They had never used hot weapons before.

These photos and videos didn't look like they were done by Zhang Beixing and his people at all.

In an instant, the Tietuo City authorities were pushed to the eye of the public storm, with tons of people watching this incident.

Not until half a day later.

A huge explosion rang out in Tietuo City.

With this explosion, Tietuo City's official media finally responded to all the speculation that had been boiling online.

[All media outlets and netizens, please be cautious in your comments. Any accusatory statements made without evidence constitute rumor-mongering. Tietuo City will not launch armed actions against any individual or group without solid criminal evidence. Please speak prudently!]

[Hereby, we solemnly warn Minister Zhang Beixing and the members of the Great Xia Ninth Bureau: We welcome your arrival, but please do not cause damage to our beautiful Tietuo City, otherwise you will be held accountable!]

[...]

A building that had just suffered an explosion and been blasted into rubble.

Xu Feng and a group of Ninth Bureau members were covered in dust and grime.

There wasn't a single clean spot left on any of them.

They had managed to run out before the explosion, but those bastards were way too ruthless, blowing up their own building without even checking if their people had finished scrambling out.

The Ninth Bureau hadn't even killed many people inside, they'd barely started.

Yet they blew themselves up and probably killed over a hundred of their own.

This fucking…

"Captain, look, this is what the Minister had someone translate and send over."

Huang Hai handed over his phone. Xu Feng took it and saw it was exactly the announcement just released by Tietuo City's officials.

Do not cause damage to the beautiful Tietuo City…

Seeing this line, Xu Feng's face twitched slightly, his expression turning strange.

He glanced at a few of his teammates.

"Did our squad cause any damage to Tietuo City?"

Wang Xinqi shook his head like a rattle-drum. "Nope, wasn't it their own good citizens who blew it up? What's it got to do with us?"

"Exactly."

Xu Feng was too tired to even mock it.

They were obviously being watched under tight surveillance.

The bomb had gone off barely over a minute ago.

And this announcement was posted roughly one minute ago.

The time gap between the two was probably only a matter of a few dozen seconds.

The announcement went up this fast.

Tsk tsk, they must've had the draft written and typeset long ago, just waiting for the explosion here to go off so they could hit send over there, huh?

These fucking people, really brain-dead enough, just waiting to dump this giant blame-pot onto the Ninth Bureau. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Xu Feng splashed some mineral water over his face, giving it a rough rinse. Still filthy, but at least he wasn't a walking dust statue anymore.

He spat on the ground and said, "Let's go. This base is a bust. We'd better hurry to the next spot."

"Everyone be careful this time. If we end up this miserable again and any footage gets sent back home, just watch the Minister tear us a new one."

"The Minister, that old man, cares about his face more than anything."

Xu Feng tossed the empty bottle onto the ground and took the lead toward their next target.

The other team members hurried to follow, imitating him along the way and rinsing themselves off with mineral water.

The captain was right. If someone snapped photos of them looking like this—dusty, like a bunch of losers—and it went viral on Great Xia's Douyin, they'd be flamed to death.

The group left.

No one so much as spared a glance at the pile of rubble behind them.

And that very building just so happened to be Tietuo City's biggest Mafia organization run by Black Ghosts, wrapped in the skin of a legit company.

...

...

On top of a building two kilometers away.

Zhang Beixing stood on a balcony, looking at the thick plume of smoke rising in the distance.

His face twitched slightly, and clutched in his hand was his phone, right on the interface where he'd just sent Xu Feng a message.

"These little punks, can't do anything without kicking up this big a fuss."

Zhang Beixing was speechless.

It wasn't that he was speechless about Xu Feng and the others failing the mission, but that those Black Ghosts, jittery like frightened birds, were actually this cautious.

According to the info Xu Feng sent back, after they entered the building, they didn't see a single trace of the organization's leaders.

Forget leaders, they didn't even see a single high-level member—just a bunch of small fry.

And after they were discovered, those patrolling Black Ghost guards, panicked and flustered, didn't even fight back. The first thing they did was grab their walkie-talkies and start shouting.

No one could even tell what the hell they were yelling.

Anyway, as soon as they finished yelling, Xu Feng instinctively felt something was off and immediately led his squad to turn around and run.

Thankfully, Xu Feng's reaction speed was fast enough.

If they'd stayed for just two or three seconds more, someone from the squad would've died in that building.

They weren't like Zhang Beixing, impervious to blades and bullets.

Taking a direct blast from that much explosive—forget about anyone else—even Xu Feng, a Half-Step Grandmaster, probably wouldn't have made it, let alone Class A Martial Artists like Yu Yao and Yin Mengwei.

If they'd tried to tank the bomb, the only outcome would've been death. No alternative.

Fortunately, they jumped straight down from the high-rise and didn't suffer any serious injuries. Only one team member had a minor bone fracture, nothing too serious.

Zhang Beixing let out a bitter laugh.

Thinking back to that big pot-bellied figure he'd seen earlier.

If he hadn't messed around last night and startled the snake, things wouldn't have turned out like this.

Tietuo City was happy enough—some small-time thugs got cleared out, but none of the truly dangerous guys were taken down.

All the really big trouble was left for him.

"Guess I turned into his unpaid labor."

Zhang Beixing shook his head with a helpless smile and didn't say anything more.

In his eyes, these were all small matters.

And where Zhang Beixing was standing right now was the rooftop of the D&E Organization's headquarters building.

This time, Zhang Beixing had definitely learned his lesson the hard way.

Don't these D&E Organization bastards love to hop on helicopters from the roof and run?

Fine, then this time he'd just do the opposite.

Instead of fighting his way up from the bottom floor, he'd start from the top.

Right now, all the helicopters on the rooftop looked bare and normal at a glance, nothing suspicious, just regular choppers.

But if you took a good look, you'd notice.

Hm?

Why were all the choppers bald on top?

Didn't they all love riding helicopters so much? Well, the rotor blades were all removed. Let's see how they plan to fly now.

Zhang Beixing let out two cold chuckles. As for the helicopter pilots, it was simple—he'd driven them all into the cramped machine room on the roof.

The space was so tight they couldn't even stand up straight. They could only squeeze together awkwardly, half-sitting, thoroughly miserable.

Zhang Beixing used his broken English to tell them,

"Don't run around. If you run, you lose your lives."

Even though his English was clumsy, these helicopter pilots were all well-educated and more or less understood what Zhang Beixing meant.

The machine room was uncomfortable as hell.

But it was still better than being those people downstairs who were about to face despair and death.

They watched Zhang Beixing leave. He didn't take the elevator, but went down via the emergency stairwell.

Just one floor down was the office of the Lanxi Kingdom DE Organization branch president.

Every branch's internal layout was different, but one thing didn't change: the rooftop was always on the top floor.

It was just that this time, the top floor didn't have a conference room, so Zhang Beixing couldn't catch them all in one net—the conference room was on the floor below.

The branch president alone occupied an entire floor.

When Zhang Beixing stepped onto that floor, because the president demanded privacy, there weren't even security cameras installed, not to mention any security personnel.

This surprised Zhang Beixing a little.

Hm?

No cameras on this floor made sense, but why weren't there even two bodyguards?

Was this guy really that careless with his own life?

He quickly understood why.

When he walked up to a door and heard the strange cries coming from inside, rising and falling in waves,

Zhang Beixing got it.

So he'd picked a pretty bad time to drop in, huh?