Chapter 1001: Chapter 684: Loulanel City [End] Shocking! Helicopter Pickup
"Professor, I’d like to withdraw from the project." Frank Ford took a deep breath, glanced at the group of senior brothers behind him, then said word by word, "And at the same time, revoke all subsequent project funding."
The expedition team: "..."
However, the professor seemed to have expected this. He wasn’t very shocked; he just nodded.
"Alright, let’s leave it at that," the professor said.
This trip had been full of twists and turns, and the students they’d picked were all more cowardly than the last. He was getting old, already mentally exhausted, and had no energy left to wrangle this group of students.
They’d failed once, then again.
Looked like this project just wasn’t meant to be.
Might as well give it up.
At this moment, Felipe Clark seemed to sense something was off. Panic flashed through him as he sized Frank up, then hurried over to ask, "Professor, what does He mean?"
"He’s this year’s investor," the professor sighed, waved his hand, and turned to walk toward the off-road vehicle. "Come on, let’s go back."
The professor left, but the members of the expedition team were collectively dumbfounded.
Even Jared Oliveira, April Thomason, and Annabelle Pinto were a bit surprised.
?
This punching bag who’d been bullied by the senior brothers was actually the investor of their project?!
Holy shit.
This guy really knows how to keep his cool.
"No way."
"Frank Ford, since you’re the investor, why didn’t you say so earlier?!"
"You’ve got to be kidding me, the investor was doing grunt work for us?"
...
The expedition team burst into heated discussion, "unbelievable" practically written across everyone’s face.
Every word they said, without exception, fell into Frank’s ears.
Frank turned back and gave them a look.
"..."
The noise cut off abruptly.
"I respected you because you’re my seniors, that’s why I kept backing down." Frank still maintained his good manners. He didn’t curse them out; instead, he spoke slowly and evenly. "But the respect I gave you—since you don’t want it, then forget it."
"..."
Dead silence.
Frank didn’t say anything else. He walked up to April and Jared, nodded slightly to the two of them, then headed for their car.
Of course April and Jared followed Frank.
What a joke.
Frank was the money man; the money came from Frank. If they didn’t follow Frank, were they supposed to follow that group of idiots?
And those thugs weren’t stupid either. They’d seen enough to understand that this expedition team full of youngsters were all ingrates, so none of them gave the students any kindness. When their leader barked the order to "move," every single one of them "deliberately" brushed past the expedition team members.
A shove here, a kick there, thoroughly tormenting the students.
"..."
The expedition team was on the verge of tears.
*
Even after they got back in the car, the expedition team members were still in a daze.
"Professor, what’s Frank Ford’s background?" someone pestered the professor.
After a long silence, the professor’s gaze drifted to the window. "Fenton City. The Ford Family."
Annabelle froze. "Is that the same Ford Family that owns MC Entertainment?"
The professor grunted an "mm." "Their family has indeed ventured into the entertainment industry."
MC Entertainment, the Ford Family in Fenton City.
Someone with sharp ears picked that up, hurried to search on their phone, and the results that popped up left them utterly stunned.
"Fuck."
After a long while, someone spat out a curse.
Then came suffocating silence.
They were sick with regret.
With a junior like that, even if they’d just maintained a decent relationship, they could’ve secured a pretty good job after graduation. But—
Thinking about how they’d ordered Frank around and targeted Him over and over... they swallowed hard, mouths suddenly dry, feeling like life had gone gray all at once.
Oh, it wasn’t just gray.
It was hopeless.
They’d watched such a massive network of connections vanish right in front of them, and at no point had they thought to cherish it... that feeling was indescribably awful.
In the end, someone cursed from the bottom of their heart, "Fuck, why would a Young Master Lucas like Him let people boss Him around like that..."
*
In the other car.
"You’re a perfectly good Young Master Lucas, why’d you come here to pour tea and fetch water for them?" April just couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Frank rubbed his hands. "To do research, obviously."
"You call this scheming and backstabbing doing research?" April snorted. "You’d be better off holing up at Pedro Langley’s drone base."
Frank: "..." Sis, I don’t even work in the same field as Him.
"Frank," Jared asked, "you went through so much trouble to get here, and you’re just letting it go like this?"
"I’m letting it go." Frank was stubborn, but at the end of the day he’d always been a carefree playboy type, easygoing and open-minded. "I figured it out. Since my family’s so rich, if I really want to do research later, I can just hire a bunch of expert professors to come with me. I’ll learn no less than I would here, right? No point wasting time with this bunch of half-baked amateurs."
Jared: "..." That’s exactly the vibe of a rich young master. Though instead of hiring a bunch of professors, you might as well just go straight to your sister-in-law.
"Now that’s more like it." April patted Frank on the shoulder. "So are you going back with them?"
"No." Frank Ford had been feeling a strong Martial World vibe these past few days. He rubbed his hands together, full of anticipation. "You guys came here for something else, right? I’ll go with you."
"You sure?" April Thomason raised a brow.
"Of course!"
Frank nodded like a bobblehead.
...
A few off-road vehicles returned to Maze Village ahead of time.
Without the girls’ convoy, the village entrance looked a lot more deserted; the once flashy motorcade suddenly looked half as impressive.
However——
From a distance, they saw a figure appear at the entrance of the village.
The sun was blazing overhead, the temperature soaring.
Nora Scott had set up a small folding stool at the village entrance and sat down, a bamboo hat on her head to block the sun. She was fiddling with something in her hands—it looked like an instrument, but it was hard to tell from here.
Buddha was perched on Nora’s shoulder.
Slowly, the convoy drew closer.
At that moment, Nora suddenly lifted her arm. Buddha spread its wings and shot off into the distance.
The next second, several pairs of eyes saw Nora raise a suona, put it to her lips, and then——
"..."
The driver of the first car slipped on the wheel, immediately swerving off course, then yanked the steering wheel back just before the vehicle flew off the road, barely avoiding an "instant death on the spot" stunt performance.
Fuck!
A suona!
Might as well hang a funeral banner on their hood!
The other vehicles all braked to a stop, keeping a good long distance from Nora. But Jared Oliveira, under April Thomason’s urging, had no choice but to hit the gas and drive the SUV right up to the entrance before stopping.
Dust billowed as April stuck her head out of the window and shouted at Nora, "Where’d you get that?"
"..."
Nora lowered the suona.
She rubbed her ear and raised her voice a bit. "Borrowed it from one of the villagers. Just trying it out."
Right then, Felipe Clark jumped out of the car in a fury, slammed the door, and stormed over to Nora. "You can try it out all you want, but why’d you have to blow it at us?! We almost crashed, you know that?!"
And of all things, she played that universally recognizable funeral dirge!
What, did she already consider them dead?!
"Well," Nora stretched out her long legs and lazily took over the conversation, "it fits the vibe, doesn’t it."
"..."
Felipe choked on the blatant "I did that on purpose" plastered all over Nora’s face.
Off to the side, April got out of the car as well. She strolled over and chimed in, carefree, "Good thing we had your photos, or they wouldn’t be standing here alive and kicking, pointing at you and swearing."
"Oh." Nora arched a brow and let out a cold laugh, giving Felipe a leisurely once-over before speaking unhurriedly. "So they’re just a bunch of ungrateful brats."
"You—"
Felipe was proud and arrogant by nature; no way he could swallow Nora’s sarcastic tone. Even if her photos had actually helped them, he couldn’t take it. He immediately pointed at Nora, ready to curse her out.
But the moment his hand lifted toward Nora’s nose, Nora flicked a pebble with her fingers. It hit him square on the wrist. Felipe yelped from the pain and instantly drew his hand back.
"On one hand, you look down on someone like me who didn’t go to some fancy college and complain all day that I act like a diva. On the other, you’re stubborn, arrogant, and totally lacking in basic manners." Nora stood up and brushed off her clothes, her brows lifting in a half-smile. "Tell me, don’t you just have it coming?"
"..."
Felipe was shaking all over with rage.
"A person should know their place, know exactly what they’re worth." Nora’s voice turned cold.
The playful look she’d had at first, by the end, was completely replaced by ice.
She really had nothing better to do; she’d been thinking about all of Felipe’s eye-rolls along the way, the more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Couldn’t swallow it. Then she spotted their returning convoy through the drone, so she came over here specifically to pick a fight.
They were about to leave. Maybe they’d never see each other again after this. If she didn’t vent this once, she might never get another shot.
——Oh, and she’d already told certain people to "take good care of them" on the way back.
"You!"
Felipe had already been in a foul mood because Frank Ford’s investor identity got exposed and their project funding got cut halfway. Now that Nora was provoking him again and again, his blood rushed straight to his head. He raised his hand and swung it at Nora.
But before Nora even had to move, Frank Ford appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Felipe’s wrist, twisted it, and Felipe howled in pain.
Frank shoved Felipe back and ignored him, then said to Nora with great enthusiasm, "Sis-in-law, our project’s been terminated. They’re heading back right away. I’m going with you guys!"
"Oh." Nora lifted a brow. "We’re leaving right now."
Frank: "Huh?"
April: "What?"
Jared: "Come again?"
"I said, we’re heading back right now." Nora repeated slowly and calmly. "If you’re coming, go pack your stuff now."
"It’s this late already, if we set out now, I’m afraid——"
Nora glanced at the time and said casually, "Two hours to Sand Delta."
Everyone: "..." You’re dreaming, right?
And just then——
A rumbling sound came from the distance.
Everyone looked over at once, but couldn’t see anything unusual in the boundless desert. Not until someone from the expedition team shouted, "Look up!" did they all lift their heads—only to see a helicopter flying in from the horizon, growing larger as it approached.
"..."
"..."
"..."
This woman really had something up her sleeve.
