Chapter 141: Setting Sail

Long Er twisted the guard's neck, dragged him into the darkness, and began stripping off his clothes. Mo Fei stood by, holding a flashlight covered with a piece of black cloth to dim the light.

This shipyard was built along the Salween River, which flowed through Myanmar and eventually emptied into the Gulf of Martaban. At the mouth of the gulf, they would complete the transfer of personnel, boarding a hospital ship bound for international waters. The number of people being sent to the hospital ship was between two and three thousand; finding Li Momo among so many people was no small task.

Long Er planned to blend in first. If he could find Li Momo and extract her before the loading process, that would be ideal. If she were being held elsewhere, they would have no choice but to board the ship to find her. Otherwise, if the ship departed before they found her, the situation would become disastrously complicated.

Long Er changed into the guard's uniform, donned a headscarf and a face mask, leaving only his eyes visible.

"Is this really okay? They don't even know you," Mo Fei said, feeling that Long Er was taking the opposition a bit too lightly.

"It’s fine," Long Er replied, completely unbothered as he calmly hid the corpse. "They can't wait that long; the ship is leaving soon."

If he could find her before boarding, he wouldn't risk discovery. Once on board, he could simply claim to be a new recruit; that would be enough to fool them.

"Do you remember the plan?"

Mo Fei nodded. "You use your disguise to check if Li Momo is among those being held here. If she isn't, you'll smuggle me into the crowd to be brought onto the ship."

Long Er looked at him and asked, "What will you do while I'm looking for her?"

"Stay hidden quietly," Mo Fei answered.

"Good," Long Er nodded. "Don't go wandering around." He wasn't worried about anything else right now; he just feared Mo Fei might stir up more trouble. Long Er hadn't originally wanted to get involved in the affairs of the Golden Triangle, but since things had reached this point, he had no intention of half-assing it. Keeping his word was one of his life principles.

Near the shipyard was a cluster of brick buildings. Under normal circumstances, these would store raw materials or serve as staff dormitories, but now, they were being used to hold people. Looking around, one could see young adults, even teenagers. Long Er checked the rooms one by one, but Li Momo was nowhere to be found. This result was expected; after all, Li Momo was no ordinary person, but an employee who had worked on new product development under Bai Yingxiong.

She was likely being kept under stricter guard to ensure she made it onto the ship. The security around ordinary people was lax, and Long Er could bluff his way through, but if he encountered tight security, a firefight would be inevitable. And currently, they were heavily outnumbered.

They had gained nothing that day. What was worse, Long Er learned that the prisoners were to be loaded onto ships and sent away that very night. The shipyard was deploying two vessels—ostensibly for cargo, but actually for human trafficking. Each ship would carry over two hundred people, guarded by fifty armed men. And this was just one batch; people were being shipped out from other locations as well.

They had run out of time. According to the plan, Long Er smuggled Mo Fei in with the "pigs"—the human cargo. The captives didn't react at all to the sudden addition of another person. They were all essentially dead men walking; who would care if one more person joined them in their doom? Mo Fei carried a gun for self-defense, while the explosives were kept separately by Long Er.

Once on board, the captives were locked in individual cages. To ensure the "quality" of the cargo, the crew provided basic meals—just enough to keep them from starving to death—and escorted them out individually for bathroom breaks. Besides, there was nowhere to escape on the ship.

At first, Mo Fei was curious and vigilant, but after the ship had been moving for a while, he wilted. It was the motion sickness. Cargo ships were not designed for passengers; the hold was cold, damp, and filled with the smell of decay. Mo Fei gripped the cage tightly to steady himself. It was unbearable, as miserable as riding in a car driven by Long Er.

These ships would take quite a while to travel from the river channel to the estuary, but Mo Fei no longer had the energy to track the time or the changes in his cards. In the dark hold, dozens of iron cages were lined up neatly, each holding several people who looked as lifeless as if they were already dead. Surrounded by this, Mo Fei felt a deep chill.

This task was truly not easy. One slip, and you were dead. But that was fine, too; in this world, death was the only thing one could not escape.

***

Long Er blended in with the guards, appearing no different from those around him. He spoke the local language, wore the same uniform, and carried the same aura of menace. There seemed to be a strange intuition among desperate men; if Mo Fei had been standing there, he would have recognized him at a glance.

At the river mouth, a massive white ship was docked at the pier, bearing a bright red cross. A group of people in white coats were moving crates onto the ship, while others stood by checking lists. Every time a hospital ship set sail, it was a major operation. Who had reserved a heart, who had ordered corneas or kidneys—it was all accounted for. Moreover, the sale of blood from over three thousand people was a significant source of revenue.

"The organs from the first one hundred and thirty serial numbers have already been reserved. Send them to the special room for extraction. Pack and keep the blood as well. The corneas must be preserved properly; they sell fast. As for the rest, we can maintain their vital signs for now. There's always someone who will be a match, and we can sell them at a discount if we have to."

As he spoke, the person beside him nodded repeatedly. "Don't worry, we're experienced."

They were conversing in English. Two people wearing masks who were carrying a crate overheard the supervisor and muttered in Chinese, their faces devoid of smiles, "Damn their grandfathers. A perfectly good hospital ship being ruined by these bastards."

The person opposite him glared at him. "Shut up." If their identities were discovered, these lunatics wouldn't mind adding a few more numbers to the serial list. The man stopped talking, but his eyes clearly showed he was still unconvinced. The one who had silenced him gave him another sharp look.

The two carried the crate onto the ship. After carefully setting it down, they took advantage of a moment when no one was around to change their clothes, transforming from porters into doctors. They put on masks and hung their ID badges, continuing their conversation.

"No unnecessary actions. Find the target and prepare to retreat immediately."

"Understood."

No one dared to provoke the hospital ship, and no one would ever think of sneaking onto it, which was exactly what gave them this opportunity. They didn't want to alert the people in the back of the ship; they were only there to retrieve one person.

"What a massive loss. When I saw the target had no special connections, I thought I was just grabbing a runaway kid. I never expected this person would end up on a hospital ship."

If the target had stayed safely at home in the country, there wouldn't have been so much trouble. Under normal circumstances, ordinary people would never have a chance to board a hospital ship, which was why they had accepted the mission. Who could have imagined, who could have foreseen—they hadn't known until they checked, and what a "surprise" it turned out to be.

They had lost their shirts on this one!