Chapter 80 : Threat Level
October 21st, Monday, night.
Golden hall, golden ocean, floating with warm melodies. Wan Yue moved through the first-floor hall, her enchanting, sexy figure and elegant, confident smile attracting the gaze of every urban elite male.
The light fragrance emanating from Wan Yue and the calming, relaxing aura made all the men and women in the hall feel comfortable in body and mind, making the high membership fees seem worthwhile at this moment.
In an employee break room, Jiang Yao finally woke up after five days of unconsciousness. Although her injuries hadn't fully healed, she could at least stay awake and talk while leaning against the headboard.
"Where's my sister? She's not here?"
Jiang Yao looked around the room, not seeing Jiang Yan's figure, feeling a small panic in her heart.
"Her? Hehe, first look at this... hehe, I took candid shots!"
Zhou Ping brought her phone close to Jiang Yao's face. On the screen, under late-night streetlights, Meng Huai was holding the unconscious Jiang Yan standing in front of Golden River Club.
The young man wore dress pants on the bottom but a strange T-shirt on top. His upright posture and strong hands were holding the completely drunk black-haired girl, while the latter's hand was around the young man's neck.
"What the hell! When did this happen? Meng Huai took advantage of my sister to this extent! Hiss~~~ Ouch~~~"
Jiang Yao grabbed the phone, but pulling at her chest and abdomen injuries made her immediately gasp in pain, grimacing.
Not caring about the physical discomfort from her injuries, Jiang Yao continued swiping through the screen, one sickeningly sweet princess-carry photo after another. Especially from one angle that perfectly captured Jiang Yan's hazy, enchanting expression, utterly soul-stirring, leaving Jiang Yao stunned.
What the hell, when she was in a bad mood, why didn't she find someone else but had to find Meng Huai? How close have she and Meng Huai become now?
Wasn't it said that Meng Huai was a war machine with no feelings for comrades and no interest in romance?
Does sister really have that much charm? Well, maybe so. Sister is a woman now, she's so beautiful, mature and steady in personality, probably just to Meng Huai's taste?
Unimaginable, truly unimaginable... Letting go of the phone, Jiang Yao still couldn't quite believe these photos, her mind filled with all sorts of chaotic thoughts.
"No choice. We Blood Clan have iron stomachs for everything except alcohol intolerance. Once it's excessive, it's trouble. During the days you were unconscious, Sister Xiao Yan was very uncomfortable, probably wanted to find someone to drown her sorrows with alcohol, but this bootlicker seized the opportunity.
"If only you saw Brother Zhao’s expression then, like he'd seen a ghost. Who's ever seen Sister Xiao Yan like that? Tsk tsk, isn't this equivalent to directly taking down Zhong Jing's brother?"
Zhou Ping smiled as she put away her phone, still adding fuel to the fire by describing the scene of Meng Huai sending Jiang Yan back to Golden River Club that night, clearly intending to fan the flames of gossip.
"Impossible... how could they possibly get along? Absolutely impossible!"
Jiang Yao shook her head repeatedly, but after holding back for a long time, she could only stammer out these words.
"Xiao Yao, you're so pessimistic? What about you and Zhong Jing..." Zhou Ping grinned mischievously as she nudged Jiang Yao's shoulder. "I can tell. I don't look at how casual he usually is, but his attitude toward you is definitely unusual!"
"Who's unusual? How did Jiang Yao get injured?"
A familiar voice came from the doorway. Zhong Jing suddenly appeared, his expression somewhat panicked.
"Speak of the devil, and he appears." Zhou Ping curled her lips boredly and stood up. "Zhong Jing, look how anxious you are... You can peel fruit. I'm going to the bathroom."
"Hey hey! You can't leave!"
Jiang Yao blushed and quickly reached out to grab Zhou Ping's skirt, accidentally pulling at her wound again, making her mouth tremble with pain.
Unfortunately, Zhou Ping walked away too quickly, leaving only two people in the room again.
"It's almost midnight, what are you running over here for..."
Jiang Yao rolled her eyes. Since learning this expression, she had quickly become accustomed to it, seeming to save a lot of words and expressions.
"I just called Master and learned you and Jiang Yan were injured sparring. I didn't expect it to be so serious. Do you sisters usually fight so viciously?"
Zhong Jing played with an apple, his gaze moving back and forth between Jiang Yao's upper body and the blanket, seemingly trying to guess what kind of injury it was.
"What are you looking at, really... By the way, I notice your complexion still doesn't look too good. Are you overdoing it with wine and women? Tsk tsk, you're only in your twenties, don't ruin your body."
Jiang Yao glanced at Zhong Jing's face and let out a teasing laugh: "That Japanese Blood Clan who appeared near your house, didn't Sister Wan say how to deal with it?"
Jiang Yao's words made Zhong Jing's mind recall Tsurumi Haruka's gloomy appearance at home the past two days.
Although the other party no longer made obviously false intimate gestures, Zhong Jing increasingly felt that the feeling she gave him had become a kind of pitifulness unworthy of sympathy, exceeding his initial fear.
After this feeling formed, when facing Tsurumi Haruka again, Zhong Jing felt much more relaxed.
"Hey, why aren't you talking?"
Seeing Zhong Jing spacing out, Jiang Yao quickly touched his arm with the back of her hand.
"Ah? Oh, you mean that Japanese person? It's fine, Master has a sense of proportion."
Zhong Jing smiled bitterly and shrugged helplessly: "However, the surface situation is more melodramatic than you think! My dad and his Japanese connections arranged a marriage for me, sent over a Japanese heiress. Since last month, she's been staying at my house every weekend, saying it's a marriage alliance between two families to cultivate feelings between us."
"So simply, someone just sends you a wife? You rich people really know how to play. No, you don't even need to play, women just deliver themselves..."
Jiang Yao was stunned, slowly lowering her head to stare at the blanket, muttering softly with undisguised contempt on her face.
He so casually tells me these things? Treats me like a buddy he tells everything to? Or is he showing off his family's well-connected confidence?
Listening to Zhong Jing's words, Jiang Yao felt a series of discomfort in her heart.
"...So everyone's acting. It's very interesting. Anyway, I'll deal with my superhuman wife when it comes to it and see how Master handles it. I'm someone with Master and you all backing me up, how could I be afraid!"
Zhong Jing smiled as he cut open the apple and handed a piece to Jiang Yao.
"You mean this delivered wife is also Blood Clan?" Jiang Yao seemed to hear something, quickly turning to look at Zhong Jing with some disbelief. "Your house really has everything! No wonder you said a monster was living in your house last time!"
"Master never told you?" Zhong Jing sighed helplessly. "Who told my dad to be a broker? Actually, I'm pretty much the same nature. These surface and dark matters are destined to be unavoidable. Maybe the country already knows my family's situation. As long as my dad doesn't court death, that's how it is."
"So you still don't oppose this Japanese woman... Right, for you people, women aren't really important, Blood Clan aren't important, who lives in your house is even less important..."
In this instant, Jiang Yao felt like something was blocking her heart, like sensing someone was about to snatch away her favorite toy. That touch of emotion in her heart was childish but profound.
The girl suddenly breathed more rapidly and threw away the small piece of apple he had handed her.
This toy is dirty. I don’t want it anymore!
"What's wrong with you?" Zhong Jing was stunned, feeling the other party's emotional change was strange. "I can tell she's acting. She just wants to plant a nail in the Zhong family. How could I possibly be with such an old monster?”
"Stop running here all the time! So many people are watching your whole family, aren't you causing trouble for us!"
Jiang Yao suddenly raised her voice, her face flushing red.
"Watching whom? What trouble?"
Wan Yue's leisurely voice sounded. Jiang Yao and Zhong Jing quickly turned their heads to see Wan Yue in a red sexy evening gown smiling at them, while Jiang Yan silently followed behind.
"His house has Japanese Blood Clan, his brother is Shadow Arrow, his dad is a broker. He keeps coming here, if that's not trouble, what is?"
Jiang Yao pointed at Zhong Jing with a series of accusations.
"Oh? How are you so sure Meng Huai is Shadow Arrow?"
Wan Yue looked at Jiang Yao on the bed with an amused smile, also glancing at Jiang Yan beside her: "Very normal. Not just us, even thousand-year-old turtles like the Wang Family aren't completely invisible to the country."
At these words, Jiang Yao's face flushed red, knowing she had let something slip again. She quickly pretended to fix her hair to avoid Wan Yue's gaze. As for Jiang Yan following behind Wan Yue, she helplessly covered her face.
However, it seemed Wan Yue still hadn't exposed some things about the two sisters and showed no attitude of blame. She just sat by the bed, one hand gently touching Jiang Yao's chest. This action almost directly broke Jiang Yao's defenses, making her whole body rigid and not daring to move.
"Tsk tsk, you little girl, your abilities haven't increased much, but your chest is still growing..."
Speaking, Wan Yue mischievously flicked the girl's chest with her finger, then turned toward Zhong Jing who was still spacing out: "What are you still doing here? I need to undress her to check the wounds. Do you want to watch!?"
"Hehe, what I mean is..."
"Mean my ass, get lost!"
"Ah, okay!"
Zhong Jing scrambled out of the room.
The embarrassing scene from a few nights ago when she was drunk and sent back to the club by Meng Huai made Jiang Yan feel uncomfortable just thinking about it. The first thing she did after waking up was turn off her phone.
These days, Jiang Yan had been single-mindedly, wholeheartedly watching over Jiang Yao.
Including Zhao Peng, many people at the club looked at Jiang Yan with meaningful expressions.
Candid photography like Zhou Ping's made Jiang Yan feel so ashamed that her appearances before everyone had drastically decreased these days–physically at the club but not completely present.
"The injuries are healing faster than I imagined. Your recovery speed can match the 'regeneration' of Ganges Blood Clan Earls. Sigh, I'm getting used to it."
Wan Yue sighed, repositioned Jiang Yao's clothes, covered her with the blanket, looking relieved: "If anyone's to blame, it should be me, but I'm also lucky because you're both monsters with better impact resistance and recovery ability than ordinary Barons."
Sitting by Jiang Yao's bed listening to Wan Yue's words, Jiang Yan awkwardly lowered her head again, not having fully emerged from her guilt complex.
"Sister, I'm really fine."
Jiang Yao smiled carefreely, touching Jiang Yan's arm. "But you were so cool that day, actually using a Baron's blood explosion. In the future, if anyone doesn't have eyes, just explode them! What did Brother Zhao say? 'Invincible below Baron, trade one-for-one above Baron!'"
Jiang Yao's words triggered bad memories again. Jiang Yan's body trembled slightly, her expression becoming tense.
"Don't talk nonsense..."
"Can you really not control your long-term blood-boiling? Have you tried reducing the blood-boiling level?"
At this point, Wan Yue looked seriously at the uneasy girl before her: "Logically, your blood-boiling control ability and stability are much stronger than Jiang Yao's. Why did you lose mental control?"
"I don't know either. I just felt I had to win, then that situation appeared… I especially wanted to devour the opponent... This feeling has appeared three times so far. Only during the Hermit Alliance ambush did I hold back."
Jiang Yan looked at the ground helplessly, her ten fingers nervously clasped together, her tone somewhat dejected: "I'm afraid this situation will always exist. In the future, I might hurt our own people."
"The feeling of having to win? Interesting... This way, you should have a subconscious physical response mechanism to threats. You hurt Jiang Yao this time because she was your opponent."
Wan Yue thought and voiced her opinion. Whether correct or not, both Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao perked up emotionally.
"That's awesome! In the future, leave the most powerful enemies to sister, and I'll handle the other small fry!" Jiang Yao swayed her head proudly.
"Don't move around, you’ll reopen your wounds."
Jiang Yan smiled and quickly held Jiang Yao's shoulder, then seemed to remember something. She quickly faced Wan Yue with an uneasy expression: "Sister Wan, what you said earlier… does the country possibly know about Hyacinth?"
After speaking, Jiang Yao also nervously looked at Wan Yue.
Wan Yue casually lit a cigarette with a mysterious smile: "Although China is currently one of the few countries in the world that still insists on an uncompromising strike strategy against Blood Clan, in reality, starting fifty years ago, Shadow Arrow has borrowed from developed Western countries' practices, categorizing domestic Blood Clan into five levels according to threat degree, moving toward a more pragmatic balance strategy."
"Five levels?" Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao looked at each other. "Isn't there only mission levels?"
"Mission levels refer to target importance assessments based on the strength or risk of strike targets. For example, you two would probably be B or even possibly A level, equivalent to Viscounts or Earls, with corresponding different deployment scales... Hehe, Jiang Yan should have experience with this, right?"
As the words landed, Jiang Yan embarrassedly lowered her head, remembering that night at the military hospital when three Shadow Arrow squads besieged her.
"Threat levels are overall strategic assessments of Blood Clan groups' social harm. They're divided into high threat, medium threat, low threat, potential threat, and no threat.
"This encompasses all known Orthodox families, Black Blood Clan gangs, and Wandering Blood Clan forces nationwide. How they're classified belongs to macro-level concepts, leaning toward strategic policy."
At this point, Wan Yue smiled and pointed at her feet: "You probably don't know, but this Golden River Club building is Wang Family property. If the country really discovered us, they'd categorize us under the Wang Family or as Wang Family vassals.
"The Wang Family old turtles basically just mind their own business behind closed doors, not engaging in flashy embracing ceremonies, so they belong to the low threat category. As for us, even if discovered, as long as there's no recorded evidence of blood-infecting ordinary people, we could even be listed as potential threat level.
"Currently, only Black Blood Clan are high threat. Of course, all countries worldwide view them this way. Although they like hunting other Blood Clan, they also indiscriminately harm ordinary people, so basically all countries have zero tolerance for Black Blood Clan, just different strike intensity and frequency based on national strength.
"General reclusive Wandering Blood Clan are basically listed as low threat or no threat. The country actually knows these people just want to live ordinary lives. As long as they don't blood-infect ordinary people or directly cause social security problems, they turn a blind eye.
"Only one type of Wandering Blood Clan is exceptional. Shadow Arrow blood-infected members who escaped from battlefields belong to medium threat level, with strike priority second only to Black Blood Clan. After all, rare blood type Blood Clan who fall into Black Blood Clan would be uncontrollable."
Wan Yue paused, her gaze sweeping back and forth between Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao, making both girls shiver.
"As long as we don't actively jump out and expose ourselves, how could Shadow Arrow have so much manpower and resources to track and monitor throughout society?
"Even North America with the strongest surveillance can only cover less than ten million people with comprehensive information screening of social populations. What about our country with over a billion people? How much fiscal budget would that consume? How massive an organization would need to be built?
"Besides, every time Zhong Jing goes somewhere, would Shadow Arrow intelligence departments conduct comprehensive information collection and tracking verification of destination populations? Isn't that being overly paranoid? If he went to the sports center to watch a soccer match today, would Shadow Arrow really collect and analyze complete files on all sixty thousand other spectators?"
After Wan Yue finished, she stretched leisurely as if not worried at all that Meng Huai or Zhong Jing's daily interactions would pose any major trouble to Golden River Club's safety or secrecy.
Only Wan Yue had one thing she didn't say. Once Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao's identities were completely exposed after joining Hyacinth, Hyacinth might very well be classified at the same threat level as Black Blood Clan.