Chapter 124: The Battle Royale (1/2)

Xiaotao and I were safely back at her house later that night. I was injured, so she made me sleep on the bed. I laughed and said, “But you’re the hostess, and I’m the guest. How can I let the hostess sleep on the couch?”

“Guests should be quiet and obey the hostess!” Xiaotao snapped back. “I’m ordering you to sleep in the bed!”

And so, I reluctantly lay on the bed and tried to get some rest. The sound of Xiaotao taking a shower in the bathroom coupled with her scent in her bed excited me too much that I couldn’t sleep.

As I tossed and turned, I heard the bedroom door open. Xiaotao slipped into the room wearing pajamas. I quickly pretended to be asleep. Xiaotao quietly lay down next to me and hugged me from behind. My heart started racing when I could feel the soft pressure of her breasts on my back.

But then, I heard Xiaotao quietly sobbing. Surprised, I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

She kept on crying and didn’t answer. The events that happened today must’ve hit her very hard, especially when a police officer died by the bullet that was intended for her. I turned around to face her and gently patted her head with my uninjured hand and comforted her, “Don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

Xiaotao curled up in my arms like a little bird. Her freshly washed hair emitted the scent of shampoo. I knew that there was nothing I could say that would make her feel better, so I just kept on stroking her hair until she gradually fell asleep.

Due to excessive blood loss, coupled with the side effects of the anesthetic, I grew more and more drowsy myself and eventually fell asleep too. But it wasn’t long before I was woken up again by a loud bang on the door. It went on incessantly and Xiaotao jolted awake from her sleep too.

“Who’s that?!” she shouted.

The banging of the door didn’t sound right. “This is bad!” I warned her. “Xiaotao, someone’s trying to break in!”

We jumped out of the bed instantly. Xiaotao took off her pajamas, exposing her beautiful body. I froze in shock, but then realized that she was changing her clothes. Fortunately, the room was dark and the light wasn’t on, so it didn’t feel very awkward. I lowered my head and told Xiaotao, “I’ll go out and see what’s going on!”

The metal gate in front of the main door had been smashed in several times. There was someone there holding an axe, unremittingly bashing into the metal gate. Had there been no metal gate and the man were bashing straight into the wooden main door, he would’ve been inside by now.

Not long after, Xiaotao came out wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

“Who are you?” she barked. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man completely ignored her; he just continued banging the gate with the axe. Xiaotao and I exchanged looks. It seemed that this guy was hypnotized by Professor Li again.

Xiaotao reached the holster on her waist and slowly pulled out her gun. She signaled with her eyes for me to open the door. I took a deep breath and walked slowly forward. A small fragment of the metal gate flew off and hit my face. It hurt a lot but I kept on going. I found a safe opening and swiftly unlocked the metal gate and flung it open, then I quickly backed away from the door. The axe-wielding man rushed in, but Xiaotao pointed her gun at him and screamed, “Stop right there!”

Then she suddenly froze to the spot.

“Uncle Zhang!” she exclaimed with astonishment.

Uncle Zhang was an old man in his seventies who owned a bicycle shop downstairs. But at that moment, his eyes were glazed over and his face was stony and expressionless. He was even drooling from a corner of his mouth. The axe he was holding was slightly bent due to the impact on the metal gate.

Uncle Zhang stormed in and swung the axe at Xiaotao, but she lithely dodged it and the axe smashed into the glass coffee table. Uncle Zhang wouldn’t give up. He kept on swinging his axe at Xiaotao tirelessly, smashing all the furniture in the house. Xiaotao grabbed a coat from the coat rack and shouted, “We have to get out of here now!”

“But what about your house?” I asked.

“Never mind that, we have to stay alive!”

We slipped out of the house and closed the door behind us. The second we were out, all the banging noises inside came to an abrupt halt. We held our breaths and waited for a few seconds until we were sure that everything was quiet inside. Then Xiaotao pulled out a small gadget from her pocket. It was called a cat’s eye monitor. It was a special device used by the police and it was used to monitor what’s inside the house by looking into the cat’s eyes.

After looking through the cat’s eyes, Xiaotao handed the device to me and said, “Song Yang, look!”

I looked and saw Uncle Zhang standing still with the axe still in his hand. He was probably implanted with the order to break into Xiaotao’s house and kill her, but now that Xiaotao was absent, he just stood there like a statue, or perhaps more precisely like a malfunctioning robot.

Then, we noticed the elevator that stopped on the first floor was gradually moving up.

“Someone’s coming up again,” remarked Xiaotao. “Let’s hurry to the stairs!”

We flew down the stairs until we reached the fifth floor, where we heard the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs. Xiaotao was horrified and told me we should go back immediately. When we reached the sixth floor, the footsteps were getting closer and closer to us. Our hearts almost jumped out of our throats.

“Let me walk in front of you,” I suggested. “These people are only instructed to kill you. They won’t attack me, just like how Uncle Zhang didn’t do anything to me earlier.”