I Start with a Mysterious Island

Chapter 299 - 243: So Close, and Yet It Ended in Failure

Luckily, the fruits and vegetables from the Mysterious Small Island weren’t so ridiculously large that Lin Li would have no way to explain them.

If they were, he wouldn’t be able to give them away. He’d have no choice but to eat all the produce from his fields himself.

The fields yielded a lot of produce, far more than Lin Li could possibly eat on his own. It would all just go to waste.

Lin Li followed Su Yue into the kitchen and set the large watermelon he was carrying in the corner.

A quick glance revealed plenty of ingredients laid out on the counter. On the cutting board, something was only half-chopped...

"Need a hand?" Lin Li asked. Su Yue smiled and shook her head. "No, it’s fine. Go sit in the living room for a bit and watch some TV. I’ll call you when the food’s ready."

Seeing that Su Yue didn’t need any help, Lin Li nodded and left the kitchen.

He sat down on the living room sofa, turned on the TV, and flipped to the news channel. At the same time, he picked up a washed peach from the fruit bowl on the coffee table and started eating it to tide himself over.

As it happened, the news channel was reporting on the capture of Tie Qiu Heng and his accomplices.

"According to the latest information our station has received from the Superpower Administration Bureau, the fugitive who recently escaped from South District Prison has been captured. The three accomplices who assisted in his escape have also been apprehended..."

’They’re broadcasting it on the news already. It seems the relevant departments were embarrassed by Tie Qiu Heng’s escape, which is why they released the information immediately after he was caught...’

Lin Li sat on the sofa, watching the news report and eating his peach.

...

In a rental unit in an old urban village within the city, a burly man with a buzz cut was on the phone, reporting to his superior.

"I waited at the destination for Tie Qiu Heng and his people yesterday. After waiting a long time, they never showed up, so I left."

The burly man with the buzz cut reported to his superior, his face sullen. He was furious. After all, he’d been stood up, and no one would be in a good mood after that.

"They didn’t arrive at the rendezvous point at the scheduled time? Did something happen?" the man’s superior asked with a frown.

"I wouldn’t know. I was just supposed to be the pickup."

"Alright, I understand. I’ll talk to the liaison for Tie Qiu Heng’s group and ask what happened, why they didn’t stick to the plan and show up at the rendezvous."

Just as the burly man with the buzz cut and his superior were about to end the call, a news report from a pretty anchor on the TV in the rental unit made them both freeze.

"According to the latest information our station has received from the Superpower Administration Bureau, the fugitive who recently escaped from South District Prison has been captured. The three accomplices who assisted in his escape have also been apprehended..."

The pretty news anchor smiled as she delivered the happy news.

Of course, this news, which was a relief to ordinary people, was an absolute disaster to others.

"What... Tie Qiu Heng and the others were caught..." the burly man with the buzz cut muttered, his expression slack-jawed as he stared at the news report on TV, phone still in hand.

His superior, on the other end of the line, had also heard the news report through the phone.

He had just been thinking about tracking down the person in charge to ask what happened. Well, that saved him the trouble.

"Damn it, what the hell is this? Weren’t they supposed to be well-hidden? How did they get caught?!!"

The burly man’s superior cursed, his anger flaring.

He wasn’t cursing out of concern for the captured men. He was furious because he’d sent his own subordinate to pick them up last night. The fact that they’d been caught beforehand meant his man had walked right into a dangerous situation, where he could have easily been captured himself.

Just last night, the burly man with the buzz cut had waited a long time at the designated rendezvous point.

Thankfully, no Investigators had been lying in ambush near the rendezvous point. Thinking back on it now, a cold sweat broke out on his back.

"Those bastards! Boss, you have to get on the intelligence department’s case. Tie Qiu Heng’s whole crew got caught and they didn’t even tell us. Were they trying to get me killed?" the burly man said angrily.

The Canglan Society was organized into several departments, each with its own specific duties.

The department the burly man belonged to was primarily responsible for extraction—helping operatives who were out on missions get away safely after their job was done.

"Tie Qiu Heng’s whole team got captured, and we didn’t hear a peep. If we hadn’t caught it on the news, we’d still be completely in the dark! This is a massive screw-up by the intelligence department.

"Don’t worry, I’ll call them right now. If they don’t give me a proper explanation, I won’t let this go."

The burly man’s superior reassured his subordinate, and then they ended the call.

Afterward, the man—in his forties, with a gloomy expression that marked him as the scheming type—displeasedly dialed a number.

"Old Li, what’s up? Why the call?" a steady voice asked from the other end of the line once the call connected.

"What the hell are you people doing over there? You tell me to arrange a pickup, and it turns out the targets have already been captured.

"I’d still be completely in the dark if I hadn’t just seen it on the news!" the gloomy-faced man demanded, suppressing his rage.

"What did you say?" The man on the other end was clearly shocked by the news, momentarily speechless.

"Old Chen, don’t tell me that as the head of the intelligence department, and the main person running this rescue operation...

...you still don’t know that Tie Qiu Heng and his entire team have been captured by the local Investigators in Rongcheng?"

The gloomy-faced man’s voice grew louder, clearly dissatisfied with the response from the other end of the line.

"..." After a few seconds of silence, the man on the other end said apologetically, "It’s my fault this oversight occurred. I’ll have someone look into it immediately."

The head of the intelligence department was on the same level as him. Since the man had apologized so sincerely, the gloomy-faced man decided to back down and grant him this small bit of face.

Afterward, they exchanged a few perfunctory words and hung up.

The head of the Canglan Society’s intelligence department, a man in his early sixties with graying hair, addressed his subordinate with a deep frown.

"The plan to rescue Tie Qiu Heng has failed. He and our entire rescue team have been captured."

"When we last contacted them, they said everything was fine and that they were on their way to the rendezvous with the extraction team. How did it end up like this?" The subordinate’s eyes went wide with shock.

"Up until yesterday, this rescue plan was practically a guaranteed success.

But at the last minute, when we were just one step away, it failed.

"I really don’t know how they could have messed it up so badly," the department head said, rubbing his furrowed brow in bewilderment.

"Now that the rescue plan has failed, when Steward Zhang finds out, he’s going to fly into a rage. How are we going to explain this to him?" the subordinate said, his face etched with worry.

...