Luo Lan looked at Ren Xiaosu. “Shall we leave then? The Wang Consortium’s troops will definitely arrive soon. We need to get out of here quickly.”
However, Ren Xiaosu shook his head. “I’m afraid that the Wang Consortium’s troops might already be outside the stronghold by now. No matter what, you’ll still bump into them if you go out now. Besides, if you sneak away, the Wang Consortium will probably assume you died in the stronghold. But if you show up again in the future, the Wang Consortium will surely wonder whether you had anything to do with this creeper vine.”
“That’s true.” Luo Lan was worried. He wanted to distance himself entirely from the matter, but he really did not know how to.
Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and said, “Follow me.”
In order to prevent any clues from being left behind, Ren Xiaosu even used his storage space to help Luo Lan take away the corpses of the Qing Consortium soldiers. These admirable people would have to receive an elaborate burial later.
However, Luo Lan was a little puzzled. Where was Ren Xiaosu planning to bring them?
In the end, Ren Xiaosu wanted to lead them to destroy all the surveillance footage in the stronghold. But when they arrived at the Wang Consortium’s control room, they realized the surveillance footage had already been deleted!
Luo Lan and Ren Xiaosu were stunned on the spot. Ren Xiaosu did not really understand these things, so he confirmed with Luo Lan again, “Has it really been deleted?”
“Yes.” Luo Lan nodded and said, “It might have been during the time there was a power failure in the stronghold. By the time the power was restored when the backup circuit kicked in, the problem might have already occurred.”
Ren Xiaosu felt that things were not that simple. However, he did not understand anything about it since this was also his first time seeing a computer. So he could only take Luo Lan’s word for it.
When they located the largest bank in the vicinity, they took the vault key from the corpse of the bank president lying on the ground, and everyone hid inside the vault. Meanwhile, the Hope Media reporter, Zhou Tao, remained outside.
Everyone had already agreed to collude that Luo Lan had abandoned Zhou Tao while escaping. In the end, it was the mysterious superhuman who saved Zhou Tao and destroyed the short-lived creeper vine.
Immediately after, the mysterious superhuman left this place, leaving Zhou Tao behind and alone at the site of the battle.
Right now, the only problem Ren Xiaosu had was that he did not know was whether the so-called artificial intelligence overseeing the Wang Consortium’s stronghold would store any backup copies of the surveillance footage after they had been destroyed.
This area was overgrown with the creeper vines from very early on. So when the residents of Stronghold 61 started fleeing, no one was able to get into this area. As such, the bank vault here was not occupied by anyone.
After entering the vault, they waited patiently without worries. Ren Xiaosu, Luo Lan, and the others even started playing Fight the Landlord inside the vault.
As Zhou Yingxue was still unconscious, Ren Xiaosu was a little worried. He was worried that his maid might have damaged her brain from the huge amount of energy she had absorbed.
There would always be a price to pay. To earn money, one had to put in time and effort by working, and the same went for acquiring knowledge. There was no such thing as free lunch in this world.
Since Zhou Yingxue had acquired too much this time, Ren Xiaosu was a little worried for her.
After Ren Xiaosu and the others hid in the vault, they waited for two long hours before they finally heard a flurry of footsteps coming from the outside.
Someone shouted outside the vault, “Is anyone in there? We’re the Wang Consortium’s rescue team!”
Ren Xiaosu immediately put away the poker cards while Luo Lan opened the vault door and said in a choked up voice, “You’re finally here! I’ve missed all of you so much. Why are you so late!”
Zhou Tao was already with the rescue team. When Luo Lan saw them, he looked like he had finally been reunited with his family members. Zhou Tao could feel his scalp going numb at the sight of this. This was because when Luo Lan had denied that the Qing Consortium was in possession of nuclear weapons, he also fucking looked like that!
Zhou Tao had also thought about it before. Could it be that the Qing Consortium really did not have any nuclear weapons? Otherwise, Luo Lan’s tearful denial would have really been too convincing!
But now, Zhou Tao could only chuckle at that.
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When the Wang Consortium troops entered the stronghold, they immediately searched for all survivors. In the end, they realized there were only a few survivors found in the vaults and several other enclosed environments in the city. For example, some of them had hidden in the water tanks of high-rise buildings, their own cellars, and even inside the wells.
But how many people could hide in these places? This disaster had brought devastating destruction to the residents of Stronghold 61.
Luo Lan revealed his identity to the Wang Consortium troops. First of all, he had to affirm the fact that he had been waiting for rescue to arrive throughout the disaster. As for other matters, they had nothing to do with him.
Along the way, the soldier who was responsible for getting Luo Lan and the others to safety asked, “Do you guys know how the creeper vine wilted?”
Luo Lan said in an extremely flustered manner, “Weren’t you the ones that killed it? We’ve been hiding in the vault all this while and have no idea of what happened outside at all.”
Then the soldier looked at Luo Lan and Ren Xiaosu and suddenly called Ren Xiaosu’s identity into question. “Eh, is he with your group? The information I have here states that there are Qing Consortium soldiers traveling with you. Why haven’t I seen them?”
Luo Lan glanced at Ren Xiaosu. Luo Lan’s group had informed the Wang Consortium about their entourage, and the Wang Consortium even saved a copy of their photos. Therefore, he could not admit that Ren Xiaosu was with him. Otherwise, it might just arouse the Wang Consortium’s suspicions.
Luo Lan said in grief, “My comrades died while trying to save me. These people aren’t with us. I think he might be a stronghold resident.”
“Oh,” The soldier nodded and asked Ren Xiaosu, “What’s your ID number? I need to verify it.”
Under normal circumstances, who would immediately verify the identity of escapees? As if they weren’t miserable enough yet! Ren Xiaosu knew the other party must already be suspicious of him. After all, Luo Lan was originally the focus of everyone’s attention.
While Ren Xiaosu was thinking of how to handle the situation, he suddenly heard a hopeful shout behind him. “Boss?!”
Ren Xiaosu spun around. He suddenly felt the disaster he had gone through vanish into thin air when he saw Wang Fugui, Jiang Wu, Wang Yuchi, Li Qingzheng, and the others on the long street full of dead vines.
All the unhappiness vanished in this instant.
Wang Fugui trotted his way over to Ren Xiaosu and circled him to check if he had taken any injuries or if he had become thinner. However, he was totally fine. The only strange thing was that he was carrying a girl.
Wang Fugui did not know whether it would be appropriate to call Ren Xiaosu by name here, so he simply addressed him as “boss.” After all, he considered himself Ren Xiaosu’s shopkeeper now. No matter how much money he made from those businesses, it was all earned for Ren Xiaosu.
Jiang Wu, who was behind Wang Fugui, also wanted to rush up. However, she stopped in her tracks after just a few steps.
Off to the side, the commanding officer of the Wang Consortium’s rescue teams, Wang Linlan, said with a smile, “Bro, I never expected that the person you were looking for would really survive. Congratulations! But why did you address him as boss just now?”
Wang Fugui explained with a smile, “I might’ve brought in a lot of goods from the Northwest, but I’m actually just a shopkeeper. That guy is our actual boss.”
Wang Linlan looked at Ren Xiaosu in surprise. So this young man turned out to be the real owner of the mercantile company? In that case, he would probably have to deal with this young man very often in the future.
Who didn’t like making friends with rich people? Although Wang Linlan controlled an army, there were still times when he needed money.
Therefore, Wang Linlan’s attitude towards Ren Xiaosu became exceptionally pleasant.
When the soldier who wanted to check Ren Xiaosu’s ID card saw his superior come over and seemingly had a very close relationship with him, he gave up on wanting to check his identity and went off to continue searching for other survivors.
Wang Linlan said to Wang Fugui with a smile, “You guys can rest here for now. I have a more important search and rescue mission to take care of.”
“Do what you have to do.” Wang Fugui said with a smile, “Now that we’ve picked up our boss, we have to return to Stronghold 62 to tally the goods. There’ll be more opportunities for us to interact in the future, so we won’t hold you up any more here.”
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Wang Linlan left with a smile. Ren Xiaosu also said goodbye to Luo Lan. Although Ren Xiaosu wanted to keep Luo Lan at his side to copy his power, it was really not appropriate for him to interact too much with Luo Lan right now. Moreover, Luo Lan was still not allowed to leave the Wang Consortium’s stronghold. He would have to wait for the dust to settle so he could show he had a clear conscience.
Ren Xiaosu did not say anything else. At this moment, he had too many things he wanted to tell Old Wang and the others and also too many questions he wanted to ask.
As he looked back at the stronghold, a question popped up in his mind. Who could have deleted all the surveillance footage?