Liars!!

As he watched the fire in the distance grow larger and larger, Yang Zixuan's face darkened to the extreme.

He'd thought snatching a young girl would be a piece of cake, but somehow they'd managed to make such a mess of things. Still, at least they'd caught her in the end.

Only...

Yang Zixuan glanced toward the other side, not far away, and his mood grew even more agitated.

"Boss, we're back!"

Xiong Tao, the second brother, jerked his chin toward the distance. Zhang Hu, the third, came stumbling over, blood at the corner of his mouth. He'd clearly been injured.

"What happened? Did you get it?"

Seeing Zhang Hu's bedraggled state, Yang Zixuan grew even more furious and asked impatiently.

"Got it. Ran into a little trouble, but it's no big deal. Those cops didn't suffer any casualties, so it shouldn't have much impact."

Zhang Hu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and took a bottle of medicine from the Prop Catalog. Looking at it in his hand, he couldn't help wincing at the cost.

Restorative potions like this often sold for exorbitant prices at exhibitions. Word was, only people with special connections could get their hands on them.

But those people seemed to have an agreement: at every exhibition, they strictly controlled how much they put up for sale, keeping prices sky-high. Even Farming Teams like theirs got fleeced every time they bought some.

"Where's that Livestock... fourth brother?!"

Seeing that only one of them had returned, Yang Zixuan pressed him for an answer.

Zhang Hu froze, about to explain, when Xu Tong leaped out from a nearby corner. "Big brother, I'm here! Here!"

The three of them turned around and stared, speechless. Xu Tong had covered himself in mud from head to toe. He looked like a walking mud statue. Being afraid of death was only human, but it was rare to see anyone as timid as this.

"What a waste of such a great title!"

Xiong Tao muttered indignantly.

But seeing how timid and cowardly Xu Tong was seemed to ease Yang Zixuan's agitation. Being timid was good. The more timid you were, the longer you lived—and the longer you lived, the more Script Points you could keep providing them.

That was what made a proper Livestock.

Their failure in the last Script World had certainly been partly their own fault. But if those few Livestock hadn't tried to be clever, they wouldn't have suffered such heavy losses. All the Livestock they'd carefully raised had ended up dead.

"Enough. Everyone's here. Let's get out of the Forest Farm."

Yang Zixuan waved them on, urging Xu Tong and the others to leave the Forest Farm quickly.

As Xu Tong helped the injured Zhang Hu along, he couldn't help glancing at Yang Guanjin, slung over Xiong Tao's shoulder.

Yang Guanjin was tightly bound with rope, and a strip of cloth had been tied over her mouth. Something seemed to be stuffed inside, keeping her from speaking. Only her eyes, glaring right at him, were visible.

Her furious gaze seemed to demand an explanation: how could he have ended up with these people?

Xu Tong stared straight ahead, pretending he hadn't seen a thing.

After leaving the Forest Farm, they hurried to the place they'd arranged to meet Zhou Huasheng. Yang Zixuan looked around and frowned. "Professor Zhou! Professor Zhou!"

He called out several times, but no one answered.

"Boss, could we have come to the wrong place?"

Zhang Hu looked around. The Seedling Garden in front of the Forest Farm offered nowhere to hide. This was the only place where someone could conceal themselves. Even if Zhou Huasheng had grown senile, he wouldn't have wandered into the Seedling Garden.

For some reason, Yang Zixuan suddenly had a bad feeling. "Quick, look around. It can't be anywhere else. This has to be the place."

At that, the four of them split up and searched the woods. But no matter how thoroughly they looked, they couldn't find any trace of Zhou Huasheng.

Now Yang Zixuan was truly panicking.

How could he not? They were supposed to snatch the person and the item. They'd gotten the item back, but the mastermind had vanished?

It was like your cousin inviting you to a seafood feast and telling you to order whatever you wanted, only to disappear when the bill came—after making off with two cartons of Soft China cigarettes and a case of Wuliangye.

"Damn it! That old bastard didn't set us up, did he?!"

Zhang Hu stamped his foot and cursed furiously. The whole way there, they'd been calling Zhou Huasheng "Teacher" and "Professor Zhou," acting like his errand boys. And now he'd pulled this on them?

"Boss, come look!"

Just then, Xu Tong called out from nearby, pointing at the cigarette butts on the ground. "Look, these are pretty fresh. I think Professor Zhou really was waiting here for us."

Yang Zixuan picked up one of the cigarette butts and took a look. It was the brand Zhou Huasheng usually smoked: Da Qianmen.

"Not good! Someone must've gotten here before us and taken him away."

Yang Zixuan scanned the area, but couldn't find the slightest clue. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked, his frustration boiling over.

Just then, people came chasing out from the Forest Farm. Xiong Tao saw them and hurriedly said, "Boss, the cops are coming. Shouldn't we get out of here first?"

Yang Zixuan's normally gentle face twisted into that of a raging lion, but in the end, all his anger turned into helpless frustration. "Go!"

Even if the three of them were strong enough, they still weren't strong enough to push the limits of the repulsion effect. If things got truly out of hand, forget completing the main quest—they might not even make it back alive.

The four hurried away with Yang Guanjin. As soon as they'd left, Team Leader Wang led his people into the woods to search.

No one knew how far they ran. When they looked back, the surrounding trees were so tall and thick that not even the moonlight could get through. Once the Forest Farm had disappeared from view, the four slowed down and found somewhere to sit.

Zhang Hu and Xiong Tao loudly cursed Zhou Huasheng, calling the old bastard a real piece of work.

Their side quest still hadn't given them any notifications. They didn't even know whether they'd completed it.

Worse, they'd kidnapped someone, stolen the item, antagonized the police, and burned down the Forest Farm. They'd done all that dirty work, and now Zhou Huasheng had disappeared?

What were they supposed to do about the main quest now?

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

He slowly lifted his head in the darkness. His eyes gleamed like a pair of wolves', and his icy stare showed he was on the verge of flying into a rage.

But aside from being furious, he didn't seem to have any idea what to do.

"Boss, do you think... the mysterious person took him?"

Xu Tong spoke cautiously from beside them.

"The mysterious person!"

Yang Zixuan turned to him, his cold eyes fixed on Xu Tong.

"Think about it. That mysterious person failed to steal the Golden Dagger last time, so he wouldn't just give up. Since he couldn't get the dagger, he decided to take the person instead."

Xu Tong looked as though he were giving it serious thought. Seeing Yang Zixuan watching him, he hurriedly waved his hands. "It's just a wild guess. Don't blame me if you think I'm wrong, boss. I mean, how could a living person just vanish into thin air?"

"Right! How did we forget about him?"

Zhang Hu was sitting nearby. Hearing this, he slapped Xu Tong hard on the shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground.

"Boss, it has to be him. Professor Zhou wanted to find the Ascension Bureau. He said that dagger might be the key to it. The mysterious person wanted the dagger too, which means he knows about the Ascension Bureau. If he took Professor Zhou, then he's got the key to the Ascension Bureau in his hands."

He didn't forget to add, "If it were me, I'd have taken Professor Zhou too."

Xiong Tao was silent for a moment before speaking gravely. "It could only have been him. Most likely, he saw us take the item and didn't want a head-on confrontation, so he kidnapped Professor Zhou."

Xu Tong stood quietly beside them. Watching the two of them lay out their theories so confidently, he could barely hold back his laughter. With these two brilliant minds at my side...

Yang Zixuan had initially been skeptical of Xu Tong's suggestion. But the two men beside him kept backing it up with their own analysis. And since his mind was already in chaos and he had no better ideas, the more he listened, the more plausible it sounded.

"The mantis stalks the cicada, while the oriole waits behind." He muttered a curse under his breath, then stood up. "This isn't over. Get ready to move!"

"Boss, where are we going?"

Xu Tong quickly stood and asked. Yang Zixuan furrowed his brow and looked toward the distant mountains. "No matter how things change, the fundamentals stay the same. We'll find the Ascension Bureau, and then we'll find Professor Zhou."

Meanwhile, in a small wood on the other side,

a group of police officers were searching the woods carefully. Team Leader Wang suddenly spotted a cigarette butt on the ground. He picked it up and immediately recognized it as one of Zhou Huasheng's Da Qianmen cigarettes.

Besides him, there was no one else it could be. He knew all the old men at the Forest Farm who smoked, and they all smoked from pipes. None of them smoked cigarettes like this.

"That settles it!"

Wang dropped the cigarette butt. His expression shifted, but he'd already figured out most of what had happened. This whole mess was almost certainly the work of that old bastard, Zhou Huasheng.

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

An officer came over to ask.

Wang furrowed his brow and shot him a chilly look, a sneer appearing on his face. "File a report? Tell the chief we not only failed to solve the case, but lost the evidence too? That the other side got away right in front of our eyes?"

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

There was one more thing Wang hadn't mentioned: he'd lost his gun too, and it still had six bullets in it.

They could probably find a way to explain away the missing evidence. Failing to solve a case was nothing unusual.

But if he reported that he'd lost his gun, with six bullets still inside, his career as team leader would probably be over.

So no matter what, even if they didn't solve the case, they had to get the gun back.

The problem was, where had those people gone? He stared at the dark mountains in the distance, feeling a little hopeless.

But as the saying went, there was always a way out.

Just as despair was taking hold of Team Leader Wang, an officer suddenly rushed out of the Forest Farm and came panting up to him. "Team... Team Leader, we found... found him!"

"You found the gun?!" Wang perked up, his eyes lighting up.

But the officer shook his head. "No. We found that old man surnamed Zhou. Someone tied him up and threw him into the pigsty."

"What?!"

Team Leader Wang froze. He stood there for three seconds, unable to make sense of it.

A moment later, he finally came to his senses and hurriedly led the others to the pigsty.

In the foul-smelling pigsty, an old man was tied to a post, his mouth gagged tight.

Team Leader Wang was completely baffled. He reached out and pulled the rag from the old man's mouth. Zhou Huasheng's bloodshot eyes bulged like bells as he roared, his voice thick with grievance and fury. "You liar! You liar!!!"