Chapter 148 Formulating a Plan

Baitian marched forward with a cabin door, smashing his way through everything in their path.

Qin Qing was his partner. Hearing that ungodly roar was all it took for him to know what Baitian was about to do. With a light step against the wall, he smoothly vaulted up to the ceiling, neatly dodging the incoming shockwave.

He only dropped back down to the floor once Baitian had charged past, drawing his dagger to finish off any remaining enemies in Baitian's wake.

Only after thoroughly flattening the opposition did Baitian slow his pace.

After such an intense skirmish, even someone as resilient as him was starting to pant heavily. "Damn it... they—they have no shame at all!"

There were just too many of them!

Qin Qing patted down a corpse, discovering that among a group of bare-handed foes, one actually carried a handgun. Truly insidious.

Their most urgent priority right now was to replenish their firepower. If the guards really decided to mobilize all at once and crush them with sheer force, an ant can sometimes swarm an elephant, and their chances of victory would be slim to none.

Mofei had been quite pleased when he first spotted Dragon Two, but his expression underwent a drastic change the moment he saw young Officer Xu trailing right behind him. "Am I seeing a ghost?"

The smile that had just formed on young Officer Xu's face instantly froze. "What?"

Back when Bai had informed him that an undercover operative had made the ultimate sacrifice, Mofei had already mentally prepared himself for what color funeral wreath to use when visiting the grave.

Now, running into young Officer Xu out of nowhere, his very first reaction was that he was seeing a ghost, and it terrified him.

"He's alive." The moment Dragon Two saw Li Momo, he realized they didn't need to keep searching and let out a sigh of relief.

Searching blindly without any leads was simply too inefficient.

"Senior."

Baitian and Qin Qing walked back over.

Baitian was still hoisting that heavy cabin door, and when he set it down, the floor trembled slightly.

To be able to sneak onto the ship, these two clearly had some genuine tricks up their sleeves.

Dragon Two was a man of vast experience and kept his expression completely neutral. "Since everyone has been found, our next step is to figure out how to buy some time."

"No need to buy time," Baitian said with a carefree wave of his hand. "We've already cased the whole place. There's a helicopter on this ship. Since we've already offended them, we might as well go all the way—we can just hijack it and fly out of here."

Qin Qing shook his head. "That was our original plan."

Baitian blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"The helicopter used for transporting organs is a small one, with a maximum seating capacity of four." Dragon Two swept his gaze across the group.

Mofei, himself, young Officer Xu, Li Momo, plus these two newcomers and at least one of their accomplices.

They were severely over capacity.

Being over by one person might have been manageable, but this was practically doubling the capacity. They didn't even need to gamble on it—once everyone piled in, it was guaranteed not to lift off.

***

After hearing this, Baitian quickly did the headcount himself, then finally pointed at Li Momo and said, "We don't need to worry about Cuihua. If we just dump her, having one extra person won't be an issue, right?"

With a look of sheer agony, Qin Qing slammed his forehead straight into the wall.

"Qing, what's wrong with you?" Baitian asked, startled, stepping forward with a worried expression. "Did you just get hurt?"

Qin Qing waved a hand to signal he was fine.

He had no physical injuries, but his internal organs were about to burst from sheer exasperation.

Dragon Two, however, remained calm.

So they really did have one accomplice left behind, and her name was Cuihua? "Not needing to worry about her" meant that this person was still successfully blending in among the ship's crew.

Yet under the current circumstances, an inside mole was hardly useful anymore.

When everyone was already fighting with real blades and firearms, who had the leisure to care about who would die the next second?

"Who is she?" Young Officer Xu was probably the most bewildered person present.

He knew neither the identities of Baitian and Qin Qing, nor why Mofei was here, and certainly nothing about Li Momo's background.

They had been in the middle of a firefight earlier, making it inconvenient to ask, but now that the gunfire had ceased, he naturally needed some answers.

"Bai Yingxiong's lackey," Mofei said, resting a hand on young Officer Xu's shoulder.

Solid flesh and bone. Definitely not a ghost.

He breathed a sigh of relief and continued explaining, "We're dragging her back to serve as a tainted witness."

Young Officer Xu experienced a sudden flash of enlightenment.

To root out the dark forces of the Myanmar region—wasn't that the very reason he went undercover in the first place?

"We can't just leave her behind," young Officer Xu said, frowning. "If necessary, you all take her back, and I'll stay."

The group who had been deep in discussion paused for a fraction of a second, shot him a synchronized glance, and then immediately went back to their discussion.

They completely treated young Officer Xu as transparent air.

Are you kidding me? This is a police officer we're talking about.

Baitian and Qin Qing knew who Bai Yingxiong was, and if Li Momo was Bai Yingxiong's lackey, she was hardly a good person either.

Why on earth should they risk the life of a good person to save the life of a villain?

Talk about grand righteousness? They were mercenaries; they lived by a code of honor.

Their code of honor meant that if they ever pulled a stunt like that, they would wake up in the middle of the night, slap themselves across the face, and mutter, "Damn it, I truly deserve to die."

Having a clear conscience was their code of honor.

***

No way, absolutely out of the question.

"I'm serious!" young Officer Xu said, growing somewhat irritated. "Since she holds evidence of Bai Yingxiong's crimes, bringing her back is crucial for the extradition and prosecution of Bai Yingxiong."

Bai Yingxiong had a younger brother who served as the Deputy Minister of Finance in the Myanmar region. Without solid evidence, let alone putting him on trial, even just bringing him back to the country would be an immensely difficult task.

No matter how many vile deeds he had committed, his brother had ways to whitewash him.

The local warlords of the Myanmar region weren't just an empty title. The Son of Heaven commits crimes and is punished the same as the common people, but not judged by the same standards.

As long as the hammer didn't come down hard enough to crush him once and for all, Bai Yingxiong would remain legally untouchable.

Then what would become of all the colleagues who had sacrificed themselves for this case? What would become of the victims?

Young Officer Xu would rather die than witness that outcome.

"Alright," Mofei said, patting him on the shoulder. "Aren't they discussing it right now? Matters like this are better left to the professionals."

Experience was crucial, and there was always something to learn from those around you.

A rookie cop who hadn't been on the force long, alongside a law-abiding citizen—at a time like this, simply following orders was the best course of action.

Young Officer Xu also understood the gravity of the situation and nodded with a solemn expression.

Time was of the essence. Qin Qing was a smart man, and a single glance exchanged with Dragon Two was enough for him to understand what needed to be said.

"The second floor is used for storing medical equipment and as a break room for the guards; the first floor houses the medical staff rest area and the operating rooms; the bottom deck contains the wheelhouse, where the doors have undergone special treatment and cannot be blown open. The captain and crew won't come out until the return voyage; they live relatively isolated lives and focus solely on steering the ship. On the top deck, there's a helicopter landing pad and a signal receiver."

The third floor was sandwiched directly between the bottom deck and the second floor, making even jumping overboard impossible.

Structurally speaking, there was more than one stairwell on the ship. If they fortified the third floor, they would not only have to guard against anyone coming down from above, but also against anyone coming up from below, leaving them caught between a hammer and an anvil.

Yet if they truly holed up here while the bottom deck remained sealed off, it would be equivalent to having no retreat path at all.

The third floor held nothing but crowds of human livestock, completely useless to them. With no supplies, they would eventually be worn down and starved out.

Even Dragon Two found this problem thorny.

He asked Qin Qing, "What was your original plan?"

Baitian and Qin Qing formed a very typical "brains and brawn" duo—one for action, one for intellect, and it was quite obvious that Qin Qing was the brains.

"Our original target was just Mofei. We planned to find him, hide him away, report him as a casualty of the trade, and then offload him once we docked," Qin Qing said, a hint of helplessness creeping onto his face. "It was a bit troublesome, but as long as the target wasn't someone slated for a specific organ match, operating this way posed no major problems."

The captives were treated as cargo, and cargo sustaining losses was entirely normal.

As long as it wasn't high-value cargo, nobody would care about the disappearance of a single piece out of several thousand.