Under the Veil of Night

Inside the party, Sheila had watched the drama that occurred with slight disbelief. She could not understand what that girl wanted to do by getting into the room of a drunken man. If he was interested in her, she could understand a bit, but from what she heard, the man didn't have any interest.

"She's truly stupid."

Aiming for a main's core member was plain stupid if she didn't have anything that made her different from the others. If she had a beautiful body that could make the entire city drool, it was not impossible for a man of high status to fall for her.

Shaking her head lightly, Sheila caught the raging Sakura from the corner of her eyes. The number of guests left at the party already slashed in half because of the incident. The numbers were still decreasing rapidly as time passed because the guests didn't want to stay longer in fear they upset the already dipleased Sakura.

Sheila looked towards her own fiancé. He was busy talking with other women and drinking happily. She shook her head lightly. Because she only aimed for the inheritance behind this annoying man, she would not feel anything even if he flirted with other girls.

As for her own reputation, why should she care? From the moment her father lost everything, her reputation was already in tatters. It would be for the best that she didn't care about her pride anymore. The cold treatment other people gave her would only increase the pain in her heart if she paid any attention.

She moved her feet towards Sakura. The latter was younger than her, but even Sheila had to admit that Sakura was far sexier and prettier than her. She didn't really care that she lost, though. She had other reasons for getting close with this pampered girl.

"Miss Sakura, you seem rather down."

Sakura looked up and frowned upon seeing this flashy girl. Although she was confident in her own beauty, seeing this woman dressed so openly to flaunt her looks was not pleasant.

"You can say that. May I know who are you?"

"My name is Sheila," Sheila answered with a smile. "Do you mind if I talk to you informally?"

"It's fine, I'm tired of the formal speech too."

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Sakura."

Sakura looked towards Sheila suspiciously. Why did she suddenly approach her? From her experience, she knew that this woman must be up to something. Rumors had spread about Sheila's marriage and how this girl used schemes to get money from her fiancé.

Smiling innocently with the mask of an angel, Sakura was already used to dealing with people like her. Even if she was not sure what the other party's real goal was, she would still reply politely.

"Is there anything I can help you with?"

"There's no need to be so guarded," Sheila chuckled. "I'm not eyeing your fiancé. I already have mine, and he's also part of the Nali Family."

"Oh," Sakura felt like she got a clearer picture from this explanation. Previously, Amanda was aiming for her fiancé, which was actually extremely impossible given her status. As for Sheila, there was no need for her to try because Jon wouldn't aim for an engaged woman either.

Her eyes scanned Sheila up and down. Even if she didn't like how this girl was dressed, she could make use of the other party. A relationship based on benefit was something extremely common for her.

"Can you go straight to the point?"

Sheila smiled. "Sure."

The two of them talked for a long time. No one else knew the content of their conversation. What they knew was Sheila got a higher position in the Nali Family the day after that. The two girls grew closer, and the others were eyeing them with suspicion as they wanted to know what had exactly happened.

…

Jason stopped his car in front of the abandoned building. He parked it in a way that wouldn't let passerby see his car easily before going into the building. The moment he walked inside, he saw the other three already waiting for him.

"You're late again," Tommy smirked. "You're the only one who used a car, but you're the slowest again, Mr. I'm always late."

Jason rolled his eyes. This Tommy always knew how to raise his ire. "I have to put up appearances, unlike a certain servant that could disappear in a matter of seconds without anyone caring about you."

"At least, being a servant is better than being a young master. You can't even go to the toilet without the others knowing."

"I'm pretty sure that the life of a young master is more interesting than that of a little servant."

Seeing these two already entering a heated argument, Kanae shook her head lightly. Couldn't their meeting be peaceful occasionally? She grew tired hearing their senseless argument over and over again.

"Come on, we need to deal with the matter of this information," Kanae held up the flash disk between her index and middle fingers.

Jason took the flash disk and plugged it into his laptop swiftly. "Is all the information about the secret weapon here?"

"Yes. Those two are quite generous to not put up too many layers of protection. It was quite easy to extract the information, crack the code, and copy it here," Kanae grinned.

Shiro shook his head. "If it were other people, they're going to have a hard time cracking the information. The two families are careless this time because they didn't know who they're facing."

"That's true."

Kanae nodded her head. It was unlikely any other people could crack the code within minutes like her because the protection was quite heavy. If they didn't manage to crack it open within the limited time, they would only alarm the owner and the laptop would lock down by itself. Of course, such petty protection was nothing for Kanae.

Tommy looked at the file that Jason opened and his eyes widened. He was extremely familiar with the activities that appeared within the pictures. Still, he didn't understand why one would want to save pictures like those. "Your uncle saves those kinds of pictures?"

Kanae's expression already turned into that of disgust as she moved her eyes away. "It seems so."

"He's already so old, and he still keeps these kinds of images? His body function is quite interesting," Shiro nodded his head with amusement. For him, the most interesting thing from this was the fact that at that old age, the organ in question was still very active. It would make a good research topic.

"…" Tommy was speechless when he heard Shiro's comment. He wondered if this man could think like other ordinary men when they saw those pictures.

Kanae took off the ring that Jason gave before the mission. "This ring is quite useful, but it's too big."

Her finger was not big, so the existence of this ring was rather prominent. She didn't really want to have others remembering this ring on her, so it would be better if she didn't wear anything that would attract their attention. Of course, today was an exception as she did need it.

"I'll ask them to make a better one for you," Jason smiled. "What kind of ring do you want?"

Kanae rolled her eyes. "No need for a ring. I would prefer a bracelet that can hide the needle. That way, I can manipulate the needle more easily."

"Okay, I'll tell the others about it."

Jason typed on the laptop as he sorted out the information. Finally, he looked towards the map that Kanae found after clearing up the code. His gaze landed on the lines as he creased his forehead.

"This is the thing that they guarded the most?"

Kanae nodded her head. "This is the only thing that had an extra lock. The lock is not that hard to open for me, but for ordinary people, it might take a long time. I think it's the location of the research building."

"I think you're correct, but these horizontal lines is surely just half of the information. There are too many possibilities along the lines," Jason pointed towards several suspicious buildings on the map. There were too many places that they needed to check and the locations made it impossible for them to move unhindered.

Kanae nodded her head. She also thought about this before. "If there are also three vertical lines, we'll get 9 spots. It's still a lot, but far fewer than now."

"Do you want to…?" Jason was startled.

"Yes, put the information on the black market. I'm sure this will attract numerous people to voice out their offers. Do you mind if we get less sleep tonight?"

"Not at all."

Tommy smirked in amusement.. "This is going to be very interesting."