Liu Yi and Song Ping'an moved quickly and silently as they finished placing the last block of explosives, taping it firmly to a load‑bearing pillar in the villa's living room.
The explosive block looked utterly ordinary, even a bit crude, like some kind of putty mixed with unknown granules and kneaded into shape, but the destructive power inside it was enough to make the palms of the two men who installed it break out in a sweat.
"They're all stuck in the right spots, yeah? Position, angle, no deviations?"
Liu Yi lowered his voice, repeatedly confirming with Song Ping'an beside him.
Song Ping'an didn't answer right away. He held his breath, gripping the somewhat crumpled villa construction blueprint in his right hand, lifting the flashlight in his left, the beam sweeping back and forth between the dense red marks on the blueprint and the actual structure of the villa before him.
