beside a mound of dirt and lowered his head to inspect the wound on his calf. The haphazardly dug tunnels did have glowing energy stones mounted on the walls every couple of meters, but the light was dim, barely enough to see the path.
Under the faint glow, Jian Ning inspected the injury. The hasty bandage he had applied earlier was already soaked through with blood. Those men were gunning for Lanno, and their attacks were vicious. If Lanno hadn’t dodged quickly, his leg might have been blown clean off.
Jian Ning tore a strip of cloth from his own clothes to re-bandage Lanno’s leg. Enduring the pain, Lanno scanned their surroundings and cursed under his breath, “Damn it, who dug these roads? It’s a total mess, like a maze. If I had known, I wouldn’t have come down here. We could have run into Eldest Uncle up there.”
“If we stayed up there, we might have died before Zong Ye even showed up.” There was nowhere to hide on the upper level; this twisted, maze-like layout was the only thing buying them a little time.
After bandaging the wound, Jian Ning pulled a seed from his pocket. “Rest for a bit. I’ll check which way those guys went and try to find a way out.”
He placed the seed on the dirt floor, pressed his hand over it, and closed his eyes to focus his mental power. The sprout shot out instantly, growing rapidly before splitting into four vines, slithering down the four paths branching out around them.
Five minutes later, Jian Ning opened his eyes, helped Lanno up, and urged urgently, “They’re coming this way, let’s go left!” They scrambled down the right-hand path.
“If we run into them, I’ll hold them off. You find the way up and get Eldest Uncle,” Lanno said, sweat the size of soybeans rolling down his forehead as he limped, suppressing the agonizing pain.
Those men were after him; he couldn’t drag Jian Ning down with him.
“No way. If I leave you behind, how am I supposed to explain that to your uncle? We’re both going to make it out.” Jian Ning pressed his lips together, refusing without a second thought.
Lanno opened his mouth to argue, but his pupils suddenly shrank. Sensing a sudden spike in danger, he violently tackled Jian Ning to the ground.
The moment they hit the dirt, a rapid pfft-pfft-pfft of gunfire blasted a series of craters into the wall—right where they had just been standing.
Lanno dragged Jian Ning into a crawl, hiding behind a pile of excavated dirt. He whispered fiercely, “I’ll stall them, you use the chance to run.”
Without him acting as dead weight, Jian Ning could easily use his seeds to find the way out.
“No, I can’t leave you.” Jian Ning gripped Lanno tightly and reached into his pocket for a seed. His pocket was completely empty. He only had one left.
As the two sat in a tense stalemate, the approaching footsteps abruptly stopped. A series of muffled thuds echoed through the tunnel, followed by the heavy sound of bodies hitting the floor. Five minutes later, dead silence returned.
Jian Ning and Lanno exchanged a bewildered look. Lanno pressed Jian Ning down and cautiously peeked out. In the dim light of the tunnel, he saw two corpses on the ground—and a familiar silhouette gripping an energy gun, walking straight toward them.
Author has something to say: Second update, that’s all for today. Please take a look at my upcoming novel~ (I was debating if I should include this part or not, but I did because I’m planning to look for this novel and translate it~ hehe)
《The Vixen is Very Poor》
Hu Li always thought he was just an ordinary vixen spirit, until he left the mountains for the city and attracted the covetous gazes of countless monsters.
City life was hard. No education, no diploma, not even enough strength to carry bricks. He could only rely on his face to eat, ending up as a minor celebrity. Having to feed a whole family of fluffy fluffballs, plus shouldering hundreds of millions in debt, and most frustratingly, dealing with the constant harassment from various monsters—a fox’s life was truly hard.
Thankfully, he met the Big Boss.
The Big Boss was sickly all day and bound to a wheelchair, but as long as Hu Li stayed by his side, those monsters didn’t dare approach.
The Big Boss was a great guy, never minding that Hu Li was always sticking to him.
Until one day, Hu Li discovered he was actually a Nine-Tailed Fox and needed to cultivate with someone possessing overwhelming yang energy. Hu Li reluctantly went to say goodbye, only for the Big Boss to suddenly stand up from his wheelchair, corner Hu Li against the wall, his eyes cold and sharp, his voice low and dangerous: “You dared to run away back then, and now you dare to go looking for someone else?”
When Lu Cheng was young, he saved a little fox. But the little fox had no conscience—after treating it so well, it secretly ran away. The website address has changed, the website address has changed, the website address has changed. Everyone, please bookmark the new address, new m.. new desktop version.. After bookmarking, open it at the new address. The old address will no longer work in the future.