Chapter 450 An Irrejectable Phone Call
It took Daniel forever to crawl through the gates. The instant he finally did so, he held his broken leg and whimpered through clenched teeth like a hurt puppy.
The Anderson Family’s servants hurriedly rushed to him and Russell. After helping the father and son up, they took to their heels and ran away swiftly.
Danny was baffled at the sight of the scene. “What’s going on, Elise? That spoiled rich dandy of the Anderson Family, isn’t he your cousin?”
Instead of answering his question, Elise walked out and entered Joseph’s room in the yard next door.
Joseph was working on his computer. Upon seeing Elise, he heaved a sigh of dejection. “I still can’t reach Xavier.”
Elise asked, “Don’t you have a way to bypass the internal communication tools and contact SK Group’s members directly after running the group for so many years?”
Joseph shrugged his shoulders. “As you said, I’m in charge of running the group, not of developing softwares. Perhaps we should contact A, the mysterious hacker, for this. But A’s gonna charge us… and SK Group has a limited budget.”
Elise fell silent for a moment. Then, she took over the computer, working briskly on it with a speed that took Joseph’s breath away. Soon, lines of code appeared on the computer’s screen.
Joseph noticed that Elise was working on two monitors, which were running different programs simultaneously. As SK Group’s leader, Joseph had seen many talented people, and the top hackers he had seen before were too numerous to enumerate. All of them, however, paled in comparison with Elise.
Five minutes later, Elise struck a key on the keyboard. “Alright, it’s done. In ten minutes from now, only you can reach Xavier by phone. Hurry up!”
“Okay.” Before Joseph could marvel at her skills, his body had reacted first by taking out the phone and dialing Xavier’s number.
…
Meanwhile, in Lithium City, Xavier arrived at the periphery of Timothy’s dwelling place by following up on recently obtained information. An incredibly patient hunter, he wasn’t in a hurry to catch his prey. He lay in ambush outside, waiting for the safe period to be over before he went into action.
Lithium City had very sparse vegetation, so the only place to hide was the yellow earth. Luckily, Xavier came fully prepared. At this very moment, he was in a pit that he had dug on the spot. It was covered at the top with straws and soil. There was only an opening, which was only big enough for a pair of binoculars to poke through for spying.
When Xavier’s phone rang, he was standing behind his binoculars, spying on the legendary physicist and his wife with a grave expression. Dressed simply and spectacled, the couple were typical high intellectuals; even their haircuts had a bland feeling about them. However, no amount of soil could hide the scholarly vibes that emanated from their souls.
The hiding period had already ended. Tonight, he would show himself and take the couple away. Otherwise, he would be beaten to it by other people who got here after learning about the information.
Just then, however, his phone began vibrating like mad with a continuous buzz.
Xavier picked it up and took a glance at its screen. It was a phone call from an unfamiliar number, but he didn’t intend to answer it. Before his mission was complete, he would block all incoming calls on his phone to avoid being affected by the outside world. At the thought of this, he pressed the ‘Decline’ button.
However, what happened next surprised him. His phone kept vibrating, and he couldn’t reject the phone call no matter what.
Involuntarily, he pressed the ‘Answer’ button, and the phone’s screen was instantly taken over by the call interface. Speechless, he expressionlessly put his phone to his ear and asked in a cold voice devoid of human feeling, “Who are you?” Apparently, the caller was aware of his habit, which was why they’d had a bug installed so that he couldn’t reject the phone call.
“It’s me, Joseph. Something’s happened within the organization, and you’re now being used. The information this time is very likely to be a trap. Never show yourself easily!”
Upon hearing the man’s words, Xavier fell silent for a very long time. Then, he replied unhurriedly, “If you really were Joseph, you should’ve known that I hate nothing more than being disturbed while carrying out a mission. And besides, I don’t think Joseph would still assign the mission to me if he thought I was a weakling who couldn’t even see through somebody else’s petty tricks.” After that, he warned, “Whoever you are, don’t call me again. Otherwise, I’ll have you die a horrible death when I find you.”
With that, he hung up right away without waiting for the other party’s response. After switching off his phone expressionlessly, he returned to his binoculars and continued with the spying.
Meanwhile, in Athesea, Joseph handed the phone, the screen of which had gone back to showing the list of contacts, to Elise. “Seems like Xavier’s not gonna escape his fate.”
Elise let out a heavy breath. “Well, we all learn from our mistakes. It’s not a bad thing for him to run into some trouble. Let’s hope that he’ll come back safely.”
Joseph let out a sigh as well. “Yeah, I hope so.”
“Have a good rest and be sure to take the medicine I’ve prescribed to you on time. When you recover, you have to go back with me to seize the headquarters back,” Elise urged. Then, she stood up and went to open the door.
However, as soon as the door opened, she saw Danny leaning sideways in an eavesdropping position. Upon seeing her, he froze all over.
“Eavesdropping isn’t a good habit, Danny,” Elise said.
Her voice brought Danny to his senses. Turning his face toward Elise with hindsight, he pushed her aside and walked straight up to Joseph, his eyes shining with excitement. “A-Are you Joseph Fuller? I mean, the Joseph Fuller who heads SK Group?!”
Joseph’s expression froze for a moment before he looked over Danny’s shoulder at Elise.
With a look of resignation on her face, Elise gave Joseph a reassuring look. Danny was a bit of a drama queen, but he was good at keeping secrets, so letting him know about it wasn’t a big deal.
Joseph gave her a slight nod before nodding at Danny impassively. “Yes, I am.”
Danny gave a loud gasp before managing to compose himself. Then, he let out a scream, staring at Joseph like a beast that had discovered its prey.
Feeling uncomfortable under the boy’s stare, Joseph cleared his throat and took the initiative, asking, “Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”
“No, nothing. What can I talk to you about?” Danny blurted out with a cheeky grin. Then, he immediately realized that he had said the wrong thing. He corrected himself at once, saying, “No, wait a minute. It seems I really have something to talk to you about!”
“Shoot,” Joseph replied calmly.
“Could you take me in?” Danny asked in an earnest tone. He had spent a lot of manpower and material resources these days in order to get recruited into SK Group. But so far, he had only been running around like a headless chicken without getting any closer to the group. Now that SK Group’s supreme leader was sitting right before him, how could he not take the shortcut?
