Liar!!

Watching the fire in the distance grow ever larger, Yang Zixuan's expression turned ugly to the extreme.

He had thought snatching a little girl would be a simple task, yet he had managed to make a mess of it. Still, at least they had finally captured the target.

However...

Yang Zixuan glanced toward the side, his mood growing even more agitated.

"Boss, he's back!"

The second-in-command, Xiong Tao, tilted his chin toward the distance. The third member, Zhang Hu, came stumbling over, blood at the corner of his mouth—he was clearly injured.

"What happened? Did you get the item?"

Seeing Zhang Hu's disheveled state, Yang Zixuan felt even more annoyed and asked impatiently.

"I got it. Ran into a bit of trouble, but it's nothing serious. The police squad didn't suffer any casualties, so the impact shouldn't be too great."

Zhang Hu wiped the blood from his mouth and pulled a potion from his Prop Catalog. Looking at the vial in his hand, he couldn't help but feel a pang of heartache.

Such recovery potions were sold at exorbitant prices at exhibitions, and it was said that only those with special channels could acquire them.

But those suppliers seemed to have an unspoken agreement; they strictly controlled the supply at every exhibition, keeping prices sky-high. Even for a "farming team" like theirs, every purchase meant being bled dry.

"Where is that pig... where is the fourth one!"

Seeing only one person return, Yang Zixuan couldn't help but press for an answer.

Zhang Hu was stunned, and just as he was about to explain, he heard Xu Tong jump out from a corner: "Boss, I'm here, I'm here!"

The three of them looked back, speechless. The guy was covered in sludge from head to toe, looking like a mud golem. While it was human nature to fear death, it was rare to see someone as cowardly as a mouse.

"What a waste of such a good title!"

Xiong Tao muttered, his face full of resentment.

But seeing Xu Tong so timid and weak, Yang Zixuan's agitated mood actually improved significantly. Cowardice was good; cowards lived longer, and as long as they lived, they could provide a steady stream of script points.

Clearly, this was the hallmark of a qualified "pig."

The last Script World had certainly involved some miscalculations on their part, but if those few "pigs" hadn't tried to be clever, they wouldn't have suffered such heavy losses, losing all the livestock they had painstakingly raised.

"Enough, everyone is here. Let's go."

Yang Zixuan waved his hand, urging Xu Tong and the others to leave the Forest Farm immediately.

Xu Tong supported the injured Zhang Hu, his gaze drifting toward Yang Guanjin, who was being carried on Xiong Tao's shoulder.

At this moment, Yang Guanjin was tightly bound with rope, her mouth gagged with a strip of cloth stuffed inside, preventing her from speaking. Only her eyes were fixed on him, filled with an angry glare as if questioning how he could have gotten mixed up with these people.

Xu Tong kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, pretending not to notice.

Once they were out of the Forest Farm, they hurried to the meeting point agreed upon with Zhou Huasheng. Scanning the area, Yang Zixuan frowned: "Old Zhou? Old Zhou!"

Yang Zixuan called out several times, but there was no response.

"Boss, we didn't find the wrong place, did we?"

Zhang Hu looked around, but the area in front of the Forest Farm was just a nursery garden where no one could hide. This was the only spot suitable for concealment; even if Zhou Huasheng were senile, he wouldn't have wandered into the nursery.

For some reason, a bad premonition suddenly struck Yang Zixuan: "Quick, search! There can't be a mistake; it has to be this place."

At his command, the four of them split up to search the woods, yet no matter how hard they looked, they found no trace of Zhou Huasheng.

Now, Yang Zixuan was truly panicking.

How could he not? They had been promised a job to snatch the person and the item. The item was back, but the mastermind had vanished?

It was like a cousin inviting you to a seafood feast, telling you to order whatever you wanted, only to disappear when the bill arrived—while also swiping two packs of premium cigarettes and a bottle of top-shelf liquor on his way out.

"Damn it! Is this old bastard playing us?!"

Zhang Hu stomped his feet in rage. Along the way, they had been "Teacher" this and "Old Zhou" that, acting like his servants, only to be treated like this?

"Boss, look at this!"

Just then, Xu Tong called out from the side, pointing to a cigarette butt on the ground: "Look, these butts are quite fresh. I think Old Zhou really was waiting for us here."

Yang Zixuan picked up a butt and examined it; it was indeed the Da Qianmen brand that Old Zhou usually smoked.

"Bad news! Someone must have gotten here before us and snatched the target."

Yang Zixuan scanned the surroundings, but found not a single clue. Irritated, he clenched his fists until they cracked.

At that moment, people from the Forest Farm were already chasing them out. Seeing this, Xiong Tao hurriedly said: "Boss, the police are coming. Should we just retreat?"

Yang Zixuan's face, usually accustomed to looking refined and gentle, was now twisted like a furious lion. Yet, in the end, all his rage dissolved into helpless frustration: "Go!"

Even though the three of them were powerful, they weren't strong enough to test the limits of the exclusion effect. If things escalated to an uncontrollable point, let alone completing the main mission, whether they could even survive to return was an unknown.

The four of them hurried away with Yang Guanjin. No sooner had they left than Captain Wang led his men into the woods to search.

They didn't know how far they had run, but when they finally looked back, the trees were so thick and the leaves so dense that even the moonlight couldn't penetrate them. Once the Forest Farm was no longer in sight, the four of them slowed their pace and found a place to sit.

Zhang Hu and Xiong Tao cursed Zhou Huasheng loudly, calling the old man a complete fraud.

Right now, they had received no prompts for their side mission, and there was no indication of whether it was completed or not.

The most infuriating part is that now they've snatched the people, snatched the goods, offended the police, burned down the Forest Farm, and finished all their dirty work, yet Zhou Huasheng has gone missing?

What are they supposed to do about their main mission now?

"Boss, what do we do next?" After cursing for a while, the two men ran out of steam and could only turn their eyes toward Yang Zixuan.

In the darkness, he slowly raised his head. His eyes glowed green like a wolf's, and his cold, sinister gaze showed he was clearly on the verge of a violent outburst.

But aside from being annoyed, he didn't seem to have a clue either.

"Boss, do you think... could he have been snatched by that mysterious person?"

At this moment, Xu Tong spoke up cautiously from the side.

"The mysterious person!"

Yang Zixuan turned his head silently, his icy eyes fixed on Xu Tong.

"Right! Think about it, that mysterious person failed to grab the Golden Dagger last time, so he definitely wouldn't just let it go. Since he didn't get the dagger, he just snatched the person instead."

Xu Tong wore a look of deep contemplation. Seeing Yang Zixuan staring at him, he hurriedly waved his hands. "I'm just guessing. Boss, don't blame me if you think I'm wrong. After all, a living person can't just vanish into thin air."

"That's it! How could we have forgotten about that guy?"

Zhang Hu, sitting to the side, heard this and gave Xu Tong a heavy slap on the shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground.

Zhang Hu said, "Boss, it must be this! Old Man Zhou wants to find the Ascension Bureau and said that the dagger might be the key to it. That mysterious person also tried to grab the dagger, which means he knows about the Ascension Bureau too. If he captured Old Man Zhou, he holds the key to the Ascension Bureau."

He didn't forget to add, "If it were me, I'd grab Old Man Zhou too."

Xiong Tao, who had been silent for a moment, said in a deep voice, "I'm afraid it can only be him. I suspect the most likely scenario is that he saw us move to take the goods and didn't want a direct confrontation, so he snatched Professor Zhou away."

Xu Tong stood silently to the side. Watching the two of them analyze the situation so logically, he could barely suppress his urge to laugh out loud. To have such a pair of geniuses...

Yang Zixuan had originally been skeptical of Xu Tong's words, but he couldn't resist the two men beside him constantly analyzing it for him. Plus, his own mind was in such a mess that he had lost his own judgment; the more he listened, the more it seemed to make sense.

"The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind," he muttered to himself before standing up. "This isn't over. Get ready to move!"

"Boss, where are we going?"

Xu Tong hurriedly stood up to ask. Yang Zixuan narrowed his eyes and looked toward the distant mountains. "All changes stem from the same source. If we find the Ascension Bureau, we won't have to worry about not finding Old Man Zhou."

Meanwhile, in a small grove on the other side.

A team of officers was searching the woods carefully. Suddenly, Captain Wang spotted a cigarette butt on the ground. He picked it up and recognized it instantly: it was the Da Qianmen brand that Zhou Huasheng smoked.

Besides, it couldn't be anyone else. He was familiar with all the old men at the Forest Farm who smoked; they all used dry tobacco pipes, and no one else smoked these rolled cigarettes.

"No mistake about it!"

Dropping the cigarette butt, Captain Wang's expression shifted uncertainly. He had already deduced the general situation: this whole mess was likely the work of that old bastard, Zhou Huasheng.

"Captain Wang, what do we do now? Should we file a report with the county?"

An officer stepped forward to ask.

Captain Wang furrowed his brows, casting a cold, piercing glare at him with a sneer. "File a report? Tell the Chief that not only did we fail to solve the case, but we also lost the evidence? And that the suspects ran off right under our noses?"

The officer blushed and immediately lowered his head, not daring to say another word.

Captain Wang actually had one more thing he hadn't mentioned: his gun was also gone, and it still had six rounds in it.

Losing the evidence could be explained away, and failing to solve the case was normal enough.

But if his gun was missing with six rounds inside, reporting that would likely mean the end of his career as a captain.

So, no matter what, even if the case remained unsolved, the gun had to be found.

But the problem was, where had this group of people run off to? He looked at the pitch-black mountains in the distance, feeling a sense of despair.

However, as the saying goes, heaven never closes all doors.

Just as Captain Wang was sinking into despair, an officer suddenly rushed out of the Forest Farm, panting as he ran up to him. "Cap... Captain, found him! We found him!"

"The gun was found?!" Captain Wang's spirits lifted, his eyes gleaming.

But the officer shook his head. "No, it's that old man surnamed Zhou. We found him tied up and dumped in the pigsty."

"Huh???"

Hearing this, Captain Wang was stunned. He stood there for three seconds, his brain completely unable to process the information.

After a while, he snapped out of it and hurriedly led his men to the pigsty to take a look.

Inside the foul-smelling pigsty, an old man was tied to one of the pillars, his mouth stuffed tight with a rag.

Captain Wang was completely bewildered. He reached out and pulled the rag from the old man's mouth. Zhou Huasheng's bloodshot eyes were wide as bells, and he roared with a mix of grievance and fury: "Liar! You lying swindler!!!"