Should he retreat to the stairwell leading to the rooftop? The thought flashed through Jing Lan’s mind. Clearly, this was a foolish move; if the observer were to keep staring at the screen from now on, wouldn’t he be spotted the moment he descended?
As a man who had already taken lives, he had charged here with reckless abandon, leaving no room for retreat.
Charging directly into the surveillance room and dispatching the observer with a throwing knife—he had been incredibly fortunate. The surveillance room happened to be on the third floor, and the observer had been distracted. Otherwise, he might already be encircled and trapped.
Yet, what was he to do about the cute, chubby-faced little boy?
Kill a child? How could he possibly bring himself to do such a thing?
Just then, the observer’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. A voice, speaking a dialect common near the border, came through: “Nuobo, tell Xiao Zha to come down and eat something.”
Nuobo, the observer, picked up the walkie-talkie and responded: “What is it?”
“We searched the cabinets earlier and found some chocolates. Let him have some, and you take some too. They’ll be hard to come by later.”
Nuobo chuckled, patting Xiao Zha’s head. “Xiao Zha, hurry now. Your Uncle Han wants you to eat something delicious.”
The little boy grinned, and scurried off, eager to run out the door.
No killing the child. Jing Lan turned, intending to retreat into the stairwell. However, the child was surprisingly fast—perhaps lured by the promise of food, he was impatient. Before Jing Lan could even hide, the child had already burst out of the corridor.
The instant he saw Jing Lan, the child’s mouth flew open, ready to scream. Jing Lan yanked him into his arms. The child struggled wildly, and just as he was about to free his mouth to make a sound, Jing Lan decisively drew the tactical knife from his belt. He plunged it into the child’s eye socket, twisting it viciously. The child’s body convulsed once, then quickly went limp.
“What’s wrong, Xiao Zha?” the man in the room casually asked. Jing Lan knew he must have instinctively checked the monitor. He immediately pulled out his knife and arrived at the surveillance room door.
The man screamed, cursing obscenities that Jing Lan couldn’t quite make out. He snatched up the walkie-talkie, about to press the talk button. Jing Lan had initially intended to aim a throwing knife at the man’s chest, but he suddenly changed his target, throwing it at the man’s right hand instead. The blade pierced the man’s palm. With a shriek, the man released his grip, and the walkie-talkie clattered to the floor.
His MP9 lacked a suppressor; firing it would expose his position. Jing Lan charged forward, engaging the man in a fierce struggle.
“Why did you kill my son!!!” the man roared. His evident emotional attachment to his son made his movements powerful yet crude, a style that Jing Lan’s learned Earth Arts Boxing was adept at countering.
“Give me back my son!” the man screamed, irrationally attempting an “Iron Head Technique” by ramming his head into Jing Lan’s. However, the hand pinned to the floor by the knife flared with pain, and his body instantly collapsed. Jing Lan seized the opportunity, pulling the knife from the man’s hand and plunging it into his heart.
“You will all die…” The man’s eyes widened, as blood, stemming from a ruptured lung, welled up at the corners of his mouth.
Having dealt with the man, the walkie-talkie nearby suddenly buzzed. A voice from within asked: “Nuobo, what happened just now? Did you scream?”
As the male lead singer of a band, Jing Lan possessed some skill in vocal control. Moreover, he spoke the local dialect. Given the walkie-talkie’s poor sound fidelity, he cleared his throat, picked up the device, and mimicked Nuobo’s voice, saying: “Xiao Zha took a tumble and scraped his knee. I’m bandaging him up. He’ll come down to eat later.”
There was a brief silence from the other end of the walkie-talkie. Then came the reply: “Alright.”
Jing Lan quickly searched the room. From Nuobo’s canvas bag on the table, he found two Type 54 pistols and a box of ammunition. He discarded the dry rations and other contents of the bag, taking only the weapons.
The surveillance room was cleared; there was no longer any need to worry about being watched. However, this was only a temporary reprieve, as those downstairs would undoubtedly try to contact Nuobo periodically, and upon failing to reach him, they would realize something was amiss.
Just as he was preparing to descend, he noticed that one side of the third floor was blocked by an iron gate. In front of the gate, a person in a dark green shirt was sound asleep in a chair. An AK-47 rested against the wall in the corner nearby.
What a close call! Had this fellow not been fast asleep, Jing Lan would have been ambushed from behind.
Stepping forward, he plunged a knife into the guard’s eye.
The lazy guard merely twitched. Not a sound escaped his throat. He died instantly from brainstem damage.
Picking up the guard’s AK, he noted the magazine was full, and the safety on the right side of the weapon was off.
Should he just keep killing?
What other choice was there?
He was a semi-pro, A-rank player in *CS2*. Perhaps he could truly emulate Donk from last year’s CS World Championship, taking out opponents one by one, single-handedly wiping out the entire enemy team?
Further thought was useless! How had he even ended up charging in here? Was this something a person like him would do? Was he truly that irrational?
No, this was, in fact, his rational conclusion.
As if a definitive judgment had been passed, the internal debate within Jing Lan immediately quieted. Just then, a man’s voice echoed from behind the iron gate:
“Friend! Help us!”
Drawing closer, he saw that in the corridor separated by the iron gate, men and women lay scattered haphazardly.
A man approached the iron gate, clutching the metal bars with trembling hands, and asked: “Friend, are you a special forces comrade?”
“Ah, no, I’m a university student.”
The man seemed unconcerned with Jing Lan’s identity, continuing: “We are staff here. These bandits came from Myanmar. They’ve killed many of us; only a few of us are left—have you… have you formed a militia to fight them?”
Jing Lan mused, ‘In a way, yes, it’s a militia, but unfortunately, they all ran off.’
“Now it’s just me and two others left. They’re trapped on top of the external grain silo. I crawled over on the conveyor belt, risking it all to see if I could pull off a ‘capture the leader’ move.”
“Just you alone?!” The man’s eyes flickered with a mix of surprise, doubt, and disappointment. “There are at least eleven or twelve bandits downstairs, all heavily armed!”
“So, what do you suggest?” Jing Lan’s mind and body were taut, and his speech was terse, a sign of his exhaustion. Yet, to the trapped man, he appeared to be a cold, skilled killer, and inexplicably conveyed a sense of security.
Another slender man approached. “Wow, a university student assassin! Are you perhaps the final disciple of some reclusive master…”
The first man turned back and snapped: “You’ve read too many novels!”
Jing Lan, however, silently scoffed to himself. It seemed the slender novel enthusiast wasn’t entirely wrong.
When he had first sought out Master Daosheng to learn martial arts, his original intention was to alleviate a nerve condition in his hands. He had merely hoped to loosen his limbs, practice some Tai Chi, and learn a bit of self-defense. Who would have thought that, under the combined encouragement and threats of the old monk and Keke, he would spend months huffing and puffing, learning so much?
When he had considered giving up on throwing knives, Master Jimie Daosheng had insisted he continue, even saying, “Have you forgotten the ending of *Call of Duty 6*? Knowing how to throw knives can save your life.”
Leaving aside why the old monk would play *Call of Duty*—though, as a retired soldier, it wasn’t entirely surprising—why had he even accurately predicted today’s predicament?
After searching the lazy guard for keys and opening the iron gate, Jing Lan discovered that among the ten survivors inside, three or four had wounds.
“Can you use a gun?” Jing Lan asked.
The short man raised his hand. “I like shooting balloons.”
“That’s good enough; people are bigger than balloons.” Jing Lan handed a Type 54 pistol to the short man. “Follow me, or stay put.”
“How can we stay put!” the short man exclaimed indignantly. “These guys kill without batting an eye. If we don’t strike first, we’re all dead.”
Noticing another pistol in Jing Lan’s captured canvas bag, he nudged another man with his shoulder. “Brother Jia, don’t you love reading *Modern Weapons*? You should take a gun too.”
The two men introduced themselves: the tall one was Lu Renjia, and the short one was Xiao Bingyi. Two more men also came forward, named Long Taobing and Jun Zhongding.
The five men hastily distributed the four guns. Jing Lan took the AK, and his MP9 went to Long Taobing, though it was set to single-shot mode only. Jun Zhongding had no weapon for now, but he would be given one if any were acquired later.
Jing Lan quickly explained the essentials of firearm use. With time being critical, he only covered aiming, not expecting them to sustain fire after reloading.
Additionally, two other staff members, a man and a woman, also approached. After a brief discussion, it was decided they would follow at a distance, receiving any extra weapons that became available.
Just then, an explosion erupted from the outdoor area.
“Damn, they fired a grenade at Leng Yu!”
Jing Lan peered out the window, seeing the grain silo where Leng Yu was located now engulfed in smoke and fire.
He hoped Leng Yu and Little Zhao had already retreated inside the silo.
“I repeat, for those using guns for the first time, aim carefully. Remember, the trigger is two-stage: pressing it halfway is for aiming, and you must press it harder to fire!”
Jing Lan gave one final reminder. He noticed that the faces of several men were contorted with rage; the bandits must have done something truly heinous to them, making these normally stable corporate employees now eager to kill!