Chapter 159: Meeting Another Acquaintance

At this moment, the door of the Buick that had been entered earlier by two soldiers opened, and one of them said, "Commander, please go in."

Liu Yunfei squeezed through the car door and saw that the interior was indeed spacious. All the passenger seats had been removed, and only the rearmost bench seat was occupied by an elderly man with graying hair. The old man was dressed in a brand-new military uniform, with the crease marks still clearly visible, giving him a very spirited appearance. On his shoulders, he bore the rank of a major general.

The elderly general looked quite amiable and benevolent. Seeing Liu Yunfei enter, he waved to him. "You must be Liu Yunfei? You are indeed a fine young man. What a pity not to serve your country."

Liu Yunfei smiled and sat down nearby. "Old General, there are many ways to serve the country; one doesn't necessarily have to be a soldier."

"Let me introduce myself first. My name is Hu Wanli, and I am the overall commander of the 7th Special Forces Brigade. Perhaps you haven't heard of this brigade; it is an independent and confidential military unit. But beneath our brigade, there is a certain group, and of course, you might have heard of that one," Hu Wanli said with a confident smile.

"Oh? Which group? I'm not very concerned with state secrets," Liu Yunfei thought to himself, *Why are you telling me about classified matters?*

"The Special Operations Task Force, known to the outside world as the Dragon Group. You haven't heard of it?"

As soon as the old man said this, Liu Yunfei immediately understood what he was after. This Dragon Group was quite famous; it was said to be a shadowy organization where the government gathered people with special abilities, trained them, and deployed them along the intelligence frontline to serve the country according to their talents. The old man must have discovered his special abilities and come in person to act as a lobbyist.

Seeing that Liu Yunfei remained silent, the old man continued, "Young man, our country's economy, military, and national strength have seen tremendous development in recent years. However, this has also caused fear among hostile foreign forces, who spare no effort to sabotage, assassinate, blockade, and use every means to suppress our nation's development and prevent the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Shouldn't we young people make some contributions toward this?"

Liu Yunfei felt a surge of excitement at these words. He had often thought about serving his country, but had found no way in, and had also worried about being treated like a lab rat. But now it seemed things were not like that at all; the many members of the Dragon Group were not treated as lab rats, and the state merely assigned them tasks based on their abilities.

Seeing that Liu Yunfei was deeply moved, the old man pressed on, "Little Liu, we have investigated you. You are also a person with special abilities, and we know you were born with supernatural strength. We hope you can summon the patriotic enthusiasm of a true man and become a member of our Dragon Group. The rise and fall of the nation is the responsibility of every citizen."

If he could use his abilities to help the country, whether it was going to the battlefield, carrying out assassinations, or stealing intelligence, he was adept at all of it. Was he going to become a James Bond? And he was going to do an even more brilliant job than him.

Liu Yunfei nodded, looking into the old general's face, and was just about to agree when a sudden detail caught his attention: the fine facial hair on the old general's face was dusted with powder. While women applying powder was common, he had never seen a man wearing makeup. His thoughts raced: Why intercept me on the road? Why drive me around in circles through several major streets? Why were these soldiers' uniforms so impeccably new? Why did this old general's face, upon close inspection, resemble that of a Peking opera actor? Suddenly, his words caught in his throat and he swallowed them back.

***

He immediately replied, "Old General, serving the country is a fine thing, and joining the military has always been my dream. However, I possess no special abilities. If you need an ordinary soldier, I can manage that."

"Hey? There's no need to deny it; we have already investigated everything," the old man said, failing to notice that Liu Yunfei had already grown suspicious. His remark only sounded more dubious. Could this kind of thing really be investigated so easily by a man who was completely out of the loop?

"Thank you for your high regard, Old General, but I truly have no special abilities. Nor do I believe such people exist; otherwise, they would all be robbing banks and society would descend into chaos. Please don't joke with me, Old General. What is this really about? Just tell me straight, and stop trying to hoodwink me." Liu Yunfei feigned total ignorance—if you try to fool me, I'll fool you right back.

"How can you say you have no special abilities? There are so many people with special abilities in our Dragon Group. We know you were born with divine strength; perhaps you just don't realize it yourself." The old man was also starting to doubt; after all, he was just hired for the job.

"I really don't have special abilities. But I do know that some people can live forever."

"Oh? Tell me about it." The old man was getting on in years, and this piqued his interest. Even if immortality wasn't real, living another three to five years would be quite pleasant.

Liu Yunfei opened his wide, innocent eyes, a foolish gleam flashing within them. "A textbook I studied before said that some people are alive even though they are dead, and some people are dead even though they are still alive."

The old man thought to himself, *Damn it, he's just toying with me!* Enraged, he said, "Liu Yunfei, don't toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit! Don't think that just because you have a few tricks you can pit yourself against the government. Our Dragon Group has plenty of extraordinary people with bizarre talents."

When the soft approach failed, they resorted to hard tactics—a classic routine. Judging by the situation, this so-called general and the Dragon Group were all frauds. They were probably concocted by Secretary Jin or Jiang Mancheng. Since they were not real national soldiers, he had nothing to fear from them. The harder they were, the harder he would push back. Liu Yunfei lowered his voice as well and said, "If people do not offend me, I will not offend them. No matter who it is, whoever provokes me must die—and you can take that back to your master, whoever he may be."

When Liu Yunfei finished speaking, a murderous glint flashed in his eyes once more, startling the worldly-wise old man into a daze. By the time the old man recovered his composure, he found that Liu Yunfei had already strode away.

Liu Yunfei got into his car, made a U-turn, and drove off, thinking to himself, *I'll transform and tail that fake to see who's really behind this.* But when he looked back, two police cars were tailing him closely. He smiled—did he even need to follow them? Wasn't it already obvious?

After turning two streets, those two cars were still persistent. Liu Yunfei really felt like getting out and beating those punks up. *Damn it, if you're going to tail someone, at least send chicks like those traffic policewomen.*

Suddenly, it occurred to him: *Have they been tracking me all along? I didn't feel anything when I left the school. No, they knew my location and headed straight for it, which is why they led me on that huge detour—because their setup wasn't ready yet and they were buying time. But how did they know I was on Huangcheng Avenue at that time?*

***

Sister Hong? Liu Yunfei suddenly remembered that phone call. Sister Hong had asked where he was right from the start. Was it really her? If he thought along those lines, the robbery in the woods was a setup. But how did they know he was going to Guan Gong Temple?

Liu Yunfei no longer wanted to think about it. He was reluctant to suspect anyone; lacking conclusive evidence, he preferred to believe that everyone was a good person, including Sister Hong. He decided to go to the Tycoon Nightclub to check things out.

Seeing that the early evening sky was still bright, Liu Yunfei hurried home to pick up Sun Xiaogang and drop him off at a newly rented apartment. To keep the rent down, this was an apartment complex located at the urban-rural fringe, but fortunately it was quite spacious, and everything from a large bed to gas and a hot water heater was fully equipped.

"Xiaogang, why don't you bring your parents over as well? They can find jobs or run a small business."

"You actually thought of the exact same thing I did. That's why I rented a place this big." Sun Xiaogang had even fewer belongings than Tian Xiuji had when moving house.

Whenever spring and autumn arrived in this rainy region south of the Yangtze River, the precipitation became exceptionally heavy. Especially on this evening that hovered between light and dark, the rain started pouring down without warning. Bidding farewell to Sun Xiaogang, Liu Yunfei walked out of the old building and discovered that it was already raining.

After driving into the downtown area, the rain grew even heavier. Caught off guard, pedestrians scrambled everywhere looking for shelter, while bicycles weaved haphazardly through the traffic, ignoring even the red lights. Liu Yunfei stepped on the brakes.

He couldn't help sighing. In order to avoid getting caught in the rain, was it worth risking your life in an accident? People always focused on avoiding some minor inconvenience right in front of them, only to commit a greater blunder and lose everything in the end.

As the traffic light turned green, Liu Yunfei was just about to move off when he suddenly caught sight of a beautiful woman standing by the roadside. As the stream of traffic rushed past, the vehicle headlights washed over her, revealing a superb figure that compelled every passing driver to steal an extra glance, and Liu Yunfei was no exception.

The woman was wearing a long black trench coat, with a stretch of snow-white skirt hem visible underneath. The collar of her trench coat was very wide, revealing a white pointed-collar shirt underneath, and the collar of the shirt was unbuttoned quite low, seemingly to showcase the thick platinum chain around her neck.