An 80s female translator was spoiled rotten by a rough and jealous man.

Chapter 292 Pretty good

The ward was not a suitable place for heated debate, so Meng Youyou did not linger there. Instead, she led John Bart through the corridor to a small temporary rest room on the third floor.

The two stepped into the room one after the other. Meng Youyou was about to close the mottled wooden door when she paused slightly.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a figure suddenly emerging from the shadows of the stairwell exit. A young soldier was leaning against the wall with one hand, panting heavily, and their eyes met abruptly.

With just one glance, Meng Youyou understood his purpose from the urgency in his eyes—he had come specifically to find her.

Meng Youyou's eyes suddenly sharpened, but her face remained calm. She nodded very slightly to the soldier, then quickly raised her index finger and pointed to the deeper shadows inside the stairwell.

The soldier immediately understood, and in a flash, he disappeared into the shadows of the stairwell, as if he had never been there.

Meng Youyou then withdrew her gaze, as if nothing had happened. She calmly closed the door completely, then turned to the brown-haired man pacing back and forth inside.

"No matter what," the man muttered as he walked, "every pen is my personal property. If you can't provide any substantial evidence, I have the right to refuse an unreasonable inspection."

As he spoke, in front of Meng Youyou, he deliberately put the pen back in his pocket, then plopped down on the old, cracked leather sofa in the lounge, leaned back, and crossed his legs. His actions demonstrated his unwavering stance of never yielding.

“Could it be,” the man suddenly glanced at Meng Youyou, bringing out his prepared argument, “that if I walked into the supermarket and a salesperson suddenly jumped out and accused me of stealing goods, I would have to stand there passively and accept their inspection?”

Excuse me, where are my human rights reflected?

“Unless…you intend to use force to coerce me.” The man pressed on, “But I think if word gets out of this barbaric act, it won’t be very respectable of you in the international community, will it?”

Yes, this was John Bart's last line of defense: using procedural justice as a shield for moral blackmail. He figured she didn't have any real evidence and couldn't possibly force a search on him; doing so would be unreasonable and easily give others ammunition against him.

This was within Meng Youyou's expectations.

She nodded emotionlessly, her professional smile unchanged: "Mr. Bart, please rest assured, we will definitely not use any unconventional methods to deal with you."

After a pause, Meng Youyou continued in a calm tone, "However, this matter is of great importance and has exceeded my personal authority. I must report the situation to my superiors immediately. Please wait here for a moment."

These were polite words, but as soon as she finished speaking, without waiting for a response, Meng Youyou turned around, deftly opened the door, stepped out, and closed the door behind her.

...

As soon as he stepped into the dimly lit stairwell, the soldier eagerly stepped forward from the shadows to meet him.

Before the young soldier spoke, Meng Youyou was actually somewhat prepared for the information he was about to tell her, which was most likely not good news.

The building is simple in structure and quite small, with very few hiding places. Finding a blond, blue-eyed foreigner on one's own turf shouldn't take much time.

More than fifteen minutes have passed since she secretly informed the nurse, which is illogical.

It's obvious that the only reason is that things didn't go smoothly and something went wrong.

Sure enough, the young soldier told her that the person had been found in the toilet room on the second floor, but before they could break down the door, the person had destroyed everything and thrown it into the sewage pit.

After a lot of effort, they only managed to retrieve a small, relatively intact half of the cassette tape; the rest were just fragments, making it difficult to discern its original appearance.

Missing the best opportunity to catch them red-handed is certainly not a satisfactory outcome.

It was impossible not to feel discouraged at all. Meng Youyou sighed softly, her body unconsciously slumping down, her head resting against the cool, hard wall.

But she didn't give up thinking. A few seconds later, Meng Youyou said softly, "Actually, it's not like we got nothing at all. Since his assistant destroyed the tape, it means that John Bart did indeed have a bugging device on him."

With things having come to this point, Meng Youyou had no choice but to find another way to break the deadlock.

As someone once said, "There's no point in dwelling on failure." Isn't that right?

What she needs to do now is to find a way to tackle a new problem—how to make the listening device on John Bart automatically surface without using coercive means?

...

The division's technical section maintenance station was located less than 300 meters southwest of the field hospital. The two locations were close to each other and shared the same large engine in case of emergency.

In the lobby on the first floor, Huo Qingshan sat upright on a bench with his eyes closed, pretending to doze off.

Just then, the sound of unhurried footsteps approached from afar, and Huo Qingshan opened his eyes at the opportune moment.

A man wearing glasses was standing opposite me, holding an aluminum alloy box in his arms. The front of the box had a warning sign that read "Precision Instruments".

Seeing Huo Qingshan look up, the bespectacled man handed over the box and earnestly instructed, "It's fixed. I'm not saying this to be mean, but your reconnaissance platoon has been sending back night vision goggles and laser rangefinders for repair way too often these past two months."
I've said it so many times: make sure to protect against moisture, dust, and shock; don't skip any of them. And... don't leave them running for extended periods to warm up. Otherwise, at this rate, these things won't even last a few months."

Huo Qingshan glanced at the other person indifferently, said nothing, and took it from him. Seeing that the other person still wanted to say something, Huo Qingshan coldly said, "Go to the front line and carry these things with you for a few days. See if you can handle any of the three points: moisture protection, dust protection, and shock protection."

Upon hearing this, the bespectacled man swallowed hard, wisely refraining from continuing the conversation. After a dry, awkward laugh, he quickly changed the subject: "Um... there's only one machine left. I'll go up and check how far you've gotten. It should be fixed soon."

The bespectacled man turned around, and before he had taken two steps, he saw a narrow figure rushing in from outside the door, quickly crossing the hall, and running straight upstairs, as fast as a phantom.

He hadn't yet seen the person's face clearly, only vaguely recognizing her as a short-haired woman. At the same time, he felt a tall figure suddenly dart forward a few steps beside him, creating a gust of wind as it passed him.

In the blink of an eye, the man who was standing behind him appeared in front of him.

On the other side, as Meng Youyou hurriedly ran upstairs, she almost bumped into a young man carrying a box downstairs. Fortunately, the man dodged in time, and the two barely passed each other. The corner of the metal box only lightly grazed her sleeve, and she escaped unharmed.

Meng Youyou ran up to the third floor in one breath. She had been to the technical department once before and knew exactly which room the person she was looking for was in.

Inside the office, after understanding her purpose, the technician confirmed her needs: "Are you looking for an instrument that can detect electronic signals?"

Meng Youyou nodded emphatically, speaking rapidly: "Yes, yes. For example, if I have a listening device's transmitter hidden on my person, once this device gets close to me, it can capture the electronic signals emitted by the semiconductor components inside the listening device, thereby enabling an alarm function?"

John Barth's insistence on the theory that "shoppers have the right to refuse a body search" ultimately inspired Meng Youyou, who then connected it to "security gates in supermarkets."

However, she wasn't sure if the corresponding technological conditions were available in the current era. Meng Youyou asked hopefully, "Do we have the equipment here that can implement this technology?"

"Yes," the technician replied decisively.

Seeing the girl's relieved expression, almost bursting into tears of joy, the technician joked, "What are you thinking? This technology has been quite mature in our country for several years. Do you think we tech people are just sitting around doing nothing?"

Meng Youyou just kept shaking her head.

"Wait here for a moment, I'm going to the instrument storage room to get something, I'll be right back," the technician said, picking up the keys and heading out.

While waiting, Meng Youyou's gaze inadvertently swept around the room, occasionally glancing out the window. Just as she was about to look away, she suddenly froze.

She immediately walked quickly to the window, reached out and pushed it open, gazing at the tall man standing at the back of the carriage below.

The two were not close enough to see each other's faces clearly, but they understood a thousand words from each other's eyes.

He said, "I'm fine."

She replied, "I'm fine too."

Everything was understood without words; they both knew each other.

Two seconds later, the man looked away, grabbed the bolts on the left and right sides of the door with both hands, pushed them into the lock slot in the middle, and then pulled them down.

Finally, after tugging at the cargo door with one hand to make sure it wasn't loose, the man strode over to the passenger side of the truck.

As he placed his hand on the car door handle, Huo Qingshan looked back one last time before getting in.

This time, he stretched out a fist and raised it high towards a window on the third floor.

Meng Youyou raised her hand to cover her mouth and nose, her eyes brimming with tears. The next second, she slowly extended a fist.

And so, the two bumped fists across each other from a distance.

Just like before, before she left, he gave her a fist bump and encouraged her, easily soothing her anxiety. Only this time, it was a mutual exchange of strength and courage to look forward to the future.

Then, they rallied and each embarked on their own challenging journeys.

Huo Qingshan opened the car door with one hand and gestured to her with the other, "I'm leaving now."

Meng Youyou nodded, lowered the hand that was covering her face, and waved goodbye to him with a smile.

It's all good. Nearly a month has passed since they last parted, and they've lost all contact, with no way of knowing where the other is, what they're doing, whether they've suffered new injuries, or...

Such an unexpected encounter, even if it's just a few glances from afar, isn't it a delightful surprise?

At least we saw the living, safe and sound people we were thinking of.

This is enough.

It's really good.

(End of this chapter)