Chapter 424: Chapter 343: Foreign Moon (Please Subscribe!)_1 "FUCK." "FUCK." "FUCK." "..." All day, Clark didn’t know how many expletives he had uttered. Whether it was Ye Hong or Liu Zun, he hadn’t managed to catch any of their men. His attempts at surrounding, chasing, and blocking were ineffective. He hadn’t even seen their faces, let alone captured them. He felt like a fool, running around blindly with sirens blazing all day. He was puzzled by the peculiar behavior of his adversaries, but couldn’t come up with any other possibilities. In this era, while there were image editing software, he hadn’t heard of any technology that could manipulate surveillance footage in real-time. Meanwhile, his constant failures had alarmed the Director of the FBI Headquarters. The mess had been reported up the chain of command and rebukes had come raining down, with Clark himself at the receiving end. He had no one else to vent his frustrations on, so he was left stewing in his anger. Clark’s subordinates, seeing their boss being chewed out over the phone over and over, stood by in silent trepidation, not daring to make a sound. Just then. "Boss, the tech guys from the branch office have sent a message again. They said that the Chinese guy’s car appeared at the 71st gas station three minutes ago." A subordinate put down the phone and reported. "Didn’t we just pass by that gas station?" Clark thought and asked. "Yes, they seem to have paused for about half an hour." his subordinate responded meekly. Dammit. Are they toying with me? Clark gritted his teeth, "Pursue." He had started out eager and thrilled by every new clue, but was now burning with rage. He really wanted to lay into those surveillance guys; couldn’t they give him an accurate lead? The repeated dead ends were exhausting. It felt like he wasn’t even human. He cursed the manufacturers of the tracker, the procurement department of his office, and the tech guys who installed the tracker. The disappearance of the signal from the tracker on Ye Hong’s car had to be due to faulty manufacturing or because it wasn’t well-placed. Yeah, definitely. Clark could only console himself by blaming others this way. Otherwise, he felt he would need to see a psychiatrist soon. He thought about giving a name to this disastrous day. He would call it ’Unlucky Clark’. While Clark was so obstinately exasperated that he was contemplating self-castration. Elsewhere. Sitting on a plane bound for Beijing, Liu Zun felt incredibly secure. Though the plane was American-made, it was a China Airlines flight. As the plane slowly flew away from the American mainland, Liu Zun’s mind was at ease. He wasn’t sure what tasks awaited him when he returned to China, but he was likely to be dispatched to other countries to continue his typical duties. If he was lucky, he could enjoy a laid-back job, work nine-to-five, and live a simple life with a wife and children. If he was unlucky, he’d be buried in foreign soil. Despite this, he was not afraid. His sense of honor ingrained from childhood instilled in him a sense of duty, reminding him that everything he did was for the people and the strength of his homeland. Having encountered the very essence of various nations, he understood that might was the ultimate determinant, and everything else was illusory. Meanwhile, on another United Arab Emirates Boeing aircraft. Ye Hong and his family were seated in economy class. His parents were seated a row in front of him, and he was seated alongside his wife and two children. Ye Hong sat by the window. Seeing the slowly emerging continental shelf in the distance, he knew they were nearing the end of this flight journey. Singapore. He remembered visiting once before, and to be quite frank, it wasn’t that impressive beyond the novelty of the experience. "Honey, are we almost there?" Ye Hong’s wife noticed the land mass in the distance. She was tired of looking at the sea. Ye Hong nodded and said, "Yes, we’ll be in Singapore in about half an hour. We are currently over Indonesia." "I don’t like this country." Ye Hong’s wife, Zhang Yue, frowned as she recalled some incidents. Ye Hong immediately understood and expressed his disdain as well. "I don’t like this country either." I can’t believe our return journey has been so smooth," Zhang Yue pondered after fixing her disheveled hair. To return to China so seamlessly was unimaginable. She had expected a frantic dash across Europe and the dreadful prospect of smuggling in a shipping container, which felt like a nightmare. "Yes, I didn’t expect everything to be arranged so meticulously," Ye Hong said softly. After this long, he had considered how the other party had managed to help him evade US airport surveillance. The conclusion he reached was that they had manipulated the FBI and CIA’s immigration restriction lists, or intercepted and tweaked the comparison function of internal airport systems while also dealing with the surveillance. He believed this guess was pretty close to the reality. "Will we buy our tickets later?" Zhang Yue also guessed at the possibility, but she didn’t dare broach the topic on the plane in case they were overheard. "They said someone will pick us up, so we probably won’t stay in Singapore for long," Ye Hong responded, shaking his head. The person they parted with earlier had mentioned that someone in Singapore would pick them up. "Good, we are finally returning. There’s no place like home," Zhang Yue said with emotion. "Are you guys overseas Chinese?" a young man sitting on their right overheard and asked in Chinese. "Yes." Zhang Yue responded softly, she knew better than to get wrapped up in conversation with strangers. "What do you do? Are you coming back to visit family?" The young man was rather chatty. "You could say that," Zhang Yue responded politely. "Indeed, after making money, you should go back and help your hometown. My trip to the US was eye-opening. The streets, the traffic, the environment, I even thought about immigrating there, but my old man refuses." The young man went on speaking without end. Ye Hong interjected with a cold laugh, "Ha, the US? Buddy, it’s not as great as you imagine. It’s a paradise for the rich and they’re xenophobic. If you can avoid going there, you should. There’s not much good about it." "How can that be, the US is so powerful, so democratic..." The young man wanted to continue to "sing praises," but was interrupted by Ye Hong. Another young man brainwashed. "Stop there, I know what you’re thinking. If you want, go ahead and earn tens of millions first, otherwise you might find things aren’t as good as back home," Ye Hong said. "Eh, do I really need that much?" The young man was obviously startled by the figure. "If you don’t have it, you’re welcome to try..." Ye Hong finished and paid him no more mind, closing his eyes to rest. He had been asked this question by countless people. He could only sigh in resignation. No matter how many times he explained, some people always believed the grass was greener on the other side. Just like the houses over there—people say that buying a house in the United States means it’s yours forever, but that’s under the condition that you pay taxes. You have to pay one to three percent of the house’s market value each year. If you stop paying, the house immediately becomes the government’s property. And in our country, housing has a seventy-year property right, and taxation is done through a one-time collection. Afterward, no taxes need to be paid on the house. The system is quite rigid. Is there any need to compare these two approaches? Not at all. Or rather, the results are pretty close. Especially for houses—seventy years from now, whose descendants would live in such houses? Especially high-rises. Seventy years from now, who’d be foolish enough to demolish them? Are we acting as if our country has run out of land? If we calculate at a property tax rate of one to three percent, over seventy years, the tax paid in the United States is seventy to two hundred and ten percent of the house price. Moreover, it fluctuates—if there’s inflation, prices rise, and the taxes you pay rise as well. If your wages don’t increase, then, well, you can only chuckle bitterly. This way, buying a house in the United States seems cheaper at first, but in the long term, it’s bloody expensive. Let’s say, a house with a market value of one million dollars, you’d have to pay ten to thirty thousand dollars every year. If you’re lucky next year and there’s inflation causing the value to rise to two million dollars, that would mean twenty to sixty thousand dollars in taxes. Is that something to laugh or cry about? What is there to chase after in this kind of system? Is there any difference in the outcome? Though Ye Hong was not an economist, he could still do the math. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚 And as for how to deal with these kinds of people? If they don’t listen to advice, all you can do is wish them good luck. There’s no benefit in saying more. Half an hour later, the plane slowly landed at Singapore’s airport. "Dad, where is this?" Ye Hong’s oldest son asked. "Singapore," Ye Hong replied. "How about we play here for a few days?" The eldest son suggested, his face full of anticipation. "No," Ye Hong answered sternly. "Dad, let’s just play for one day." His eldest son tried his usual tactics. "Not even a minute. We’ll come to play some other time," Ye Hong declared. "Oh." Seeing his father’s unhappy face, his son didn’t dare to say more. Exiting the airport. Ye Hong started to look around, searching for the person who was supposed to pick him up. A large man dressed in a suit approached. "Mr. Ye Hong, I’m glad to see you’re safe. The flight to Beijing leaves in one hour. The ticket has been purchased, so all you need to do is pick it up. You can go straight home." He put on a full act, pretending he didn’t know anything. "I don’t have to transfer to another country?" Ye Hong was a little excited. He had thought he would have to transfer again, maybe in Thailand or Malaysia. "Yes, it’s a direct flight to Beijing. You’ll need to ensure confidentiality along the way. After you board the plane, we’ll notify the domestic side," the fighter responded. "Thank you." "Mm, please hurry to pick up your tickets and check in. I need to leave soon." "Alright, farewell." After speaking, the fighter turned and left, disappearing into the crowd. Ye Hong and his family then went to pick up their tickets. Security check. Boarding the plane. Meanwhile, the Western-faced fighter who came along prepared to return to the United States. The security work here was taken over by someone else, and three Asian-faced fighters came over. One was in the distance, one went up to meet Ye Hong, and one followed Ye Hong onto the plane. There was also the command center watching. No anomalies were detected. Even now, Unlucky Clark was still aimlessly wandering around. Only after boarding the plane to Beijing did Ye Hong and his family truly breathe a sigh of relief. The thought of seeing the familiar city in six hours. The family was exceptionally excited. Watching the plane take off. Then. The two fighters also returned to Thailand one after another, with one staying on the plane to provide protection for the remainder of the journey. Singapore, a country that’s so small it’s almost to its extreme, doesn’t actually have much worth setting up. So the command center thought it was a waste of resources for their fighters to stay there. As Ye Hong boarded the plane, Beijing was also notified. Upon learning that Ye Hong and his family were on their own airline’s plane, an investigation of the flight’s registered personnel was immediately launched. Looking at the information of the six people, the big shots felt a bit dizzy. But they knew they had to quickly arrange to pick up Ye Hong and his family from the airport to avoid any issues. PS: There are two more Chapters, don’t rush.