The Universe Jumper Chapter 04 Part 02
Chapter 04 Part 2/2: Hijacking
When they were leaving, Yun Fan said that she needed to go to her original office to fetch some remaining items, so she got Jiang Liu and Qi Fei to wait for her downstairs. Standing in the school campus, Jiang Liu and Qi Fei watch boys and girls moving back and forth. It was as if time and space were staggered, and they have returned to their youthful past.
"You are extraordinarily quiet today; that’s not how you are normally." Jiang Liu said to Qi Fei.
"I'm usually quite quiet," Qi Fei said.
Jiang Liu smiled, "Are you quiet? I didn't see you stay quiet when you bickered with me."
Qi Fei gave him a look, "That's because you don't understand me."
"Honestly speaking," Jiang Liu said in a serious tone, "The things discussed with Yun Fan’s professor were not what you wanted to talk about, right?"
Qi Fei did not speak.
"The things Yun Fan’s professor talked about---did you know about it all beforehand?"
"Yeah." Qi Fei nodded.
"That was from ten years ago?" Jiang Liu thought for a while, "Yun Fan should be in high school?"
"Ninth grade." Qi Fei said.
"What was going on at the time? Tell me." Jiang Liu asked curiously, "Yun Fan said several times that she regretted it later. Why? What did she do? Why did she regret it later?"
"She didn't do anything." Qi Fei said, "It's not her who did the wrong thing."
"Then who was it?"
Qi Fei glared at him a bit of annoyance, "You’re both smart and stupid. What's smart about you is that you can see that I don't want to talk, but what's stupid about you is that you obviously know that I don't want to talk, but you keep going on and on. Did you know that only bored old ladies like to ramble and be nosy about other people's affairs?"
Jiang Liu smiled and said, "You’re discriminating against old women, and you’re disrespecting women--- I want to sue you."
Qi Fei said, "Then you’re a rambling old man! Anyway, I don't want to talk to you. Go find a corner and stay quiet."
At this moment, music sounded from Qi Fei's jacket pocket. Qi Fei took out a folded device and flipped it open into a communication device. He glanced at the name displayed on it, and a trace of embarrassment flashed across his face. He didn't want to answer, so he closed the device and put it away. The folded device rang again, so he hung up and put it away again. The folded device rang persistently for the third time.
Just when Qi Fei was hesitating to pick it up, a clear and sweet female voice sounded from behind them, "Qi Fei!"
They looked back and saw a tall girl with long hair, wearing a black turtle-neck shirt with mid-length sleeves and a short skirt. With a gentle smile on her face, she walked gracefully towards them. The first impression that this girl left on Jiang Liu was that she was well-mannered, and every step she took, it was steady and dignified. It was obvious that her family has taught her well since her gestures were of proper etiquette. She looked like a breeze blowing by during spring.
"Bai Lu." Qi Fei greeted her in a low voice.
"It was indeed you who came." Bai Lu smiled slightly, "This afternoon, I noticed that your off-road vehicle was in the parking lot in front of the school, so I guessed it was you, but I wasn’t sure. I even called my dad; he said that you aren’t on any mission that required you to come to our school. After I asked about your car number, I was certain that it was your car. That’s why I called you. Although you didn’t pick up, I heard the ringing from a distance, so I followed the sound to find you... Is this your friend?"
"Yeah, um, this is Jiang Liu." Qi Fei said, "He’s from Hawaii."
"Oh, Hawaii is a great place. You’re not used to the climate here yet, are you?" Bai Lu smiled comfortably.
"All good, all good. The great food and abundant beauties here makes up for it.” Jiang Liu tilted his head and smiled.
"You came just in time," Bai Lu spoke to Qi Fei again, "Are you coming to my house for dinner tonight? My mother finally came back from the resort, and she brought back a lot of matsutake mushrooms from Yun’nan. We’re going to have home-made dinner in the evening. Your friend can also come."
"Oh, no, thank you," Qi Fei rejected, "I still have work at night."
Jiang Liu hurriedly waved his hand and said, "It's alright, it's alright. You don't have to work at night. If anything happens, I will be there to handle it. Just go ahead. Go, go."
At this moment, Yun Fan walked out of the building, carrying a cardboard box in her hands. There were some books and folders in the cardboard box. Before she walked over to Qi Fei and Jiang Liu's side, she noticed Bai Lu. Yun Fan stopped, two or three meters away from them, and did not continue to move forward. Qi Fei didn't see Yun Fan, and he only noticed her when Jiang Liu came forward and took the box out of Yun Fan's hands.
For almost five seconds, no one spoke. Yun Fan focused on Qi Fei and Bai Lu, while Bai Lu looked at Yun Fan curiously. She didn't seem to know Yun Fan, so she glanced at Qi Fei, waiting for Qi Fei to introduce her, but Qi Fei looked to the side and it didn't seem like he planned to introduce them to each other. Bai Lu also noticed Yun Fan's unnatural avoidance, and she could sense the strangeness in the situation. Everyone was waiting for the other person to speak first and break the ice.
"Fan’fan, let's go." Jiang Liu perceived the whole situation very clearly. He said, "Qi Fei has met a friend, so he won't be eating with us tonight."
Yun Fan nodded and followed Jiang Liu towards the outside of the school. Jiang Liu was carrying the cardboard box, and Yun Fan had her arms out to help him. From a distance, it looked like Yun Fan was holding Jiang Liu's arm with both of her hands. The two walked straight ahead, and no one looked back. However, even without looking back, they knew that the two people behind them did not move at all and were watching them leave.
"Should I be grateful to Bai Lu? " Jiang Liu looked at the side of Yun Fan's profile meaningfully, "If she didn’t come, you would never hold my arm."
Yun Fan bit her lip, glared at him, and said, "I am holding my box. The books in it are precious. I'm afraid of it dropping to the ground."
"You have no fate with Qi Fei, but the two of us do," Jiang Liu said half jokingly and half seriously, "Tell me, what do you want to eat tonight? My treat. Although I have never been to Xi’an, I also have a place here.”
Yun Fan called a car. First, she dropped off the black box and cardboard box at Qin Mausoleum, and then she returned to the city with Jiang Liu. She hoped that they would be able to set the flight time and the specific process tonight. Jiang Liu said that he needed to find a place to contact his family. Thus, Yun Fan followed Jiang Liu into the city to what he called "my place".
Yun Fan blushed when she reached the place, and she almost didn't want to go in. It turned out to be a nightclub. Jiang Liu told her that this is a sub-brand of his family's subsidiary business. It was just a place to facilitate communication within the family businesses, so there were no issues with the place. Yun Fan reluctantly followed him in. At the entrance of the nightclub was a ‘Cloud Path’. When the guests come, they would first stand on a cloud by stepping on a little platform surrounded by soft smoke that covers the person’s feet. Even when looking down, the person would feel like they were standing in the clouds. These clouds would transport guests through different passages, and the place was surrounded by tunnels of light. Sometimes they moved up or in circles; this way, every guest who enters the venue wouldn't be able to figure out what path they have taken, or see other guests. The surrounding walls were a mixture of reality and illusions. Sometimes it looked like they were going to hit the wall with their heads, but instead, they would go through the “wall” to enter another passage. Sometimes, they would slide toward a corridor, but then the corridor would suddenly turn into a landscape painting, and it turned out everything was just an AR display. Yun Fan had no idea where she was.
"Feeling a bit dizzy?" Jiang Liu explained with a grin, "It’s only safe this way."
"What’s safe? Who’s safe?" Yun Fan asked.
"Think about it." Jiang Liu smiled mysteriously.
Yun Fan still wanted to ask, but suddenly, a trace of information slipped in her mind, and she instantly understood why.
Yun Fan didn’t know exactly what kind of business Jiang Liu's family was involved in, but she had heard that his ancestors were the first to start in the currency industry. However, they did not rely on playing in the stock market. Instead, they processed anonymous transactions with digital currencies on the global chain. Yun Fan suddenly recalled that on the other day, Jiang Liu had said that he angered his father because he leaked information on the "uranium transaction". With this in mind, she was able to roughly guess what they wanted to hide. She believed that it must not be the purchase information of raw material for ordinary nuclear power plants. Even using her toes to think, she knew where the materials were shipped to. In addition, Jiang Liu’s "Heaven’s Reward" on the private chain has rapidly expanded into the world's largest intelligence organization in just a few years. This was not achievable by a genius who has a PhD alone--- the foundation of the system was most likely derived from his family's long-term dark web transactions.
Jiang Liu took Yun Fan to a small room. There were endless mirrors spanning from top to bottom, making it seem like they were deep in the abyss of time and space. Jiang Liu waved his hand, changing the surrounding display to birds and flowers, while one side of the display became a communication screen.
Shortly after, Uncle Bo's face appeared on the screen.
"You brat, how dare you still try to contact me!" Uncle Bo’s bottled up anger exploded when he saw Jiang Liu, "You snuck off by yourself, and your father almost skinned me! Next time when I see you, you bet I’m going to skin you!"
"You have returned home?" Jiang Liu grinned, revealing his white teeth.
"No shit. You think I would wait for you in Xi'an for the rest of my life?" Uncle Bo said angrily.
"Uncle Bo," Jiang Liu said with a sweet but mischievous tone, "I'll give you a chance to beat me up soon. You can beat me up first, and I will give you a massage on your shoulders and feet. As long as you help me get the Yin Ying Company to send me a private space shuttle to outer space, I will immediately run over to you and stick my butt out so you can beat me. While you beat me, I will also yell out Uncle Bo is great! Uncle Bo is so handsome!"
"You brat..." Uncle Bo became even more angry when he heard this. He was so angry that he was speechless. "You really know how to make calculations! You want to exchange a beating for a space shuttle to go to outer space! You must be very cheap then, huh? You owed me this beating from a few days ago so you deserve to be beaten up! You think a few sugar coated words could be exchanged for a space shuttle? Aren’t you being a little too optimistic? !"
"Two beatings is fine too. When we get back from outer space, you can beat me again."
"No way. The launch schedule of space shuttles is scheduled by the Yin Ying Company. It is fixed for each season quarter and your dad has to approve of it himself."
"You’re talking about commercial use, and I’m talking about private space shuttles. I know that there are four." Jiang Liu raised his eyebrows, "My dad always uses them when he takes special guests out for a ride. I remember that there was a year during Christmas, when he invited the British Prime Minister and his family. My sister went too. Didn’t we also ride one? There are also two high-powered ones that are used for special missions; they can travel as far as the distance to Mars. These ones are not for commercial use, so their schedules are tentative."
"You brat, you know quite a bit." Uncle Bo sneered, "Then you must know that if you want to use these private space shuttles, you have to obtain your dad’s approval."
"Not necessarily... There are emergency policies. Wartime Measures. I know about it. Sometimes during the events of some big stars or big bosses, they can have it arranged." Jiang Liu furrowed his eyebrows for Uncle Bo to see, "Uncle Bo, can you go ask around? If you help me this time, next time when I go home, you can chose to kill or torture me, all up to you! I I don't utter a single word."
"What good is it for me to kill you? Not gonna help."
"What about the two bottles of premium whiskey? Three bottles?"
"Do you think I can't afford that?" Uncle Bo proudly said.
"Then I will go skiing with you for a month?"
"One month?"
"One month. I promise!”
Uncle Bo still reluctantly said, "It was never a good thing to hang out with a brat like you. Every time you drag me down into the water to drown with you. You make it sound so simple, but in the end, I’m the one that has to wipe your butt. Which girl are you trying to court this time?"
After he finished speaking, he saw Jiang Liu's winking eyes and then he finally noticed Yun Fan sitting in the corner of the small room. He quickly changed his words, "Oh, how could I forget? You are discussing research in Xi'an. Research related questions, research related questions."
Jiang Liu had a spat with Uncle Bo again, then told Uncle Bo to update him when he had news, and then he turned off the screen. He could see that Yun Fan's expression was filled with scorn. From Uncle Bo’s last few words, she was probably able to guess that Jiang Liu had asked Uncle Bo many times to help him pursue girls. Jiang Liu couldn't explain it to her either. These things were indeed things that he had done before. He didn't know whether he should explain or not. It was not good to not explain, but it seemed like it would make matters worse if he explained.
Jiang Liu knew that his private life was not considered to be simple. He started studying abroad in high school. During high school and university, he often joined street hooligans to go to nightclubs and enjoy nightlife. Every single time he went out to drink with friends, he got intimate with girls he just met after drinking. He had a few girlfriends before, but never for more than three months. The biggest difference between a girlfriend and a girl he met while dancing was that he was able to remember his girlfriend's name. This kind of life provided him with temporary joy because he didn’t have to think about things that he didn’t want to face. He couldn't restrain his Socratic way of thinking where he had to investigate everything thoroughly, but at the same time, he wasn’t able to answer the questions in his heart. Every time he felt bad about himself, he wasn’t able to find a sense of self-validation from anywhere, and everything felt like it was reduced to nothingness. He was only able to get a moment of rest in drunkenness and from superficial entertainment. If not, he would be exhausted by his endless questioning.
But how could he explain this to Yun Fan?
So Jiang Liu pretended nothing happened and continued to arrange work. In addition to scheduling a space shuttle, he has to make many other arrangements. He first pulled up the private chain data, made some contacts and inquiries, and then ran two automatic programs to help him search for something. The manager came in and whispered something to him, and two more girls came in and talked to Jiang Liu. The two girls wore sexy bodycon dresses and sat on either side of Jiang Liu on the sofa chair as soon as they entered the door. They lowered their heads, listening to his assignments. Although there was no inappropriate behavior involved, the scene was beautifully scandalous.
When Jiang Liu was almost done arranging everything, he raised his head up, only to find that Yun Fan was gone.
Jiang Liu knew that Yun Fan didn't like seeing scenes like this, so she must have stepped out. However, Yun Fan was not familiar with this place, so he wasn’t sure if she could find the right way. Jiang Liu quickly jumped up and ran out the door. The Cloud Path was very slow and for the first time, he disliked this design and wanted to jump off and walk by himself. The nightclub was full of twists and turns. In addition to the numerous small rooms, there were also large panoramic AR night sky dance rooms, karaoke rooms, illusionary brainwave massage rooms and so on. Even Jiang Liu himself has never been to so many different types of places. He only knew that this was one of his family's most profitable industries during the war era. In the years of technological isolation and fragmentation, and industrial destruction, half of the company group's annual profit was supported by their global nightclub industry. He shuttled past the green and red lit rooms, looking for Yun Fan, and he was getting a little bit dizzy.
He only received Yun Fan's message when he went out into the streets.
"Come to the old city wall to find me. Chang'le Gate." The message was brief.
Jiang Liu casually hailed a cab and made his way towards the old city wall. He faintly felt that something was wrong, but he didn't have time to think much into it. He wished that he could make the car drive faster. There was a traffic jam halfway, so Jiang Liu got out of the car and ran on the street. In the chaotic times and depression, most of the small shops in the area were closed. Some people were sitting and doing nothing in the streets, their clothes shabby and ripped. Jiang Liu sprinted as if he was traveling through different worlds.
He ran all the way to the old city wall in one go, Jiang Liu calmed his breath in front of the Chang'le Gate. He looked around, but Yun Fan was nowhere in sight. Instead, he saw Qi Fei. He stepped forward to inquire, only to realize that Qi Fei had received the same message.
"Oh no." He and Qi Fei said in unison.
When Yun Fan left Jiang Liu's nightclub, she found that she had gone through the wrong door-- it was not the same one that they had entered through at the beginning. Yun Fan had completely lost her sense of direction. Inside the nightclub, she walked outwards along the cloud path. Every time the AI navigator asked her to choose a destination, she chose the direction of the exit, so the cloud path twisted and turned, and sent her to an exit. However, she had no idea where she was. After exiting the building, she arrived at a small alley surrounded by warehouses and empty yards of waste accumulation. She saw that there was no way to get a taxi here, so she walked outwards towards the nearest road.
After getting onto the road, she wanted to call for a car, but the signal strength on her folding device kept fluctuating, so she was unable to make a call. However, she was sometimes able to send out a message. After fiddling around with it for a long time, a car finally stopped in front of her. She felt relieved when she got in the car.
Images of Jiang Liu and Qi Fei flashed across Yun Fan’s mind from time to time, and then the images of other girls around them flashed by too. She didn't want to think of them, so she adjusted her breath, restrained her thoughts, and used her usual meditation techniques to focus on calming her nerves. She focused solely on her inner and rational thinking, and she tried to not let the chaotic memories disturb her emotions.
After closing her eyes and adjusting her breath for ten minutes, Yun Fan's thoughts finally calmed down and her emotions became stable. Qi Fei and Jiang Liu no longer appeared in her mind, instead, her mind was reoccupied by all of the information and plans. She couldn’t let herself be emotional. The only thing that can keep her mind calm was making organized plans and constantly completing her task list.
She didn't pay attention to the window along the way. When she first got in the car, she stated the Qin Mausoleum’s address, but instead of driving towards Qin Mausoleum, the car wove around the streets and went towards the downtown area. On normal days, a person as cautious as Yun Fan would have discovered that something was wrong from the very beginning. However, today, her thoughts are disturbed, so she controlled her breath and practiced mindful introspection, and she didn’t notice the scenery outside the window at all. Because of this, the person who set her up was able to attain their goal very easily.
The car door opened, and a young man in a suit appeared.
Before Yun Fan could react, the young man reached out and struck her temple. He might have had something like a miniature anesthesia gun in his hand; she didn't see it clearly. She felt a convulsion on her temple, and then she lost consciousness.
"Old city wall. Chang'le Gate." The young man said to the car.
He pushed Yun Fan and checked that she was still breathing. The car started. A satisfied smile appeared on the man's face. He was looking forward to the meeting later, and couldn't help rubbing his fingers together. A few days ago, when the spies he sent to track Jiang Liu and Qi Fei reported the same person’s name and location, he already wanted to see what kind of girl she was and what kind of attractive treasure she was holding.
Chang'le Gate was not far away.
Comments
Post a Comment