Chapter 92 On the Road

“Anything else you don’t understand?” Dou Xu asked.

Qin Qing shook her head.

A fellow diplomat came over and handed them several small boxes.

“Smart earpieces. They provide real-time translation. When kept on, the battery lasts up to 36 hours. In-ear design to minimize the chance of falling out.”

Qin Qing tried them out, checking the devices to ensure they worked properly.

Her other mission companion, Luo Yuan, said, “If there are no other questions, now’s the time to rest. The flight is about ten hours long.”

“I do have one question. I need a medium to locate someone,” Qin Qing said.

“The chief flight attendant on this flight is the younger sister of our target. She’ll cooperate once we land,” Luo Yuan replied.

“I’ll also need a map.”

“It’s already prepared. In my bag.”

“Alright. I’m good then.”

The cabin lights dimmed. Through the window, city lights below still twinkled.

Qin Qing managed a fitful sleep.

Near arrival, she was woken for a meal.

It was 6 a.m. Beijing time—midnight at their destination, Port Safir.

The chief flight attendant personally brought her meal. She knelt on one knee beside Qin Qing’s seat and handed her a new scarf.

It was thin but wide, made of cotton-linen fabric.

“The sun here is brutal. I figured you might not have had time to prepare.”

Not only unprepared—she had boarded with nothing at all. She didn’t expect the Special Ops team to be this thoughtful either.

“Thank you,” Qin Qing said sincerely.

“He’ll make it home, right?” the flight attendant asked.

Qin Qing focused her gaze on the top of the woman’s head. “I’ll do my best. At least he’s still alive.”

Sensing something, the flight attendant touched the top of her head.

Qin Qing had already looked away.

After quickly finishing the unappetizing meal, Qin Qing was guided to the restroom to change clothes.

As expected, her outfit matched the other two’s: cargo pants, a T-shirt, and a windbreaker.

She retrieved the paper map from Luo Yuan.

Before landing, she used her notebook to mark the target’s location on the map and traced the route generated by the System Panel.

Unfortunately, even the safest route had several segments marked in dangerous red.

They landed at 2 a.m. local time.

The airport was small, but from the plane, they could see the terminal crowded with people, some waving red flags.

“So many people—can this flight carry them all?”

The Foreign Affairs official who had handed them the earpieces glanced out the window without much expression. “If not, we’ll make another trip. This is a good chance to count how many are stranded.”

He turned back and shook hands with each of them. “Good luck. If you have any results, contact us. The embassy will arrange transport as needed.”

“Same to you.”

Qin Qing wasn’t sure if the target’s location would change, but she shared their current position with the Foreign Affairs official.

“He might be here. Or there may be other nationals present. Exact number unknown.”

The official looked at the map. “Port Safir is too far. If he’s here, the nearest airport is Fuyade. Once confirmed, we’ll arrange pickup there.”

The challenge was the lack of certainty.

It wasn’t just about whether they trusted Qin Qing’s intel—battlefield conditions could change in an instant. No one could predict what would happen next.

Qin Qing’s team and the Foreign Affairs team left through different gates.

But she could clearly see the stranded crowd’s enthusiasm at the arrival of a plane from home.

Local ground staff led them out of the airport.

Qin Qing showed her marked map to her two teammates. “Take a look.”

“It’s… a factory?”

Qin Qing had more details.

“Roughly, yes. But not exactly. They’re in the sewers beneath the factory.”

The two were surprised by her precise location data and gave her an extra glance.

“We’ll need a vehicle,” Luo Yuan said.

“Let’s contact the previous support team first. They should be prepared,” said Dou Xu.

Qin Qing was used to having her conclusions questioned, often wasting time explaining and reassuring others before taking action.

But this time, both teammates took her information at face value and immediately started moving.

“You’re not… even going to question me?”

“We follow orders and complete the mission. The organization trusts you—we trust the organization.”

Qin Qing understood.

It wasn’t her that was trusted. It was the organization.

Still, that made things easier. Less hassle for her.

So she shared all useful information she had.

“Dr. Yang is currently safe. He has sufficient food and water, but living conditions are poor.”

Dr. Yang—Yang Zhongjiao.

He lost contact with his support team in the sudden chaos of war. Unfamiliar with the area, he had several students with him.

It was too dangerous to stay on the streets. He remembered that one of his former students worked nearby.

That student hadn’t been outstanding in school—not focused on research and didn’t study long under Dr. Yang. Later, he worked for a Sino-foreign joint venture and ended up making the most money among his peers.

Despite that, he remained respectful, always calling to greet Dr. Yang every Spring Festival.

So Dr. Yang had a clear memory of him.

The student had mentioned the factory’s name once. It had Chinese investment, making it theoretically safer.

Dr. Yang had a good memory and sense of direction. He brought his students there.

Some of the factory workers were Chinese.

When signs of war appeared, management had arranged for evacuations.

That student was a core technical employee and was supposed to evacuate early. But his wife, a senior manager at the factory, was staying, so he stayed with her.

In the end, neither left.

The national flag hung at the factory gate. It hadn’t been directly attacked by ground forces. But aerial bombs don’t discriminate—just as Dr. Yang and the couple reunited, the factory and nearby buildings were bombed.

They escaped into the spacious, dried-up drainage tunnels beneath the factory with others who hadn’t yet evacuated.

A small stroke of luck.

Because they hid early, they avoided both enemy searches and friendly rescue operations.

Luo Yuan contacted the original support team, who were standing by at the embassy.

They didn’t need to pick them up—the team regrouped with the Foreign Affairs staff from the airport. A minibus took them all to the embassy.

What is a battlefield like?

Qin Qing hadn’t known before.

Now she had driven through streets ravaged by war.

Dark. Silent.

An embassy staffer riding with them explained, “The rebels are temporarily observing a ceasefire—rumor is they’re negotiating with the government. No idea if they’ll reach an agreement. I just hope they do. Fighting every day keeps us living with our heads hanging by a thread.”

Another chimed in, “I bet a coin things won’t stabilize soon. If they weren’t fighting to the death, they wouldn’t be rebels.”

“I hope the authorities win. At least it’d scare off other factions. Otherwise, even if these rebels take over, who knows how long their glory will last.”

“I don’t care who wins—I just don’t want to keep waking up at night with the ceiling raining dust, afraid the house will collapse. I can deal with everything else, but no sleep? That’s brutal.”

“I just want one can of Coke a day. It’s been days without supply.”

Bombed roads forced detours.

They reached the embassy at 4 a.m.

That little corner of home soil in a foreign land was still brightly lit.

Everyone was busy.

Qin Qing again emphasized the issue of stranded personnel at the factory and confirmed the backup plan for Fuyade.

Originally, two people had been assigned to receive Dr. Yang.

They even knew Dou Xu and Luo Yuan.

They had a 4WD vehicle and were restocking at the embassy before heading to the factory area.

One of the original receivers spoke Arabic—more useful than smart earpieces.

Before departure, Qin Qing walked over to the Coke-loving staffer who’d returned with her earlier.

“Something else?” he asked.

Qin Qing said, “If you must go out and need to avoid an attack, don’t hide behind a vehicle—it might belong to the rebels. More likely, they’ll think you’re a vagrant.”

And then they’ll kill you.

The man was stunned.

But seeing the serious look in Qin Qing’s eyes, he still nodded. “Alright, I won’t hide behind a vehicle.”

A Chinese passport was already a form of protection here.

Barring any accidents, the people inside the embassy were at the lowest risk in the area. Qin Qing didn’t need to do much more.

After she left, someone nudged the cola enthusiast.

“What are you dazing out for?”

“I suddenly remembered something. When I was a kid, my mom took me to a fortune-teller. The guy said my life would be smooth except for one major hurdle when I turned 37. If I got past it, I’d rise even higher, but if I didn’t…”

“My mom was just nagging me about it on New Year’s Day. I hadn’t paid it any mind. And then—bam—a coup.”

“With things like that, better safe than sorry. Be careful.”

“I kind of believe it now,” he said, then reminded his colleague, “Did you hear that? Just like me—don’t hide behind vehicles if you’re out. That girl came out with Special Ops, she must be somebody important.”

The “important” Miss Qin was getting so jostled in the SUV she felt like throwing up. It wasn’t just the terrible road conditions—the scenes outside were something she had never witnessed before.

Rotting, stinking body parts lay unattended.

A man with a filthy face and both legs gone leaned against a crumbling wall, waiting to die, eyes empty.

A woman with matted hair cried as she rifled through corpses, searching for something.

Children stood crying, bewildered and hopeless.

As they passed one of the children, no one in the vehicle remained unaffected.

Dou Xu, at the wheel, pressed down on the gas and sped through the area.

No one stopped him.

Not until they turned a corner and the child’s figure disappeared from the rearview mirror.

Finally, someone sighed.

“We can’t help them all.”

Softly spoken.

Yes, they couldn’t help them.

The only ones who could save them were their own government.

They navigated using the safe route Qin Qing had mapped out.

Aside from the emotional toll of what they saw, everything else went relatively smoothly.

They passed several electrified checkpoints guarded by armed soldiers.

The SUV had national flags spray-painted on both sides. Though the soldiers still stopped them to check passports, they didn’t shoot at the tires like they did with other vehicles.

Soon after passing another checkpoint, they were stopped by a large group of refugees.

A huge crowd forced them to halt.

They linked hands to form layers of human walls. Men stood at the front, women in the middle, and children at the back.

There was no way to drive through.

After Dou Xu stopped the vehicle, they immediately surrounded it tightly.

They kept pounding on the windows, visibly agitated.

Someone at the back even tried to open the trunk by hand.

“Shit.”

“What are they saying?”

Remembering the smart earphones, they turned them on.

But through the glass, the recording wasn’t clear, and with all the noise, the earphones couldn’t translate anything.

Their teammate Zhao Fei, who understood Arabic, listened for a while and frowned. “They want us to take their kids out in the vehicle—put them in the trunk.”

“No way. Even if we set aside whether we can or not, how could they trust strangers to take their children?”

Zhao Fei said, “They have relatives outside the checkpoint. As long as the kids make it out, their families will pick them up.”

“Still a no-go,” Dou Xu said. “That’s interference in internal affairs. It’s happened before—countries tried, and the outcome was disastrous.”

“The outcome is a problem for later. Right now, the issue is this: the car can’t move unless we run them over.”