“Hey there, miss. You’re beautiful.” Xia Lei leaned on the counter of the front desk and smiled flirtatiously at the Russian girl on duty.

The Russian girl covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. “Is there something I can help you with, Sir?”

“Well, can you tell me which room a Chinese man named Ye Kun is staying in?” asked Xia Lei.

Disappointment flashed in the Russian girl’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Sir. Our policy here doesn’t allow me to reveal the information of other guests to you.”

Xia Lei gave a laugh and slipped a folded hotel card next to the Russian girl’s hand. A hundred Euros was in the folds of the card.

The Russian girl shot Xia Lei a smile, and quietly pocketed the card. She checked the records. “Fifth floor, Room 418.”

“Thank you.” Xia Lei turned and left.

“Hey, Sir?” The Russian girl called out to Xia Lei. “I end work at twelve.”

Xia Lei looked back with a smile and nodded, but thought to himself, ‘What does you finishing work at twelve have to do with me?’

Fifth floor, huh. So they were on the same floor. This was obviously not a coincidence - Ye Kun must have arranged it deliberately.

The corridors on the fifth floor were empty of people. Xia Lei walked to the other end of the corridor. His room was 410 but he did not stop at his room door when he went past it. He kept walking forward and soon came to Room 418.

His eye looked soundlessly into Room 418 and the situation inside revealed itself to him.

Ye Kun was talking to a few people in the room. The bodyguard Xia Lei had hit with lamb was in there, and a woman who’d not shown her face in the restaurant. She was young and looked to be Ye Kun’s assistant or secretary.

Xia Lei lip-read their conversation.

“That punk refuses to be convinced unless he sees the grim reality of his situation,” said Ye Kun hatefully. “We need to stop him from taking his guns to the light weapons exhibition, by hook or by crook. If Thunder Horse Military Factory’s XL2500 becomes a hit on the international stage it will be very difficult to deal with him in the future.”

“Where are the guns, President Ye?” asked the woman.

“Need you ask? It must be in his room,” said someone.

Another person said, “If that’s the case, then you can just send us to snatch those guns, Ye Kun.”

Ye Kun frowned. “You’re underestimating that punk and the people with him. I won’t talk about other people, just that Tang Yuyan with him is not someone we can go up against. She’s one of the Tang sect, and a soldier of Bureau 101. She wouldn’t even blink when killing someone. The people we’ve brought are no match for her. Tang Yuyan is responsible for Xia Lei’s safety and those guns. Won’t us going to snatch those guns be a declaration of war with her?”

The woman looked worried. “There’s still two days. We need to think of something, fast.”

“We can’t snatch them and we can’t buy them, so what else can we do?” said someone.

“Oh, right. Xia Lei and Tang Yuyan also have a bespectacled man with them. What’s his identity?” asked the woman.

Ye Kun shook his head. “No idea where he’s from. I’ve asked around, but nothing.”

Out in the corridor, Xia Lei’s heart thumped. ‘Someone whose identity even Ye Kun can’t find out? Who the heck is this Ling Han?’

In the room, Ye Kun said, “Forget it. You guys don’t bother about this anymore. Go prepare for the light weapons exhibition. I’ll handle this.”

The identities of the people in the room were obvious now. Other than the bodyguard, the rest were all employees of Hanwu Weapons, and Ye Kun’s trusted underlings. This had to be the case, otherwise Ye Kun would not have brought them to Russia with him and discussed such taboo things openly with them.

Ye Kun’s underlings started discussing the exhibition matters and Ye Kun himself walked out to the balcony and took out his phone to make a call. His back was to the room and to the door of the room.

Xia Lei adjusted his position but was unable to use his X-ray vision to lip-read what he said.

Ye Kun spent only a short time on the phone, roughly the time taken for a few lines to be spoken. He hung up and returned to the room with a smile on his face. “All right, that’s it for today. You guys go back to your rooms.”

“It’s done, President Ye?” asked someone.

“You don’t have to bother about it. Just do the work you’re supposed to do,” said Ye Kun.

The rest of them didn’t ask any more and stood to head to the door.

Xia Lei turned and dashed off, coming to Room 410 in the blink of an eye, and ducked inside. No sooner had the door shut behind him than the door to Room 418 opened, but Xia Lei couldn’t be bothered to use his X-ray vision on those people any longer.

Xia Lei went to the bed and reached to pull out a plastic engineering box he had stashed under it. He opened it to reveal two XL2500 sniper rifles. One was from the production line of Thunder Horse Military Factory and the other was personally modified by him. There was only one sniper rifle in the world with an effective shooting range of 3,400 metres.

He had brought a total of four sniper rifles with him to Russia. Two were with him, one with Tang Yuyan and one with Ling Han. He had arranged it this way as a safety measure. This way, he would still have a gun to show at the light weapons exhibition if someone stole from one or two of them.

He glanced at the rifles and shut the box, then put it back under his bed.

‘Who was Ye Kun on the phone with?’ pondered Xia Lei. ‘He was in an obviously better mood when he ended that call, and looked like he had a card up his sleeve. Did he find some way to stop me from participating in the exhibition? If he’s using someone else to fulfil his motive, then who is that someone?’

He thought of the CIA but quickly dismissed it. With Ye Kun’s identity, he wouldn’t cooperate with the CIA even if he had basketball-sized balls. Other than that possibility, however, he could not think of who Ye Kun could have asked for help since there were too many people who could do something like this as long as the right amount of money was involved.

Knock knock knocking came from the door.

Xia Lei’s left eye twitched and he saw the person outside - Ling Han.

“What is it, Mr Ling?” asked Xia Lei politely when he opened the door.

“May I come in to talk, Mr Xia?” said Ling Han.

“Please, come in.” Xia Lei stood aside, trying to guess at why Ling Han had come over at such an hour.

Ling Han sat on the sofa and cut straight to the chase. “What were you doing in front of Ye Kun’s room earlier, Mr Xia?”

Xia Lei’s heart thumped. “How did you know that I was outside his room?”

Ling Han spoke calmly. “I put two surveillance cameras in the corridor when you and Tang Yuyan went for dinner. Don’t be mistaken, of course, I did not do this to keep watch on you but for the assurance of the completion of our mission. If the goal was to watch you I would have put the cameras in your room and not in the corridor.”

There was more than meets the eye, this Ling Han.

“Is it difficult for you to answer my question, Mr Xia?” Ling Han looked at Xia Lei, watching, analysing.

Xia Lei then said, “Hanwu Weapons and Thunder Horse Military Factory are direct competitors. Ye Kun had also come looking for me before to try to forcefully buy my company. This was not the first time he’s come to try to cause trouble for me. I suppose you know some of it, don’t you?”

Ling Han nodded. “I do know some things.”

“I am a little nervous about Ye Kun’s presence here. I am sure he will cause trouble, so I wanted to listen to what he and his people were talking about in the room. It is not an honourable thing to do, I admit, but it is far more open than his background machinations.”

“So what did your overhear?” said Ling Han.

“Someone is plotting to steal my guns.”

Ling Han wrinkled his brows.

Xia Lei watched his expression and said, “And someone suggested funding someone capable to carry the task out.”

Nobody had said that. Xia Lei had made it up himself to see Ling Han’s reaction.

Ling Han had only frowned in response to that, and had no other reaction. He stood from the sofa. “I understand. That’s that then. You rest early.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Those were the last words between the two men before Ling Han exited Xia Lei’s room, closing the door behind himself.

Xia Lei looked at the tightly-shut door and stared blankly for a while before he said, “What a baffling guy. This guy’s colder than Long Bing.”

Xia Lei wanted to go talk to Tang Yuyan but he gave up on that idea after thinking about it. He took a shower, then lay on the bed to sleep. However, he was wide awake and unable to get to sleep. His head was full of this and that; it was a jumble of thoughts.

He was unsettled for some reason. There was no movement outside and it was miraculously quiet. What was stranger was that this feeling did not go away with time but grew stronger and stronger.

He could not lie down anymore after more time passed. He got out of bed and put his clothes on. He pulled the engineering box out from under the bed and put it on the bed.

Just then, sounds of movement came from the corridor beyond his door. It was the sound of a dining trolley’s wheels rolling on the carpet, and footsteps. There was more than one person out there.

Xia Lei’s left eye twitched and the door disappeared from his vision. He rushed to the wall by the door as soon as he saw the situation outside.

A big foot kicked at the door and it opened with a bang. A tall, burly blonde man charged into the room, wielding the latest AK12, and fired at the bed without a word.

There was a silencer on the AK12 and the gunshots were fairly quiet. The bullets barely made any sound when they hit the blanket and mattress but down escaped from the duvet and danced about in the air like snow.

This wasn’t a plan to snatch the guns - it was a murder plan!

Xia Lei did not wait for the blonde man to empty his magazine. He suddenly grabbed hold of the muzzle of the AK12, and kicked the blonde man on the outside of his knee at the same time.

The blonde man had not expected Xia Lei to be hiding near him and he crashed to the ground before he could defend himself.

Xia Lei violently wrenched the AK12 upwards as the man fell, wresting it from his grasp.

Ptu! Ptu! Ptu!

A spray of bullets came flying in from beyond the door.

Xia Lei moved his legs and put his back to the wall, squeezing the trigger as he did so. Bullets pierced the chest of the blonde-haired man.

One down, ten more to go!