The group was deliberating their next move when Xiao Bingyi, standing by the window, suddenly noticed a figure moving at the edge of his vision. He swiftly raised his gun and aimed, only to discover it was a white-haired man, swaying precariously as he stumbled, before finally collapsing, sprawling face down on the concrete ground.
Jing Lan approached the window. He observed the strange man’s motionless body, then grabbed the semi-automatic rifle leaning nearby.
“Should we just kill him?” Xiao Bingyi asked.
“Break his limbs.”
The Type 56 semi-automatic rifle had always been a favorite among marksmen; within a range of several dozen meters, it was virtually infallible.
Aiming, he fired one shot into each of the man’s legs. The man howled, writhing on the ground, his hands splayed out instinctively. Jing Lan swiftly loaded a fresh magazine, then fired four more shots, shredding the man’s left and right hands into a bloody mess.
A strange groan emanated from the man’s throat, sounding eerily like a baby crying while smoking.
‘Wasn’t he a formidable killer?’ Jing Lan couldn’t help but feel curious. ‘How did he suddenly rush outside like someone demented, and without any weapons in his hands?
‘Even if his submachine gun had run out of ammunition, he could have easily seized weapons and ammo from the others on the first floor.’
Of course, compared to his sudden, berserk rush downstairs to massacre everyone, this minor behavioral anomaly seemed almost insignificant.
The people on the second floor no longer idled; they immediately prepared to descend.
Jing Lan, wrapping his sleeve around the flashbang casing that had been tossed upstairs earlier, threw it downstairs. The spent flashbang bounced a few times in the stairwell. Jing Lan pricked up his ears, but heard no further movement from below.
The group reached the first floor. As expected, it was a scene of utter devastation. Submachine gun casings littered the ground, and the air hung heavy with the scent of gunpowder.
Bodies lay scattered throughout the rooms and corridors. Most had been shot in the chest and head, these being extremely reliable close-quarters target areas. A shot to the chest would unleash the bullet’s stopping power, instantly incapacitating the target, while a final shot to the head would then claim their life.
It seemed that the formidable white-haired man was indeed an extraordinary killer.
Most of these bodies were clad in military green jackets or camouflage uniforms, a sight that perfectly matched Jing Lan’s stereotype of the warlords, drug traffickers, and scam organizations in Myanmar.
The group conducted a rough search of the first floor, finding a total of twelve individuals, including Fei Caiwu, who had defected earlier. All had been shot and lay fallen. For those not yet dead, the searchers delivered a finishing shot. Having endured such a furious battle, these few granary workers no longer harbored any qualms about killing.
Counting the two snipers on the second floor, the four bandit family members, the father and son monitoring on the third floor, and the five bandits in the vehicle who had gone to trouble Leng Yu, a total of twenty-four bandits had now been eliminated.
Of course, a significant portion of this success was owed to that mad white-haired old man.
After confirming the first floor was clear, Jun Zhongding called out to Jing Lan and Xiao Bingyi. “Let’s go interrogate that white-haired madman and see if we can extract any intelligence. Little Lü, go up to the third floor and inform the others. The bandits have been eliminated. We need to move the grain as quickly as possible.”
Lü Shengji acknowledged with a quick jog upstairs. The remaining three, raising their guns, charged out of the main entrance on the first floor. The white-haired man on the ground suddenly let out a gut-wrenching scream. From the side of the office building, three zombies, as if in response, burst out howling, surging towards the trio.
Jing Lan and Xiao Bingyi immediately raised their guns and fired. The zombies struck in the head by bullets instantly fell silent. Those shot in the chest and abdomen, their wounds oozing black blood, staggered a few more steps before collapsing. Even then, they continued to crawl for a short distance on the ground before finally ceasing all movement.
Jing Lan mused aloud. “This is just like the settings in many zombie films, and Max Brooks’s ‘The Zombie Survival Guide’—attacking a zombie’s head is the most lethal.”
Without lingering to study the zombies, the group walked directly towards the white-haired man lying in a pool of blood on the ground.
Jing Lan couldn’t be bothered with questions like “Who are you?” He went straight for the most crucial inquiry. “How many of you are there in total?”
The white-haired man, appearing less than cooperative, blurted out, “Fifty thousand!”
Jing Lan pressed the muzzle of his rifle against the man’s shoulder joint. He pulled the trigger with brutal force.
As the shot rang out, the man’s thick arm, like an egg mildly exploding after being microwaved, burst open with a sickening thud. Splatters of bloody foam erupted from the torn flesh and bone.
“Waaahhh!” The man shrieked in agony. “Son of a b*tch! You motherfucker aren’t… you… you have the guts to ‘command’ me to answer you, don’t you!?”
Jing Lan jabbed the rifle muzzle hard into the man’s wound. “Am I not commanding you? Are you implying this ‘black date’ [bullet] isn’t potent enough for your taste?”
Though the man grimaced in pain, his blue eyes held no fear or plea. Instead, they held a strange sense of relief.
The man’s face was East Asian. Therefore, his blue pupils were likely contact lenses. ‘How ridiculous. A killer wearing colored contacts?’
“Who would’ve thought I’d encounter this in such a place… truly… truly seeing a living ghost,” the man continued. “If God wants me dead, there’s nothing to be done. But Old Buddha has been kind to me, so I won’t say anything to disadvantage Old Buddha.”
Jing Lan, already a folk culture enthusiast with considerable knowledge of religious cultures, was utterly bewildered by this fellow’s sudden shifts between “God” and “Buddha.”
‘Can faith be a part-time job?’
The man continued, speaking fiercely. “But if you command me, what can I do? We, the Du** people… are born with this fate; no one can change it. But you will also face retribution. You will go to hell. You are Satan, you are Iblis. You have no good karma. Even if you command me, you are not righteous. You…”
Jing Lan found himself completely unable to comprehend the man’s rambling nonsense.
The man seemed to have mentioned what kind of people they were, but his dialect was not entirely consistent with Jing Lan’s. The specific word was unclear.
Nevertheless, this man had, in a way, saved Jing Lan and the workers earlier.
“What did you take me for just now?” Jing Lan asked, a question born purely of curiosity.