Mysterious Revival

Chapter 570: Chapter 567 Halfway to Success Plan

The second day.

The headquarters meeting began.

This meeting followed the previous Ghost Envoy meeting in quick succession, which was unusual for meetings of this level, indicating the recent string of incidents left no other choice.

Indeed, the Ghost Envoy issue had been resolved, bringing relief to all ghost controllers.

Otherwise, if the ghost targeting ghost controllers had been left to roam free, countless lives would have been lost, especially since this Ghost Envoy could not be detained and had the ability to restart within the Ghost Domain.

Who could withstand that?

The headquarters’ first collective action almost resulted in annihilation, and although they survived, it came at a considerable cost, leaving them severely weakened.

Then, there was the second action.

Since victory could not be achieved with numbers alone, Wang Xiaoming planned to lure the ghost painting to suppress the Ghost Envoy.

The plan was a reluctant measure, as the headquarters could not afford the decimation of a top-notch ghost controller team to deal with the Ghost Envoy, so they had to resort to this last-ditch strategy.

The plan was only half successful.

It was deemed only a partial success because Li Jun and the others failed to find and detain the Ghost Envoy within a short time frame, rendering the operation a failure, but thankfully with minimal losses. Thanks to the meticulous planning, not only did they survive, they even managed to extract Wei Jing, who had long been dead.

An aberration who had died once and come back to life.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on Ɲ0νǤᴑ.ƈο

However, the final ghost-luring plan failed.

The problem lay with Guo Fan, whose oversight led to the failure of the plan to lead away the ghost painting, from which five ghosts had emerged and two had vanished.

Soon after, ghost painting incidents started occurring in the city…

The only success was that the Ghost Envoy had disappeared.

But this kind of disappearance was not a success for Wang Xiaoming, but a complete failure.

Because without detention, the ghost might reappear.

After learning all the details of the operation, Wang Xiaoming was very quiet, even having spent the entire previous night without sleep. As he was not a ghost controller, sleep was important to him, so he arrived at the meeting with dark circles under his eyes, bloodshot eyes, looking tired and dispirited.

“This plan’s failure is not your fault, you did very well, Wei Jing’s survival is incredibly important to us,” said Cao Yanhua, comforting Wang Xiaoming, who sat silently at the conference table ahead of time.

Despite his distraught demeanor, Wang Xiaoming’s mind was still clear, “You don’t need to comfort me, I know my plan was not wrong. The operations to detain the Ghost Envoy by Li Jun, Su Fan, Leuk San, Ah Hong, Xu Yiping, and the ghost-luring operations by Guo Fan, Zong Shan, Chen Yi were all based on my judgment. Li Jun leading, Su Fan predicting danger, Leuk San scouting… Guo Fan guiding, Chen Yi responding. That was the best lineup I could come up with.”

“The retreat plan for the Ghost Gate and the support during the ghost-luring phase of changing the Ghost Candle all played a role in reducing mistakes.”

“But I overlooked one thing, that their own abilities were insufficient. Even the best plan needs people to execute it.”

Wang Xiaoming slightly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes meeting Cao Yanhua’s, “Some people are simply not cut out for dealing with supernatural incidents, especially those that allow no room for error, because plans are fixed, but people are flexible. In critical moments, they must adapt, and I only planned a rough direction.”

“Li Jun is too rigid, he wasted too much time in that village, and in the end, he didn’t even find the Ghost Envoy, not to mention the timing of the first door opening was off.”

He couldn’t be at the scene himself, so many things couldn’t be improvised, something the ghost controllers had to handle on the spot.

Li Jun’s bravery and determination were beyond doubt, but these were both his strengths and weaknesses.

Wang Xiaoming could plan many things, and if everyone executed according to his plans, success was assured, but humans are prone to errors, a mistake in one link could spell failure for the entire plan.

Cao Yanhua’s face showed a slight discomfort upon hearing this.

He wasn’t angry, but Wang Xiaoming’s words were too blunt to be said outright, lest they be overheard by others and cause dissent.

After all, some of them had just risked their lives.

“It seems I’ve arrived a bit early, the others haven’t even arrived yet?” just then, the door to the meeting room opened.

Liu Xiaoyu walked in with Yang Jian.

“Vice Minister, Yang Jian has arrived,” Liu Xiaoyu reported.

Wang Xiaoming glanced at Yang Jian, his gaze flickering briefly as he was reminded of the Hungry Ghost incident in Dachang City.

Back then, he had advised Yang Jian to detain the Hungry Ghost while suggesting Zhang Han to distract the ghost, ensuring a foolproof operation.

However, Yang Jian had refused.

If it were Li Jun, he would have never refused.

Yet, as it turned out, Wang Xiaoming’s method was wrong and Yang Jian was right.

Wang Xiaoming’s mistake wasn’t due to carelessness, but because he wasn’t on the scene and couldn’t assess the situation, so he had chosen the most secure and conservative approach to minimize errors.

“`

Afterward, the Hungry Ghost event was restarted, and I proposed a long-distance sniping solution.

Yang Jian quickly understood and successfully implemented it.

After that the Hungry Ghost incident ended.

“The disparities between people?” Wang Xiaoming’s gaze slightly dropped.

Yang Jian felt Wang Xiaoming’s gaze and was a bit taken aback.

How had this guy changed his tune so drastically after not seeing him for a few days? Why so dejected all of a sudden?

And that look just now—didn’t it carry some sort of intention toward me?

Yang Jian was very cautious of Wang Xiaoming, who knew whether this guy would suddenly seek revenge for his brother and find an opportunity to take Yang Jian out.

In fact, Yang Jian himself wouldn’t mind seeing Wang Xiaoming disappear from this world.

But Professor Wang’s status and position were too significant; if Yang Jian made a move against him, he would probably be hunted down by the headquarters. So, he had to temporarily set aside such immature thoughts.

“Bang!”

As expected, Cao Yanhua slammed the table and bellowed, “Yang Jian, you have the nerve to come so early when I heard you hit someone again last night? Your slap nearly killed the man; did you need to be that harsh?”

“Did he snitch?” Yang Jian narrowed his eyes, indifferent to Cao Yanhua’s fury.

“No, it was mentioned in Wang Quan’s report.” Cao Yanhua said, “While it’s true he did some things poorly, you can’t just hit people at will.”

“He should be thankful he’s still alive.”

Yang Jian said, “You should know that by gathering everyone who had any contact with the Ghost Painting, he could have killed everyone, even dragging me back into the Ghost Painting incident. Doesn’t such a person deserve to be hit? What would Professor Wang have done if he had been there?”

Having said this, he glanced at Wang Xiaoming.

He knew Wang Xiaoming was an even more ruthless person than himself, for whom anything could be sacrificed for a greater cause.

“Kill,” Wang Xiaoming said without hesitation, his head bowed casually.

Cao Yanhua’s face went dark.

He was trying to suppress Yang Jian’s arrogance and make him tone it down so he would rein it in in the future. What was Wang Xiaoming meddling for?

Is it that all smart people have low EQ?

“See, I was being quite restrained. Also, how about the overtime pay for this extra work?” Yang Jian asked seriously.

Cao Yanhua replied, “We’ll talk about the travel expenses later. Today, we have more important issues to discuss. Sit down and rest for now, wait until everyone else arrives.”

Cao Yanhua found Yang Jian to be quite a headache.

On one hand, it was because Yang Jian was difficult to manage; on the other hand, his way of doing things was extreme. If used well, like last time, you could rescue someone from the Ghost Envoy’s Ghost Domain, but if not handled correctly, it could cause a lot of trouble, like the near fight in the meeting room last time.

However, Cao Yanhua felt that these shortcomings were still tolerable.

After all, Yang Jian truly was capable and, in some aspects, rather easy to communicate with.

“By the look on your face, I can tell you’re thinking of reneging,” Yang Jian said unabashedly as he sat down.

“Don’t worry, I won’t renege. We’ll discuss it after this is all over,” Cao Yanhua said with a dark face.

If Yang Jian didn’t get his overtime pay, Cao reckoned he might decline involvement in the next incident.

Yang Jian turned and said, “Liu Xiaoyu, take note of this. Remind me if I forget that day, or if you have time, urge the deputy minister.”

Liu Xiaoyu glanced between Cao Yanhua and Yang Jian, not sure whether to agree or not.

“Do as he says, take note,” Cao Yanhua said through gritted teeth.

Liu Xiaoyu felt extremely awkward but proceeded to jot it down in her notebook.

Yang Jian’s expression shifted, “I wasn’t actually counting on this overtime pay, and since you agreed so readily, you’ll definitely have some task for me later. Let’s talk about it now before the meeting starts, so I don’t have to decline and make you look bad.”

“Yang Jian, you’re talking too much.”

At that moment, Jang Shangbai and several other Ghost Tamers pushed open the conference room door and entered, with him looking particularly sullen—as if he wasn’t pleased.

“Dead men don’t talk,” Yang Jian retorted without reservation.

Seeing Jang Shangbai like that, he knew that the man already knew about last night’s incident, otherwise, he wouldn’t have come so early.

“`