Chapter 168: K’s Provocative Call, Explosive Wants to Execute Rose!

A few minutes ago.

Inside the secret room of the Red Rose Beauty Salon.

The ghost abruptly hung up the phone, and the address provided, clearly with a provocative tone, unmistakably showed that the drug cartel members were aware that Rose had been captured by the police.

It can be said that trying to use the time difference from Rose’s capture to dig out other members’ addresses and arrest them has now become nearly impossible.

Given the drug cartel’s caution and the speed at which internal intelligence is communicated, even though the poison knows, other members would surely be on guard against Rose’s number and may have even activated other organizational codes.

The only gain so far is confirming the location where the poison is hiding and capturing an important member of the drug cartel—Rose.

Although Rose is currently in an emotional state and would not provide any useful information, once she has been sitting in the interrogation chair for a few hours, calming down after the adrenaline rush, it will no longer be up to her whether she talks or not.

Standing beside him, Lin Tian habitually sniffed the tobacco scent on his left index finger, still feeling an unspoken regret. He furrowed his brows and said slowly.

“Is it that fast?”

“Where did the problem occur that made Explosive realize Rose was captured?”

“Could it be that the Ghost didn’t receive the latest intelligence about Rose’s capture but instead discovered another problem himself?”

“Such as: He has only been in the organization for half a year and hasn’t given Rose her facial data, or maybe their relationship isn’t good, so there’s no mask with Rose’s face?”

Clearly, Lin Tian hoped to use this breakthrough to dig deeper into the drug cartel and try to uncover all its members as quickly as possible.

Such a massive drug cartel is like a poisonous thorn stuck in the land of Dragon. If it isn’t removed quickly, who knows what might happen later? The longer it drags on, the bigger the impact on society and the public.

Gao Chao, usually expressionless, turned to glance at the controlled Rose by the door, then, very seriously, said cautiously.

“Director Lin, Deputy Team Leader Su, how about this?”

“I’ll take Rose back to the team. Given the brutality and audacity of this drug cartel, if I leave her here, I can’t help but feel uneasy.”

“Also, Deputy Team Leader Su said earlier that Explosive is likely in frequent contact with Rose because of a deal they made.”

“Although according to logic, Explosive should still be hiding in Taicang City, my concern is…”

“Could it be that this Red Rose Beauty Salon has already been rigged with a remote-controlled time bomb? While the possibility is small, I just feel we can’t take this risk.”

Hearing Gao Chao’s words, Lin Tian also nodded in agreement. He glanced at Rose, who was controlled outside the secret room, and firmly agreed.

“It’s indeed better to be cautious.”

“Gao Bureau, please take Rose back to the criminal investigation team. Xiao Ming and I will stay here to see if we can uncover any other information.”

“Of course, the most important thing is to quickly identify the other drug cartel members.”

After receiving Lin Tian’s approval, Gao Chao didn’t hesitate. He quickly walked out of the secret room, took a black hood, placed it on Rose’s head to cover her face, and gestured for Guo Ping and Xu Changsheng to escort her downstairs.

Since Rose is a well-known female entrepreneur in Liangxi City, wearing a hood not only protects her privacy but also helps reduce the media’s impact.

—

After Gao Chao took Rose downstairs, in the secret room where the human skin mask was made, Su Ming was scrolling through his phone’s contact list. To his surprise, he found that the special phone only contained numbers of other organization members.

There were no other business cards or contact information, meaning this phone was purely for internal communication.

The numbers were all virtual, and even the signal transmission device had been modified, making it impossible to trace other members’ locations using communication signals.

This, of course, made sense.

With K’s outstanding hacking skills, if his subordinates could be traced through their phone signals, he wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden in Dragon Country for so long.

At this moment, as Su Ming was preparing to continue searching for suitable members to probe, his phone suddenly vibrated.

“Buzz—”

“Buzz—”

“Buzz—”

…

The phone suddenly buzzed in his hand. A member had called under these circumstances, and the screen clearly displayed the name—K.

K calling unexpectedly made Lin Tian freeze for a moment, then he immediately looked at Su Ming beside him, shook his head lightly, and sighed inwardly.

Because K’s call at this time, combined with the earlier attitudes of Ghost and Explosive, clearly wasn’t to test the current situation with Rose but was meant to provoke and threaten.

Su Ming was well aware of this, but he waited for fifteen seconds before choosing to answer the call and put it on speaker.

As soon as the call was answered, a low, mocking, and hoarse voice rang out in the secret room.

“Heh… Fifteen seconds, no wonder you’re the top hunting dog who managed to dig out Rose. With such sharp instincts, you’ve uncovered this code in no time.”

“However… however, do you think you can deceive me so easily?”

“Do you really think that with this simple, ugly fifteen-second code, you can make me believe that Rose is still fine and will obediently report her address?”

“Well then, I’ll give you five minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting at the entrance of the Huaihai Criminal Investigation Team in Modu. If you don’t show up in five minutes, then sorry, please come to the United States and catch me.”

“By the way… do you really need to work so hard for those worthless fools?”

“I could easily slip a little heroin between my fingers, and that would be enough for you to sell your life to the police station. Otherwise, Su Ming, come work for me?”

“In one day, I can make you enough money to last a lifetime. And I think… you’d be the perfect criminal.”

Hearing these words, Su Ming remained expressionless. This was his first call with K. Then, with an emotionless sneer, he mocked.

“Work for you?”

“Then hide like you do, only daring to peek from behind beams, worrying about the ‘eye in the sky’ on traffic lights, even now using a voice changer?”

“Oh, and don’t forget to shamefully break your computer every now and then.”

“After all, if you didn’t break your computer during the last two times, you’d probably already be bald, ready to eat peanuts any day now, right?”

The last sentence dealt a severe blow to K. Su Ming and Lin Tian both clearly heard the sound of a cup shattering on the other end of the phone.

Immediately after, K’s voice, as if nothing had happened, coldly rang out again.

“Good, very good.”

“As long as you have enough guts and courage, come on, come catch me in the United States.”

“Rather than barking like a dog, only pretending to make a sound for your master to hear, but being useless at everything else.”

And with that, K hung up the phone.

K hung up the phone without the slightest hesitation.

Hearing the call end tone, Su Ming narrowed his eyes slightly, then calmly began to deduce:

“Very strange.”

“Why would K be so bold, so fearless, as to make a phone call himself? That’s totally out of character for someone as cautious and meticulous as him.”

“Not to mention, Rose is already in our custody.”

“Even if we haven’t gotten concrete information out of her yet, once she’s transferred to the interrogation room at the criminal division, we’ll definitely crack her open.”

“Unless… Rose doesn’t have K’s real facial information. Or K has always provided her with fake details. That would explain how he can act so relaxed.”

“He made that call deliberately to stall for time, to give the other members a better chance to escape?”

“But is that really necessary? Does he think a taunting phone call is enough to waste police time and delay Rose revealing key info?”

“Or could it be…”

“The call was simply a provocation. A way for him to restore his confidence. Or even to mislead the police, throw us off?”

“If that’s the case, then it means K isn’t worried at all about Rose revealing information about the organization. He must have other contingency plans in place.”

“Rose is one of the core members of the organization. What kind of hidden move could make K feel so relaxed, even take the time to taunt us?”

This purely speculative reasoning—

Made Lin Tian beside him feel a wave of awe. He never expected that a call that seemed to be nothing more than provocation could lead Su Ming to such deep inferences.

This ability to piece together information and deduce scenarios—Su Ming was truly a top-tier genius detective.

In that moment—

After pondering silently for several seconds, Su Ming suddenly caught onto a detail. He immediately picked up his phone and opened the call logs he hadn’t had time to check before.

And he instantly noticed… aside from a few recent missed calls—

Starting from yesterday, Rose had already made multiple calls to Bomber. And in nearly all of them, Rose was the one initiating contact.

Only in the final moments right before the arrest did Bomber begin to call Rose.

Analyzing this pattern through the lens of typical call behavior:

Aside from calls between family or friends, the party who initiates the call is usually the one in need or seeking help.

Though Rose and Bomber were both members of the drug trafficking organization—

Their relationship clearly didn’t reach the level of “family.” At most, they were friends—or more accurately, criminal accomplices.

In Su Ming’s eyes—

Given how swiftly members were erased the moment they were exposed—

A group as ruthless as this left no room for camaraderie. “Better you die than me” was their only principle.

So for Rose to begin frequently calling Bomber starting yesterday—it definitely wasn’t just for friendly chit-chat.

After all, small talk doesn’t require multiple calls in a single day.

Moreover—

Aside from Bomber, the other most frequently appearing name in the logs was K. The rest of the organization barely showed up at all.

Which ruled out the possibility of Rose contacting other members to check if they were safe.

Back to the main question—what reason would drive Rose to contact Bomber so frequently in the past two days?

Now consider Bomber’s role in the Taicang City “Retirement Home Bombing Case.”

That clearly identifies him as the one in the organization responsible for bomb-making—and the one who had supplied Zhou Shirui with explosives.

From the call logs, Su Ming could see clearly—

Right before Rose first called Bomber yesterday, she had placed a call to K. And the time of that call coincided exactly with when Zhou Shirui was found to have committed suicide.

It’s very likely that—

Upon learning Zhou Shirui—an expert killer in the organization known as the “Sculptor”—had been exposed by police—

Rose, who was relatively timid but also more publicly exposed, panicked and called K to ask what to do. Whether she needed to flee.

But K, brimming with confidence at the time, believed the police’s sights were solely on Poison in Gusu City. They wouldn’t reach Liangxi and Rose.

So he told her not to worry. Just keep running the beauty salon as usual.

But clearly, Rose wasn’t reassured. So she contacted Bomber and began preparing an escape plan in secret.

With Bomber’s help, what kind of contingency plan could Rose have prepared?

Judging by this organization’s usual practices—

Eliminating any potentially exposed identity was always the simplest and most effective first step.

Just like how Poison faked an accidental death to erase his original identity. And how Rose tried to abandon hers by emigrating abroad.

So it’s not hard to deduce that—

The reason Rose started contacting Bomber so urgently last night was likely to…

Have him bring a large quantity of explosives—to blow up the Red Rose Beauty Salon!

That way—

Her current identity as the successful businesswoman “Tang Zhiyun” would go up in flames along with the secret human-skin mask lab beneath the salon.

All clues and traces would be reduced to ashes. She’d vanish once again with ease.

That explains all the calls Rose made to Bomber.

Then—

Why did Bomber call Rose so many times afterward?

The answer was now clear…

Bomber had already arrived in Liangxi City, carrying a large stash of bombs, waiting to meet Rose.

Which meant that when he made the call earlier, Bomber had been hiding somewhere nearby—probably very close to the Red Rose Beauty Salon.

That also further suggested: the reason Bomber noticed something was wrong with the call wasn’t just because the key point wasn’t about the masks—

But quite possibly… because he had personally witnessed the arrest operation!

That’s why K was so relaxed, completely unconcerned that Rose might reveal internal secrets of the organization—

Because Bomber was also in Liangxi, ready to execute her if needed.

Why would he worry about a dead Rose revealing anything?

And the best time for Bomber to carry out the execution—

Would be right after Director Gao placed Rose into the vehicle, when protection was at its weakest and the officers were just beginning to lower their guard.

The moment all the doubts were unraveled—

Su Ming didn’t hesitate for a second. He charged downstairs at full speed, drawing his police pistol from his waist, while shouting into his earpiece:

“Director Gao!”

“Bomber is hiding near the beauty salon—he’s going to execute Rose!”