Courtyard House: First, kill the hypocrites, leave none alive.

Central, that building with a gray glass curtain wall, has three underground floors.

The meeting room was brightly lit, with fluorescent tubes neatly arranged on the ceiling, making the whole room look like an operating room.

The huge maps of Hong Kong Island were still hanging on the wall, the red and blue pencil marks particularly glaring under the light.

The coffee on the table was untouched, with a fine layer of water droplets forming on the cup, indicating that it hadn't been touched for hours.

The group of people sitting around the long table were Scorpion, Blake, Martin, Paul, David, and Eva.

The conference room was filled with smoke, a mixture of the smells of cigarettes, coffee, and disinfectant wafting from the ventilation ducts, making one's throat feel tight.

Scorpion sat at the head of the table, wearing a dark gray tactical jacket zipped up to his chest, revealing a black T-shirt underneath.

His short, golden hair clung to his scalp, and the two deep forehead wrinkles that ran from his eyebrows to his cheekbones looked particularly pronounced under the light.

He braced his hands on the table, leaning slightly forward, his deep-set gray-blue eyes sweeping across everyone's faces.

"This was a complete accident."

His voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a nail driven into a table.

"Who would have thought that a fifteen-year-old girl would be carrying a loaded revolver in her pocket?"

No one spoke.

Blake kept his head down.

Martin held the coffee cup to his lips but didn't drink it.

Paul leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on his knees, one tap at a time, like some kind of countdown.

David tilted his chair back, stretched his long legs under the table, and rested the tips of his boots on the crossbeams of the seats in front of him. His gaze was fixed on the fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling, lost in thought.

Scorpion tapped his fingers twice on the table.

"The intelligence was flawed. Our intelligence said she was an ordinary student, not that she had received any training."

Eva had bandages on her face.

Blake looked up.

"The intelligence is correct. She attends Ford School, has average grades, doesn't participate in extracurricular activities, doesn't argue with classmates, and arrives and leaves school on time every day. Her teachers describe her as obedient, quiet, and not talkative. There is no record of her being capable of using a gun."

The scorpion looked at him, its gray-blue eyes devoid of any expression.

"Now is not the time to assign blame. The North Koreans already know it was us, and they will definitely retaliate. They can come and go freely from the base in Singapore, and they can also find us in Hong Kong. We must strike first before the North Koreans do anything. Their biggest weakness is their sister."

He paused, placed one hand on the untouched coffee cup on the table, and slowly ran his fingers along the rim of the cup.

"Don't make the same mistake next time."

No one spoke.

The conference room was so quiet that you could hear the low hum of the air conditioning system.

Across the street, on the rooftop of an old building.

The building is not tall, only a dozen stories, with a dusty gray exterior, and is inconspicuous compared to the surrounding office buildings.

The rooftop was piled with miscellaneous items, including several bags of cement covered in dust.

Chen Feng squatted on the edge of the rooftop, with a pair of binoculars set up in front of him.

He was wearing a dark tactical jacket, black trousers, cloth shoes, night vision goggles hanging from his helmet, and camouflage netting draped over his body, blending into the night.

The telescope lens was pointed at the building across the street—a gray glass curtain wall, thirty-two stories high.

From the outside, it looks no different from any other office building in Central, with security guards at the entrance and a reception desk in the lobby.

The three underground floors are the true core of this building.

He was observing the entrance and exit.

The main entrance has a revolving door, and cars can drive directly into the lobby from here. During rush hour, there is a large flow of people, so security guards don't check everyone individually.

The side door is a fire escape. It is usually locked and only opened in emergencies. You can push it open from the inside to go out, but you need a key or break the lock to come in from the outside.

The back door is in a narrow alley. The door is small, only allowing one person to pass at a time. There are no lights at the door or in the alley, so it's pitch black.

The entrance to the underground parking garage is on the side of the building, with railings, a guard booth, and staff on duty.

But the person on duty was a security guard from the property management company, not a CIA agent.

He felt that the people in this place might not be that vigilant.

He put away the telescope and took out a roll of architectural blueprints for the building from his storage space.

This was redeemed from the system for 200 points. The floor plan of each floor, the location of the fire escape, the location of the electrical room, and the layout of the underground parking garage are all clearly marked.

This was the first time he had exchanged the building's blueprints, and he felt it was worth it.

He pointed to the location of the underground parking garage with his finger.

The garage has two underground levels. You can access it via elevator or by taking the stairs.

He moved his hand to the lobby.

The lobby is on the first floor. You need to go through the front desk to get to the elevator from the main entrance.

There were two receptionists at the front desk, both wearing uniforms and light makeup, and they had sweet smiles.

But they weren't CIA agents; they knew nothing about the CIA, they were just ordinary office workers.

Even if there's a gunfight, these people will just scream.

Chen Feng put away the blueprints, took out all the explosives from his spatial storage, and lined them up on the ground.

I got several hundred kilograms of C4 explosives from the police station's armory last time, plus the C4 I redeemed from the system last time, along with hand grenades and time-delay bombs, plus everything else I could blow up that I've accumulated over this period.

He squatted down and began making a time bomb.

C4 is plastic, feels like clay, and can be molded into any shape.

He shaped it into a square and wrapped it tightly with tape.

The detonator is inserted in the middle of C4, and the wire is led out from the detonator and connected to the timer.

He used to bomb courtyard houses and the Zhao family's house in Beijing. Back then, he used homemade explosives, ammonium nitrate and fertilizer, which weren't very powerful but were enough.

They're using C4 now, which is much more powerful; a piece of C4 the size of a palm can blast through a concrete wall.

The several hundred kilograms he got from the police station's armory, plus the ones he redeemed from the system, were enough to blow up the entire building.

He assembled the C4 piece by piece and put it into the canvas bag, one piece, two pieces, three pieces—a total of thirty pieces.

Each timer has a different set time.

Some are set to ten minutes, some to fifteen minutes, and some to twenty minutes.

The explosions are not simultaneous, but rather one after another. The first explosion creates a breach, the second penetrates, the third reaches the core, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth explosions collapse the entire floor.

Thirty yuan is enough.

He picked up a piece of explosive and examined it.

The detonator was inserted securely, the wire was intact, and the timer kept perfect time—one second, two seconds, three seconds.

He stopped, and the timer stopped too.

He put the explosives back into the canvas bag, checked all the explosives again to make sure they were in order, zipped up the canvas bag and placed it at his feet, and began to check the weapons.

There were two pistols; the magazines were pressed, but the springs were still stiff.

A submachine gun, magazine inserted, bolt pulled to chamber a round, bullet ejected, no foreign objects in the chamber.

A dagger was pulled from the boot and examined in the moonlight; the blade was very sharp.

Three smoke grenades, three flashbangs, and six hand grenades.