Chapter 649: A brief moment of calm
The first wave of danger that came after nightfall had passed. Ren Xiaosu stood in the lot of Hope Media, a little tired.
The masterminds’ original plan was probably to create chaos so they could attract the attention of the garrison troops and the Riders. After that, they would descend on this place to take down Hope Media in one fell swoop.
Due to the importance of Hope Media, it would be enough to pin down the Riders for a while.
This way, they could carry out the next step of their plan. That would leave the garrison troops and the Riders with no time to catch a breather.
But the other party probably did not expect their plans would fall into disarray at such a time. Not only did they fail to seize control of Hope Media, but they even activated the other two groups of thugs to try and kill Ren Xiaosu by overwhelming him.
After all, the firepower of over 300 automatic rifles was truly not something a superhuman could handle alone. But in actual fact, it was only enough to destroy Ren Xiaosu’s armor.
As such, their original plan of attacking from all points failed due to this sudden turn of events. The entire plan had gone down the drain, and their covert combatants had all died in vain along with it.
This left the masterminds of this operation a little confused by the situation. All of the plans they had made were thwarted because of the appearance of a superhuman from the Northwest. This actually left them in a dilemma right now.
And why did that person wearing the white mask also appear here? What was his relationship with the Qinghe Group? Why had they not heard anything about this before?
Never mind that the legendary superhuman from the Northwest had come to help the Qinghe Group; what was with the appearance of White Mask as well?
Some people had suspected Ren Xiaosu was the same person as White Mask. But now, Ren Xiaosu had proven they were not the same person. After all, they had both appeared at the same time.
In the past, White Mask would always mysteriously appear before disappearing without a trace.
The opponent’s strong physique and fearlessness against firearms made everyone shudder. The most terrifying thing was that everyone suddenly realized the person had not even displayed what kind of superpower he had. Was it because his opponents were too weak that he did not need to use his power?
But of course, what they did not know was that “Old Xu” did not have a superpower at all. It was just that he was very strong physically and could run really fast. This was double the happiness. If Ren Xiaosu were to have City Crusher activate too, that would be four times the happiness.
It was not that “he” did not want to use his power, but that “he” really did not have any, and neither did “he” need it.
After the battle, there was a brief moment of calm. The enemy needed some time to reconsider the situation and tweak their subsequent plans.
When the battle ended, all of Hope Media’s staff quietly went to the windows again. They saw the sight of the young man’s back and the countless bodies of enemies lying on the ground.
Their blood had stained the entire front yard red. The sight in front of them was strangely magnificent, exuding a heroic and violent beauty.
This time, Jiang Xu did not harry everyone back to work. Instead, he walked over to a window and looked at Ren Xiaosu together with the rest of his colleagues. He saw Ren Xiaosu turn his head up to look at them from the middle of the carnage before breaking into a smile.
That smile amid the bloodshed was extremely bright and made them feel secure.
The female editor who sat at the window looked at the sketch in her hand that depicted Ren Xiaosu’s back when he was sitting down in the yard earlier. Now that she was looking at it again, she somehow felt the old wooden chair he was sitting in did not look not as crappy as it used to.
Jiang Xu previously asked the deputy chief editor, Ji Yi, to tell everyone to focus on their work. As long as the young man downstairs was still around, no one could enter the building to harm them.
At that time, almost everyone felt the chief editor was just comforting them. How could one person possibly protect the entire building?
But as such a miracle happened right before their eyes, they had no choice but to believe it.
The female editor turned around and looked at Jiang Xu. “Chief Editor, can we report about this young man’s battle?”
Jiang Xu thought for a moment and replied, “You can write about it, but you can’t describe the details of the battle. Furthermore, you can’t reveal any details of his identity.”
“Then is this OK?” The female editor picked up her sketch. “Using this as the accompanying picture for the article? You always say we should be truthful in our reporting. The accompanying picture is kinda blurry, but I feel that since he’s been fighting for us until now, even though his name can’t appear in the newspaper, it shouldn’t be a problem to include this as an accompanying picture, right?”
Jiang Xu looked at the sketch and smiled. “You may do so.” Jiang Xu thought about how Ren Xiaosu even had fans at Hope Media now.
Li Yingyun and Qin Sheng rushed over from elsewhere with the garrison troops behind them.
When the two of them stepped into the lot and saw the corpses all over the ground, they were shocked. Ren Xiaosu was the only one left guarding the building in the lot, as White Mask had already disappeared.
“Brother Xiaosu, did you kill all of them?” Qin Sheng asked.
“Mhm, they wanted to break into the Hope Media headquarters, so I just killed them. I was under a lot of pressure this time, so I didn’t manage to leave any survivors for y’all,” Ren Xiaosu replied.
“That’s alright, we captured someone alive at another location.” Old Li looked at the bodies strewn all over the ground and did not know what to say. “It was smart that you came here to stand guard. Otherwise, it would’ve been really troublesome today. Come on, the garrison troops will take over from here. Let’s go inside and get some rest first.”
Ren Xiaosu examined Old Li and realized he looked a little tired as well. There were bloodstains on his body, and it looked like he had also been involved in a battle earlier.
After the garrison troops took over the defensive duties to protect Hope Media, Ren Xiaosu let out a sigh of relief. “Was there any outcome from the interrogation?”
“They’re very tight-lipped, so we didn’t get much information,” Qin Sheng said, shaking his head. “However, we realized the Wang, Kong, and Zhou Consortiums must’ve agreed to a temporary pact. It seems like they want to get rid of the Qinghe Group first before battling it out among themselves. The thugs from this afternoon might look like they’re the same ones as those who took action tonight, but they’re actually not from the same consortium. Even the four groups of people that took action tonight are not all from the same consortium. The three groups of thugs that attacked Hope Media belong to the same group, while the other group we took care of was acting independently.”
This made the situation even more dangerous in the stronghold. Although this was the Qinghe Group’s home field, and they also had their own professional troops stationed here, the other three organizations had temporarily joined forces.
“Have there been no updates from Xu Ke’s side?” Ren Xiaosu was referring to the fact that these people were obviously here for the satellites. But up until now, there was still no threat directed at Xu Ke.
In other words, no matter how intense the battles were so far, it was still just a prelude to the main event.
“We have three Riders guarding the Qinghe Group’s headquarters, so it won’t be that easy to break into the place.” Li Yingyun said, “As for what those consortiums are really up to, we can only wait for them to make their move. By the way, there’s definitely spies within the Qinghe Group, but we can only wait until they reveal themselves before we can get rid of them. Since you’ve already put yourself out in the open, they’ll likely target you through whatever minor things that can be linked to you. Didn’t you bring some people into Luoyang City with you? Will they be fine? Why don’t you go back and keep an eye on them?”
Ren Xiaosu was stunned. Did he mean someone would try to harm Zhou Yingxue and the others?
Then, he thought about his maid’s current power level and shook his head. “Well, I’m really not worried about that at all.”