Episode Summary
An arms deal goes wrong, leading to the death of Siva and the capture of Balong, while the main antagonist, Chow Hung, escapes. The police leverage Balong's connection to his adopted children to gain his cooperation. The hunt for a missing source code, crucial to a "financial bomb" plot, intensifies. Chow Hung finds a tablet at the deceased engineer Jones's home, but it's a dead end. The episode concludes with the police discovering a digital trail on Jones's computer that connects all the players to the Chi Fu Group and a file that may be the source code they've been looking for.
Spoiler Alert
Homeland Guardian: Episode 22 - A Deal Goes Sideways
The episode kicks off with an undercover Tse Ting-wai meeting Balong's crew for a supposed deal. In a clever move, Tse Ting-wai deliberately removes his left glove, a pre-arranged signal to Ho Ho-fai that the deal is a fake. Seeing this, Ho Ho-fai immediately orders his team to pull back.
The real arms transaction happens later at a different location, with Tse Ting-wai and Balong now joined by Chow Hung, who is visibly pleased with the crates of weapons. The situation quickly turns volatile when Chow Hung recognizes Tse Ting-wai. Suspecting he's been set up by Balong and the police, tensions flare, and a gunfight erupts. In the chaos, Siva jumps in front of Tse Ting-wai to protect him, taking a fatal bullet and dying on the spot.
Chow Hung makes off with the guns, leaving Balong to clean up the mess. Just as Balong's men have Tse Ting-wai cornered, a bullet meant for him is miraculously stopped by the necklace Siva had given him. Right on cue, Ho Ho-fai and the police arrive. Tse Ting-wai attempts to chase down Chow Hung by jumping onto his car, but the cunning Chow Hung manages to escape. However, the police successfully capture Balong.
In the aftermath, the wrongly accused South Asians are finally cleared. While Tse Ting-wai is recovering in the hospital, his teacher pays him a visit, and Ho Ho-fai's team respectfully gives them some privacy. Once discharged, Tse Ting-wai reverently places the Buddhist amulet that saved his life in a place of honor at his home. Meanwhile, Anna's grand plan is in shambles. With the engineer Jones dead, her "financial bomb" cannot be detonated, and the source code is missing. She tasks Chow Hung with finding it.
During interrogation, Balong is defiant, but Ho Ho-fai changes his tune by showing him a picture of the orphans Balong has raised like his own children. Balong instantly realizes Chow Hung is threatening them. Ho Ho-fai informs him that they anticipated this move and the children are now under police protection, urging Balong to cooperate. Following this, Balong reveals that the deal included guns and explosives but he knows nothing of a "financial bomb." When shown photos, he identifies Jones, confirming that Chow Hung had specifically ordered Jones to be killed.
The police now understand that Jones was a key figure, but the trail has gone cold. Unbeknownst to them, Chow Hung is already at Jones's home, tearing it apart in search of the source code. He discovers a hidden tablet inside a chess set and flees just as the police, led by Shiu Tsz-chun, arrive. They find the ransacked apartment but miss Chow Hung hiding in a neighbor's house.
On a personal note, Ho Ho-fai picks up his son, Hin Hin, from school and is happy to see him making new friends. He intends to go to a parent-teacher meeting but is called away on an urgent mission.
Anna hires another engineer to crack the tablet, but it contains no useful information. After she dismisses him, Chow Hung brutally kills the engineer, shocking Anna with his ruthlessness. Back at the station, Shiu Tsz-chun re-examines Jones's computer and finds a crucial lead: an electronic contract between Jones and the Chi Fu Group. The team starts connecting the dots: Chi Fu Group acquired Chow Sai-ho's Choi Tung Company at a low price after Chow Hung had him kidnapped, and Balong was working with Chow Hung. All signs now point to the Chi Fu Group. They also discover a file that looks like source code, but they need more time to decipher its contents.
