There were no flights or trains between Longzhou City and Weishan City. Driving was the only option, though plenty of local villagers still used horses and cattle for transport. The Mobile Unit set off again, heading for Weishan.
The country along the way was desolate, but there were villages scattered through the yellow sand like toy blocks, many of them already abandoned.
Liang Yueze might be hiding in one of those villages, searching for an opportunity to cross the border. The Mobile Unit had already arranged for border police to help intercept him, but west of Weishan lay countless mountain ranges. He still had a chance to get away.
Weishan was even smaller than Longzhou, like a forgotten little county town. By the time the Mobile Unit arrived, it was late on the night of April 5, and no trace of Liang Yueze had been found.
Ming Han told Zhou Jue and the others to get some rest, but intended to head back out himself. Then he noticed Chen Zheng leaning against a car. Seeing him approach, Chen Zheng casually raised a hand.
“Bro.”
“Right now you’re my superior, so you’re the one I should be calling Bro.” Chen Zheng opened the passenger door with an inviting gesture.
Ming Han raised an eyebrow. “You really want to play at being boss and subordinate?”
“Who said rookies can only bring their superiors tea and water?” Chen Zheng said. “I ought to work harder to impress you. I’ll drive for you too.”
The little frontier city was unusually quiet at night. Even downtown, only a few streetlights were lit, and there was no nightlife to speak of. Following the navigation system, Chen Zheng drove slowly along. Weishan police had just said that no suspicious people or vehicles had been sighted. Liang Yueze’s group wasn’t large, but they would surely have equipment with them and would stand out in a small place.
“Either they’ve come here separately, hidden among locals in their vehicles, or they haven’t entered the city at all,” Chen Zheng said. He knew little about the northwest, but he understood how criminals thought. “After Longzhou, Weishan is the last place where they can hide and replenish supplies. Border regions are difficult to police, and people frequently cross illegally. One major difficulty is that some locals will help them for money.”
The car continued past sparse streetlights and illuminated windows. “On the way here I saw plenty of villages where Liang Yueze could hide. I checked the map. There are more villages farther west. If I were him, I’d rather stay in one of those, sending someone into the city for supplies only when necessary. But he thought far enough ahead to arrange for Xie Yiliang to act as his double. His preparations must be extremely thorough. If he hasn’t left yet, that’s because border security tightened after his whereabouts were exposed.”
They reached the edge of Weishan. Beyond it to the west were empty roads and isolated villages.
“Liang Yueze could keep hiding until there’s a chance to cross, or gamble on a direct crossing to catch us unprepared,” Chen Zheng said calmly. “There’s also the possibility he quietly retreats from here to look for another opportunity.”
“So he still has plenty of options,” Ming Han remarked.
“Yes. And we have very few chances to intercept him,” Chen Zheng replied. “If we fail now and he escapes somewhere else, predicting his next destination will be much harder.”
Their headlights cut a path through the darkness. Tall trees rose on either side like imposing sentinels, guarding the few villages beyond. Ming Han zoomed in on the map. Along their route were four villages in order, named Yishan, Ershan, Sanshan, and Sishan.
“Check them all?” he asked.
“I’m only the driver. The decision is yours, sir.”
Ming Han laughed. “We’ve come all this way, right?”
Yishan Village lay just ahead. Chen Zheng turned onto a dirt track, and the uneven road shook the car violently.
“Not as good as our own vehicles,” Ming Han commented.
“If we’d brought the car Zhou Jue modified, he could play the racing god again.”
Ming Han coughed. “We’re at the village entrance.”
A police car was far too conspicuous. If Liang Yueze was hiding in Yishan, he would notice Chen Zheng and Ming Han long before they spotted him.
“I’ll go and take a look.” Ming Han took his gun. “Bro, hide the car somewhere.”
Chen Zheng nodded. The moment Ming Han stepped out, he vanished into the darkness like a gust of black wind. Chen Zheng raised his eyebrows, knowing that Ming Han’s skills had been forged in precisely these kinds of environments. He slowly reversed the car and concealed it behind a haystack.
There were dogs in the village. Ming Han’s footsteps were quiet, but farm dogs had keen hearing and were fiercely protective of their homes. A black dog stared at him and abruptly began barking. The dogs in the other yards woke and joined in. Lights came on in several houses, and men came outside to see what was happening.
Ming Han nimbly climbed a tree and stayed perfectly still, almost merging into the trunk.
The dogs kept barking, but the villagers saw nothing. They kicked the dogs a couple of times, making them whine in pain. After the men went back indoors and the lights went out one by one, Ming Han dropped from the tree. The black dog was still glaring at him, growling a warning, but after being kicked it didn’t dare bark loudly again.
Ming Han silently mouthed, I told you not to bark. See? You got yourself beaten.
The irritated dog paced around its yard. Ming Han moved as quietly as possible along the foot of the walls. Every household had its own yard, but the boundary walls were low enough to offer almost no protection, and most gates could be pushed open.
The village was small. Ming Han circled it in fifteen minutes. Everything appeared ordinary. There were no vehicles that shouldn’t be there, and the villagers’ vigilance was unremarkable. If Liang Yueze had been hiding in a villager’s home, the disturbance might have brought someone out to investigate, giving Ming Han a chance to spot them.
A large tree stood in the village. Ming Han climbed it and gained a view into almost every yard. He took out thermal-imaging binoculars and swept the area, but saw nothing unusual.
“Did a dog chase you?” Chen Zheng asked as Ming Han climbed back in and he pulled onto the road.
“Looks like your big police-dog brother only gets to throw his weight around in Han Province. Out here in this unfamiliar northwest, even a farm dog thinks it can walk all over me.” Ming Han asked, “Anything strange outside the village?”
Chen Zheng shook his head. “He’s not in this one.”
“Then on to the next.”
Yishan and Ershan were close together. Chen Zheng once again hid with the car outside the village while Ming Han slipped in alone. This time the village dogs didn’t bark. Ming Han returned ten minutes later. “Normal. Even fewer people here than the last one. Several yards are abandoned.”
They drove on, the wind growing colder. Chen Zheng’s heartbeat slowly accelerated. If Liang Yueze hadn’t changed course, he might well be hiding in one of the two villages that remained.
Sanshan lay farther from Ershan. Weishan City was much higher above sea level than Luocheng and could already be called part of a high plateau. The mountains appeared unusually close, looming in a solid wall before them in the darkness.
This time Chen Zheng parked farther from the village and took out his gun. Ming Han was opening the car door. “Bro, what are you planning?”
“Get on with your job.”
Ming Han’s face turned serious. “Don’t get out of the car. If someone tampers with it, we’ll be in even more danger.”
“I know. But I need to be ready.”
Ming Han hesitated, then got out. Chen Zheng called him back once more. “Remember, we’re only reconnoitering tonight.”
“Understood!”
Sanshan covered a larger area than Ershan, but more of its houses were abandoned. A little white dog wagged its tail and approached Ming Han without the slightest fear. Ming Han nevertheless had to be more alert than ever, even more cautious than in the first two villages.
Two streetlights were on. Everyone seemed to be asleep. Ming Han climbed a tree again to scout from above, but its position was poor, and he couldn’t see the whole village. As he landed, a strange feeling came over him, as though a pair of eyes were watching him from the dark.
He held his breath and looked carefully. That half-glimpsed sense of a gaze vanished completely.
Finding nothing else unusual, Ming Han withdrew to the village entrance. By the time he climbed into the car, a thin sheen of sweat had formed at his temples.
“Something wrong?” Chen Zheng asked.
Ming Han drank some water and shook his head. “Maybe I’m wound too tight.”
Chen Zheng frowned. On the map, Sishan was three kilometers from Sanshan. The villages here seemed to come in pairs. Chen Zheng trusted the instincts Ming Han had honed over years in the Mobile Unit. Sanshan might be suspicious, but without discovering anything there, perhaps Sishan would hold what the police had come to find.
Chen Zheng drove another ten-odd meters, then stopped. “What’s Zhou Jue’s team doing?”
Ming Han understood immediately. “You want to make a move tonight?”
“If Liang Yueze is really hiding in Sishan.” Chen Zheng turned toward him. “I don’t want to give him the slightest opportunity.”
Ming Han considered, then reached for his phone. “I shouldn’t have sent Zhou Jue to bed. He’ll curse me out later.”
Chen Zheng started the car again. “Who’s going to dare curse out their commanding officer?”
“Oh, all the time. It’s practically routine.”
“Tell me next time they do.”
“So you can join in?”
“I’ll help you give them a taste of sarcasm.”
“Tsk!” Ming Han was laughing one second, but the instant his call connected his tone became that of a squadron leader. “Everyone prepare. Assemble at Sanshan Village and await my orders.”
Sishan drew nearer, its towering mountains throwing enormous shadows across the village and the road. Of the four villages, Sishan was the largest, largely because it had a forage-processing factory near the entrance.
Chen Zheng drove into a patch of wasteland beside the main road, turned off the lights, and approached Sishan from the west rather than passing through the entrance. He parked beside an unoccupied yard. Ming Han didn’t get out immediately.
“See those vehicles?” Chen Zheng asked.
Ming Han nodded. On the way in, they’d seen two modified pickup trucks. None of the other three villages had vehicles like that.
The entire village was so quiet it almost seemed uninhabited. Rural settlements were rarely this silent. Ming Han made to get out, but Chen Zheng caught his arm and looked at the time. “Not yet. Wait until the others arrive.”
Time passed soundlessly. In the night wind thick with drifting dust, tension and danger seemed to swell into an invisible pressure wave.
“I need to find some high ground,” Ming Han said. “Suizi’s with these people.”
Suizi, Killer A, the man who’d shot Jin Xiaoquan dead in front of the police.
Chen Zheng looked through the window. “The highest point is the factory building, but they’ve probably already occupied it.”
“But buildings aren’t the only things I can climb.”
Just then, a message came from Zhou Jue. “We’ve reached Sanshan!”
“Leave one group there. Everyone else, come to Sishan immediately. Stay off the main road,” Ming Han ordered.
Then he smiled at Chen Zheng. “Bro, this time you’ll really have to obey your commanding officer. Once I’m up a tree, I’ll have a better view than any of you.”
On an operation like this, someone had to occupy an elevated position. Chen Zheng nodded. “Your call.”
Ming Han became a shadow in motion again and disappeared in an instant. Chen Zheng heard only a faint rustling, like sand-bearing wind sweeping through the trees.
Zhou Jue’s group joined Chen Zheng, and the officers split into two teams to approach the forage factory. An old iron-bar gate blocked their path. Inside stood a row of pitch-dark buildings, with only one feeble light and no one in the guardroom.
Chen Zheng signaled Zhou Jue, planted a foot on the boundary wall, and vaulted up. The view from the top was somewhat better. Strangely, the factory was far too quiet, as though everyone had already evacuated. A functioning plant ought to have someone on night duty.
He dropped inside, followed by Zhou Jue and another officer. Chen Zheng carefully felt his way forward and pushed open a door. The room was empty. Farther in, past a row of three-story buildings, was an even darker area where they could just make out open-sided work sheds and warehouses.
Rustling came from one of the warehouses. Chen Zheng stopped immediately and retreated into the shadows. Someone stepped outside carrying a long-handled pitchfork, a very tall man. Five others followed, each holding a similar fork. They moved slowly, looking around as they walked.
Chen Zheng watched in silence. Judging by their clothes, they seemed to be villagers who worked at the processing factory. But this was too strange. If they were workers on night duty, why weren’t they in the front yard? Why had they been hiding in an unlit warehouse? They looked as though they knew something was about to happen and had prepared for a fight.
Suddenly one villager looked in Chen Zheng’s direction and froze. He raised a hand to summon the others. More than a dozen additional villagers emerged from the sheds and warehouses, all armed, gradually surrounding Chen Zheng and the Mobile Unit officers. Chen Zheng made out the leader’s face. Dark-skinned, rough-featured, and completely unfamiliar.
In the dark, Zhou Jue chambered a round with a sharp click. The villagers glared at him, fury blazing in their eyes, as though they might rush him at any moment.
The situation had become complicated. The Mobile Unit’s target was Liang Yueze. If the people before them were genuinely local villagers, the officers couldn’t simply open fire. Even if they were only disguised as villagers, there was no way to determine that immediately. Most likely, after arriving in Sishan, Liang Yueze had made the factory his base and bribed its workers and nearby residents to become his human shields.
Chen Zheng stepped forward and held up photographs of Liang Yueze and Killer A. “Have you seen these two men?”
The leader glanced at them. “Who are you?”
“Police.” Chen Zheng kept hold of his gun. “They’re here, aren’t they?”
The villagers exchanged looks, but didn’t retreat when they heard the word police. Their leader even sneered. “What police? The police never give a damn about us. Get lost!”
Zhou Jue aimed at the leader. Chen Zheng raised a hand to stop him. “How much did they pay you?”
The leader’s expression shifted slightly, but he pretended not to understand. Just then, still more villagers crowded in. A door behind one of the work sheds opened and dust billowed out as a flock of lambs came charging toward them.
Villagers drove the sheep from behind. The animals rushed about wildly, colliding with anything in their path, while some villagers laughed boisterously and brandished their long-handled forks.
Chen Zheng was shoved against a wall by the sheep and barely steadied himself. Zhou Jue was rammed straight to the ground and trampled several times, ending up with a mouthful of wool and dirt. He struggled to stand and muttered to Chen Zheng, “Now we’re in trouble. Attacked by the general public.”
Chen Zheng frowned deeply. The sheep were the villagers’ property, and the people blocking their path were ordinary civilians. Liang Yueze knew perfectly well that the police couldn’t attack civilians at will. That was why he’d come up with this cheap tactic.
But Chen Zheng hadn’t come all this way to give him what he wanted.
He raised his gun and fired twice into the night sky. Spent cartridges flew. The sheep panicked at the shots and scattered in every direction, crashing into the villagers instead. Many were knocked to the ground as dust rolled through the yard and chaos erupted.
Chen Zheng seized the opportunity to get free, but quickly realized there were too many villagers for one flock of sheep to deal with. Their leader, enraged by what had happened, came charging at him with a crowd of men thrusting their long-handled forks.
In close combat a gun could sometimes be less useful than a crude bladed implement, particularly when Chen Zheng couldn’t fire at his opponents. These villagers were accustomed to handling the forks, using them to move fodder, drive sheep, and even fight criminals or illegal border crossers.
The forks gleamed with lethal cold light as they stabbed at him through the night. Chen Zheng dodged and blocked. The faster he moved, the faster the forks came. The brutal villagers seemed to find pleasure in trying to skewer him. More and more crowded in, the forks descending like a rain of steel.
Chen Zheng rolled across the ground. The leader saw his chance and thrust a fork toward his chest. Chen Zheng dodged the fatal blow, but the prongs tore a bloody gash along his arm. The smell of blood spread at once.
The villagers seemed to grow excited at the scent like wild animals, raising their forks and shouting. Their leader looked especially pleased with himself. This was exactly the moment Chen Zheng had been waiting for. Ignoring the pain, he sprang up so fast that none of the villagers could react.
The cheering stopped abruptly. Everyone stared at Chen Zheng, and at the scout’s dagger gleaming coldly in his hand.
The blade was pressed across their leader’s throat. Terror filled the man’s face. His earlier arrogance had vanished.
Chen Zheng stood a head shorter and was much less heavily built, but his speed was astonishing. The moment he locked the man’s throat, the leader had no time to resist.
With the pressure on them relieved, Zhou Jue and the other officer subdued two villagers as well.
Blood was still flowing from Chen Zheng’s wounded arm. Holding the leader firmly in his grip, he swept a gaze around the crowd. “Did they tell you the police couldn’t lay a hand on villagers like you? That you could do whatever you wanted to the police instead?”
Chen Zheng’s eyes burned. His habitual gentle, scholarly manner was gone, replaced by a hard, merciless expression no less fierce than the villagers’ own.
Drip. Blood from his arm fell into the sand. He gave a cold laugh. “But when police officers face a potentially fatal attack, they can take whatever measures are necessary to defend themselves, including killing their attackers.” He pressed the dagger harder, scoring the leader’s neck.
The villagers backed away in fear. The leader scarcely dared breathe, straining to glance sideways at Chen Zheng.
“If you don’t want to die, take your equipment and your sheep and get out of here. This has nothing more to do with you!”
The villagers farther out immediately fled. Those nearer, clearly the leader’s loyal followers, hesitated. One even tried to attack Chen Zheng. Zhou Jue rushed over and slammed to the ground the man who’d tried to stab Chen Zheng from behind at an angle. The man’s joint was dislocated, and he shrieked in pain.
Another group fled at the sight. Only a dozen or so villagers remained in the factory.
Holding their leader captive, Chen Zheng advanced. The hostile villagers parted on either side. He leaned close to the man’s ear. “Where are those people hiding?”
The man cursed in the local dialect. Chen Zheng couldn’t understand him, but that didn’t stop the conversation. “How much did they give you to make you risk your lives for them? Once they’ve escaped, you’ll be the ones going to prison. Is that worth it?”
The man went on swearing.
Chen Zheng shifted the dagger. The leader immediately went rigid.
“Whether you end up in prison isn’t even the issue anymore,” Chen Zheng said. “It’s whether you’ll live through tonight.”
The leader stared at him in terror. Chen Zheng sneered. “Whoever told you the police wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you, go find him when you’re dead.”
The leader swallowed nervously, making the knife cut a little deeper. Sweat poured down his face. In a heavy accent, he stammered, “B-below… underground!”
Chen Zheng knew villages like these commonly had cellars, so underground was much too vague. “Where underground? Take me there.”
The leader pointed west and glared at several villagers. They immediately ran off in that direction, Zhou Jue following close behind. Another officer stayed with Chen Zheng to escort their captive from the rear.
The officers from the other team had also arrived. Chen Zheng instructed them to guard the outside against unexpected trouble.
The main factory building stood on the western side. All the machinery was shut down, and none of the lights were on. According to the leader, the people who’d paid him were in the basement beneath the building.
The entrance was concealed inside a small storeroom beside the factory director’s office. Zhou Jue lifted the covering panel, revealing a faint light from below.
“Does the basement have another exit?” Chen Zheng asked.
“Only this one,” the leader answered confidently.
Chen Zheng frowned and thought. Liang Yueze wasn’t a man who left himself without a way out. Going down was very likely to be dangerous. But they couldn’t simply refuse. The villager couldn’t be trusted completely. If there was another exit, Liang Yueze could escape while they waited above, and might even have escaped already.
“Brother Chen, I’ll go down,” Zhou Jue said. “This is what I do on our team. You and Baldy keep watch up here.”
“I’m coming with you. And we’ll have this man show us the way.” Chen Zheng released the leader, who stared at him in amazement, hardly believing he’d been spared.
“Don’t celebrate too soon. I can have a blade at your throat again whenever I like. Next time I won’t stop at breaking the skin.” Chen Zheng turned the bloodstained dagger in his hand. His expression was unlike anything the man had ever seen on the faces of ordinary police officers. He shuddered instinctively. “I-I won’t try anything.”
The three went down into the basement, with another officer coming over to provide support.
Belowground, the space opened out into a surprisingly large area. It was even better lit than upstairs. The leader walked nervously at the front, with Zhou Jue’s gun at his back. Chen Zheng brought up the rear, examining everything carefully. Suddenly, a very faint sound came from around the corner ahead on the right, as though someone were moving there.