Chapter 183: What Tiger?!

"Urgh!"

Politburo member Liu Peiqi suddenly cried out and snapped his eyes open.

He quickly sat up in bed and looked around. Fortunately, he was in his own suite.

Feeling his chest where the bandit's bullets had struck him, he was relieved to find nothing wrong there. However, his right side and left thigh, which the bullets had grazed, were still throbbing dully.

"If I let those bastards get away with this, then my name isn't Liu Peiqi!"

Grrrk!

Liu Peiqi clenched his teeth until they ground together, swore revenge, and got out of bed.

Pushing open the bedroom door, he stepped into the living room. Public Security Bureau Chief Pu Zhenghua was sitting on the sofa with a grim expression.

The moment he noticed Liu Peiqi, he jumped to his feet and asked anxiously,

"Politburo member Liu, how are you feeling?"

"Fortunately, I seem to be all right. My throat is dry..."

Pu Zhenghua rushed to the refrigerator, took out a bottle of mineral water, and handed it to Liu Peiqi.

Liu Peiqi greedily drank the entire bottle, sat down on the sofa, and asked,

"When did you wake up?"

"Half an hour ago."

"And what have you been doing all this time?"

Pu Zhenghua instinctively realized that this was the decisive moment. His entire future depended on the answer he gave now.

Quickly organizing his thoughts, he replied,

"The first thing I did was contact Hu Junming, the head of the Shenyang Public Security Bureau, and ask him to place the foreign consulates under strict surveillance. I also ordered the general manager of the Crown Hotel to provide all surveillance footage from the time of the incident until seven this morning."

"The answer you just gave saved your life."

"Thank you."

Pu Zhenghua rubbed his neck and answered loudly on autopilot.

"When will the hotel manager bring the footage?"

"He promised to hurry, so he should be here any minute."

"I see. And everything you saw and heard here last night is to be erased from your memory forever."

"Understood."

After draining the last drops of water, Liu Peiqi continued thinking aloud.

"Still... the attackers were definitely Vice Chairman Tang Guochang's men, weren't they?"

"I have a somewhat different opinion on that, Politburo member Liu."

"Why is that? Speak."

Clear distrust entered Liu Peiqi's voice.

"If I were one of Vice Chairman Tang's men, I'd do everything possible to conceal my affiliation. But those bastards did the opposite. They practically went out of their way to hint that they were connected to him."

"So what? Couldn't that still be the case?"

"They have absolutely nothing to gain by revealing that they work for Vice Chairman Tang."

"Hmm... Now that you mention it. Then who do you think is behind this?"

"I believe the culprit is someone trying to turn you and Vice Chairman Tang against each other."

"Zhang Jinan!!"

Liu Peiqi suddenly sprang up from the sofa and roared so loudly that his voice filled the room.

Pu Zhenghua stared at him in astonishment, unable to understand what had happened.

Liu Peiqi dropped heavily back onto the sofa and continued,

"You know who Zhang Jinan is, don't you?"

"If you're referring to the Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, then yes, I do."

"That makes this easier to explain. That bastard has always been unhappy about me doing business with North Korea."

Only then did the pieces begin falling into place in Pu Zhenghua's mind.

Trading cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers was a goose that laid golden eggs. The way Liu Peiqi had been raking in money was proof enough.

Deputy Secretary Zhang Jinan must have been burning with envy as he watched Liu Peiqi grow rich without lifting a finger. So he'd hired special forces soldiers to take Liu's money by force.

After arriving at that conclusion in his head, Pu Zhenghua cautiously asked,

"Are there any other reasons?"

"Then why didn't those bastards take all the cryptocurrency you had?"

"How the hell should I know?!" Liu Peiqi roared, boiling with rage at the mere thought of it.

Realizing that it would be wiser not to test his patience, Pu Zhenghua hurriedly changed the subject.

"Politburo member Liu, how did you lose consciousness?"

Liu Peiqi thought for a moment, reconstructing the events from memory.

He had been having dinner and drinks with Pu Zhenghua when the doorbell suddenly rang.

Wanting to be cautious, Pu Zhenghua had looked through the peephole. After reporting that no one was outside, he cautiously opened the door a crack. But then, with a cry, he suddenly collapsed to the floor.

At that exact moment, the lights in the suite went out, and a second or two later, something struck Liu Peiqi in the temple and knocked him unconscious.

Shaking his head, Liu Peiqi recounted everything in detail.

"...As soon as you went down, I was knocked out right after you."

"Doesn't that strike you as strange?"

"What does?"

"There's a considerable distance between the front door and the table. On top of that, the lights went out. Even if someone ran at full speed, it would've taken five or six seconds. But you were attacked and knocked unconscious the instant I fell. And most importantly, we both have the same injuries. We were both knocked out by a blow to the temple."

"Hmm..."

Liu Peiqi hummed vaguely as he sank into thought.

He didn't think for long, however.

"Then who do you think attacked us?"

"I think it was a highly trained animal. A tiger, for example."

"Oh, come on!"

"Politburo member Liu, there are scratches from sharp claws on our temples. Besides, the only animal capable of knocking a person unconscious with a single blow is a tiger."

Ding-dong.

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

As though he already knew who had arrived, Pu Zhenghua quickly walked over and opened the door.

A moment later, two men cautiously entered the suite. One appeared to be nearly sixty, while the other looked around fifty.

They respectfully bowed to Liu Peiqi, who was seated at the head of the table, and introduced themselves.

The man in his sixties was Wang Zhiwen, the general manager of the Crown Hotel, while the fifty-year-old man was He Senming, the director in charge of security.

As soon as they sat down on the sofa, Liu Peiqi spoke in a tone that brooked no argument.

"Everything discussed here will remain between us forever. I trust I don't need to repeat myself?"

"Of course!"

"Last night, Bureau Chief Pu and I were attacked."

"What?!" General Manager Wang Zhiwen exclaimed, putting an expression of utter astonishment on his face.

Liu Peiqi pointed at the bullet-riddled sofa and showed them his right side and left thigh, both grazed by bullets.

"So what Bureau Chief Pu said was true?"

"Now do you understand why Bureau Chief Pu ordered you to bring the surveillance footage?"

"I assume it's to find whoever attacked you and Bureau Chief Pu."

"Exactly. Now let's watch the footage."

"Yes, of course."

After answering in a tense voice, General Manager Wang Zhiwen nodded to Director He Senming.

Without saying a word, He Senming took several flash drives from his pocket, inserted one into the television, and turned it on with the remote.

Footage from a camera facing the elevators appeared on the screen.

Pausing the video, Director He Senming calmly explained,

"Politburo member Liu, our hotel has eight passenger elevators. To reach the guest rooms, a person must either take the stairs or use one of them."

"Isn't it possible to go directly from the underground parking garage to the guest floors?"

"The passenger elevators are designed to stop in the lobby and open their doors."

"But the hotel also has freight elevators, doesn't it?"

"It does, but ordinary guests can't use them."

"I see. Could the culprit have come up the stairs?"

"There are surveillance cameras in the stairwells as well."

"Then there's no problem. Let's check everyone who entered or exited the elevators between nine last night and seven this morning. Look for someone with a tiger."

"W-What?! A tiger?!" Director He Senming asked in astonishment.

"What's so surprising?"

"No matter how well trained a tiger might be, it wouldn't be allowed into the hotel. And there are cameras everywhere. If a tiger had somehow gotten inside, I would've been informed immediately."

"Are you saying I'm lying?"

"N-No! Absolutely not!"

Terrified, Director He Senming frantically waved his hands in vehement denial.

"We don't have much time. Fast-forward through the footage."

"Understood."

After replying briefly, Director He Senming began fast-forwarding the recording.

However, none of the elevator passengers had an animal with them.

There weren't even any suspicious-looking people.

They checked the footage from the stairwell cameras and other locations, but the result was the same.

When the footage ended, Liu Peiqi grumbled irritably,

"Bureau Chief Pu, who the hell was it?!"

"I don't know either..."

The attack on Politburo member Liu Peiqi and Public Security Bureau Chief Pu Zhenghua had officially become a cold case.

***

That afternoon.

I summoned Secretary Kang Inhan, along with Team Leaders Seo Donghun and Lee Hyeonsol, to my room.

"Secretary Kang, do you know what's happening at the Crown Hotel right now?"

"I was curious myself, so I asked Vice Chairman Wei Chen. Public Security Bureau Chief Pu Zhenghua told Crown Hotel General Manager Wang Zhiwen that they were attacked by a tiger."

"What?! A tiger?"

"Yes. He claimed that only a tiger could knock people unconscious with a single blow."

"Well, Saho is a sacred animal, so I can understand how he reached that conclusion."

"Ha-ha, exactly. General Manager Wang provided Liu Peiqi with the surveillance footage from nine last night until this morning, but he couldn't find anyone suspicious, human or animal."

When we had taken the elevator down to the underground parking garage and the doors opened in the lobby, Saho had been clinging to the ceiling. That was why the cameras hadn't been able to capture his silhouette.

"And what happened in the end?"

"Liu Peiqi ordered Bureau Chief Pu to check the bank account and cryptocurrency wallet where the 500 million yuan and 400 million dollars had been transferred. But the CIA had already done its work. It turned out those account details simply didn't exist."

"I can imagine how desperate he must be right now."

"Absolutely. He ordered Pu Zhenghua to find the culprit and then left for Beijing himself. But his voice sounded completely drained."

In other words, he had effectively resigned himself to losing 500 million yuan and 400 million dollars' worth of cryptocurrency.

Considering that a good outcome, I continued speaking with Secretary Kang Inhan.

"Well, let's simply erase the events of last night from our memories."

"Ha-ha, agreed."

"By the way, did you manage to obtain the four torpedoes we need to blow the Dalian naval base to pieces?"

"Late last night, a high-ranking Northern Fleet officer handed them over to us, and we then delivered them to Lieutenant Colonel Holland, commander of Delta Force's Bravo Team."

"Heh-heh. Sounds like Dalian is going to be lively tonight."

Brrr—

While we chuckled quietly, the phone lying on the table began to vibrate.

A quick glance at the screen showed Director Griffin's name.

Knowing perfectly well why he was calling, I swiped the screen with all the urgency of a snail and answered.

"I'm listening, Director Griffin."

[Deputy Director Cha, is there really nothing you can do?]

Director Griffin's question was an unspoken request to lower the price of the recording.

Of course, if I gave the order, Secretary Kang Inhan would immediately offer him a discount.

But I had already fully delegated that authority to him. The only thing left for me to do was present a united front with him.

"I'd gladly accommodate you myself, Director Griffin. But Secretary Kang is firmly opposed."

[Haa...]

Griffin's heavy, dejected sigh came through the phone.

I knew perfectly well what decision he would eventually reach, so I waited in silence.

After a while, his defeated voice came through the speaker.

[All right, Deputy Director Cha. Tell Secretary Kang that his stubbornness won.]

And at that very moment, the recording of the interrogation of Politburo member Liu Peiqi and Public Security Bureau Chief Pu Zhenghua was successfully sold to the United States for 5 billion dollars.