Top Grade Pure Beauty CEO

Li Xiaoyao was driving, following the navigation to set off for Zhangshan County.

The estimated travel time was about an hour and a half.

When he had driven halfway, the car suddenly jerked twice, followed by the engine shutting off...

Li Xiaoyao furrowed his brow and checked the car, only to find out that it had run out of gas.

"Forgot to check the fuel before leaving," Li Xiaoyao smacked his head, got out of the car, pushed it to the side of the highway, and then turned on the hazard lights.

There were always patrol officers on the highway, Li Xiaoyao figured he would have to wait at most half an hour before one showed up.

So Li Xiaoyao leaned against the car, lit a cigarette, and whittled away the time in boredom.

Not far away, a black BMW came driving over; the BMW's speed gradually slowed down, and eventually, it stopped in front of Li Xiaoyao.

Li Xiaoyao looked up and through the dark car window, he saw the person sitting in the driver's seat, a woman with an almost perfect face.

Most importantly, Li Xiaoyao recognized this near-perfect face.

"Well, isn't this Officer Zhu?" Li Xiaoyao chuckled, surprised to encounter an acquaintance here.

Ten minutes later, Li Xiaoyao sat in the passenger seat of the BMW, which had a towing rope hanging behind it, with the other end attached to the front of the Mercedes.

Li Xiaoyao leaned back in his seat and asked, "Officer Zhu, where are you headed?"

Zhu Xiaoyue didn't even look at him as she said, "Zhangshan County."

"What a coincidence? You're going to Zhangshan County too?" Li Xiaoyao asked, "What are you doing there, Officer Zhu? Is that where your home is?"

Zhu Xiaoyue glanced at him with a touch of disdain and said, "Have you ever seen anyone going home in their police uniform?"

Li Xiaoyao took a look and realized, oh, he hadn't noticed that Zhu Xiaoyue was indeed in full police uniform today, with her chest straining the fabric as well.

Li Xiaoyao stared at her chest and gave a friendly reminder, "Officer Zhu, you can't exactly be called poor, so why not change into a uniform that fits?" Read latest stories on empire

Zhu Xiaoyue suddenly glared with widened eyes and asked, "Where are you looking?"

Fearing the madwoman might draw her gun at any disagreement, Li Xiaoyao quickly averted his gaze and said, "Look at the sky today, how blue it is."

"Humph," Zhu Xiaoyue snorted in annoyance, and then she abruptly asked, "What are you going to Zhangshan County for?"

Li Xiaoyao simply replied, "To find someone."

Seeing that he was unwilling to elaborate further, Zhu Xiaoyue didn't press the matter.

After leaving the highway, the car took the intercity road, which was less populous, with only a few vehicles passing by occasionally.

Suddenly, Li Xiaoyao felt a surge of danger in his heart. Almost instinctively, he released his thoughts, covering a radius of ten miles.

But just as he had released his thought, a loud gunshot rang out from the empty space, echoing for a long time without fading.

Accompanying the gunshot was the sound of the BMW's windshield shattering.

A bullet smashed through the windshield, grazed Zhu Xiaoyue's shoulder, passed through the leather seat behind her, and brought up a trail of blood.

"Hmph~"

Zhu Xiaoyue let out a light grunt, her face turned abruptly pale, and her body weakly slumped to one side. Consequently, the car spiraled out of control and spun crazily on the road.

At the moment the gunshot sounded, Li Xiaoyao felt a chill down his spine.

Even with his cultivation level and mental acuity, faced with a well-prepared sniper, he still felt powerless.

Li Xiaoyao could evade bullets head-on, but that was under the premise that he had sensed his opponent's intentions in advance.

A sniper concealed in the dark was Li Xiaoyao's greatest enemy.

Li Xiaoyao withdrew his mental focus, enveloping both himself and Zhu Xiaoyue's bodies, then reached out to grab Zhu Xiaoyue's waist. With a strong tug, he lifted Zhu Xiaoyue into his arms and placed her in the back seat of the car.

Li Xiaoyao jumped into the driver's seat. At that moment, he released his mental focus and immediately sensed the hidden position of the sniper.

The sniper was roughly three hundred meters away from Li Xiaoyao, to his rear right.

If Li Xiaoyao were alone, he would have gotten out of the car immediately to deal with the sniper's trouble.

But now that wasn't an option. Although the bullet had merely grazed Zhu Xiaoyue's shoulder, it was still a sniper rifle round.

Li Xiaoyao could clearly assess with his focus that the sniper was using a semi-automatic sniper rifle made in Yun Country. The rifle had an effective range of 1000 meters and a firing speed of up to 800 meters per second.

If the sniper had been more experienced, with just this rifle, he could have taken on two platoons of army soldiers on his own.

Fortunately, this sniper wasn't professional enough, or else Zhu Xiaoyue would not just be seriously wounded but dead.

Li Xiaoyao floored the accelerator, and the BMW, towing the Mercedes, sped away, quickly disappearing on the interstate highway.

The sniper hidden in the shadows watched the car speed away, unable to help slamming the ground in frustration, cursing, "Damn, just missed."

…

Li Xiaoyao quickly drove to Zhangshan County, where he had temporarily stopped the bleeding for Zhu Xiaoyue.

Li Xiaoyao parked the car outside a pharmacy, went in to buy hemostatic powder, medicated bandages, alcohol swabs, and other medical supplies. He also bought a case of mineral water from a nearby store and got back into the car with a big bag full of items.

Li Xiaoyao drove to a secluded spot. He carefully took Zhu Xiaoyue out of the car and laid her down on the grass.

Zhu Xiaoyue's complexion was pale, devoid of any color.

Li Xiaoyao glanced at her wound. To stop the bleeding, he needed to remove her shirt, but that would inevitably result in skin-to-skin contact.

Li Xiaoyao clenched his teeth and cursed, "Damn, what's the time for propriety?"

With that, he reached out to undo the buttons of Zhu Xiaoyue's tightly stretched shirt.

But as fate would have it, Zhu Xiaoyue chose that moment to open her eyes. She looked fatigued as she gazed at Li Xiaoyao, reaching out his hands toward her. She was momentarily stunned, then anger flared in her face as she weakly exclaimed, "Li Xiaoyao, what are you doing!"

Li Xiaoyao cleared his throat and said earnestly, "You've been shot in the shoulder, it must be treated immediately, or the scapula might necrotize."

Zhu Xiaoyue instinctively moved her shoulder, sucking in a breath of cold air as intense pain radiated from the wound, numbing half her body.

Only then did she remember, just when they had started driving, it seemed like a gunshot had sounded, and then she had passed out.

She had been shot.

Zhu Xiaoyue glanced at herself and immediately knew that Li Xiaoyao was preparing to remove her shirt. Otherwise, there was no way to treat the wound on her shoulder.

"Just... take it off," Zhu Xiaoyue said resignedly, closing her eyes with a hint of frustration and helplessness in her voice.

She would be fully exposed to Li Xiaoyao if she took off her shirt. But without doing so, he wouldn't be able to treat her wound.

However, preserving her life was the most important thing at this moment. Zhu Xiaoyue could tell which was more critical.

[The third release is here; the fourth will be updated tomorrow afternoon since I will be visiting my wife's family and have to get up at seven to take the bus. I will only have time to write in the afternoon. Also, please vote for a recommendation.]