Hobbs still could not figure out why he had been thrown.
Although he could tell from Zhou Yi's physique that Zhou Yi worked out regularly and was definitely in excellent physical condition, someone built like Zhou Yi should not have been capable of throwing him that far in one move!
He was a burly man weighing over two hundred pounds!
How could Zhou Yi have tossed him aside so easily?
"That's more like it." Zhou Yi smiled. "So... shall we?"
The moment he finished speaking, Hobbs threw a straight punch at Zhou Yi!
Zhou Yi neither dodged nor evaded. He answered with a straight punch of his own.
This time, however, Zhou Yi held back just a little more.
Their fists collided with a dull thud that everyone nearby could clearly hear. The two arms looked completely mismatched, but in the end, it was the thicker one that visibly trembled before recoiling.
It was clear that, sometimes, thicker was not necessarily better. Being lean and tough was what truly mattered.
"About enough?" Zhou Yi smiled and waved. "Goodbye, Agent Hobbs. I wish you success with your operation. Ah... never mind that last part..."
"You..." Elena wanted to stop Zhou Yi.
"Don't!" Hobbs stopped Elena and his subordinates, sucking in a sharp breath. "Hospital first."
His hand felt as though it had cracked apart!
After watching Hobbs and the others leave, Zhou Yi called Toretto and told him what had just happened.
"So you gave him a brutal lesson?" Toretto asked with a laugh.
"I wouldn't call it that. If he hadn't attacked first, I wouldn't have retaliated, and he wouldn't have been hurt. This should count as self-defense," Zhou Yi said. "You'd better hurry up, Toretto."
"Of course. Once we figure out what's around the safe at the police station, we can officially begin the plan," Toretto said.
"All right, but you'd better be careful," Zhou Yi said with a yawn. "Toretto, after this job, you should quit while you're ahead. Once you have a child, it will be time to return to a normal life."
"I know." Toretto answered seriously upon hearing Zhou Yi's words. "Besides, if everything goes smoothly, we'll never need to do those things again!"
Zhou Yi offered no further opinion. He knew that Toretto's thoughts were destined to be changed by reality.
Whether he could truly settle down or because he needed to save his wife Letty, Toretto would definitely never stop. At most, he would only take a break for a while.
Several days passed.
Zhou Yi kept his word. He truly did not participate in any of Toretto's operations... aside from providing equipment and vehicle-modification technical support.
Could providing equipment and technical support even be called participating?
For Toretto and the others, Zhou Yi's technical support made everything much easier.
They barely needed to worry about safety. With the durability of that armored off-road vehicle, there were basically no useful weapons in this city that could threaten them for the time being. After all, Toretto and O'Conner's driving skills were there, and they were the so-called "children of destiny," covered from head to toe in protagonist plot armor. They had managed things before without his help, so now that they had Zhou Yi's equipment support and did not even need to visit Rio's underground racing circuit to acquire cars, what could possibly go wrong?
Jinx it? He could jinx it all he wanted. Zhou Yi was not worried at all!
After all, he was not participating in the operation.
In short, Zhou Yi treated this trip as a genuine vacation. He either threw parties on a yacht or took part in activities like surfing, sailing, and skydiving.
After Zhou Yi had sent Hobbs to the hospital that day, Hobbs never came looking for him again... The hospital's examination showed a minor fracture that would take at least two or three months to heal.
The fracture left Hobbs's right hand in a cast, making him unable to lead armed operations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation therefore sent additional personnel for Hobbs to command.
Elena suggested using Hobbs's injury report to require Zhou Yi to assist with the investigation, and Hobbs had been somewhat tempted by the idea. However, after receiving a phone call, Hobbs abandoned that plan.
If he had settled the matter from the start and brought Zhou Yi back to the bureau for questioning, it would have been like acting first and reporting afterward. He would not have needed to worry about the consequences; the Federal Bureau of Investigation could have covered for him. At worst, he would have been scolded, made to put on a show, and then let off without any real punishment. But now, he had failed, and Zhou Yi had made a few phone calls. That made the situation serious.
Having money usually meant having influence. A billionaire carried weight, especially a billionaire in this era... Before making a move, one had to carefully consider whether it was worth it. Moreover, Zhou Yi truly had not done anything illegal, at least nothing they could find on the surface for the moment. Fabricating charges or forcibly pinning something on him might work against petty thugs, but against a businessman of Zhou Yi's status...
Did they want to be sued into the grave?
The investigator who had proposed that suggestion was reassigned to an idle department the next day for stepping through the main entrance with his left foot first, having caught the attention of a superior already in a foul mood.
After successfully receiving a scolding and warning from his superiors, Hobbs could only give up on causing Zhou Yi further trouble. Though he knew Zhou Yi was definitely connected to Toretto, he could only ignore that lead and turn his attention to cross-referencing satellite footage and surveillance facial recognition in an attempt to find their trail.
It was not as though he had never considered surveillance. The manpower shortage had been resolved, since the bureau had sent additional personnel after his injury. However, that did not mean he could spare people to keep an eye on Zhou Yi...
To surveil someone, there had to be somewhere they could actually surveil from!
Yacht parties, sailing competitions, skydiving every day... Who could afford that budget?
Hobbs's superior had already flown into an unbelievable rage over Hobbs suffering a fracture in a fist clash with Zhou Yi. If Hobbs went asking for more money now... was he supposed to prepare to beg with his mouth?
Hobbs merely looked like a brute; he was not an idiot!
As for other surveillance methods... In this era, if they wanted to tap a phone, they first needed to get close enough to install a device!
And what conditions would allow them to get close to Zhou Yi?
According to the intelligence Hobbs had, the answer was either a beautiful woman or a businessman.
Among Hobbs's team, Elena seemed to be the only one who counted as a beauty... In fact, she was the only woman. She had been temporarily called in as an auxiliary officer from the Rio police force, solely to serve as a guide and translator. She had also already met Zhou Yi before.
And as for a businessman... they would need appropriate clothes, an appropriate identity, and even the right manner of speaking, wouldn't they?
Although they had intelligence that Zhou Yi was still taking jobs repairing and modifying cars... if they simply drove a wreck over there, would he really pay them any attention?
At the end of the day, it still came down to funding.
So regardless of the era, money truly was hard currency. With it, everything was much easier than without it.
And after his superior had made it explicitly clear that Hobbs was not to trouble Zhou Yi, Hobbs naturally could not expect to obtain funding from above. That meant that if he truly wanted to monitor Zhou Yi, he would have to pay for it himself.
Hobbs was not so stubborn that he would fixate on Zhou Yi, especially when he had other ways to complete his mission and was not at a dead end. Besides, Zhou Yi had even paid his medical bills... Of course, that was not the main reason... absolutely not!
Flop Author's Diary ↓
If only there were a flop rankings list. I bet I could take first place.
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