Redeeming The Golden Ticket To Life

[POV Bai Chang]

Study Room, Third Floor-

After Zhang Wei left the room, I took a deep breath. 

'How dare they target my men?'

I log in to my private server and jack up 'Jiffy' for auxiliary surveillance. Then it is time to return the favour of the old frenemy.

I hook to Feling's server and work my way into his logs. There are various records of his conversations with other people. As he is a person with a lot of issues and secrets to hide, he collects leverage on people around him and keeps them in his private server. 

I came across it when I was deep scanning his servers and cloud data as well as any network or neural connection of data.

My searches did bear fruits as I stumbled upon his archives.

'Come on, Come on, show me something good…' I played around his recent archives.

While simultaneously I play the video recording brought to me by my squad.

As I push the buttons to play the video, the screen lits up. There is a park in the background, after a few seconds, Feling jogs into the frame. A runner from opposite side stops by the bench and stretches out and finally leaves. Feling moves towards the same bench and sits down. 

After some light exercise and cool-down stretches he leaves the spot.

'It's a dead drop. He passes information with someone while the runner is the carrier here.'

I search the runner through facial recognition software across various databases. It took some time but it finally came to a match.

The runner is an officer in the intelligence bureau of the government, mostly affiliated to the military.

The runner is working in Lt. General's office. So who is her boss?

Interesting… very interesting…

I further played the stores video in the flash drive.

This time the screen changes to a coffee shop. A female comes to the shop and just speaks two words with Feling and left. 

I played the third and the last video on the flash drive.

This time it is an official setting. Most probably inside an army camp or military base. 

Feling is dressed in casual informal while another person joins in. There are no audios to these videos so I shift to reading their lips.

The man who joins Feling on the screen is a Major General rank officer. His face is partially hidden under his cap. 

Their meet concluded that the officer warned Feling to not to get ahead of himself.

There was friction among them while the keyword to take away from them is 'Project 33'.

Interesting.

The man even warned him that his operations would be leaked and he has enough material on Feling to put him under the government's rehabilitation programme.

"Project 33 huh.." I think aloud.

Next, I search for Project 33.

It took well into the night to search for 'Project 33' as there were over one thousand matchings hit. So to search for the relevant data took time.

As for the Hu family, they made themselves comfortable in the Villa, playing with their grandchild. As for Hu Qiang. I asked Zhang Wei to request him to leave the Villa premise. 

He really hurt me. I don't owe him and neither does he dictate every aspect of my life.

As I walked to the window, I saw Qiang leaving the premises. Slouched shoulders and head hanging down. 

Though he cuts a sorry figure, I feel no feelings of softness when I remember old Bai Chang's memory.

I pulled out a music CD that Bai Chang kept with her. 

It was a collection of various songs that she used to listen to. 

Though she was autistic, she understood people and was clear of her relationships.

That is why she saved Xiao Wei at the cost of her life but never contacted Qiang in her last moments.

She knew the importance of relying on herself rather than Qiang to save her only son. The light of her life.

I play the CD and a male voice playing acoustic guitar starts to sing throughout the room.

La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Call me what you wanna, I'll be what you wanna

I've been here a thousand times, eh-eh

Fallin' for another, I don't even bother

I could do it all my life

So tell me if you wanna 'cause I got this feeling

I wanna hear you say it 'cause I can't believe it

With every touch of you, it's like I've started dreaming

Guess Heaven's not that far away

And I'll be singing, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

You're breaking me, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

You're breaking me, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

You're breaking me, la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

I'm just right here dancing around to the rhythm

The rhythm that you play when you're breaking my heart

You know that I can't get you out of my system

Yeah, right from the start, you played with my heart

And I'll be…

I look up the artist of this song. Its Alexander Tidebrink, known by his stage name A7S, a Swedish producer, songwriter, and singer. 

I close my eyes and it transports me into a cold room where I am barefoot. There are apparatus hooked to me and someone in the dark orders to up the voltage. And I get electrocuted. 

"Where is the source code?" Someone asked harshly.

Only silence answers them. 

They throw salted water on me, the pain is unbearable but there is no sound escaping my lips.

"Are you trying to keep mum? Bai Chang, it is easy for us to obliterate you as we did with your parents now speak, damned!"

[Knock Knock]

"Bai Chang"

"Bai Chang, dinners ready. Where would you like to eat?"

"Bai Chang" someone shakes me hard and I immediately retaliate.

I flip the person and throw him on his back and I almost run through him my hairpin. Its a type of hidden weapon.

The man holds onto my hands firmly and shouts, "Bai Chang it's me Zhang Wei, Bai Chang!"

I finally came to myself and met Zhang Wei's perplexed eyes.

I hurriedly back up, "I'm sorry"

"What happened?"

"I was just not myself."

"So what were you thinking?"

"Something bloody and me," I mumbled.

(It was a memory of Bai Chang. She was tortured after she rescued Xiao Wei last time.)

"What got into you tonight?"

"Nothing, just some old scars were scrapped anew," I said.

He looked at me asking.

Instead, I asked him something else, "How are you related to Qiang?"

He looked stunned for a second before he concealed his thoughts. But I managed to catch it.

"Answer the damn question!"

He heard the aggression in my voice, taking a deep breath he contemplated.

"Well…" he dragged on.

Even I didn't relent either. I stared down at him.

"Well, I am his distant cousin," he answered defeatedly.

"And how are you related to my Shui family?"

This time he openly looked at me, surprised.

I simply cross my arms and look at him steadily.

"Actually I was your family's security chief assigned personally by family head Dr Shui himself," he answered softly.

"Why do you ask?" This time he questioned me. 

I think to myself, 'What should I reply to him?'

Then I decided to come clean to him.

"Thank you for saving my life at the N-47 Highway, three years ago," I replied.

I see him visibly tremble, as he gradually turns pale. As if he has seen a ghost.

"You.. You…"

His words fail him, they are unable to summarize the huge range of feelings that he is going through at the moment.

"You remember," he asked aghast by the revelation.

"Every last bit of it," I replied to him.

"Since when?" He was visibly shaking from head to toe. The calm man that he usually is, has lost all his calm. He looked horrified waiting for my answer.

"Since always," I replied.

He trembled, tears flooded his cheeks.

"I always remembered it from day one," I continued.

I remembered every bit of the pain and the tortue treatment as well as my various attempts to escape and finally my demise." I stated.

"Bai Chang…"

The calm and composed man was nowhere to be seen. He looked pained.

"Did - Did you see something-"

"I just took a trip back to the memory lane. Sorry if I freaked you out."

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Author's Disclaimer, I have my exams going on. So most of the last week chapters were from my stockpile. I will try to keep up a steady update. 

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