Chapter 345: Someone on the Run

Chapter 345: Someone on the Run

Early morning, outside a breakfast stall.

Sitting on a pavement ledge, Xiao Yu munched on a jianbing while scrolling through his tablet.

In fact, he was examining ten blueprints for underground structures.

The Hideout’s blueprints!

In one night, the tablet was drained of power once.

Xiao Yu had been studying them for a full nine hours.

What was his plan?

A treasure hunt… using the blueprints to deduce the positions of the two remaining Hideouts.

In his past life, Xiao Yu had loved these mind-bending puzzles.

But then, he realized…

People who enjoy these games are always at odds with themselves.

They waste countless brain cells and, more importantly, time.

Yet, that night’s effort wasn’t in vain…

After finishing the last bite of his jianbing and setting aside his tablet, Xiao Yu took two gulps from a nearby bottle of mineral water.

Then he headed toward a business van not far away.

Inside, several special ops personnel were fast asleep.

Staying up all night wasn’t something people with normal routines enjoyed.

When the van doors swung open, every special ops member snapped awake.

Their attitude… Xiao Yu couldn’t help but admire it.

“Any findings?” Shen Mei asked, rubbing her eyes.

Zhou Lie turned his gaze toward his junior.

“Damn, now this case is being dumped on me even though I’m only here to help…” Xiao Yu mused, feeling oddly saddled with the role of leader. “We haven’t found anything yet. I’ve reviewed previous data—someone had once deduced the locations using results from the first seven Hideouts. Building on that analysis, I’ve discovered something interesting.”

“Don’t always think you’re smarter than everyone else.”

Armed with these blueprints, some experts had already predicted the Hideouts’ positions.

And indeed, one expert had managed to unearth a clue.

He had discovered a… ‘Ri’!

“Ri?”

“That’s right.”

If you split the character ‘Ri’, you get two ‘Kou’ characters.

The ‘Kou’ character has four corners, each standing for a location.

The eighth location perfectly matches one of the ‘Ri’s corners.

Overlay eight locations onto the two ‘Kou’ and you form the character ‘Ri’.

‘Ri’ represents the old enemy nation!

So, where could the two remaining Hideout locations be?

After analyzing all night,

Xiao Yu initially speculated they might lie between the two ‘Kou’ areas.

But the experts had already ruled that out long ago.

Others even searched, only to find nothing.

Yet the ‘Ri’ deduction held true.

Building on that, Xiao Yu pressed on with his analysis.

Finally, a hypothesis emerged.

He considered the archaic form of ‘Ri’.

In ancient script, a circle with a dot in the center symbolizes the sun.

So, could the central point of ‘Ri’ be a Hideout?

After listening to his junior’s analysis, Shen Mei was dumbfounded while Zhou Lie let out a curse, both falling deep into thought.

“Are you even listening? Stop spacing out and pay attention to our newest recruit…” Xiao Yu muttered, glancing at the veteran comrades before him.

“Shall we go check it out?”

Shen Mei snapped back to reality and looked at Zhou Lie.

Zhou Lie gave a nod.

Watching the veteran colleagues chat confidently, Xiao Yu felt both envious and wistful, wondering when he’d be as remarkable as they were.

“Will you just look at me for once?!”

……

In Capital City S, nestled in a mountainous area,

Xiao Yu, seated in a helicopter, furrowed his brows.

After searching high and low, they’d finally arrived in the province of his hometown?

As the helicopter descended slowly, about four to five meters above the ground, Xiao Yu and his team climbed down the rope ladder.

Zhou Lie held a measuring instrument while Shen Mei carried a map.

They were accompanied by two geological experts who offered guidance.

They were calculating the center of the ‘Ri’ based on the positions of the eight previous Hideouts.

Xiao Yu, not one for idle chatter, instead scanned the surroundings with his Falcon’s Eye.

The area was mountainous, complete with streams and forests.

It lay roughly twenty kilometers from the city’s outskirts.

About fifty meters away, a narrow mountain road cut through the landscape.

Large vehicles couldn’t manage the terrain; only off-roaders could.

And in that very glance,

Xiao Yu noticed an off-road vehicle slowly making its way along the road.

Most people might have missed it.

He observed that the vehicle bore an out-of-province license plate.

Something was off.

Remember, this was a deserted mountain road, distant from any village or shop.

How could an out-of-province car be here?

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Locals wouldn’t normally drive their cars into the mountains.

Another detail—the car was covered in dust, with even more mud caked onto its tires.

Clearly, it had been on a long journey.

Odd, isn’t it?

Xiao Yu thought it was very unusual.

It was clear this car had just come to a stop.

It was likely that it had only driven off after spotting an armed helicopter.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have decelerated so gradually before accelerating again.

Was he overthinking it? Xiao Yu squinted and ordered, “Check that vehicle!”

“Hmm?”

Zhou Lie and Shen Mei looked up in surprise and saw the off-road vehicle in the distance.

They exchanged puzzled glances with their junior.

“It’s suspicious. Check it out,” Xiao Yu instructed without further explanation.

…….

Shen Mei signaled a team member with a wave to grab the radio and call the helicopter.

Soon after, they took the helicopter off to track down the off-road vehicle.

Returning his gaze to the area, Xiao Yu asked, “Have we pinpointed its location?”

“Almost there,” came the reply.

Zhou Lie pointed to a spot not far off, “Just one kilometer ahead!”

The group then walked toward the deduced location one kilometer away.

Just as they were about to reach it,

“Wait!”

Xiao Yu halted, fixating his gaze on a spot merely a few meters away.

Approaching quietly, he crouched down and discovered footprints. “Someone was here—footprints fresh, less than half a day old!”

The team’s expressions darkened.

Who in these mountains would come?

Recalling Xiao Yu’s remark about the suspicious off-road vehicle,

could it be that someone had ventured here in search of a Hideout?

“Let’s move!”

Xiao Yu sprang up and dashed off in one direction.

The team quickly followed, about five minutes later.

Xiao Yu halted once more.

Before him lay a freshly dug, large pit.

The soil was still moist and fresh, with a shovel discarded nearby.

Scanning the ground, his expression changed as he spotted a footprint.

They were unusual—not normal steps but wide, as if someone had been running.

“Someone’s on the run!”

In an instant, Xiao Yu bolted, sprinting like a cheetah!

End.