She found a job quickly, and with Lin Nan crafting a decent-looking resume for her, she successfully landed the position despite the convenience store's strict screening process.
The job was at a 24-hour convenience store, requiring only four hours a day, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM.
With only one day to interview and get hired, and a late shift on her second day, she had plenty of time to prepare and rest.
The workplace was too far from home, commuting would cost a small fortune, and the pay was hardly impressive.
But this would only be for this one time.
Lin Mo arrived early for her shift. Knowing she had worked at a food stall—a place of intense physical labor and pure exploitation—the store manager was deeply pleased and held high hopes for her, giving her a brief orientation and training.
“Even though this is easier than your previous job, you still need to maintain a good attitude when greeting customers, even at night. Remember to smile,” the store manager said, leaning one hand against the checkout counter and pointing outside. “This is the city center. There's a major corporation diagonally across from us, and plenty of people work overtime, so don't assume your night shift will be easy.”
“I understand.” The corners of Lin Mo's mouth naturally turned downward slightly, making her look displeased, so she pulled them upward.
“Alright, stop smiling like that,” the store manager said. “Just serve the customers well, and someone will take over your shift after eleven.”
The store manager couldn't bear to look at her smile. “…Once your probation period is over, I'll make you a full-time employee, and your pay will increase. Learn quickly and work hard.”
Lin Mo tugged at a loose thread on her clothes, letting the corners of her mouth flatten back out. “Thank you.”
The store manager waved her hand. “It's nothing. I'll head out now. If there's anything you don't understand later, just give me a call.”
“Okay.”
Lin Mo picked up a can of milk from the shelf to check the expiration date. Seeing her quickly getting the hang of things, the store manager nodded in approval.
Just as the store manager left, a low-profile black sedan turned into the street, sweeping past the front of the convenience store.
A9: 【Time is almost up. The Inspection Department should be sending their chief mentor around this time to discuss work with the media company. Keep an eye out for sedans driving into the company. I'll tell you the license plate number. They'll probably go straight to the top floor from the underground VIP garage.】
Lin Mo lowered her gaze. “I saw it.”
A9 was bewildered. Saw what? The license plate number?
Lin Mo asked, “When does the meeting in the other city start?”
A9: 【I don't know. All I know is that the chief mentor gets assassinated at 9:15, killed by a sniper bullet on the elevated highway.】
A sense of urgency brought an unsettling tension. Lin Mo glanced at the wall clock, which read 7:20. There were only 1 hour and 55 minutes left before his death.
Subtracting the driving time to the elevated highway, that meant he had less than an hour to confer with the company board.
The security camera overhead glowed with a red light. Lin Mo stood in front of the shelves for a moment before stepping out of its field of view, walking into the changing room, and slipping into a janitor's uniform.
She put on a dust cap and mask, then left through the small alcove by the back door.
【This small path can only be accessed through the back door of the store. Another 200 meters ahead is the ventilation duct maintenance hatch. You can't dawdle here for too long.】
Although A9 was reluctant to see the chief mentor of the Inspection Department die by Lin Mo's hands, if she caught it slacking off during her plan instead of giving its all to help her, she might very well knock its head off again.
Besides, who would ultimately succeed was still uncertain. The Covenant of the Scales had three people, all well-equipped and highly trained. Could they really fail to beat Lin Mo to the kill?
Wait, didn't that phrasing sound a little familiar?
At that thought, A9 suddenly lost its confidence.
If... if she really stole the kill from them, then they might as well just go back to their organization and pack it in.
Crossing a narrow hallway, at the end stood an iron door labeled "No Entry." Lin Mo was unskilled at lockpicking, taking two minutes to force it open. Behind it lay the maintenance shaft for the underground garage's ventilation system.
The passage was wide enough for only one person. An emergency light flickered on and sputtered. Past this tunnel stood a wall textured with granular coating.
Now she had to descend along a hollow ladder. The air here was damp, preventing her from gripping the wall's protrusions, and there was no vertical fixed ladder to enter the ventilation duct directly.
Lin Mo wedged her fingers into the grooves of the screws, pulled open the guardrail, gripped the edge of the duct, stepped into a gap between the rails, and flipped herself inside.
...
"Click—"
In the parking lot.
A bodyguard dressed in black twitched her ears. Resting one hand on the car, she swiftly scouted the direction of the sound. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, far from relaxing, she picked up her communication device instead.
“Stay alert.” Even though her boss had already gone upstairs, she began pacing around the vehicle to rule out any danger.
The atmosphere in the entire basement instantly turned tense as the bodyguards began a wide-area patrol.
【If you've done nothing wrong, you don't fear a knock in the night. I've never seen a chief mentor of the Inspection Department travel with such a massive security detail.】
A9 turned its head to see Lin Mo pressed tightly against the ventilation duct, observing the situation below.
She had no mood to chat with it. It was stiflingly hot and humid here, causing a thin layer of sweat to coat her skin while her expression remained tense and motionless.
A9 efficiently floated outside for a lap before returning.
【Time is almost up.】 Following her line of sight, it finally realized that Lin Mo had been staring at the bodyguard who hadn't stepped away from the car at all.
“I saw earlier, she's the driver,” Lin Mo tried hard to calm her emotions, but the more she tried to stay composed, the more restless her soul grew, surging with anxiety and craving.
Lin Mo requested, “You have to help me catch an opportunity. Call me when all the bodyguards shift their gaze away.”
Her breathing grew shallower. Watching the security personnel pacing back and forth, she lightly pressed her elbow against the iron wall and propped herself up slightly.
【How could that be possible?! That's protagonist treatment, okay? Where are you going to get such convenient timing? Such a risky move—you don't actually have any confidence yourself, do you!】 A9 shouted. Although this character was destined to die in the plot, the killer had already been set.
As time pressed closer, it grew nervous alongside her. 【There's no time left! Five minutes remaining. The chief mentor of the Inspection Department is taking the elevator down to the VIP parking lot.】
Lin Mo began unfastening the screws on the ceiling panel.
【He reached the floor and stepped out of the elevator.】
Floating above the figure stepping out of the elevator, A9 discovered in surprise, 【Huh? The bodyguards seem to be gathering over there.】
Lin Mo instantly flipped open the loosened ceiling panel and vaulted downward, using the metal plate for leverage.
The female driver sensed something and looked up, but her reaction was too slow. A blur flashed before her eyes, and before a second had passed, she was knocked unconscious.
Lin Mo smoothly retrieved the car keys, changed into the driver's uniform, and dragged the bodyguard into a corner.
The chief mentor was being escorted forward by his bodyguards. She bent down, got into the car, reversed it, and brought it to a stop right next to the chief mentor.
Lin Mo casually put on an earpiece. After a crackle of static, she heard a voice ask inside the earpiece:
“Are there any issues?”
One after another, others began reporting no anomalies. Soon, a chief mentor dressed in a black suit was ushered into the vehicle, surrounded by his entourage.
A man stepped out from the center of the bodyguards. His uniform was slightly unique, making him look like the bodyguard captain.
He walked around to the front of the vehicle. The passenger door opened, and a strange presence sat down beside her.
Lin Mo's whole body went taut. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she followed the directions given by several staff members and drove the car into a vehicle elevator, which descended out of the parking structure.
Holding the steering wheel, she glanced at the side mirror outside the car. Several vehicles were following behind the sedan in neat order.
Looking at the rearview mirror in the center, a slightly bloated silhouette sat diagonally behind her. His face was turned to the side, revealing only his reddish skin from this angle.
Seemingly sensing a venomous gaze, the man began to turn his head to reveal his face, but just before she could catch sight of his features, the man in the passenger seat shifted.
Before the bodyguard in the passenger seat could notice her, Lin Mo swiftly averted her gaze, focusing solely on the road ahead.
...
The members of the Covenant of the Scales, who had arrived early to lie in wait, had been waiting so long their patience was thoroughly exhausted.
“My god, how can they be so slow? Why did those two old men spend so long exchanging pleasantries?”
The woman sitting in the corner of the van, feeling as though she was about to grow mold, saw the red dot start moving toward the West Third Ring Expressway. Her expression relaxed. “Sigh, finally coming out.”
She had hacked into the surveillance of nearby streets to monitor the convoy's movements at all times. Just looking at the cars following the main sedan, there were at least seven of them.
Night Heron muttered, “What a massive setup. No wonder they sent three of us just to kill one guy—one person really couldn't pull this off.”
“Hey, hey, hey, can you hear me?” She picked up her communication device to contact her teammate. “Wumeng, the target is about to enter optimal firing range. How's the situation on your end?”
In the dark night.
A figure dressed in a dark trench coat lay prone on the top floor of a building under construction, about eight hundred meters from the West Third Ring elevated highway.
The night wind snapped the hem of his coat. Having laid there for so long, stray strands of hair on his forehead fell loose, brushing across his eyes repeatedly.
He held steady, elbows propped against the floor. Inside his sniper scope was the longest curve along the midsection of the elevated highway, where vehicles passed back and forth, none matching the target.
Wumeng looked up, frowning. “Time report.”
“Current time is 21:22,” Night Heron's voice came through the channel. “The target vehicle departed the company basement twenty-three minutes ago. The vehicle GPS is hooked up, and the thermal imaging module has a three-second delay offset.
Leave immediately after completing the mission; I'll erase all surrounding surveillance traces.”
Wumeng asked, “Once it enters firing range, how much will the speed drop?”
Night Heron replied, “Based on speed measurements there, I estimate the target vehicle will slow to fifty to fifty-five kilometers per hour. From entering to exiting the curve, your window is about four to five seconds.”
“Report complete.” Night Heron added nonchalantly, “Relax, don't stay so tense all the time. It's a very simple mission. If you don't see him yet, just wait a bit longer. It's normal for my tracking to have a delay.”
She picked at her fingers with a hint of boredom. “Sigh, this gear's getting old. I need to find time to replace it.”
Wumeng held his breath and concentrated, continuing his wait.
He was an operative in the organization's action team, boasting extensive field experience and consistently top marks on the training grounds.
Yet this mission gave him an unmistakable ill omen. He felt a nagging sense that something was bound to go wrong. His sixth sense had always been dead-on, keeping his nerves stretched to the limit until now, completely unable to share Night Heron's easygoing attitude.
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