Chapter 3418 — Return to Songshan City

"Young Master Lin, shall we make our move now?" Tor Sun-Moon had been waiting a long while.

"Elder Tor, I've changed my mind," Wei Zhao said mildly.

"What?!" Tor Sun-Moon's heart gave a sudden lurch. Changed his mind? Did that not mean Wei Zhao no longer wished to strike at the poison-refining base—and that his promise, too, was now worthless?

"In a little while, bring your people and wipe out every last one of the base's management. As for the biochemical humans, pick out a few of the truly wicked and dispose of them as well. After that, one of my subordinates will come to take over the place; he'll pin it all on the great bandits of the roads, and your Poli clan will have had no part in it. If the base remains here, your yearly income remains as before." Wei Zhao sighed. In the end, he was still a little soft-hearted. He would have the Poli clan kill some evildoers, but not the biochemical humans.

As for the base itself, Wei Zhao was not worried; with Brother Dafeng in control, no great evil would be done there, and their own people would not be poisoned.

Killing a few biochemical humans was, in Wei Zhao's mind, a way to muddy the waters. When Brother Dafeng made his report, he could claim that the Pangolin had been killed as well—and thus Wei Zhao himself could slip free.

"So that's how it is..." Tor Sun-Moon was both startled and delighted, and said hastily, "I understand. I'll take my people over at once!"

So long as Wei Zhao was not going back on his word, all was well. And as matters stood, this was still to the Poli clan's advantage—why would they not do it?

At Tor Sun-Moon's command, the finest fighters of the Poli clan turned out in full.

It was a moonless, wind-whipped night, fit for killing. Within the poison-refining base, every member of the Red Conch would be strangled.

Meng Gaohai had never imagined that Wei Zhao could command even the patriarch of the Tor clan—they were utterly stunned. That Wei Zhao could control senior members of the Red Conch had already shaken them to the core; now they looked on him as something close to an immortal.

"Good. I'll wait here for your rendezvous!" Wei Zhao nodded, hung up the phone, and then settled in to wait quietly...

With the Poli clan's finest gathered in force, wiping out the poison-refining base was a trifling matter. It took but a single night's work: every last one of the Red Conch's people in the base was annihilated. And from the biochemical humans' files they learned what each of those creatures had done in the past. Tor Sun-Moon chose the ones steeped in wickedness and did away with them, leaving the corpses torn apart beyond recognition.

That done, they withdrew their people quietly. Meng Gaohai, for his part, was credited with giving timely warning—though he could not save the lives of those Red Conch members, he had at least preserved the base.

Even when Meng Gaohai's conduct was reported up the line, no one thought anything amiss, for Meng Gaohai was the base's chief to begin with. He also held a share of administrative authority; it was only because he did not wear the garb of the base's managers that he escaped with his life.

As chief, he naturally knew where a telephone could be found. He located the number of the nearest Red Conch branch and its chief, Brother Dafeng, and called him in for aid—and after that, everything else fell into place...

The Pangolin had been spirited away by Wei Zhao without a sound. Few knew that he was not dead; those who did were all Wei Zhao's men.

The general manager learned that the poison-refining base in the Hakunamata Desert had been wiped out. He was furious. "Dafeng, what in the world happened? Who did this?"

"General Manager, I'm not clear on it myself. By the time I got here, those people had already withdrawn. But word is that they came to extort money, and that Lou Qitian, the man in charge here, not only refused them but cursed them and threatened them, and even seized several of their people to serve as labor. Later, a great many more of these thugs and their accomplices came, and simply annihilated the base in one sweep..." Brother Dafeng explained.

"And the Poli clan? Isn't that their territory? Why didn't Lou Qitian call on the Poli clan to act?" the general manager asked, frowning.

"And whose fault is that but Lou Qitian's? At first he took them for easy prey—not only did he drive them off, he forcibly detained several of them as labor, and afterward thought nothing more of it. Then those people went back and brought reinforcements, and simply wiped out the base. Lou Qitian never even had the chance to make a phone call before he was dead! If not for a chief of the base named Meng Gaohai, who hurriedly called me at the contact number, we wouldn't even have known anything had gone wrong here!" Brother Dafeng explained, somewhat helplessly. "If I hadn't come so quickly, those biochemical humans would likely all be dead!"

"Damn that Lou Qitian!" The general manager was furious when he heard it. "He's grown so used to being arrogant that he's lost every shred of vigilance. A perfectly good base, wrecked like this—what are our losses now?"

"The losses are severe. All the poison-refining materials were destroyed, all the technicians are dead, and some of the biochemical humans died as well. Nothing else was lost, since there was no cash on hand here. But to get it running again—without a year or half a year of fresh planning, it simply can't be done," said Brother Dafeng.

"Very well. The affairs there are now entirely in your hands," the general manager said, somewhat resignedly. "Get it running again as quickly as you can. All the personnel are yours to manage and arrange!"

"Yes, General Manager!" Brother Dafeng said hastily—and with that, his power had taken yet another step in its expansion!

Wei Zhao brought the Pangolin back to the Poli clan's estate, but he felt no joy of victory just now, for the Pangolin's condition was far from encouraging; he could only rely on Zhang Lifeng—though there was still hope.

That very night, Wei Zhao took his leave of the Poli clan and returned with Yu Dake to Songshan City, where he found the Pangolin. Wei Zhao wanted to tell Ying Ziyu at the first opportunity—after all, this was, in a sense, an accounting rendered to her.

The car sped all the way, and at last, on the afternoon of the following day, they arrived at the gates of Songshan City No. 1 High School. Gazing at the familiar campus, Wei Zhao could not help but feel a stir of emotion.

He still remembered that day in early March of last year, when he had come here and first met the young lady and little Shu, and made an enemy of Zhong Yongliang! Who would have thought that the people of that time had all since departed, and that Zhong Yongliang too had found his own fortune, becoming a member of the Tomorrow Upon Tomorrow sect.

The young lady and little Shu had become Inheritors, soon to set out for Cloud Terrace Island on their journey of awakening.

Wei Zhao sent Ying Ziyu a text message, telling her he was waiting at the school gate and that she should come find him straight after class. (To be continued...)