Chapter 334 The Crisis!
After his speech, the old commander walked out of the cla.s.sroom with the applause of the whole cla.s.s.
In the doorway, Chen Yinsheng stood aside respectfully.
“Princ.i.p.al Chen.” Walking out of the cla.s.sroom, the old commander looked at Chen Yinsheng with a smile on his face. “I heard that there is a Yaow.a.n.g Mountain in your school. May I have a look?”
“Of course, please come with me.” Chen Yinsheng immediately agreed.
At this moment, a middle-aged man in a suit suddenly walked to the old commander, whispering.
“Commander, I’ve observed the location of Yaow.a.n.g Mountain. There’s a dense forest. Maybe we can just have a tour in open s.p.a.ces. We’d better not go deep into the forest and gra.s.sland,” The middle-aged man said seriously to the old commander.
However, hearing what he said, the old commander said with a smile, “Maybe I shouldn’t go anywhere.”
The middle-aged man froze.
He was the head of security on this inspection, so he had to take any threat into account so as to keep the old commander safe.
However, the old commander didn’t seem happy about that.
“It’s just one life.” Looking at the head of security, the old commander said indifferently, “I have been on the battlefield and I’ve survived it. Do you think I’ll be afraid of death?”
“Well…” The head of security pondered for a moment and said, “Commander, of course, I dare not restrict your freedom, but the situation is special. I hope you can always keep alert. And I’ll never let you out of my sight.”
Even though they had carefully inspected the whole school and the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain last night, the head of security was still worried about the commander’s safety.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
The old commander smiled and nodded, walking toward the mountain.
Chen Yinsheng followed behind.
He didn’t even have the chance to get a little closer to the commander. Completely isolated by the security personnel, Chen Yinsheng could talk to the commander occasionally only by tiptoeing and looking at him over the security personnel’s shoulders.
Walking out of the teaching building, a group of people soon came to the foot of the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain.
There was a path led to the superintendent’s office, which was halfway up the hill.
Walking on the path, the old commander said, “Good. I can smell the herbs on the way.”
As he walked, he nodded his head in satisfaction and continued, “This is the real herbal medicine given by nature. We should promote this planting and management method, which can make herbal medicine grow naturally.
“It can not only beautify our motherland but also can grow precious medicinal herbs, which can greatly help green the environment. We can’t miss such a good thing.”
Everyone nodded.
The head of security, however, was frowning. He seemed not to be listening at all, but to concentrate on the trees and gra.s.s around him.
The reason why the mountain was covered in lush green vegetation was that Central Lake provided enough water supply not far away. In addition, this was the place where the medicine was grown. In order to ensure the medicinal properties, the superintendent of Yaow.a.n.g Mountain would often do something to make the land fertile, such as using some pollution-free natural fertilizer and so on.
Although it looked quite pleasant, that was what made it so easy to hide in these woods.
A place like this was the most dangerous.
Fortunately, there were enough security personnel. They made the old commander as the center, surrounding him from every direction while leaving enough personal s.p.a.ce for him at the same time.
After a while, a group of people came halfway up the mountain.
In order to facilitate the management, open s.p.a.ces were built here. There were several fields of medicine apart from the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain superintendent’s office.
At the moment, Zhu Benzheng and the other two boys were helping to do some work there. As for the wild herbs in the forest, the superintendent would never let them go near to them.
“Nice place.” Standing in the open s.p.a.ce, the old commander exclaimed, “With such fresh air, I feel like we’re in a land of idyllic beauty. It would be great if I could live in a place like this. What a pity…”
Hearing that, everyone smiled wryly.
Although he had retired, since the day he officially became one of the heads of state, he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted to do. For him, it was doomed to be only a dream to live a quiet life in the mountains.
There was nothing unusual about the journey, so the head of security finally relieved while the other security personnel was still very cautious.
“Come on, let’s go to the medical field.” The old commander was in such a good mood, so he walked towards the medical field.
People were following behind.
But then, “Poof!” a faint sound was heard.
That was gunfire!
It was a silenced gunshot.
“Watch out!”
When many people didn’t hear the sound of gunfire, a young man dressed in a military uniform immediately sensed the danger as soon as he heard the gunfire.
Therefore, he rushed forward and covered the old commander who was about to take a step, flinging him to the ground.
Meanwhile, the bullet landed on the yellow land in front of the commander, causing a burst of yellow dust.
“Keep your eyes open.” The head of the security’s face fell. That was so close!
Immediately he opened his mouth, “Protect the old commander!”
When that came out, more than a dozen security personnel around immediately gathered in groups, surrounding the commander. Not even a hair of him was exposed.
At this moment, the old commander who was protected by the crowd immediately cooperated with the security personnel and began to withdraw.
As they retreated, the head of security was holding the intercom in his hand, ordering, “Team A, Team B, surround the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain right now. No one can leave this place, not even a single fly.”
In the blink of an eye, Yaow.a.n.g Mountain was completely surrounded.
Under the protection of the security personnel, the old commander returned to the car.
“Arrange a safe room right now with no complicated terrain or buildings around, preferably in an open area,” The head of security asked Chen Yinsheng.
Hearing that, Chen Yinsheng instantly replied, “There is a conference room for the headmaster, which is not usually used with no buildings or plants within 20 meters around.”
“Lead the way, please,” The head of security asked.
Chen Yinsheng didn’t dare to neglect.
It was a great honor that the old commander could go on a tour of inspection of the school. But Chen never expected that he would be attacked in the school.
When the attack happened, Chen Yinsheng’s face turned pale in fear.
What was he supposed to do if something happened to the old commander?
The princ.i.p.al’s office was on the first floor of the staff building.
With Chen Yinsheng leading the way, the head of security gave a thorough observation and inspection of the surroundings with his men before he asked someone to protect the commander to get into the office.
“This place is too dangerous. Everyone, keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
The head of security ordered as his face darkened.
Dozens of people immediately surrounded the conference room from all sides, forming an incredibly strong cordon.
Chen Yinsheng was right.
It was true that there was an open s.p.a.ce 20 meters around the conference room, but there were flower stands 25 meters away, teaching buildings 100 meters away and student dormitories 500 meters away.
Most importantly, there were two more floors above this conference room.
The head of security could only a.s.sign one team to the second and third floors.
In the meantime, he immediately had the curtains drawn and the conference room windows completely sealed, so that no one could see what was inside the room.
“Okay, okay, don’t worry.”
In the conference room, the old commander looked at the head of security and said with a smile, “You see? I’m still here. But I didn’t expect this kind of thing to happen in school. No matter what it takes, make sure no one would get hurt. The most important thing is to protect the safety of the students. Do not disturb the students.”
“Got it.” The head of security nodded. “We can be sure that the shooter was hiding in the mountain. I’ve ordered to block the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain. But we’re not able to locate the shooter’s position at the moment. If we rush in right now, I’m afraid we may cause unnecessary casualties.”
“Well done.” The old commander nodded.
“Besides, we don’t know if we’re dealing with one person or a group, so we have to let you rest here for now. I’ve got two teams searching the other places at the school.”
At this point, the head of security narrowed his eyes and said coldly, “Don’t worry, Commander. I’ll never let the shooter get away with this, no matter he was alone or with a group.”
“What’s wrong?” In the teaching building, several students sitting at the window suddenly began to discuss.
“I saw the old commander was surrounded by a dozen people. They ran down from the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain and got back in the car.”
“You see…”
In the middle of the conversation, everybody looked out of the window.
They saw the newly formed first-degree cordon around the princ.i.p.al’s office.
“Oh, my G.o.d. Someone attacked the old commander?”
“d.a.m.n! Did someone really a.s.sa.s.sinate the commander? He is such a nice person. How on earth would anyone lay a hand on him?”
“Is it true?”
Hearing the discussion of his cla.s.smates, Fang Qiu sitting in the last row turned to look out of the window. He slightly frowned and then continued to listen to the teacher.
After searching for a while, the head of security had determined that the shooter was alone. They didn’t find anything unusual anywhere else on campus.
In the conference room, the head of security promised to the commander, “Commander, please rest here for a while. I’ll go to the mountain and hunt the person who dared to shoot you.”
“All right.” The old commander nodded and said, “Remember what I told you before. No matter what it takes, we must keep the students safe. We can’t allow anything to harm the students.”
“Yes, sir.” The head of security nodded and hurried to Yaow.a.n.g Mountain.
“Team C, Team D, march forward with Team A and Team B. Find out the shooter even if you need to dig up the whole mountain.”
Arriving at the Yaow.a.n.g Mountain, the head of security also took the lead in the front while giving orders, followed by members of the four elite teams. They marched into Yaow.a.n.g Mountain step by step.
Many of these men were pract.i.tioners.
Under the direction of the person in charge, the four teams were getting close to the top and narrowed their searching area.
But when they arrived half from the mountaintop where the old commander was attacked, nothing was found.
As they kept searching, the circle narrowed to a third of the way to the top of the mountain, and a shout was suddenly heard.