Chapter 249 - The Special Present

Inside a conference room in a secret location, three men and one woman all with stern expressions sat around the round table. The monitor flas.h.i.+ng a confidential doc.u.ment, supposed to be limited to the eyes of those who are only granted access to cla.s.sified information.

However, though, the military does give sanctions in special cases.

"We ran the blood in our database and found a match." Xiu Min pressed a b.u.t.ton and a cla.s.sified profile flashed on the monitor.

"The blood matched with Sgt. Fang, who died by suicide in his family home in Chicago seven years ago. A man was sent to confirm the factors surrounding his death, which concluded with no foul play. Died by slas.h.i.+ng his own wrist and was found dead by a relative the day after."

Multiple pictures of the crime scene were displayed on the monitor yet the people in the room didn"t even flinch from the gory sight in front of them.

"Well, it looks like the man you sent needed more practice." Lu Chen said offhandedly.

"How we train our men is in the least of your responsibility, Mr.Lu." A man in military uniform, with five-star rank, coldly retorted to his word.

"If it weren"t for Lt. General Yu"s endors.e.m.e.nt, you wouldn"t be allowed to even breathe in this place." His tone laced with threat as he looked at the man, who is supposed to be their natural enemy, sitting just across from him.

Lieutenant General Yu s.h.i.+ Huang merely glanced at the exchange of the two men and kept her eyes in front.

On the other hand, Xiu Min kept his expression blank but he was already scolding his brother-in-law in his mind. Provoking the highest person in the army, was he asking for a beating?

It would be chaos if the Military General and the Leader of the Underground City clashed. It would be bloodshed, and their family will surely get caught in the crossfire.

He sighed and continued their findings on the rose and letter dyed with blood that Lu Chen had sent over to them.

Lu Chen initially didn"t plan on turning those items over to the military, but since they didn"t find a match with anyone when they tested the blood, they had to conclude the possibility that one, this person"s data isn"t on any database which technically means that their non-existent or second, that the blood match belongs to cla.s.sified and restricted information which could only be accessed by authorized individuals.

Hacking the government"s database, specifically the military"s, may sound amusing but Lu Chen wasn"t the least interested in provoking the military"s anger especially now that he is now indirectly connected with the military as Xiu Mei"s husband.

Lu Chen only decided to send over those two items after getting informed about the findings related to Albert Chen.

Yesterday.

"I can"t believe that he was bold enough to plant a device in the pot of the cactus." Xiu Mei was bewildered after finding a chip installed in the clay plot. Lu Chen"s subordinate has confirmed that it wasn"t just a listening device but was also able to bypa.s.s the cybersecurity of various devices but with a limited number.

G.o.d knows how much company data was stolen by Albert Chen until today.

"We need someone to sweep the whole building who received one from him. I remembered he had a box full of these kinds of plants so it"s probably not limited to the Marketing Department," said Xiu Mei.

So three of his subordinates disguised as a cleaner and used an excuse to take away all the succulents within the building.

"To think that a gift like this could be dangero—" She was stunned instantly in her words as a familiar sentence flashed in her mind.

P.S. I wonder how my special present is doing as well? I would not entirely consider it as a present, but since you willingly received it so that makes it a special present then.

A present?

Her eyes darted back to the plant on her hand.

"Oh, Ms.Xiu! h.e.l.lo."

"Oh my, do you not remember me? I introduced myself to the party last week."

"Really?! Wow, that"s great. I thought Ms.Xiu already forgot about me."

"Ms.Xiu, here."

"A small gift from me. Actually, I"m planning to give these plants to my other co-workers as a gift."

"You just have to water that once a day and keep it somewhere with sunlight then it"s going to be fine."

A special present that she willingly received…

Willingly…?

Could it be..?!

Xiu Mei stared incredulously at the plant in her hand.

Was it possible? That Albert Chen and the man who kept sending her those parcels… could they be the same person?!

Or maybe it was just a coincidence or the sender was bluffing to her that she received some special present just to confuse them?

Xiu Mei was instantly thrown in confusion. She originally didn"t think that the sender of the letter and Albert Chen could be the same people, after all, there was nothing to connect it to him and they haven"t found anything on the man yet except that his movements are clean without any crumbs left to trace at all.

But… was it really possible?

She was worried that she might be having this train of thoughts just because there were too many complicated things happening right now. So after carefully contemplating it for a little longer, she decided to share her thoughts with her husband.

Lu Chen could understand her suspicions at the moment, but since they couldn"t find anything on the letter nor on the previous things that the sender sent, instead of trying to connect the sender to Albert, then they will connect Albert to the sender instead.

How?

By noting the most notable souvenir that the sender always mentions on his presents. That is the blood from his first kill.

If they"re trying to connect it with Albert Chen"s, then they have to find who was his first kill.

In this line of work, Lu Chen was somewhat similar to Albert"s. Both of them grew and trained to have blood in their hands, except that Lu Chen"s objective was to keep the messy powers in the underground city under control while Albert was most probably for revenge.

For Lu Chen, the blood of the first kill doesn"t necessarily mean literally the person whom they killed for the first time. It is definitely a memory that he would never forget, but first kills are usually the least important or in other terms, something like a practice game.

What Lu Chen considers his first kill would be the first subject he had to kill as his first a.s.signment after he finished his training which already involved getting used to the bloodshed. He was the heir to one of the big organizations underground, but because of his rampant killing to the point that he was starting to involve civilians in his killing spree, Lu Chen had been ordered by his master to remove him completely.

It was a necessary kill to establish his role as the successor of the leading underground organization, so for him, that person was what he considers his first kill. Who came after wasn"t as memorable as this one in his opinion.

So following this line of thought, Lu Chen had to consider Albert"s motives. Remembering how he tried to erase his past, then it must mean that it was a piece of s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e information that Albert wanted to hide from everyone.

Sometimes, it could be the same reason why he chose to follow this b.l.o.o.d.y path.

Albert"s motive…. Was he doing this as revenge for the death of his family?

And knowing that it was done by the military, then could it be that his first kill was…?

A killing for the first step in his revenge. What if this blood belongs to a person in the military? Something personal, maybe directly involved in that incident?

Maybe that"s also the reason why they couldn"t find any match on the blood? Because most of the information on the members of the military is protected heavily by the government.

This reasoning was somehow a bit far-fetched since they"re trying to connect Albert to the sender, but there"s still room for the possibility that it was possible. That the sender"s first kill was a soldier.

And today, Lu Chen calmly stared at the crime scene on the monitor.

The sender"s first kill was indeed a soldier. And the sender was Albert Chen.