Chapter Fifty-Eight: Owari Is Taken Captive

Liu Yunfei sat down across from Yu Qing, his elbows resting on the table, hands interlaced to prop up his chin, watching intently the woman before him whose face was aglow with happiness. She had already noticed that special rose among the bouquet.

"Wow, it's so beautiful." Yu Qing set the flowers down, carefully admiring the golden rose shimmering with every hue. Suddenly, she looked up at Liu Yunfei with a hint of gossip in her tone, asking, "This isn't real gold, is it?"

Liu Yunfei smiled in response, deciding that discussing whether it was genuine gold or not would only spoil the mood.

"Thank you," Yu Qing said softly, bringing the flower to her cheek. "Isn't it lovely?"

"Lovely. You're the most beautiful girl tonight. And there's a base for it at home—I'll give it to you when we get back."

After gazing at the rose for a while, Yu Qing finally set it down, as if just now noticing the table full of dishes. She picked up her chopsticks. "Let me try if it's authentic Chinese food."

Liu Yunfei also took up his chopsticks, selecting several dishes and placing them in the small plate in front of Yu Qing, then picked up a slice of sauced pork knuckle for himself. The taste was quite good, not much different from what you'd find in a restaurant back in China. After so many days, he hadn't tasted such authentic Chinese food, and suddenly, he missed his mother's cooking dearly.

"I was afraid you wouldn't know how to use chopsticks, but you're quite adept," Yu Qing said, biting her chopsticks with a smile.

"I have plenty of secrets. I'll tell you all of them tonight." Liu Yunfei thought to himself, If I told you right now that I'm Chinese too, who knows what your reaction would be.

"Oh? Is that so? I want to hear them now." Yu Qing seemed very interested, leaning over the table like a schoolgirl, looking at Liu Yunfei expectantly.

Just as Liu Yunfei was about to speak, his phone rang. Lately, calls always seemed to come at the most inopportune times. Cursing the damned phone, he smiled apologetically at Yu Qing and took it out. It was a text message from an unfamiliar number. He opened it and saw a single sentence: "Someone is planning to kidnap the Little Prince at the Renault intersection."

The Renault intersection was the last turn on the way to the special agent training camp. Liu Yunfei had no time to enjoy the romantic dinner. He quickly told Yu Qing, "The Little Prince is being kidnapped. I have to go right away. Take my car and head back to Knight's Castle—it's dangerous here." Seeing the disappointment in Yu Qing's eyes, he smiled helplessly, tossed her the car keys, and disappeared into the night without looking back.

Outside the Chinese restaurant, Liu Yunfei called back the number that had sent the message, but it was already turned off. He then tried the Old Prince's phone, also off. He scrolled through the numbers for the lead car in the convoy and called the steward. The steward was anxious—they had already arrived at the training camp, but the two cars at the rear hadn't shown up and couldn't be reached. Clearly, the kidnappers were aware of their arrangements and had not attacked the leading luxury convoy, but had instead targeted the two cars at the back.

Liu Yunfei quickly mounted his Somersault Cloud and raced along yesterday's route. It was rush hour, traffic thick on the highway, and the darkness of night made it even harder to see the people inside the cars—a major complication for his pursuit. Flying along, he peered into every car, searching for the Little Prince. If he had indeed been kidnapped, this was the only route back to Florence. Yet, even when he reached the Renault intersection, he saw nothing unusual.

He went a little further and spotted a black Mercedes stopped on the emergency lane. This was the car with the two agents that had left last. He opened the door, and the stench of blood hit him. Inside were the corpses of the driver and two agents, each shot once in the head.

But where was the other car? Where were the Little Prince and his companions? Liu Yunfei’s head was spinning. He could only continue searching ahead.

Soon, a car on the opposite lane caught his attention. It was speeding, weaving through the traffic like a snake, and another car was in pursuit. From the window of the pursuing vehicle, a man leaned out with a gun, firing at the car ahead.

Liu Yunfei quickly flew into the car at the front. Belgrade was at the wheel, a stranger's corpse slumped in the passenger seat. Belgrade, glancing back nervously as he drove, was startled when Liu Yunfei suddenly appeared in the back seat. When he saw who it was, his face broke into a look of immense relief.

There was no time to ask what had happened. Liu Yunfei simply told Belgrade to pull over. As soon as he jumped out, the pursuing car screeched to a halt a short distance away, and three white men stepped out, all armed—one even wielding an AK-47. Clearly, they were not expecting resistance, swaggering over without caution.

Liu Yunfei strode to meet them. Seeing he was unarmed, one kidnapper shouted, "Stop! On your knees, hands above your head!" With a tiger-like leap, Liu Yunfei was suddenly in front of him—so fast that the kidnapper hadn't even had time to react before Liu Yunfei snatched the gun from his hand. Wielding the hybrid tai chi he'd insisted Henry teach him, Liu Yunfei swung the man around in the air and flung him far off, arcing gracefully before crashing into the roadside mud. He had pulled his punch, wanting a live captive; otherwise, that man would have been dead.

The other two kidnappers were stunned by Liu Yunfei's prowess. Snapping out of it, they raised their guns and opened fire. Liu Yunfei, however, was unfazed by these ordinary firearms. Bullets whistled and struck his body, the slugs flattened into thin copper discs and scattered—his body impervious to harm, though his new casual outfit was now riddled with holes, transformed into a trendy mesh shirt.

Realizing Liu Yunfei wasn't afraid of bullets, the two kidnappers panicked and ran. The one with the AK tossed his gun, trying to run faster. But how could they outrun Liu Yunfei? The first ran headlong into Liu Yunfei's stomach. Eager to rescue Owari and the Old Prince, Liu Yunfei didn't want to waste time. He pulled out his instant knockout spray from his jade slip, grabbed the kidnapper by the collar, and sprayed his face. The man slumped in a faint and was thrown into the jade slip. The other received the same treatment.

Looking up, Liu Yunfei saw Belgrade had already picked up a gun and was dragging the man he'd flung into the mud back toward the car.

"Hurry, let's save them," Liu Yunfei said, shoving the kidnapper into the back seat of the Mercedes and getting in as Belgrade drove.

No wonder Liu Yunfei hadn't seen any suspicious vehicles on the way—the kidnappers, after abducting the Little Prince, hadn't fled back toward Florence but had instead continued forward.

As Belgrade drove, he borrowed Liu Yunfei's phone. The first call was to CIA headquarters, requesting immediate satellite tracking of locator O41 and real-time updates of its position. The second was to the special agent training camp, ordering agents and the security team to prepare for combat and stand by for deployment. The third went to local police, asking for all intercity highways and nearby intersections to be sealed off and for any suspicious vehicles to be apprehended.

Meanwhile, Liu Yunfei interrogated the captured kidnapper but learned nothing. The man was a small-time mafia thug from Florence, brought along by his boss to kidnap someone—he didn't even know who the target was, nor where they were to be taken.

When Belgrade finished his calls, Liu Yunfei had the kidnapper phone his boss, claiming the escapee had been dealt with and asking for new instructions. But the boss, apparently suspecting coercion, refused to give a location, hung up, and turned off the phone.

Belgrade then summarized the earlier events: they had encountered no trouble until the Renault intersection, where a police car signaled them to stop for inspection. The moment they stopped, they were surrounded. There was no warning—snipers must have been waiting in hiding. The two agent bodyguards were shot dead before they could even get out. Sensing danger, Belgrade quickly dropped the locator—a CIA-issued device given to VIPs, only a hundred in existence, designed for quick satellite tracking anywhere in the world.

He discreetly left the tracker under the driver's seat and cooperated, claiming to be just the driver. His guileless, slightly foolish smile saved him; the kidnappers saw him as harmless, even a bit slow-witted, and let him ride along in the last car, trusting him enough to let him drive. As soon as the car was in motion, he pulled out a CIA-issue poison dart and killed the kidnapper in the passenger seat, then made his escape. Realizing what had happened, the cars ahead sent one back to pursue him, leading to the scene Liu Yunfei had witnessed.