Chapter 42: A Sudden Calamity

  Guo Guoyong tried to disperse this temporarily generated sense of unease, detoured to the back of the restaurant, and came down the slope to the garage.

  He decided to drive along the coastal road before meeting the hermit at the restaurant, take a look at LeFleur's villa, and then return by the inland road.

  Kuo Kuo-yung's great hobby is driving a grey multi-functional sedan, which can reach 90 miles per hour according to the odometer and has a top speed of 120 miles per hour.

  Kuo Kuo-yung slowly drove the car out of the garage, up the slope, and soon, with the puffing sound of the exhaust pipe, the car went onto the tree-lined avenue, through the crowded streets of the small town, across the sand dunes, heading south.

  An hour later, he walked into the hermit's restaurant bar and sat down at a table by a large window.

  The bar is very luxurious, with the waiter's attire, the famous Meerschaum pipes and the curly-haired dogs adding to the luxurious atmosphere. The chairs in the hall have leather cushions, and the tables, chairs and wall panels are all made of shiny red wood.

  The curtains and carpets were red, gold and blue; the waiters wore striped waistcoats and green baize aprons as they darted to and fro in the hall.

  Guo Guoyong ordered a bottle of red wine and then carefully studied the well-dressed customer.

  He thought that most of these people came from high society, they sat, chatting with relish and ease, forming a dramatic atmosphere of good communication.

  The men were drinking champagne which was exciting, while the women were drinking martinis that weren't sweet.

  Suddenly, Guo Guoyong caught a glimpse of Jin Qiang's tall figure walking on the pedestrian path, excitedly talking to a girl with gray clothes and black hair beside him.

  He held her hand with his arm raised high, but judging from their expressions, they still lacked a warm and intimate atmosphere.

  The girl's face had a mocking expression, which meant they were just business partners and not lovers who shared the same feelings.

  Guo Guoyong and others waited for them to walk through the door on the side of the street into the bar, but pretended not to see them, continuing to stare at the passersby outside the window.

  "I think it must be Mr. Guo Guoyong?" Jin Qiang's voice was full of surprise and excitement, coming from behind him, and Guo Guoyong also seemed to stand up excitedly.

  "Are you alone here? Who are you waiting for? May I introduce my colleague Miss Linda? Dear, this is Mr. Guo from Jamaica, with whom I had a pleasant business deal this morning."

  Guo Guoyong leaned forward, showing a friendly and polite attitude. "Nice to meet you. I'm sitting here alone, would you two like to sit with me?" He pulled out a chair.

  After the guests sat down, he gestured to a male waiter. Jin Qiang insisted on paying, but Guo Guoyong ignored him and ordered a glass of red wine for Jin Qiang and a glass of champagne for the girl.

  Jin Qiang and Guo Guoyong chatted happily, one praising the city's sunny weather, the other speculating that this summer the city would regain its former prosperity.

  The girl sat silently, took a cigarette handed over by Guo Guoyong, looked at it, and then lit it up leisurely.

  She naturally inhaled the smoke deep into her lungs, then held her breath, and casually puffed out the smoke from between her lips and nostrils.

  Her smoking gesture looks elegant and generous, relaxed and natural.

  Guo Guoyong strongly felt the attraction of this female assistant to himself. When he was talking with Jin Qiang, he would occasionally turn to her and politely mention her in the conversation, but every time he glanced at her, his expression remained unchanged.

  Her hair was black, parted in the middle and fell low on her neck, with a clear and beautiful jawline. Although her hair was very thick and flowed with the movement of her head, she didn't use her fingers to brush it back into place, but instead let it be natural.

  Her eyes were large and deep blue, with a mocking, uninterested expression.

  Looking at Guo Guoyong, forcing him to quickly avert his gaze.

  Her skin was slightly tanned to a dark brown, with no signs of makeup except for the lipstick on her charming lips.

  Her slender arm makes people think of her quiet temperament. Her fingernails were not painted, cut very short, and had no pretentiousness at all.

  She wore a pure gold necklace around her neck and a large yellow jade ring on the ring finger of her right hand.

  Her medium-length coat was made of gray wild silk, with a square low neckline that perfectly set off her full chest. A black belt about 5cm wide was tied around her waist, and a black leather handbag was placed on the chair beside her, along with a golden straw hat. The hat had a narrow black velvet band tied around it, which formed a small knot at the back of the hat.

  Guo Guoyong was deeply attracted by her beauty, and thinking that he would soon be working with her, his heart skipped a beat.

  At the same time, he felt a sense of inexplicable unease, and subconsciously took a sip of wine. Jin Qiang noticed his unstable expression.

  "Excuse me," Jin Qiang said to the girl, "I need to make a phone call to Mr. and Mrs. Du to arrange for tonight's dinner gathering. Tonight, I'll leave you alone at the hotel, do you mind?"

  She shook her head.

  Guo Guoyong nodded in agreement. As Jin Qiang walked through the bar and into the phone booth next to it, Guo Guoyong said to the girl: "If you're alone at home tonight, would you like to have dinner with me?"

  She replied with a mysterious smile: "I'd be delighted." She said, "Then perhaps you can take me to the Springs King Club, Mr. Jin told me that you often go to casinos domestically, maybe I'll bring you good luck."

  After Jin Qiang left, her attitude towards Guo Guoyong suddenly became gentle. She seemed to know that they would soon be in the same boat, sharing life and death together. They discussed the time and place of their meeting.

  After all this, Guo Guoyong realized that it was easy to make a detailed action plan with her. He found that Linda was very interested in the role she played in this action and was excited, and she was also very willing to cooperate with him.

  Before this, before establishing this harmonious relationship with her, he had imagined many obstacles and barriers, but now it seems that things are going extremely smoothly, and he feels that he can directly discuss the details of the plan with her.

  He acknowledged in his heart that he had already developed a crush on her, but he could only attend to personal feelings after the task was completed.

  When Jin Qiang returned to the table, Guo Guoyong asked the waiter to come and settle the bill. Guo Guoyong explained to him that his friends were waiting for him at the restaurant to have lunch together. He shook her hand and felt a kind of affection and understanding between them, which he had not expected half an hour ago.

  The girl saw him out of the door and came to the Lin Yin Avenue.

  Jin Qiang moved the chair in front of her and said softly, "He's my partner. I'm glad you two can meet each other. I can already feel that the two frozen rivers are about to thaw."

  He smiled, "I think this kid's block of ice has never melted before, it will be a new experience for him, and you too."

  She didn't answer him directly, but said: "He's extremely handsome, he reminds me of something, but his mouth is a bit cold..."

  The sentence was not finished yet, when suddenly a loud noise came, several meters away, the entire thick glass window was shaken violently, and shattered glass pieces flew everywhere.

  A violent blast of air knocked them both to the ground, and for a moment, there was an eerie silence.

  Then they heard the sound of heavy objects falling on the concrete floor outside, bottles crashing on the shelves behind the bar, followed by screams and people rushing towards the door.

  "Stay here," Jin Qiang said, jumping onto a chair and cat-waisting through the window frame without glass to jump onto the sidewalk.

  Kuo Kuo-yung left the bar and deliberately walked along the sidewalk on one side of the tree-lined avenue towards a restaurant several hundred feet away, feeling hungry.

  The weather was still very clear, the sun was like a fire, baking his head, fortunately, there were phoenix trees on the sidewalk every twenty feet, casting their shadows between the lawn and the wide asphalt road, pedestrians could take shelter under them.

  There was no one around, only two men standing silently under a tree on the opposite side of the path, acting somewhat suspiciously.

  When Guo Guoyong and they were still one hundred meters apart, he noticed them. The distance between him and them was about the same as that between them and Hui Huang Restaurant.

  Their appearance made Guo Guoyong feel very uneasy and suspicious, both of them were quite short, wearing what seemed to be black clothing, He Bond knew that this was a fashionable tropical attire.

  They looked like they were waiting for a bus to take them to the theater to perform as acrobats, each wearing a straw hat with a wide black band around the brim, giving off a strong seaside resort holiday atmosphere.

  The wide-brimmed hats and the shade of the trees made their faces indistinct, but one thing on each of them was very conspicuous. On closer inspection, it turned out that each of them had a square camera slung around his neck, one bright red and the other sky blue.

  As Guo Guoyong made out these details, he was only fifty meters away from the two men. He thought about the range of various small arms and how to get cover.

  Suddenly, a shocking and terrifying scene appeared. The man with the red box nodded to the man with the blue box, who quickly took off the blue camera from his shoulder, fiddled with it for a moment, and then threw it forward.

  Guo Guoyong, because of a large trunk of a phoenix tree beside him blocking his line of sight, did not see the situation when the box fell to the ground, only saw a dazzling white flash, followed by a deafening explosion.

  An explosion. Despite being shielded by the tree trunk, Guo was knocked to the ground on the sidewalk by a strong blast of heat that swept across his cheeks and abdomen like autumn wind blowing away fallen leaves. He lay on the ground, staring up at the sky. The air still echoed with the residual sound of the explosion, as if someone had struck the low-pitched area of a piano with a large hammer.

  Guo Guoyong got up on one knee, feeling dizzy and disoriented, with a string of terrifying flesh and pieces of clothing stained with blood scattered around him, mixed with tree trunks and gravel.

  Then many small tender branches and leaves fell down, and a piercing tinkle of broken glass came from all around.

  A mushroom-shaped black smoke drifted in the air, he dazedly watched it rise up and gradually dissipate.

  A strong smell of explosives lingered in the air, mixed with the acrid smell of burnt branches and a scent similar to roasted meat.

  Within a distance of fifty meters on the Lin Yin Avenue, all the trees were burned to bare branches. On his opposite side, two large trees were cut off at the waist and lay motionless in the middle of the road. Between the two fallen trees, there was also a smoking wooden box.

  The two men in straw hats were nowhere to be seen, but on the road, on the sidewalk, and on tree trunks everywhere there were bloodstains, and sparkling glass fragments hung high in the branches. Bond felt a wave of nausea.

  Jin Qiang was the first to rush up to him, at which point Guo Guoyong was using his arm to hug the tree trunk and try to stand up. Thanks to the protection of this tree, he narrowly escaped death.

  He was not injured, but his whole body was numb, and his mind was dizzy, so he had to follow Jin Qiang to the Hui Huang restaurant.