Chapter 873. A Secret Base |
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Blue sky, green grass, and the perfect dawn completely erased the mist of fear lingering in the group since last night. On top of that, a Hunter had also joined the group. No one was worried about the story Guo Wenyi told the night before. They hefted their backpacks and departed for Zhenming Town.
Two-thirds of Zhenming Town was occupied by ranches. They mainly bred cows, horses, and goats. The swaying grass revealed the cattle grazing on the field as the breeze swept past, even though the place was close to the mouth of the Yangtze River.
{ TL Note : The first half of the last sentence is from a ballad of the Tiele people to the north of China during the Northern and Southern dynasties.}
Mo Fan, Mu Ningxue, and Lingling blended in perfectly with the group of young adults. Zhao Pinlin’s invitation simply gave them the perfect excuse to follow the group around.
The main street of the town was on the other side. Zhao Pinlin brought the group to a manor inside a ranch. It was actually a private club. Many rich people from Shanghai would occasionally spend their weekends here. Apart from the natural environment, the club also had a golf course, a winery, a restaurant, a bar, guest rooms, archery, horse-riding facility… it was luxurious, without a doubt!
Zhao Pinlin was well-prepared for the trip. He was determined to bring everyone to the club,, even after hearing Guo Wenyi’s story last night.
A tourist bus came to pick them up as they arrived at the entrance. The journey from the entrance to the main building surprisingly took twenty minutes. The ranch’s style was leaning more toward Western Europe. It was said that the main investor was a foreigner. There was even a statue of him in front of the fountain.
Mo Fan had rarely visited a place like this. His eyes were brimming with excitement.
“Wow, who would think there’s a place like this here? Zhao Pinlin, is this owned by your family?” Wang Xuxu asked excitedly.
The rather good-looking Wang Xuxu was unperturbed at the start. However, when she saw the facilities in the luxurious club, she could no longer hold her excitement in. She felt like a little princess from a fairytale living at the club. She could imagine the garden maze, the servants in suits, the soft red carpet, the white bed covered in veils, and the balcony under the moonlight…
“There are three ranches here. My father owns some of their shares,” said Zhao Pinlin.
He was talking softly, as he was not feeling too confident. The real owner of the manor was a big shot. Zhao Pinlin only had the right to visit the club.
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“These three ranches and the private club are the places I am most suspicious of,” Lingling whispered to Mo Fan and Mu Ningxue.
Lingling was actually wondering how they could possibly sneak into here. After all, the private club was not open to tourists. Only those listed as its members were allowed to enter. Mo Fan, Lingling, and Mu Ningxue had no chance of becoming a member. Therefore, it would be troublesome for them to investigate the place. To their surprise, Zhao Pinlin actually solved their biggest problem!
“Mmm, we’ll stick to the disguise. Let’s be more careful here,” agreed Mo Fan.
“This place is around six kilometers from Zhenming Town. If anything happened, as long as they can clean up the mess quick enough, they won’t leak any information to the outside,” Lingling pointed out.
The three ranches were connected together, occupying a huge amount of land. The place was basically secluded from the outer world. If it was actually a branch of the Black Vatican, they had no chance of escaping if they blew their cover!
Mu Ningxue also noticed how difficult it would be to ask for help. She tried her best to act normal by not wandering around or looking everywhere.
“Come, follow me, the rooms are ready. Mr. Harmuth likes having guests at his place. He insists on treating every guest like how we treat him, so please feel at home. If you need anything, just find one of the servants with a red bow tie. They will do anything for you, hehe,” a butler in a tuxedo informed them politely.
The old butler emphasized the word anything. No one could tell if he was referring to something else, but the young men immediately glanced at the maidservants and fell into deep thoughts.
The group went to their rooms to place their belongings before gathering at the hall on the second floor to enjoy some tea. A woman in a red dress came up and explained the services and facilities available. She even gave everyone a map with markings of every place.
“Each facility is quite a distance away from one another, so if you are planning to go somewhere, please contact us. We’ll send a club cart over. I’ll be outside the room. Please let me know if you need anything. You can call me Carly,” the woman gave them a foreign name.
Lingling was playing on her phone inattentively, but she was actually inputting the features of the butler and the woman called Carly into her phone, checking their identities with a program.
The Clearsky Hunter Agency was working closely with the police and the City Hunters. As a Hunter Master, Lingling had enough clearance to verify a person’s identity.
“This Carly is an overseas Chinese…” Lingling said in a low voice.
“Mmm, not a Magician,” said Mo Fan.
Lingling placed her phone down. She switched into her sweet, naive voice, “Sister, is there a big ship here, like a cruise on the ocean? Apart from riding a horse, I also want to go on a ship…”
Carly’s smile widened when she heard Lingling’s angel-like voice. She liked the cute little girl.
She replied smilingly, “We do have a ship, but it only sails once every season since the trip takes a long time. The next trip is still more than a month away.”
“What? So I can’t go on it?”
“Yeah, even if you made it, you would need proper identification to board the ship. We have to notify the relevant department,” said Carly.
“Oh, ok, such a pity,” Lingling sighed.
Carly left with a smile and slowly closed the door.
Mo Fan secretly gave Lingling a thumbs up.
If the club had its own ship, it would be the best way for Salan to flee overseas. As for her identification, no one knew what her real identity was. She might even have multiple fake identities. As long as she made it to the club, she would have no trouble escaping. A rich person could do many things with money. Mo Fan believed smuggling a person to another country was not actually that difficult a task!
In other words, the manor with three ranches was indeed the most suspicious place!
How cunning was Salan? The Black Vatican’s influence in Shanghai was assumed to be uprooted after Xu Zhaoting found out the Blue Deacon’s name. The Enforcement Union strongly believed it, yet it turned out that Salan had escaped through Shanghai! So the most dangerous place was actually the safest place!
It seemed like the branch was a secret base that only Salan knew about!
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