Jacob had arranged a press conference to clear up the issues regarding his wife.
In the meeting hall, hundreds of seats had been placed to accommodate the people attending.
At the venue's entrance hung a giant red banner with the words "Press Conference of Emily Bai of Gu
Consortium" in bold, yellow font. It was quite eye-catching.
The press conference was scheduled to begin at 10 o'clock in the morning. However, people started to
arrive as early as 8 o'clock, eager to attend the conference and save themselves a seat. By half-past
nine, most of the members of the media had already arrived at the venue.
After all, the incident involving Emily had caused quite an uproar. Many wondered what kind of news
would be revealed in this conference held by the Gu Consortium.
When Darren heard that Jacob was going to hold a press conference in the morning, he didn't take it
seriously, thinking that perhaps Jacob was just struggling to deal with the issue. He turned on the TV to
watch the live broadcast, ready to see a joke.
Jacob arrived with Emily at the venue at 10 o'clock. As soon as the media caught a glimpse of Emily,
they immediately surrounded her, bombarding her with camera flashes. As the reporters rushed to ask
Emily their questions, their voices drowned each other out. Jacob blocked all of their advances and
they continued to walk forward into the venue.
At home, Darren couldn't help but take pleasure in what he was seeing. Emily couldn't even utter a
single word as the reporters blocked their path.
"Good morning, everyone. The press conference will begin shortly," Emily said slowly as she glanced
at all the reporters present.
Cameras were aimed at her and everyone was focused on what she had to say. They were expecting
some sort of apology from her. They couldn't think of anything for her to do or say during the press
conference except to apologize. After all, all the evidence was posted on the internet.
A few seconds later, Emily straightened her posture and firmly said, "I don't want to talk too much. So, if
everyone could please look at the screen."
Various pieces of evidence appeared on the screen. First, the so-called face injury of the victim showed
that he hadn't been hurt because of Emily. The injury had actually happened a long time ago.
The first evidence shown made everyone quiet.
Then, the screen also showed remittance records and even call recordings. . . . . . Suddenly, people
started to gossip among themselves. After that, it was chaos. There was a heated discussion among
the audience of the press conference. Nobody had expected such shocking news.
In the meantime, Darren's facial expression quickly turned into a frown. He hadn't expected that Jacob
would have found so much evidence that would prove Emily's innocence. . . .
At the same time, Sam was with a few police officers. They were preparing to raid Darren's shelter.
They were expecting to find and rescue the mothers of those two men.
In order to not attract any attention, Sam took the lead and drove the most common silver-gray
minibus. They were followed by several cars not far away and made sure that they were in radio
contact the whole time.
They finally parked in a remote and old-fashioned community that was supposed to be Darren's
hideout, according to their informant. They chatted calmly with the guards and politely talked to some of
the elderly people that passed by.
"Sir, would you care for a cigarette?" Sam gave the doorman a gentle smile as he tried to gain his trust.
"Have you had any suspicious residents in your neighborhood recently? Maybe someone with a fierce
aura that seems to be tough to deal with."
Sam didn't want to give too much away, so he settled for a slightly vague description of what Darren
was like.
The man took the cigarette from his hand and gave a knowing smile. He glanced at the people
gathered around the guardroom before looking back at Sam with his turbid eyes. "Yes, I've seen such a
person. It's been a while since he moved here though. Why do you wish to see him?"
Sam rubbed his cuff link with his index finger and gave him another smile. "I just have something to
discuss with him."
Ten minutes later, Sam led the officers to the fifth floor of the building. Since the community was built
quite some time ago, there was no elevator installed. So, they started to walk to the stairs and had to
pass through the dim hallway.
"It smells so bad!" one of them blurted out as he covered his nose.
The others echoed his statement.
The building might be older than them. The lights in the corridor flickered harshly at them. Every step of
the stairs was covered with trash and the whole staircase looked like it hadn't been cleaned up for a
long time. Some of the steps even had long strands of hair scattered all over.
They really had no idea how Darren had found such a disgusting place!
Sam lit a cigarette. The smell of the nicotine couldn't quite cover up the stench of the trash all over but
it helped a little bit. "Hurry up and don't let that guy get away."
Only when they had rescued the mothers of those men could they consider their mission to be a
success.
Everyone turned serious. They walked upstairs quickly but still maintained an aura of stealth. When
they saw the only door of the fifth floor, Sam quickly put out the cigarette. "Knock on the door!" he
commanded.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Creak!
After several hard knocks on the old and rotten door, it let out a deafening cry and fell pathetically to the
ground. Dust scattered everywhere.
Sam hurried inside the room. He quickly found the light switch and flicked it on but saw that there was
nothing in the room. They were too late. The room was empty and didn't have the people they were
looking for!
The men behind him walked in one after another. After a thorough search, they all reported regretfully,
"No one is here!"
"We found traces that someone lived here before. However, there are no fingerprints. We don't have
enough evidence to prove that someone was kidnapped and brought over here!" one of his men
informed him.
Sam's face was painted with disappointment. "Okay, got it. Let's go back down."
Darren might have already expected that they would find him there. It was also quite possible that
Darren had spies among them and they were the ones who had told him to move to another place.
Sam was disheartened. However, things turned out to be different from what he had expected.
As soon as he left the building, he received a phone call. The person on the other end of the phone
started to talk as soon as he answered. "You'd better come back here as soon as you can. The
mothers of the two men have arrived home safely. There were no injuries. They said that they were
blindfolded the whole time and had no idea where they were kept. They didn't see their kidnappers
either, so we still can't identify the kidnappers."
"It seems that Darren had planned this early. Maybe he was not ready to fight against us this time."
Sam was in a sour mood and he couldn't help but grab the cigarette box. "I can't explain it clearly on
the phone. Let's talk about this later."
On the other side, Darren had also just received a phone call from his own informant. After chatting for
some time, the person on the other end of the line said, "The cigarettes they offered me were good. I
haven't smoked such a high-quality cigarette in many years."
"I'll ask someone to send some of it to you. You can smoke as many cigarettes as you want," Darren
answered him casually.
The man laughed loudly and began to discuss business. After talking about what happened in detail,
he hung up the phone.
Darren walked slowly to the French window and looked down at the road that seemed to stretch in all
directions. The pedestrians were packed together. They looked like small ants that could all be crushed
to death at once.
Sooner or later, the Gu Consortium would be just like that —ready for him to trample on it at will.
However, it was not yet the right time to have a direct battle. He still had to hide his best cards.
Buzz!
His phone started to ring once again. Darren picked it up instinctively and answered with an annoyed
tone. "What's up?"
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