When the three arrived at an abandoned industrial park, they were greeted by a massive fireball rising into the sky.
Jack parked his car nearly a kilometer from the center of the explosion. Minutes later, a continuous crackling sound began to echo from the roof.
With a clang, a twisted and deformed metal pipe, its former purpose unrecognizable, fell onto the front of the car. Someone was just a fraction away from switching vehicles.
"Ashiba," Ma Xidao muttered, hurriedly putting on a pig-snout gas mask at Jack's reminder.
Jack immediately called Jiang Zhentai's cell phone. The good news was that the call went through, but the bad news was that no one answered.
"Keep going? There shouldn't be a nerve agent leak." If there had indeed been a nerve agent leak, even with gas masks, the three would have been experiencing the "three streams and four contractions" by now.
The "three streams" refers to drooling, tears, and sweating, while the "four contractions" are pupil constriction, bronchial constriction, gastrointestinal contraction, and muscle contraction.
As someone who possessed a sacred book on time travel, Jack possessed a wealth of knowledge in this area.
With the consent of the two people in the car, he drove the Suburban forward, soon arriving at the explosion site.
Screams could be heard from the burning rubble. Several police officers, unable to retreat in time, were trapped beneath the collapsed factory wall.
"Help! Help! Help!" A dusty Jiang Zhentai, braving the flames, dug through the rubble. Beneath him lay a young police officer, seemingly in his early twenties, his eyes closed, his life or death uncertain.
Lin Zheling, nearby, used a wooden stick as a pry bar, struggling to lift a light steel beam that was pinning the officer's lower body.
Leaving Anna, who lacked proper official identification, in the car, Jack and Ma Xidao swapped their pig-nose gas masks for ordinary 3M masks and rushed to the scene to assist.
While the exact events were unclear, the scene indicated that despite the suddenness of the explosion, the officers led by Jiang Zhentai and Lin Zheling likely sensed something was amiss and retreated.
There were over 20 people at the scene, most of whom had escaped the factory area, while the few who were pinned were located on the edge.
With the help of two "strong men," Jack and Ma Xidao, the pinned young officer was quickly rescued and put into the arriving ambulance.
"What exactly happened?" Jack asked, handing each of them a bottle of mineral water and waiting for them to calm down.
"We may have underestimated Zhang Mingjun," Jiang Zhentai wiped the sweat from his forehead, which, as expected, had smeared his face. He then sighed deeply.
The slightly overweight man they had arrested was not seriously injured. After being taken to the hospital for examination, he was found to have only a mild concussion. However, he has remained silent since waking up.
Jiang Zhentai could only determine his name from the fake passport he carried, Jin Guanglong, but he had no way of knowing if it was an alias. The
fake passport was convincing enough to fool ordinary police officers. If the person had not been found on the immigration documents, a simple inspection would have been impossible to distinguish.
The South Korean police couldn't resort to the same unscrupulous tactics as the CIA, which had taken the ponytailed man away. So Jiang Zhentai devised a devious plan, pretending to let the guards down, allowing the slightly overweight man to escape from the hospital.
"So he brought you here?" Jack thought, understanding what had happened.
"Yes, we didn't realize this was a trap set by Zhang Mingjun." Jiang Zhentai's face was filled with regret.
The slightly overweight man stole an ambulance from the hospital and headed straight for the abandoned industrial park in Yongin City. South Korean police, fearing exposure if they followed him directly, even deployed drones.
After spotting him entering the factory, over twenty officers surrounded the area, and Jiang Zhentai and Lin Zheling led a team inside.
Fortunately, Lin Zheling noticed the explosives and detonators inside. The
slightly overweight man walked between the buildings, picked up a cell phone from a table, spoke a few words, and then resolutely pressed the detonator.
Those who had noticed something was amiss managed to escape, but the cost was two serious injuries and three minor ones.
"Perhaps this was just a temporary arrangement. The two men's absence after their scheduled departure aroused Zhang Mingjun's suspicion. They didn't carry any communication devices when they went out, so there must be a special reporting system.
Considering they were both former soldiers, it's not surprising that they could go to such lengths. What do you think, Comrade Lin Zheling? You two must have known each other for a long time, right?"
Jack glanced at the latter with a half-smile.
Lin Zheling's already grim expression darkened even further. He instinctively glanced at Jiang Zhentai, who was also looking at him with surprise, but remained hesitant and didn't respond.
"Ashiba, what's going on? We agreed to be frank and honest with each other, brothers!" Jiang Zhentai was also anxious.
Although he and Lin Zheling belonged to different factions, North and South, they had a personal relationship.
A few years ago, at the beginning of the thaw in relations between the two Koreas, Lin Zheling had visited the South to investigate a counterfeit currency case.
During the Arduous March, the North had engaged in a number of unscrupulous practices to obtain precious foreign exchange, not only officially producing currency but also counterfeiting it.
Counterfeiting another country's currency with the power of a single country isn't easy, but achieving a high degree of fidelity is certainly not difficult.
In short, something went wrong, and Lin Zheling was ordered to travel to the South to capture the criminals who stole the woodblocks. Jiang Zhentai, who had been transferred out of the Guangsuo Team for his misconduct, was assigned to assist (or monitor) him.
Ultimately, the counterfeit money ring was destroyed, and the exquisite engraving fell into the hands of Lin Zheling and Jiang Zhentai. They exchanged a smile, forsaking their grudges, and threw the engraving into the sea.
They neither allowed it to be used as evidence to entice the South to attack the North, nor did they bring it back to the North to continue causing trouble.
Although Jack wasn't entirely clear on the specifics of their past, from previous encounters and this morning's, he had long since sensed Lin Zheling's respect for Jiang Zhentai.
Feeling the heat wasn't yet on, he decided to continue fueling the fire, gambling on the conscience of this visitor from the North.
"And I've discovered that Zhang Mingjun's true intention is to produce nerve agents to launch a terrorist attack in Seoul. Those cheap nerve agents, which have recently nearly halved the price of nerve agents on the South Korean market, are merely a means of raising funds."
As if to confirm Jack's claims, several military Humvees, followed by a long line of US military vehicles, appeared on the highway before everyone.
(End of Chapter)