Chapter 453: Hunted By Mercenaries (2/2)

As time went by, the entire restaurant remained in a tense atmosphere. My throat became dry from nervousness. Suddenly, an off-road vehicle pulled up outside the restaurant. As soon as the Wolf King caught a glimpse of the vehicle, the look in his eyes changed drastically.

The next second, three grenade-like objects were thrown into the restaurant, filling the room with smoke. Taking advantage of the panic, Song Xingchen charged towards the gangsters and slashed twice, severing two of the gangster’s arms. Blood spurted from their wounds, drawing an arc in the air.

”Asshole!” cursed the Wolf King as he pulled out a pair of guns from his belt and pointed them at Song Xingchen. Dropping down to the ground, Song Xingchen deftly dodged and rolled to the cellar. From below came the shrieks of the Wolf King’s underlings.

The smoke grew thicker and thicker, causing uncontrollable coughing. It turned out that those weren’t grenades but smoke bombs.

“Uncle, run!” shouted Sing Sichao.

The Wolf King's men fled outside one after the other. There seemed to be some sort of commotion outside. All I saw was the men in the frontmost collapsing to the ground and a bloody mist spraying forth from their bodies like a morbid fountain. This time, the people after me were using light machine guns.

My discovery shocked me. In fact, gun control in our country had always been the most severe in the world. How did these men obtain light machine guns? Were they smuggled in from the border via special channels?

It would make perfect sense if the weapons were smuggled in from the border. In 1992, an all-out anti-drug campaign swept the country. At the time, assuming that the operation wouldn’t spread to such a remote location like a village in Pingyuan, Yunnan Province, every household there made money from the sale of drugs. In order to resist counter-narcotics police, they dug deep trenches and smuggled a large number of arms from the Sino-Vietnamese border to arm themselves, including heavy weapons such as light machine guns, rocket artillery and mortars. In the end, the Ministry of Public Security dispatched three thousand armed officers. After more than fifty days and nights of fighting, the evil drug lords were annihilated, restoring peace to Pingyuan. However, a few remnants went underground and continued to engage in arms trading. This operation was known as the Pingyuan Incident, which was eventually made into a TV series.

At the moment, I didn’t have the liberty of further contemplation. Crouching down, I stuck to the bottom of the wall to avoid the oncoming bullets.

Right then, something suddenly flew in through the thick smoke–a severed hand. Song Shichao shivered with fear. A few seconds later, Song Xingchen nimbly rolled over to our side, his face stained with blood. ”The hostages are safe! But the Wolf King has fled.”

I thought I heard the sound of glass breaking. The Wolf King must have escaped through the window.

”The Wolf King used to be a criminal gunman. He was involved in a gunfight with a dozen policemen on the main road, causing a sensational incident known as the May 23rd Shooting. Many people think he’s dead, but that’s obviously not true!” remarked Song Sichao.

”I don't care about the Wolf King’s past,” I snapped. “I just want to know who the hell is sadistic enough to offer a reward for my radius. What is he going to do with my bone? Make soup?”

”Only the Jiangbei Daggers would do such a thing!” said Song Xingchen.

I believed that was entirely possible. The criminals in that organization were all strange, to say the least. Each and every one of them had a distinct personality that set them apart as individuals. Perhaps this time, I was dealing with a pervert who liked collecting bones.

The gunfire finally stopped and the smoke in the restaurant had almost dispersed. The floor was littered with corpses. Three of them had their throats slit by Song Xingchen while the rest were shot to death. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and blood, much like a scene from an American movie.

Footsteps sounded from outside. Whoever it was seemed to be wearing boots. The man paused at the door and an object fell to the ground–he was reloading his gun.

Song Xingchen suddenly charged towards the man. The sound of the blade hitting metal reverberated in the room. Song Sichao and I looked up to see a tall, muscular man going head to head with Song Xingchen! The man’s strong, ripped body reminded me of an action star. He wore aviator sunglasses and a beret, a black T-shirt over his scarred body, with a pair of karambits in his hands.

After several blows, Song Xingchen managed to slice a long wound along the man’s arm. However, the man remained indifferent, without so much as a wrinkle in his brows. His hands continued their nimble movements as if pain wasn’t part of his vocabulary.

Completely defenseless, he continued approaching Song Xingchen. Very quickly, several bloody wounds appeared on his body. But even Song Xingchen was uninterested in such a desperate battle. During the fight, he shouted, ”The two of you should go! I’ll be right with you!”

”Alright, be careful,” I cautioned.

With that, Song Shichao and I ran out of the restaurant. Halfway through, the man threw a karambit at us. Fortunately, Song Shichao reacted quickly, dragging me away so the karambit was embedded into a tree instead.

We ran up the street for some time before stopping to catch our breath. Suddenly, I noticed that the tree on the side of the road was shaped rather strangely.

As it turned out, there was a man standing in front of the tree in camouflage. He was stark naked, having painted himself to resemble the tree bark. A silver glint flashed from the thin pipe in his mouth. I pushed Song Shichao away at once.