Tang Mu was in a video conference with some people. He organised a press conference with the aid of lawyers to verify what had happened and to give his side of the story.
He had asked them to create a narrative that showed Wu Yihuan and the shopkeeper were in cahoots together to swindle him out of more money over the book.
He had to make this right, well, according to his standards, not only because of his mother but also his own standing in both high society and the Tang family as a whole.
However, before all of that could even happen, armed police suddenly stormed the mansion.
"The hell is this!? Hey! Now's the time, go and negotiate with the appropriate people. Find that woman and that old man and make them pay."
"Also, find out what Gaoshan is doing! See how they're related to those two and have a team meet me at the police station, looks like they came to pick me up, so let's give them a show. Make sure it looks good too, since they've all already been labeled as incompetent."
"As you wish."
The team swiftly arrested the four involved in the "Tang Riots". They found the two goons from the video nursing their wounds and the elder with Tang Mu.
The mansions staff and security were also corralled together and questioned while the other four were taken back to central station.
Meanwhile, at the hospital doctors had reset all of Wu Yihuan's limbs, they were amazed that they were only dislocated at the joints and that no serious damage was done.
What the doctors didn't know however was that, the two goons and even the elder had attacked her precisely to maim her.
She just calculated the the attacks and made small adjustments with her body in order to minimise the damage.
Being the commander of PIT wasn't just a fancy title. Plus she was a soldier to begin with.
The extra training she took and so forth helped her out immensely.
The rest of her wounds were mainly bruises and inflammation. The doctors would keep observations to make sure fluids don't build up in certain areas.
While Wu Yihuan lay unconscious in a hospital bed, Qin Qianyu lay in a bed of thick grass as she trailed the armed group.
Soon chaos ensued inside the village.
Everyone was rounded up and separated into
small manageable groups. The guide had picked out a young girl from the group and started dragging her away from the village.
This was his payment for leading the group here.
The groups leader said to the translator,
"Remind him to keep his damn mouth shut if he knows what's good for him. Otherwise, I'll pay a visit to his village and slaughter the whole lot of them."
The translator relayed the leaders words to the guide. The guide looked around and saw the wounded and dead men there and nodded his understanding.
The guide had bond the girls hands behind her then tied a rope around her waist to and pulled her along as he walked in front of her.
The girl started to protest. This annoyed the guide so he gagged her as well.
While he was doing this, his actions stopped midway.
His body was locked in place and he couldn't move any of his limbs. His eyes darted around and he noticed a hooded shadow.
"Is this the person they were looking for?"
He thought to himself, he tried to call out for the armed men but nothing came out. He started to panic now.
Qin Qianyu not only locked up his movements but also his vocal fold. She quickly came up to the distraught girl and held a finger up to her lips before doing a certain motion and tapping her ears.
Qin Qianyu was telling the girl using gestures to keep quiet and not alert any of the men in the village. The girl seemed to understand that much to Qin Qianyu's relief.
Qin Qianyu unbound the girl and then used that same rope to bound the guide. Qin Qianyu carried the man and told the girl to follow her.
They came to a group of trees and bound the guide to the tree.
Qin Qianyu turned to the girl. She was in a bind, wondering how she would communicate with her.
"My name is Siphong, Siphong Kham. Thank you for helping me."
Siphong says with a heavy accented English tone. She then turned to the bound guide and stomped on him as she muttered out a curse.
"You can speak in English! . . Great! I am the Phantom Fox. I've come looking for someone, he was last heard from . . somewhere around this area."
"Yes, I can speak. I'll go now, I must help the other villagers, my people and family."
"Wait, don't rush in just yet."
"I must, they shot my dad,"
Qin Qianyu nodded. She understood this too, if she were in the girls shoes she wouldn't stick around talking nonsense with a fox masked stranger either.
"I'll help too, I need to find out what those people want."
The two girls left the tree line with the guide body locked and tied to a tree. They soon made their way into the village.
The villagers had been separated into three groups. Men women and children.
Two groups had three armed men watching over them, one, had four and the leader and translator were drilling them all for information on Wú Haodong.
When an answer wasn't given they would beat a child or shoot an elder. They wanted to show them that they indeed meant business.
"Boss I'm hungry."
"We just ate moments ago!"
"I want to eat something else though."
The armed man says to the leader. He had a hand full of a girls hair letting his fingers run through it as he sniffed it, lightly inhaling the flower scented locks.
The leader saw this and frowned as he angrily stated,
"Work first, then you can play all you want!"
"Wait! . . On second thought, go, go have your fill."
The leader says again. He only said as much as he noticed the look in a certain elders face.
That elder soon broke free and mad a dash towards the armed man taking the girl away.
However, he didn't get far.
Two gun shots rang out. The elder was clipped in the legs by the two bullets,
"I'm starting to loose my damn patience! . . Old man you better speak up or you can watch that pretty young thing get violated before I let you watch her die."
"What's it going to be?"
The old man was relayed the words the leader just spoke.
"Please she's just a child! I really don't know what you're looking for!? That man the brought you here, his village is in bad terms with ours! You've all been tricked by him."
The interpreter replied to the leader,
It was the same as the other 4 villages they had gone to, another just wanted the women, livestock and land and they used them to get it.
The leader was beyond pissed now. His boss had given him a task to track down a Chinese national here in Laos but as soon as they had him it wasn't long before he was rescued by another Chinese man, an old man at that.
The old man had been wounded when he and the target escaped. These guys were one of seven teams that had been staking out all the villages that headed out of Laos to the tripoint.
"Fuck it all! . . Leave no one,"
The leader yelled out in frustration. He deemed this village a bust and it finally got to him.
The group sighed to themselves and looked over the villagers, the gunmen showed no sign of remorse for what they were about to do as they primed their weapons and got ready to mass murder the entire village.
Suddenly, three of the twelve men stood there not moving, then another three.
Gunshots soon echoed out, the sound came from a hut close by. Distracted by the sound the other men all turned towards that hut.
As they did, none of them noticed a hooded woman flashing behind them locking their bodies in place, not even the villagers, as they all had their heads down.
None of them dared to look up.
There were only three men left now. The gun man that was "hungry" the groups leader and the interpreter.
The next person on Qin Qianyu's list was the gunman holding on to the young girl. However, before she could make a line towards him, the interpreter turned around and spotted her.
"Behind you!"
The he yelled aloud. The gunman and the leader turned to see Qin Qianyu. The leader was flummoxed, he noticed that all but the three of them didn't move when the interpreter called out.
"Tsk, . . Big mouth!"
" . . . "
Qin Qianyu looked towards the interpreter and muttered. The interpreter went wide eyed as Qin Qianyu disappeared from his line of sight.
Using shadowless steps she flashed in a blink of an eye to the gunman holding the girl. When he saw Qin Qianyu disappear right before him, the man started to panic and reached for his gun.
The rifle muzzle lit up as he sprayed bullets in the general direction Qin Qianyu was last last seen at.
Some of the bullets had strayed and hit the villagers. Screams echoed out as several woman and children were hit.
Suddenly, the gunman saw the rifles magazine fall and the barrel had pointed skyward.
Qin Qianyu was next to the man and she had pressed a few points on his body causing his body to lock up. She wasted no time after that and flashed towards the frightened interpreter.
She didn't bother to lock him, she just gave the scared man a roundhouse kick to the side of the head knocking him to the ground.
He didn't move after that.
"Just you left now."
Qin Qianyu quipped as she looked to the groups leader.
He simply sneered at her then added,
"So you were hiding here all along huh? So that old man must be here too."
Qin Qianyu was surprised, the man was speaking Chinese fluently,
"I don't know if he's here or not? I was just passing by when I came across all of this."
"Oh? So your government sent another to find the old man and the kid?"
"Nope, nothing of the sort. I just came out for a walk and found you lot here that's all,"
" . . . "
"Well, that's enough about me, let me ask you about this old man, he might be the one I'm looking for. How about you and I have a little chit chat about that?"
"How about . . Get fucked!"
The man says as he pulled out a large pistol. Qin Qianyu recognised this as a flare gun.
"Calling for back up!?"
With a flick of her wrist, she sent two needles flying which hit the man's shoulders. Both his arms fell to the side unmoving.
"You . . What did you do!?"
"Hush for a moment will you now, there'll be plenty of time for questions and answers."
Qin Qianyu says as she flashed in front of him and locked his body in place.
"Siphong, it's safe now, tell the villagers not to harm this man, and the skinny man with the glasses, the others, they can do with as they please."
Siphong Kham came out from behind the hut that she was hiding behind with a rifle in hand.
When Qin Qianyu had taken out the first lot of the armed group, she took the gun back and had Siphong shoot to distract those men.
"Make sure they don't do anything to this man here as he has information I need. After I get what I want I'll leave him to the village so he can answer for what he's done. Oh! And don't forget the old man by the tree."
Siphong Kham nodded and after telling the villagers they all got up and ran to their family members from their respective groups.
"Ask those men to take all of their weapons off of them. Organise those that have any healing skills to bring all the wounded to the village hall. That'll be our triage. Ask them to attend to the wounded the best they can, and I'll lend a hand too. Please have those that are able to, have them take care of their dead."
Siphong Kham nodded and relayed all of Qin Qianyu's words to the villagers.
They started getting busy as did Qin Qianyu. She took the leader and the interpreter and placed them in the hall with the injured where she could see them.
The villagers were scared at first not only of the two men but also of Qin Qianyu. The mask gave them an ominous feeling, especially with the kids.
Qin Qianyu smiled, then she made the decision to take off the fox mask. When she did, all of the kids didn't feel like they were looking at a monster that would take them away.
Starting with the children, Qin Qianyu used all the skills she had learnt to date as effectively and efficiently as she could.
Most of the children only had bruises and such with only a handful having been wounded by bullets of from being beaten too heavily.
She reached into her bag and pulled out jars of ointment, salves, pills and her 5 form liquid. She handed off the jars and had Siphong tell the others what use each medicine has.
The ointments were promptly used on those with bruises and superficial wounds.
She removed bullets and had the others stitch up the wounds and apply the antiseptic salves. She had blocked their pain receptors so the kids didn't feel it.
Next came the elderly, she did the same with them too, blocking the pain, fishing out the metal slug, disinfecting the wounds and leaving them to be sewed up.
All of the others had the same treatment done to them also. After an hours time, all the wounded were seen to.
"Thanks for your help, it means a lot."
Siphong Kham says as she handed Qin Qianyu a cup of water. Qin Qianyu smiled and nodded as she took the water and drank it all.
"It's fine, I'm glad I could help."
Qin Qianyu says as she placed her mask back on.
"Why do you wear this?"
Qin Qianyu didn't even have to think as she pointed out the group's s leader and stated,
"It's to protect my family. If the wrong people know who I am, they'll come after me through my family."
Siphong Kham nodded in understanding. She was amazed to see all the people Qin Qianyu had attended to up and about so quickly.
"You're a good doctor, and fighter. Our village was blessed to have you come here. You said before that you're looking for someone?"
"Mhm, that's right! I'm looking for my master. His last communication came from around this area, I think these people are looking for him too. If master has a contact here then it's probably why these people came here too. Can you ask the elders for assistance? I really need to find him."
"Yes, I'll ask now."
Siphong Kham left, then all the villages in the make shift triage came up and thanked her too for helping out the village and its people.
Qin Qianyu was starting to get a little flustered from them, her neck was starting to hurt a little too as she nodded nonstop, like some chicken pecking at the ground.
Qin Qianyu broke away from the villagers and took a rope, she grabbed the interpreter bound him up by the neck before waking him up.
"You're finally with us now, so tell me. Where have you all gone, what have you all done and who's the people in charge of you and this group that came here?"
The woke interpreter was still disoriented. He slowly took stock of the situation and when he looked around, all he saw and felt were the angry villagers staring at him with absolute hate.
He soon saw their leader leaning against the wall in a seated position, he quickly noticed that the man wasn't moving or responsive at all and this scared him.
He told Qin Qianyu everything he knew.
The group were hired to kidnap some Chinese national who had come to Laos on some fact finding expedition on a new temple that was recently unearthed.
There main goal however wasn't the man they were sent to kidnap but rather the person sent to rescue him.
"Their main target was Grandpa Wú from the start? . . It seems it was an inside gig!"
Qin Qianyu says internally. This pissed her off, that's why she never wanted to get involved with anything involving politics. It was easy for those that were politically motivated to cause problems for anyone.
The interpreter continued,
Their orders were to execute the person that was sent. When the rescuer came, the group didn't heed the warnings their contact had given them. The contact had extensively told the group that this person was on the national heroes list and shouldn't be underestimated at all, but the groups main leader got greedy.
When he heard the the person coming was so important he saw this as an opportunity to make some major bank. They would hold the man hostage and trade that man's life for a huge payout.
However, the main leader only called for three 10 men squads to deal with Grandpa Wú.
"When he wiped those squads all out, that was when our leader changed his mind about ransom ing off the man and ordered all troops to take him out, he managed to take out another 164 of our people before he escaped with the archeologist. However, although he was good, he didn't seem in good health and the soldiers managed to wound him good, but we still lost them both."
"So now you're all looking for him?"
"That's right."
"How many? . . How many people are looking for him?"
"Around 2000 armed soldiers are here in Laos, with another 10,000 or so are waiting near the tripoint border."
"Describe the contact person,"
He gave a general description of height and build but said the the man's face was covered but he also confirm that the contact person was a Chinese national. The interpreter didn't know anymore than that.