The fat on Qi Tianhu’s face twitched twice. He was left speechless.
He had always assumed that the Wanlong Association had, at most, a hundred or so men in Jinchuan. Even if they brought in reinforcements from elsewhere, he was certain they couldn’t have more than two hundred.
He had even suspected that one of his own men had betrayed him.
But now it was clear that betrayal had nothing to do with it. He had simply underestimated the Wanlong Association.
The sea of black before him contained at least three or four thousand people.
Three or four thousand!
What kind of organization was the Wanlong Association? How could it possibly have such terrifying numbers?
The old brothers behind him looked even more shaken than he did.
Some had already begun trembling uncontrollably. The knives in their hands shook, and their palms were slick with cold sweat.
“Lord Tiger, h-how the hell are we supposed to fight this?”
Qi Tianhu stared fixedly at the young woman across from him. The expression on his face gradually twisted into something vicious and crazed.
He suddenly turned around and roared at the nearly thousand thugs behind him, “Listen up! Anyone who takes down one of the Wanlong Association’s men gets a hundred thousand! Whoever cuts down that woman gets a hundred million!”
A hundred million!
The figure hit the mob like a shot of adrenaline, finally rekindling some of their fighting spirit.
Although most of them were still afraid, some had been driven half-mad by the bounty.
As the old saying went, people would die for money.
“Let’s fucking do this!”
“Charge! Cut them down!”
“That hundred million is mine!”
“...”
A chaotic roar erupted from the crowd. Some of the men raised their weapons and surged toward the mass of black-clad figures opposite them.
Yun Cheng immediately stepped half a pace forward and shielded Liu Yutong behind him. At the same time, he raised his right arm and sharply swung it down toward the entrance of the construction site.
“Go!”
One word. Clean and decisive.
At that exact moment, the more than three thousand men in black outside the gate moved.
The scene was like a black flood bursting through a breached dam, sweeping into the construction site with overwhelming force!
The thug at the very front raised his machete and brought it down. With a clang, the blade struck a black wall.
No—that wasn’t a wall. It was something resembling a riot shield, with row after row locked together to form an impenetrable barrier.
Before the attackers could react, telescopic batons came crashing down on them through the gaps between the shields.
One, two, three, fifty...
More and more thugs fell under the black-clad men’s tight coordination and relentless assault.
The battle instantly became a one-sided massacre.
Standing at the rear, Qi Tianhu watched the thousand men he had recruited at great expense collapse in heaps as if they were made of paper. His face turned green.
Then he suddenly remembered something. He grabbed Centipent’s collar and urged him, “Go! Get the thing ready!”
Centipede’s face went deathly pale. “Lord Tiger, once that thing goes off, we’ll be caught in it too...”
“I said go!”
Qi Tianhu’s eyes were bloodshot, and he had completely lost control. “If I can’t get out of here, then neither can they! At the very least, I’ll take a few of them with me!”
Seeing the almost lunatic ruthlessness in his eyes, Centipede knew there was no point trying to persuade him.
He gritted his teeth and turned toward the rear of the construction site.
At the back of the site stood an unfinished building. On the seventh floor, inside two bare-concrete rooms, five or six SWAT officers in dark blue uniforms were lying prone by the windows. Two high-precision sniper rifles and a spotting scope were set up in front of them.
“Sniper One has the target.”
“Sniper Two has the target.”
“Spotter confirms. Target has no cover.”
Commander Old Lin held up his binoculars, but his eyes were not fixed on Qi Tianhu. Instead, he was staring at the densely packed crowd outside the construction-site entrance, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Old Li.”
“Yeah?”
“What exactly is the Wanlong Association?”
Old Li lowered his binoculars. His expression was just as difficult to describe. “The higher-ups told me it’s a legitimate private enterprise.”
“Seriously? You call this a legitimate company? What legitimate company has this many people?”
“Maybe their corporate culture is... particularly hardcore?”
“...”
“But the more I look at it, the more something feels off. Look at how badly those thugs are getting beaten. For a moment, I almost thought the thugs were the vulnerable ones. The black-clad men look more like the villains.”
“So tell me—are these people good or bad?”
Old Li looked out the window. The black-clad men were pinning the thugs to the ground one by one, expertly binding their wrists with zip ties. They even searched the men as they went, confiscating their illegal knives and arranging them in a pile nearby.
The entire cleanup operation was frighteningly efficient, almost as efficient as a SWAT operation.
The SWAT team’s appearance here today had been coordinated with the Wanlong Association in advance. They had two main objectives.
First, rescue the reporter.
They were worried that sending the police in directly might trigger a desperate reaction. If the kidnappers knew they were going to die, they might kill the hostage. So in the end, they went with the plan proposed by Lawyer Zhao of the Wanlong Association: exchange counterfeit evidence for the reporter.
Why did they think this rescue method had a higher chance of success? Because compared with the reporter, Qi Tianhu cared more about the Wanlong Association.
That was how today’s situation had come about.
Second, restrain Qi Tianhu and capture him alive if possible.
Originally, when these SWAT officers saw Qi Tianhu’s forces, they had been extremely shocked. They had even contacted the armed police to come in and finish the operation.
There were simply too many people. Ordinary police officers would never have been enough.
But unexpectedly, the Wanlong Association turned out to be the truly ruthless side!
They had brought several times the manpower of the gangsters—more intimidating than an actual criminal organization.
A moment later, Old Li finally spoke.
“I’m not sure whether they’re good people, but there’s one thing I know for certain now.”
“What’s that?”
“From now on, in BS Province, never provoke the Wanlong Association.”
Old Lin nodded in deep agreement.
Just then, the spotter’s voice suddenly came through the earpiece.
“Report! Qi Tianhu’s trusted aide, Centipede, is moving toward the unfinished building on the west side of the construction site. His movements are suspicious!”
Old Lin immediately raised his binoculars and scanned the western side.
A man with a centipede tattoo on his arm was crouching as he slipped away from the melee. Keeping close to the base of the wall, he ran toward the unfinished building.
He was moving quickly, glancing back from time to time as if checking whether anyone was following him.
“Keep him under close watch,” Old Lin ordered in a low voice.
“Yes, sir!”
The spotter’s camera locked tightly onto Centipede.
When the man reached the rear of the unfinished building, he crouched down and pulled a dark green canvas bag from beneath a pile of broken bricks. He unzipped it, revealing bundle after bundle of explosive tubes and detonators.
“Report! Suspected explosives discovered! Repeat, suspected explosives discovered! Large quantities of industrial explosives and detonators located behind the unfinished building on the west side. Target is at the scene!”
Old Lin’s heart sank. He cursed, “That bastard Qi has gone insane! He’s planning to take everyone down with him!”
“Snipers One and Two, prepare to fire! Do not let him detonate them!”
“Sniper One copies!”
“Position Two, I’m in position!”
Centipede crouched on the ground, his hands trembling as he connected the detonator wires.
He didn’t want to die, but he didn’t dare disobey orders. After all, he and Qi Tianhu were in the same boat now. If he refused, he knew he would meet a terrible end.
But just as he connected the final wire and was about to get up and leave with the detonator...
Bang! Bang!
Two gunshots rang out across the construction site.
Without warning, Centipede’s hand froze in midair. A bloody hole appeared in his chest.
The next second, the detonator slipped from his grasp and hit the ground, rolling a long way away.
He touched the blood running from his forehead, then slowly lowered his head to look at the fresh hole in his chest. His lips moved a few times, as if he wanted to say something.
Then his entire body pitched forward, face-first onto the ground. He lay motionless, completely devoid of life.
