Free Web NovelChapter 183: WE SHOULD STOP UNDERESTIMATING IT OURSELVES
Luo Cheng reached into his pocket and placed his phone on the table.
The movement itself wasn’t particularly dramatic.
The effect it produced, however, was immediate.
Several people straightened unconsciously.
Others put away their phones.
Even Liu Pengfei, who had spent the last ten minutes proving that laughter could qualify as a full-body workout, gradually sat upright.
A person didn’t need to be intelligent to recognize a serious atmosphere.
Fortunately, everyone present exceeded that minimum requirement.
"Zhang Wei sent me the original report earlier. Guess work’s keeping him up as well."
His fingers tapped lightly against the edge of the phone.
"I’ve read through it three times."
That caught their attention.
Reading something once meant it was important.
Reading it twice meant it was complicated.
Reading it three times usually meant someone had found a problem they didn’t like.
Luo Cheng looked around the room.
"The more I think about it, the less I believe we’ve understood the scale of what happened."
Nobody interrupted.
Not because they suddenly developed excellent manners.
Because they were waiting to hear what exactly he meant.
Luo Cheng unlocked the phone and set it face-up on the table.
"Read it."
The device passed from one person to another.
The room remained quiet during the process.
Not because there was nothing to say.
But because there was too much.
Reports had a strange effect on people.
Though the summary sounded manageable.
The details rarely did.
By the time the phone reached Zhou Kang, the atmosphere had already changed.
And when it reached Ma Defeng, the earlier amusement had disappeared entirely.
Finally when it had gotten to Wen Guang, nobody looked particularly comfortable anymore.
Zhou Kang was the first to break the silence.
He didn’t speak immediately.
Instead, he read through one section again before leaning back in his chair.
"The more I look at this, the less I think they were watching him."
Several heads turned toward him.
Luo Cheng nodded once.
"Go on."
Zhou Kang pointed at the report.
"Look at the timeline. This wasn’t a short operation. They weren’t observing him for a day or two before getting bored and moving on."
His expression darkened slightly.
"The amount of information they’ve gathered means they were watching for weeks. Maybe longer. At that point, it’s impossible for them to focus only on one target."
He looked around the room.
"If they were watching him, then they were watching us too."
Nobody responded immediately.
Not because the statement was surprising.
Because it was obvious.
The truly dangerous observations usually were.
A hidden threat could be discovered.
An obvious threat that everyone overlooked was significantly more embarrassing.
Zhou Kang continued.
"They’ve seen our shifts. They’ve seen our habits. They’ve probably figured out who arrives first, who leaves last, and who gets distracted by their phone while standing watch."
His gaze landed briefly on Liu Pengfei.
Liu Pengfei looked offended.
Then he thought about it.
And he stopped looking offended.
Across the room, Ma Defeng folded his arms.
"That’s not the part that bothers me."
Everyone looked toward him.
His expression remained calm.
Unfortunately, people who knew him understood that calm wasn’t always reassuring.
Sometimes it was the opposite.
"What bothers me is the investment."
He gestured toward the report.
"Two rented units. Multiple false identities. Long-term surveillance. People keep talking about those details individually."
His gaze swept across the room.
"The problem is that they’re connected."
The room remained silent.
This time it wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was thoughtful.
"There are easier ways to gather information," Ma Defeng continued. "Cheaper ways too. Nobody commits that many resources unless they expect a return. To rent an apartment where the boss lives costs millions and they actually rented two."
That sentence landed heavily.
Because everyone in the room understood the implication.
Money wasn’t infinite.
Time wasn’t infinite.
Manpower wasn’t infinite.
Organizations protected those resources carefully.
Which meant organizations rarely spent them for no reason.
A brief silence followed.
Then Wen Guang set the phone down.
The sound seemed unusually loud.
Perhaps because nobody was speaking.
Perhaps because everyone already knew what he was about to say.
"The failure is still ours."
His voice wasn’t defensive.
It wasn’t angry either.
It simply sounded tired.
"We can talk about Red Thorn’s intentions all night, but that doesn’t change the fact that we missed it. We’re security. If our boss has to bring this information to us instead of the other way around, then we’ve already failed at the first part of our job."
No one challenged him.
Because no one could.
Excuses existed.
Several of them could probably invent one right now.
The issue was that none of those excuses would survive contact with reality.
Luo Cheng nodded.
"Exactly."
He picked up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.
"The boss wasn’t angry because somebody made a mistake."
His gaze moved around the room.
"He was angry because the threat was real. He was angry because the warning signs existed. He was angry because nobody saw them."
That landed harder than shouting would have.
Anger was easy to dismiss.
Disappointment wasn’t.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Luo Cheng leaned back.
"And that’s why I need everyone to stop thinking about the next assignment as babysitting."
His eyes moved from face to face.
There was no accusation in his expression.
Only certainty.
"The people targeting him aren’t treating him like an ordinary civilian. They’ve invested time, money, planning, and manpower into this operation."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"If our enemies have already figured out his value, then we should probably stop underestimating it ourselves."
Nobody responded.
The discussion didn’t require a response.
The point had already been made.
More importantly, everyone understood it.
The apartment gradually fell silent once again.
Only this time, the silence felt very different from before.
Earlier, it had been the comfortable quiet of friends sharing a joke.
Now it was the quiet of professionals reviewing a mistake.
Neither atmosphere was pleasant.
One simply carried much heavier consequences than the other.
Liuxian pulled into the driveway at half past five in the morning, when the sky had already given up on night but had not yet decided to fully commit to day, leaving everything in that dull grey state that made even expensive houses look mildly depressed.
He sat in the car for a moment longer than necessary, not because he was sentimental but because his body was politely reminding him that sleep was not a luxury suggestion but a legal requirement, before finally stepping out into the cold air that immediately made him question every life decision leading up to this moment.
