kvmb Chapter 1956 - 514: The Empire’s Schism
Chapter 1956 - 514: The Empire’s Schism
[All the way, Inzaghi kept struggling inside. As the Suez Canal got closer and closer, he grew more and more desperate, pretty much mentally prepared for the worst, but just then he got word that the mole had been arrested, and Inzaghi finally let out a long sigh of relief.]
[After this whole incident, Inzaghi suddenly understood the true meaning of life: staying alive matters more than anything. Through a middleman he sold that almost-new chubby little bird the girl used for herself, scrapped the MiG’s weapon system, and modified the plane. Looking at this old buddy that had fought life-and-death battles with him, Inzaghi was overwhelmed with emotion and decided to finally take it for a proper Mediterranean flight. Using his connections with Sun Oil, Inzaghi’s MiG-29 was granted permission to make a one-time temporary landing on a United States warship.]
[The chance he got by selling off that oil field made Inzaghi cherish this opportunity a lot; he also wanted to see what his opponent—whom he’d failed to destroy several times—actually looked like. Just as he was about to land, Inzaghi realized his MiG had gone out of control. In a panic, he had no choice but to eject. The runaway MiG went rampaging across the carrier deck, smashing several F/A-24 carrier-based fighters in a row...]
After reading this.
Huang Kaiwen’s jaw was hanging open.
He’d thought the Prince of Persia incident was already peak chaos.
Didn’t expect that suicidal old man of his to take things to a whole new level.
Huang Kaiwen didn’t know the exact unit cost of an F/A-24, but an F/A-18 Super Hornet ran around a hundred million dollars, so he was pretty sure the later models wouldn’t be any cheaper—only more expensive.
Still, this mess.
The Yellow Ball King definitely couldn’t just ignore it.
Fuck.
Inzaghi wiped out several United States carrier fighters in one go—this was something the Yellow Ball King had always wanted to do!
Huang Kaiwen figured they could have him hand the money over to his wife and then get a divorce, and the Yellow Ball King could help him find a lawyer. After that he’d just owe the Yankees the repair bill, and that would be that.
Debtors are kings, after all.
But after thinking it through, Huang Kaiwen realized this whole thing could probably be smoothed over without spending a cent.
After all, this was a private under-the-table deal between the United States military and some oil dealers, definitely against regulations.
This concerned the future careers of a lot of people in the fleet.
Even if someone wanted to tell the truth, the others would never agree.
Casually allowing a foreign fighter jet to land on an aircraft carrier is not exactly a minor issue.
No one wanted to end up in a military court over something like this, losing their pension and all their benefits.
This was about a lot of families’ livelihoods.
So this was very likely to go down as a write-off.
The only question was who’d be made to carry this pot—attacking the United States military is not exactly a "small" pot.
Of course, they could also just file it under "loss due to loss of control."
Looked dangerous on the surface, but in reality nothing happened.
Huang Kaiwen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
This guy Inzaghi really did have absurdly busted luck.
He wondered if the total damaged aircraft exceeded five; if it did, Inzaghi would instantly become Shenluo’s one and only ace pilot.
He should call Riot when he had time.
Tell them to release an Inzaghi skin for Kuchi.
After reading, Huang Kaiwen drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, the group picked out a rare second-hand military vehicle and hit the road again.
"Kevin, why do you keep staring at me?"
Inzaghi asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable.
"Nothing, I just keep thinking your bastard luck is off the charts."
Huang Kaiwen said.
"It’s not that great, I lose to you all the time."
Inzaghi rolled his eyes as he spoke.
Huang Kaiwen: ...
Nobody was talking about fucking Dou Dizhu.
Kaka was happily waving his notes around: "Some of Van Gogh’s and other artists’ works are still missing. Wonder if we can find any this time."
"Dream on, you think the Germans would haul that stuff all the way to Africa?"
Young Master snarked.
He’d actually studied World War II history.
"You never know."
Huang Kaiwen smiled and said, "Rommel used to be the Aide to that short mustache, and the two of them were actually pretty close in private. It wouldn’t be surprising if Mustache gifted him a few looted paintings. Just don’t expect too many, though—Rommel only really liked photography."
"That’s good enough. If there’s a Van Gogh, we can hang it in your place!"
Kaka said excitedly.
Ramos, who was driving, nodded along.
Huang Kaiwen chuckled and shook his head.
He suspected some of those artworks were actually in the hands of Swiss, Jewish people, or certain private collectors.
Back then the Nazi looted way too much—several million pieces of art. There had already been cases where people hid stuff in random places, then it was later found and sold.
Private collectors, to avoid trouble, definitely wouldn’t go public about what they had.
This leg of the trip went by without any surprises.
But to be safe, the group still ditched the car early and continued on foot.
After a few days of this, even Young Master had developed decent counter-surveillance habits.
"So what exactly is our target?"
Inzaghi asked.
Today he wasn’t whining about being tired—for once—since they were about to see the treasure.
"No idea."
Huang Kaiwen said.
"No idea?"
Inzaghi’s voice jumped a couple of decibels.
He’d thought he was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, only to get hit with this.
The others all turned to look.
Huang Kaiwen explained, "The place we’re looking for is by the sea, probably a cave large enough to hold a submarine and other stuff. Rommel hid the treasure there. It’s definitely very well concealed, and they might even have blown the entrance in the end. Even if they didn’t, natural disasters might have changed the landscape. You get what I mean?"
"So we’re basically looking for a submarine hidden inside a mountain by the sea, right?"
Inzaghi asked.
"That’s the idea. Best pray it’s not too easy to spot; otherwise the locals would’ve found it long before we ever got here."