Du Yuelin soon received word that the Hua Country police were being held up by Long Fusheng and had made no moves yet. As for Country M’s police, Li Dongchi had been reported the previous day for abusing his authority to give his family’s hotel an unfair competitive advantage. He was under investigation.
Before Du Yuelin could completely relax, new information arrived: the armored convoy was approaching the final checkpoint before Luli Road. The Emerald Palace lay deep in western Jielan, with Luli Road as its one indispensable barrier. The forces she’d stationed along it were far more formidable than those the convoy had encountered elsewhere.
Fanatical fire flashed in her eyes, and she smiled so hard her lips quivered. She picked up her submachine gun and left the palace. Bu Yangyun opened his eyes and watched her receding figure.
Fierce fighting broke out at the checkpoint. Half the desperate men in Du Yuelin’s force were addicts, and her Black Mark was the lifeline keeping them alive. They’d been turned into puppets, sweeping heavy machine-gun fire across the armored convoy.
Rockets tore through the bright daylight like thunderbolts, blasting overlapping craters across the already scarred earth. The air reeked of gunpowder and blood, flames and trails of red crossing in the sky.
Everywhere the wheels passed, they painted great swaths of dark crimson, like a printer that could never run out of ink.
A rocket struck the fuel tank of an armored vehicle. The explosion roared into the sky, and brilliant light and fire engulfed nearby buildings and bodies, living and lifeless alike reduced to charcoal in an instant.
Countless small cars were flung into the air. Glass and shards of steel flew everywhere like violent bullets fired from sniper rifles, tearing into bodies still firing wildly. Beyond the first blast zone, another horrifying sea of blood rose up.
Only four armored vehicles remained, and every one was badly damaged. The mercenaries at the checkpoint had been almost completely wiped out.
Just then, a fuel tanker hurtled down a slope from the north, as though its brakes had failed. The driver’s eyes were bloodshot, and he grinned like a corpse king rising from a mountain of the dead as he aimed for the armored convoy.
The lead vehicle spun on the spot and shot west like a meteor. The remaining three accelerated east at the same instant, reaching their maximum speed. The heavy fuel tanker couldn’t change direction quickly. Its driver gave one last roar as it slammed into a wrecked armored car that was already burning fiercely.
At the moment of impact, all sound seemed to vanish. A circular shock wave surged skyward, carrying ugly souls transformed into black smoke. The blast shattered every nearby window. Unsafe buildings that had already endured shelling finally collapsed. Cars spun through the smoke-filled air as if caught in a tornado, crashed into ruined buildings, and triggered one secondary explosion after another.
The fire kept spreading, and the gunfire stopped, because no one in the blast zone was left alive. Explosions replaced the gunshots, as though an unseen god of death were playing with the weapons humanity’s criminals had left behind.
Flames rose into a towering wall at the eastern entrance to Luli Road, spreading until they gradually consumed the whole town. Four armored vehicles burst out of the inferno and raced along the highway like fiery meteors.
Du Yuelin ground her teeth. Even an explosion that horrific hadn’t wiped out all of Liang Yueze’s fighting force. What kind of monster was he?
Yet as her heart pounded, excitement flashed in her eyes. Come on, then. Let them all come! That was only the appetizer she’d prepared for Liang Yueze. By the time he reached her, he’d have exhausted the last of his strength.
Then she could point her gun at his forehead with ease!
The enormous explosion in western Jielan made the ground tremble. On a narrow north-south road, the lead vehicle braked sharply, and the cars following it stopped as well.
“Earthquake?” Zhou Jue gripped the wheel and peered ahead.
Ming Han pushed open the car door and looked toward the dense forest ahead. A dark mass of startled birds rose from the trees and scattered in every direction. The sky remained clear blue, looking down without grief or joy at the troubled land below.
“An explosion,” Ming Han said. He went over to the car in front. Chen Zheng got out of the passenger seat, his brow furrowed. The rumbling continued, and small animals occasionally fled the forest in panic.
“We may be too late,” Chen Zheng said, adjusting his tactical gloves. “Their main forces have already engaged.”
“Bro, we weren’t sent to prevent two criminal groups from killing each other. Our mission is to eliminate the Heaven-Measuring Ruler and bring back the key suspects.” Ming Han raised his hands and straightened Chen Zheng’s slightly crooked tactical vest.
Chen Zheng nodded and addressed the team. “Back in the vehicles. Move out. Once we’re through this forest, we’ll be in Jielan. Be extra careful and keep watch. We haven’t been stopped on the way here, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone waiting to stop us.”
As he spoke, Chen Zheng glanced at the nearly black forest. It resembled a lightless abyss, with whatever they’d been guarding against all along waiting in its deepest reaches, eager to trap them all at once.
Still feeling the aftershocks of the explosion, three specially modified tactical armored vehicles resumed their journey, keeping their distance as they entered the ominous foreign forest.
At the front was the vehicle carrying Chen Zheng and Zhou Jue. Also aboard were elite officers from Han Province’s Special Operations Detachment and a special police officer from Country M.
The Country M officer was called Li Gongsheng, one of Li Dongchi’s subordinates. He’d grown up amid the fighting in Country M’s north and dreamed of one day destroying every criminal organization entrenched there. In his eyes Chen Zheng saw something missing from Li Dongchi’s and Long Fusheng’s: a sincerity bordering on madness.
After leaving the Mengkafei Hotel the previous night, the Mobile Unit and the special operations officers had assembled. Long Fusheng seemed like a completely different man from the one they’d met that afternoon.
With blazing eyes, he’d bowed to them. “Li Dongchi and I have been watched for a long time. The Heaven-Measuring Ruler is in the northern Jielan region, and we have to go north to take it down. But I have the organization’s informants all around me. Certain people would love to use this operation as an opportunity to get rid of me. If we march north openly, the Heaven-Measuring Ruler will know immediately, and we’ll encounter countless obstacles along the way.”
“So Director Lu, Director Tang, and I came up with a plan. You’ll leave under cover of darkness, in the second half of the night. We should be able to keep the information contained until at least tomorrow morning. By then, you ought to have reached Jielan.”
The officers and special operations personnel were all thoroughly trained, and preparations proceeded at a frantic pace. In the early morning hours, a cargo plane quietly took off. It landed an hour later in an industrial city north of central Country M. They couldn’t fly any farther north; the air routes were closed, and a helicopter would run the risk of being shot down by a rocket. The team transferred to tactical vehicles and followed minor roads toward Jielan.
Chen Zheng remained in contact with Lu Hejing. Everything in Jiaoliu City appeared normal, but currents moved beneath the surface. Invisible eyes watched the police bureau from every direction. Not long after the convoy entered the forest, communications failed, leaving only short-range radio links.
Sweat ran across Li Gongsheng’s forehead as he adjusted the communication equipment and explained to Chen Zheng, “Comms restrictions are normal in the north, but they’re dangerous. We may be heading into an ambush.”
Chen Zheng had prepared for exactly this. He quickly assembled his lightweight rifle and chambered a round. Before coming to Country M, he’d completed several focused shooting sessions with Ming Han. Of all the firearms he’d tried, the lightweight rifle suited him best.
The vehicle pressed on. Chen Zheng opened the roof hatch and raised a curved protective shield, quietly scanning the dark depths of the forest through his sight. An almost imperceptible breeze moved through the trees, carrying the smell of rotting vegetation. Beneath it, however, he could detect an exceptionally faint scent of leather.
After they’d driven a little farther, Chen Zheng spoke over the radio. “Vehicles Two and Three, fan out. Keep fifty meters apart.”
Ming Han answered, “I’m coming up to the front!”
“Watch the right flank…” Chen Zheng began.
Before he’d finished, a piercing whistle tore through the air. Chen Zheng’s expression froze. “Zhou Jue!” he shouted.
Zhou Jue wrenched the steering wheel around. The lightweight tactical vehicle responsible for reconnaissance skidded at a sharp angle, its body tilting left so violently it almost rolled over. At that exact moment, a rocket screamed past trailing flame and exploded where the vehicle had just been.
The shock wave blasted outward in every direction. Trees ignited in the searing heat. Zhou Jue strained with everything he had and managed to right the nearly overturned vehicle.
Vehicles Two and Three had spread out in time and were almost unaffected by the first attack. But just as Zhou Jue brought Vehicle One back down onto all its wheels, the same terrifying whistle sounded again. More rockets were coming, at least five this time!
The vehicle’s roof hatch opened fully. Li Gongsheng and a Hua Country special operations officer raised shoulder-fired rocket launchers. With two thunderous booms, one rocket raced toward the attackers’ position and another collided midair with an incoming rocket. Enormous flames blossomed overhead. Balls of fire rained down, and scorched birds fell, still flapping. Fire spread swiftly through the forest. Smoke billowed into a screen, turning the woods into a maze that slaughtered anything caught inside.
“Ming Han!” Chen Zheng called the other vehicles over the radio. Vehicle Two responded quickly. It had moved out of the rockets’ range and was trying to flank the attackers. But Vehicle Three remained silent for far too long. Sweat poured down Chen Zheng’s face.
Then a dense net of bullets swept straight toward them. A special operations officer using a shoulder-fired launcher was hit in the shoulder and gave a muffled grunt. Li Gongsheng pushed him down and grabbed the launcher. He fired, sending a rocket through the heavy smoke to explode at an enemy position. Screams were swallowed by the blast, and torn limbs flew upward, catching on burning branches.
Chen Zheng immediately stanched the wounded officer’s bleeding. Another special operations officer tried to climb onto the roof, but Chen Zheng held him back, seized his lightweight rifle, and leaned out through the hatch to fire quick shots toward the forward right.
Rockets were powerful, but they couldn’t be used continuously at close intervals in a place like this. The vehicles had also been extensively modified and were extremely agile; rockets couldn’t easily destroy them. Machine guns were another matter. They’d already driven deep into the enemy’s position. The attackers held elevated ground, and hundreds or thousands of rounds could pour down on them, leaving them crippled even if they survived.
Chen Zheng judged the machine gunner’s position from the direction of the incoming bullets, but aiming through the dense smoke was nearly impossible. Fortunately, one shot seemed to wound the gunner, and the barrage slackened briefly. Chen Zheng’s lightweight rifle was empty. He instinctively went to change magazines, but in the next instant seized a light machine gun and sprayed fire into the smoke.
Their return fire from the light machine gun and shoulder-fired rockets suppressed the enemy for a moment. Zhou Jue instinctively steered left, trying to escape the storm of bullets.
“Right!” Chen Zheng shouted. “Go right!”
Boom! A rocket struck the ground immediately to the right of the vehicle, and the shock wave lifted it off the earth again.
But Zhou Jue didn’t hesitate. He swung the wheel, avoided the flames, and drove in the direction Chen Zheng had indicated.
“You want to fight them head-on?” Li Gongsheng exchanged positions with the special operations officer and returned inside to change equipment. A stray bullet had torn open his cheek, and blood was pouring from the wound. With another officer already shot, the vehicle reeked of blood.
Chen Zheng had experience administering emergency first aid and immediately worked to stop the bleeding. “Yes. We’ve got at least another ten kilometers to go before we’re out of this forest. They have countless elevated positions and more than enough firepower to bury us here. Hiding won’t solve anything. We have to knock out the nearest high position and take back the initiative.”
Though Li Gongsheng’s wound was terrible, after hearing Chen Zheng he grabbed disinfected gauze and expertly tied it around his face. “I was afraid police officers from such a comfortable country wouldn’t have the nerve to risk everything!”
“Don’t underestimate us, buddy!” Zhou Jue’s driving skills were being pushed to their limits by the explosions on every side. The tactical vehicle kept leaping and fishtailing, as though fighting its way through towering waves. Bullets struck its body one after another, but none hit a critical point.
“And another thing. My teammates are on the right.” Chen Zheng gripped the radio, which emitted only static. “I have to bring them back.”
Li Gongsheng climbed onto the roof again, this time mounting a fearsome heavy machine gun. He looked down. “What a coincidence. My teammates are in Vehicle Three too!”
Chen Zheng took a deep breath, opened a narrow gap in the passenger window, and extended the barrel of a sniper rifle.
Thick smoke rolled across the road as deadly rockets and bullets came at them again. Li Gongsheng and the special operations officer on the roof returned fire fiercely, heedless of their bleeding wounds. Broken branches rained down. Fireballs raced blindly through the trees like headless flies. It seemed as though nothing existed in the world but shooting and explosions, and their ears began to grow numb.
Yet amid all those sounds of death, Chen Zheng detected the sound of life. It was almost imperceptible: breathing, the sounds of loading and unloading a gun, the movements of enemies who were still active.
His barrel rose slowly. The optical sight locked onto a target through the smoke and dust. Experience, technique, and the weapon’s capabilities came together in a single instant. Chen Zheng squeezed the trigger. The sniper rifle’s distinctive, steady report rang out, and the smoke seemed to clear just a little.
Atop a makeshift observation platform in the distance, a machine gunner was struck and fell from the platform along with his heavy machine gun.
Li Gongsheng roared and opened fire wildly while the view was briefly clear. Under cover of the machine-gun barrage, a shoulder-fired rocket streaked toward the observation platform. A huge fireball erupted, and the platform snapped in half.
Hiss, crackle… An unusual sound came over the radio. Chen Zheng snatched it up. “Vehicle One!”
“Bro!” Ming Han’s voice arrived amid gunfire, accompanied by the special operations driver’s curses. Chen Zheng’s heart relaxed for a fleeting moment. “How are you?”
“Bro! Stop advancing right now! Their main force is to the northeast! There’s a minefield!” No sooner had Ming Han said this than a rocket exploded thirty meters ahead of the tactical vehicle. Light flared from the earth, and a chain of mines detonated!
Zhou Jue stamped on the brakes as he turned. The tires nearly caught fire, but the vehicle stopped just short of the minefield.
“I’ll deal with it,” Ming Han said.
When the first rocket struck, Vehicle Two, carrying Ming Han, had been turning right from the convoy’s direction of travel. The explosion scattered all three vehicles, the radios failed, and another dozen or more rockets came shrieking toward them.
A Li, a Country M police officer, spun the wheel frantically. The vehicle changed direction over and over amid the flames, like a sheep being chased by wolves. By the time the first wave of rockets eased, they’d been driven far off their intended route. Moments later machine-gun rounds fell like meteors, striking their armored vehicle in a relentless rhythm like the footsteps of death.
A special operations officer threw open the roof hatch and responded with a shoulder-fired launcher. But they were already in the heart of enemy territory. The fire was far too intense. Heavy machine guns opened up from every direction, their barrels spitting tongues of flame. Everyone aboard was experienced in actual combat, yet even they struggled to withstand it.
One rocket almost struck the fuel tank. The blast lifted the vehicle off the ground. Veins bulged along A Li’s arms as he barely managed to correct its balance. But as soon as they landed, he actually released the wheel and turned to seize an assault rifle. “I’m going to fight them!”
Ming Han immediately restrained him. “Everyone in this vehicle has put their lives in your hands! Keep driving!”
A Li’s dark face was drenched in sweat. He glared at Ming Han, his eyes glittering, breathing hard. Then the second wave of rockets came. With only one vehicle to target, the attack grew fiercer. Fragments struck a special operations officer, and blood poured out.
The thick smell of blood jolted A Li’s nerves. With a roar he abandoned the idea of taking up a rifle and fighting to the death, grabbed the steering wheel again, and used speed to tear a narrow lifeline through the downpour of fire.
Ming Han climbed out through the roof hatch. Beside him, a special operations officer was firing a heavy machine gun nonstop. Through the impenetrable hail of bullets, a huge dragon of flame roared toward them. Ming Han shoved the officer down. The rocket streaked past the roof and exploded where the wheels had just rolled.
“Minefield!” A Li suddenly swerved left. A rocket hit the earth, and mines detonated in succession along more than thirty meters of the right-hand route. Grass and trees caught fire, and a wall of flame rose abruptly.
The tactical vehicle was forced to stop. No one knew exactly where the mines were. However rugged the vehicle was, its undercarriage couldn’t resist explosives as well as its armored sides could. If a mine detonated beneath it, vehicle and occupants alike would almost certainly be destroyed.
As soon as the vehicle stopped, the enemy came at them like hyenas catching the scent of blood. A fog of bullets swept over them. Entering the minefield meant death; staying put meant death too. Either way, they were trapped. Ming Han suddenly murmured, “I still have to get back to my brother.”
The gunfire was deafening, and A Li didn’t hear him. “What?”
Ming Han changed weapons, taking up a sniper rifle and quickly climbing toward the roof hatch. “I said, you just focus on driving. Don’t Country M’s police deal with mercenaries like this all the time? What, can’t you even tell where the mines are?”
A Li was startled, but before he could answer, Ming Han fired into the ground ahead. The bullet struck the earth. Nothing happened. “You judge where it’s safe. You managed to stop before the minefield just now, which means you’ve got experience and you were lucky. Wherever you aren’t sure, I’ll test the route.”
A Li’s spirits rose immediately. He stepped on the accelerator. The vehicle shot forward while a rocket exploded behind them, hurling earth and trees into the air.
“Brother Wan, cover me!” Ming Han aimed ahead of the moving vehicle and fired repeatedly. He had no way to protect himself now and could only trust his teammates.
The special operations officer nodded silently and changed magazines with practiced ease.
“Aaah!” A Li roared and pressed the accelerator down. The vehicle surged like a whale leaping from the waves, without hesitation or pause, charging onward.
One mine after another detonated as Ming Han tested the road with his sniper rifle. The vehicle either swerved around the explosions or leaped across the flames. The heavy machine gun on its roof never stopped, and the shoulder-fired rockets struck fiercely back at the enemy.
Suddenly the barrage of bullets stopped, and all the enemy rockets flew southwest. Ming Han realized immediately that Vehicle One or another vehicle must be approaching. When Chen Zheng ordered the convoy to spread out, another vehicle had gone left; the one approaching now was more likely to be Chen Zheng’s Vehicle One.
“A Li!” Ming Han called. “Who’s the best at spotting minefields in your team?”
A Li answered proudly, “That would be your Brother Li, of course!”
Ming Han frowned. Vehicle One’s driver was Zhou Jue. No matter how skilled he was behind the wheel, this was his first time driving in Country M. Whether he could evade the distinctive minefields here was uncertain.
“Turn back!” Ming Han ordered. “Brother Wan, try contacting Vehicle One!”
“Understood!”
With the enemy fire reduced and the vehicle now traveling along a safe route, A Li could breathe a little more easily. Gunfire continued in the forest, and burning trees sent up thick clouds of smoke that obscured the view from ground level. Ming Han observed calmly through his scope, sweat trickling down his cheeks. A voice inside him insisted: This won’t work.
They were still far too passive. The enemy held raised observation platforms, giving them absolute advantages in visibility and firepower. Though the police had brought plenty of weapons and ammunition, if they kept fighting this way, they’d never reach Jielan. They might never even get out of the forest.
He needed another way.
He needed to get higher than the enemy.
Ming Han hurried into the back seat and pulled out a grappling gun. The special operations officer understood what he was planning and frowned. “Too dangerous!”
Ming Han shook his head. “There’s smoke everywhere right now. Their view isn’t much better than ours. Once it clears, we’ll really be in trouble. Brother Wan, help draw their fire. We have to end this fast. I’ve got to destroy those observation platforms!”
“I’m special operations. Maybe I should…” Brother Wan hadn’t finished when the radio, silent for so long, suddenly connected.
Ming Han froze and immediately took it. Chen Zheng’s voice came through in fragments. Ming Han closed his eyes and lifted his face slightly, an expression of immense relief crossing it. The outer corners of his eyes trembled, and his resolve only grew firmer.
The special operations officer heard him say, “Leave it to me.”
He passed the radio back and pulled himself up through the roof hatch in a single leap. Amid countless gunshots and explosions, the whistle of a grappling line fired from a gun was almost inaudible. A lithe figure flashed through the smoke against the rain of bullets and shells, like a lone wild goose skimming a lake in a downpour.
The grappling anchor lodged securely in a tree trunk. Using the gun’s momentum, Ming Han swung onto a branch and disappeared into the foliage. Below him, the tactical vehicle sped on, tongues of fire from its heavy machine gun piercing even the smoke.
Every enemy bullet poured toward the vehicle. No one noticed that Ming Han had climbed above the smoke.