Chapter 23: Explosives
After some time, she looked closer and noticed that Qi Mo had looked away, and with it, the ominous feeling went away. Li Xin stood still for a moment. She was just a small nobody in the Qi Clan; the overlord probably didn’t care too much about her anyway. She did steal from him, but when she considered her options, even if running away would mean being chased to the end of the earth by the Qi Clan, it was better than following Qi Mo around and getting into life or death situations day in and day out.
Having made her decision, she briskly made her way to the other exit door and pushed. It opened without a sound; she was fortunate in that all the people in the conference room were so important and the business they were discussing was so sensitive, because as a result, there was no one guard next to the inner doors. All the security was on the outside of the building, so it was easy for her to get through the various doors.
When she reached the second to last door from the main entrance, she went to the window instead. There was no way she’d be able to exit through the entrance, so the window was her next-best option. She was just about to climb through it when she heard voices coming from the other side of it.
“Is everything ready?” someone asked.
Li Xin swirled around and hid to the side, her back to the wall.
“Everything’s ready. All the guards are stuck outside, and these explosives are enough to kill everyone inside,” she heard another voice respond.
She scrunched up her face, straining to hear better.
“Bunch of scoundrels. Why should a foreigner get our territory? Isn’t the West enough for the Qi Clan? Why should they come take the Southeast Asian territories? I’m going to make them regret this.” The heated words came from a low, narrow voice that was filled with loathing and contempt.
“Bro, keep quiet. There’s no one here, but don’t underestimate the Qi Clan or those other old men. If we want to take them all out, we’re going to have to be careful.”
“I know, I know. Inform all the men that I want them to send these people to hell in ten minutes. Have all the windows and doors been sealed? I want to make sure none of them escapes.”
“They won’t. This hotel is ours. Both the outer doors are deadlocked. Come on, the explosives are all set. Let’s get out of here.”
Li Xin listened to their footsteps get farther away until they faded entirely. Her face had paled over the course of their conversation. She went to the window and leaned over to inspect it. They were right — it was deadlocked, although that was nothing to her. She could see the explosives over the ledge. They were a recent prototype. She recognized it from a job that had involved stealing bronze artifacts from some exceedingly paranoid people. Their safe had been too hard to crack, so she’d used explosives to blow the thing up.
She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. She had observed when they were coming in that this particular window was the only one close to the ground, which was why it had a traditional lock. The other windows were all sealed from the inside and couldn’t be opened at all because they were too high from the ground. Whoever had planned this had been thorough.
She reached for the deadlock on the window and smirked. There weren’t any locks she couldn’t open; these things were merely decoration for experienced thieves.
Then, her hand suddenly froze and she withdrew it for a second. Li Xin turned back towards the direction she had come from, where Qi Mo and the rest still were deep in discussion.
She had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that the Qi Clan people had not treated her so terribly. Sure, she had been made their servant, b
ut considering Qi Mo’s track record with other people that had crossed his path, her punishment had been an act of mercy. And anyway, she had gotten herself in this situation in the first place by stealing from them. When it came down to it, the Qi Clan weren’t actually in the wrong.
Li Xin had always gone her own way, detached from people and commitments, doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, but that certainly didn’t mean she was ruthless. If others treated her fairly, then she would respond in kind.
If she were to be completely honest with herself, technically she owed Qi Mo a favor right now. She hesitated for a few more moments before slapping herself suddenly. Screw it. That’s what she would do — pay him back for stealing his treasure. She turned around and headed back to the conference room.
The room’s glass door was made to be bullet-proof, hence its thickness. Pounding on it was futile because the sound didn’t penetrate into the room. Li Xin waved anxiously, trying to get Qi Mo’s attention, but the damned man wasn’t looking in her direction. She cursed. When she wanted him to be looking at her, he wasn’t, and when she didn’t, he was. She began kicking the door in frustration, still waving her hands frantically.
Qi Mo had his head lowered, concentrating on something in front of him, but suddenly, as if he could sense something, he furrowed his brows and slowly raised his head to see an exasperated Li Xin going crazy outside. His eyes flickered with an indiscernible expression as he observed the anxious expression on her face. He turned to Yellow Falcon and ordered, “Open the door.”
The instant the glass door opened, Li Xin rushed towards Qi Mo. The explosives would go off in ten minutes, and there were seven left. Things weren’t looking too great for them.
“What’s going on?” Qi Mo asked her, turning his cool, detached gaze towards her.
She swept her eyes over the Southeast Asian criminal bosses seated around the room before going up to the Qi Clan overlord and whispering what she had just heard into his ears. She wasn’t an idiot. If she announced the news to everyone in the room, it would turn into every man for himself chaos as all the bosses scrambled for their lives. This was their home base; the Qi Clan were foreigners and had yet to begin setting up their manpower in the area. There was no way any of the others would help them. It was better to just tell Qi Mo and have him decide what he wanted to do.
The seated criminal bosses watched the scene before them bemusedly, looking at each other in confusion. Everyone had heard of Qi Mo’s ruthlessness and how much he detested other people coming into his personal space. Yet there in front of them, there was practically no space between him and the woman whispering to him.
Qi Mo’s face darkened as he listened to Li Xin’s news. He didn’t waste time questioning whether or not she was telling the truth. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her around the waist and pushed her out of the room.
Red Falcon and Yellow Falcon exchanged a look and followed them without a word, leaving behind a room full of flabbergasted criminal bosses sitting in their seats with wide eyes, astonished that this was the rumored king of the criminal underworld.
Nevertheless, they weren’t criminal bosses for nothing; after their shock passed, everyone got out of their seats and rushed after Qi Mo. The Qi Clan was extremely powerful and influential. Qi Mo wouldn’t have left if there wasn’t something serious going on.
“Hurry up, there’s only three minutes left!” Although Qi Mo’s arm around her was pushing them both along at his brisk pace, Li Xin still felt that running would be a lot more efficient. She reached out to grab Qi Mo and took off, racing towards the main entrance.
Qi Mo narrowed his eyes. In all his years in the criminal underworld, he had never lost his cool over anything; he felt that he had yet to reach the point where running was necessary.
He pulled Li Xin back by the waist with one large hand. “Stop panicking,” he said with a deep, low voice as he resumed walking, increasing their pace this time. “I have this.”
Li Xin wasn’t sure whether his calm demeanor came from overconfidence or arrogance.
“Girl, what the hell is going on?” One of the white-haired old men finally asked her with an air of impatience.
She glanced up at Qi Mo, saw no objection in his eyes, and answered him: “Explosives.”