Li Chonglou had also taken these people away with this consideration in mind.
Furthermore, Li Chonglou had already made arrangements for Ah Bao's future whereabouts, though these were all matters for later. His immediate concern was finding the pregnant woman.
"Um, I might need to go back and ask my friend before I can tell you."
"No problem, I'll take you back now."
Ah Bao fell silent, sitting quietly and contemplating his future.
Lao San drove them back to Ah Bao's neighborhood. However, the person they were looking for wasn't a neighbor but another childhood friend.
As they got out of the car, Li Chonglou suddenly realized something was amiss.
The last time they had been here, there were hardly any people, let alone cars. Now, Li Chonglou could see four or five black vans.
"Back to the car, now!"
Li Chonglou made an immediate decision.
"What's wrong, Brother Li?"
Yue Hai looked confused, but Chen Peiyue obediently returned to the car. Just then, the four or five vans about a hundred meters away started up and sped towards them.
Yue Hai finally realized the danger and no longer hesitated, quickly diving back into the car.
*Bang.*
As the car door slammed shut, Li Chonglou immediately yelled at Lao San.
"Go!"
With a roar, Lao San executed a perfect J-turn. Yue Hai, unaccustomed to such exhilaration, was pressed back into the rear seat, gripping the front chair tightly.
"Hold on!"
Lao San warned, then stomped on the accelerator. The car shot forward with a rumble.
"What's going on, Brother Li!"
"I don't know, let's just get out of here."
Li Chonglou held onto the car door, twisting his body to stare intently at the vans pursuing them. Just then, he saw two people emerge from the windows of the vans behind them.
Each was holding a submachine gun.
"Lao San, be careful!"
Lao San glanced in the rearview mirror, his face draining of color. He had already floored the accelerator. Their only hope now was skillful maneuvering.
Fortunately, having followed Gao Baisong for so many years, he had taught himself a lot. At a small bend ahead, he took it at full speed, managing to shake off the pursuing vans.
"Damn it, notify the boss, they have professional racers!"
The two gunmen, having missed their best opportunity, could only sit back down.
As for Lao San's driving skills, they were astonished.
After taking that small turn, they lost them completely within five minutes. The pursuers seemed to know the route extremely well!
This was indeed true. Once they hit the national highway, Lao San knew the routes in and around the capital like the back of his hand. To exaggerate, he could navigate them with his eyes closed.
Lao San brought the car to a halt by a deserted field.
Li Chonglou, seeing his exhausted state, was about to offer a word of comfort when Lao San suddenly said,
"Boss, next time you need to arrange some bulletproof cars for us. This is too dangerous!"
Li Chonglou's expression flickered. He thought to himself that it was true what they said about birds of a feather flocking together. Lao San had certainly picked up some of Gao Baisong's rogue spirit.
Beside them, Yue Hai and Chen Peiyue quickly opened their doors and stumbled out to vomit.
Such an intense experience was more than most people could handle.
Just as Li Chonglou was feeling surprised that Ah Bao seemed to be fine, a sour stench wafted into his nostrils. He turned his head and saw that the young man had been vomiting into a plastic bag inside the car.
The entire car was instantly filled with a foul odor, and the three of them fled the vehicle as if escaping a plague.
After a while, Yue Hai managed to recover slightly and asked, "Brother Li, what do we do now?"
"We need to figure out who ambushed us first."
Li Chonglou sighed. He had only intended to find a pregnant woman to confirm some details, and yet he had run into so much trouble.
However, even as he said this, Li Chonglou had some suspicions about who might have attacked them.
The only party he had offended in this area was undoubtedly the Fei Gang. But he couldn't understand how the Fei Gang would know they were returning here.
If they had been lying in ambush all along, then how did they know that Lao San's car was carrying them?
Therefore, Li Chonglou could only speculate at this point, not yet certain.
Yue Hai asked again, "How do we investigate? Should we go back?"
Li Chonglou understood his implication but shook his head, "I'll make a call first."
He then walked to the side and dialed Lin Qianqian's number.
When the call was connected, Li Chonglou briefly explained the situation.
"How do you want me to help you?"
"Your police station should have undercover agents in the major gangs. Help me find out who is making a move here?"
"We do, but these are police resources. If they find out..."
Lin Qianqian's tone was clearly hesitant. Li Chonglou understood this and merely asked her to try.
After hanging up, Li Chonglou realized that this avenue might not work. After all, this was just his personal matter. If he overused Lin Qianqian's resources, it would undoubtedly give others leverage.
And that would inevitably implicate him as well.
Sighing, Li Chonglou looked at Yue Hai.
"It seems we'll have to investigate ourselves."
Yue Hai shrugged nonchalantly. He would have preferred fighting every day.
Li Chonglou then asked Lao San to drop them off somewhere outside and then let Lao San go back alone. They, in turn, took a taxi back to Ah Bao's neighborhood.
This time, since they had switched cars and had deliberately gotten out a bit further away, the group encountered no further trouble.
"Let's not worry about their identities for now. We need to find the person first,"
Li Chonglou instructed, then had Ah Bao lead the way. The three of them took a more secluded route.
Finally, after a tense but uneventful journey, they found the person Ah Bao needed to find after about an hour.
It was a man of the same age as Ah Bao.
"You mean the pregnant woman? Didn't she go back to her hometown to have her baby?"
It turned out that after Ah Bao accepted Sun Zhong's commission, to save himself the trouble, he had half-heartedly passed the task on to this childhood friend.
However, these two were as lazy as each other. The latter, knowing that the pregnant woman was leaving, didn't even bother to inform him. Thus, Ah Bao only realized at this point that the target he was supposed to monitor had already left the capital.
Just then, Chen Peiyue suddenly spoke to the two of them, asking, "The person you're talking about, did she come from Feng Town? Did she used to work at Sun Corporation in Feng Town?"
Ah Bao's friend looked bewildered, while Ah Bao said thoughtfully, "The person who commissioned me, wasn't it some Sun Corporation? He mentioned that the pregnant woman was one of their employees?"