The Beauty CEO's Personal Expert
Chapter 228 - 224: The Safe (Part 2)

Chapter 228: Chapter 224: The Safe (Part 2)

"So soon?"

Ling Chen was taken aback. Without much time to think, he simply moved the entire safe out from the inside.

Damn, the safe was almost a few hundred pounds heavy, nearly as much as a bull.

He took a deep breath, hugged the safe tightly with both hands, almost exerting all his strength, and step by step, he moved out of the office. After walking over ten meters, he could no longer persist and dropped the safe on the ground, then leaned against the wall and gasped for air.

"Zhu Hong has entered the building. He will arrive at your location in no more than three minutes."

Hearing Hu Fei’s voice coming from the earpiece, Ling Chen didn’t have time to rest. He continued to lift the safe, struggling towards the emergency exit. Upon reaching the staircase, a series of rapid footsteps suddenly echoed from downstairs. Looking down through the railing, he saw Zhu Hong and a few suit-clad bodyguards hurrying over.

They sure picked the right time!

It seemed he couldn’t go down anymore. Immediately, he lifted the safe and headed upstairs.

He had just reached the twelfth floor; Zhu Hong and his men had just arrived at the eleventh. Pushing open the door to the emergency exit, Zhu Hong immediately observed several of his men lying unconscious on the floor.

From just this scene, his eyes turned cold, and he said with a somber expression: "Wake them up." With that, he rushed straight into the office. Seeing the empty secret compartment, he bulged his eyes, clenched his fists tightly, and veins throbbed on his forehead. He took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing his rage, and turned to leave.

At this moment, the bodyguards who had been down on the ground had already regained consciousness. Zhu Hong strode forward, grabbed the collar of one bodyguard, and said with an icy tone: "Speak, what happened."

Feeling the chilling look in his eyes, the man shivered and hastily replied: "Boss, a firefighter suddenly came and told us we needed to evacuate immediately. We refused, and then he attacked and knocked us all out."

"When did this happen?"

"This... I don’t know, I didn’t check the time."

"Useless!" Zhu Hong spat out through gritted teeth, and shoved him to the ground. After pondering for a moment, he seemed to have thought of something, hurried back to the office, and turned on the computer.

Sure enough, as expected, the office surveillance video showed a firefighter entering his office and then carrying away the entire safe.

The other party was in a hurry, without time to delete the surveillance footage. According to the time displayed on the monitor, the person had left no more than three minutes ago.

Three minutes... A thought crossed his mind, and he immediately rushed outside the company, speaking as he went: "The building’s elevators have been disabled, there’s only one emergency exit accessible. We did not see anyone when we came up, so that person should still be inside the building. Everyone, split up and search upward; that person is carrying a safe and can’t have gotten far."

"Yes, boss."

Time ticked by, second by second.

Ling Chen, carrying the safe, arrived at the fifteenth floor and then entered the floor from the emergency exit. Due to the fire, the entire building’s occupants had been evacuated, and there was not a single person upstairs.

"Ling Chen, where are you, how come you haven’t come out yet?"

"Don’t ask, I can’t come out for now. I ran into Zhu Hong’s men in the stairwell, had no chance to go down, so I had to head up."

"Do you want me to come and help you?"

"Forget it, don’t come up. I’ll hide the safe first and come back for it tonight."

Just as he finished speaking, he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps coming from the emergency exit. Turning his head, he saw the door to the emergency exit being pushed open, and two men in suits quickly entered.

Is it them?

Ling Chen was startled and quickly took cover in a corner by the wall.

How did they get upstairs? Could it be that Zhu Hong guessed he was still in the building?

As the footsteps of the other party grew closer, Ling Chen put down the safe and pressed himself against the wall. When the footsteps were less than a meter away, he suddenly turned around, leaped out, and took down two suit-clad bodyguards to the ground. Before they could get up, he swiftly threw two punches, knocking them out cold.

"Hey, Jiang Chao, respond if you hear me."

At that moment, a walkie-talkie on one of the bodyguards started ringing.

Ling Chen frowned slightly, quickly got up, and carried the safe as he made a swift exit. However, not far out, he entered a company’s reception room, and an idea struck him upon seeing a coffee table by the window ledge. He moved the coffee table aside, placed the safe on the floor, and then pulled off the tablecloth from the coffee table to cover the safe. From the outside, it looked just like a small table; no one would suspect a safe was hidden under the tablecloth.

With the goods well-hidden, Ling Chen did not linger any longer; he left immediately before Zhu Hong’s people could arrive.

More than ten minutes later, he walked out of the building, removed the firefighting suit, and slipped into the Santana.

"Where’s the safe?" Hu Fei turned to ask.

"It’s still in the building. We’ll come back for it tonight."

Through the car window, watching smoke billow out from the tenth floor, Hu Fei said helplessly, "You really did it big for just a safe."

"It’s alright, after all, the company’s insured. There won’t be any significant loss. Let’s go, head back first."

Inside the building.

Zhu Hong stood at the entrance of the office building, his face an iron hue, silent. After a while, several suit-clad men hurried over and reported in a low voice, "Boss, we’ve searched the entire upstairs area and found no trace of him, nor the safe."

"What about the underground parking lot?"

"People were guarding the stairways to the parking lot, and no one has been seen passing through."

Zhu Hong nodded, "I’ve been monitoring the entrance, and no one left with the safe. If I’m not mistaken, that person must have left the safe inside the building. Hmph! Daring to steal my stuff, I want to see just how many lives you have. Notify the others, immediately gather a team, and surround the whole building. I want to see how capable that person really is."

"Yes."

Night fell.

Ling Chen and Hu Fei drove the Santana and came once again outside the office building.

After parking the car, Ling Chen observed the building from the window and saw four suit-clad men pacing back and forth at the entrance.

"Fatty, go check the parking lot."

Driving to the parking lot entrance, Ling Chen looked around and, unsurprisingly, noticed several bodyguards on patrol.

"It seems Zhu Hong has already guessed," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting into a faint smile.

"All the entrances are guarded, even if you manage to get in, you won’t be able to take the safe out. The target is too big and too heavy; they’ll definitely notice. In my opinion, you shouldn’t rush this; we need a more thought-out plan."

Ling Chen shook his head: "We don’t have that much time to waste. Since Zhu Hong has guessed that the safe is still in the building, he will surely send more people to search."

"What do we do then? Just barge in?"

Hearing Hu Fei’s question, Ling Chen grinned: "Zhu Hong is smart, but compared to a clever person like me, he falls short. Just wait and see how I play him to death."