Chapter 197: 171. Rainy Night, Bloody Water, Assassin (10,000-word chapter, seeking monthly votes) _6
Liu Dezhu was no longer the ignorant man he used to be, he knew very well that someone had set the fire to force him out, intending to kill him in the chaos.
But where was the assassin?
Because of its vast size, the Xinglong Residential Area had four main gates and two smaller ones.
In the torrential rain, six teams clad in black raincoats were silently entering the area from six directions.
Each team consisted of six members, advancing into the neighborhood in a standard infiltration tactical formation.
Three advancing, two flanking, one covering the rear.
Under the black raincoats, everyone's face was hidden beneath the brim of the hood, and the hands of the assassins tucked inside the raincoats were either on the handles of guns or knives.
Raindrops hit their rubber raincoats and splashed, making pitter-patter sounds.
Although the assassins' feet splashed in the puddles, they were not disturbed by the noisy environment.
In the squad on the far west, the leader at the front suddenly felt something was off; he turned to check but saw nothing unusual.
But soon, the team leader realized what was wrong.
He repeatedly confirmed the number of people behind him in his mind, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Yes, six.
Adding him, that made seven.
The pupils under the leader's hood suddenly contracted. Although everyone was wearing the same black raincoat, behind their team… there was one extra person!
In an instant, the team leader drew the dagger from the outside of his thigh and turned to rush backward, charging through the tactical formation as his dagger under the raincoat aimed straight for the last person!
Raindrops fell under the brim of his raincoat, and as he spun fiercely, he threw a crystalline spray of water.
The assassins, sensing something was amiss, stepped aside, all except for the last person, who stood swaying in place.
No!
In the darkness, the team leader saw clearly—the last person had already closed their eyes in death, and at some point, a massive gash had been made in the raincoat at the position of the spleen on the right abdomen.
Earlier, the deceased assassin had been propped up and followed the team, only released when the team leader noticed something was wrong.
By the time he realized this, someone had already lifted a foot and kicked him from the side.
With a thunderous crash, the team leader's body flew sideways.
The kick was too powerful, far beyond what an ordinary person could muster; it felt like being hit by a truck, leaving the team leader's whole skeleton ready to fall apart.
As he flew to the side, the rain that fell from the sky had yet to fill the gap, so layer after layer of rain seemed to be punched through, leaving a person-shaped hole!
In mid-air, the team leader looked through that hole at the assailant; a streak of lightning writhed across the heavens, illuminating the night sky for an instant.
To his astonishment, the face under the assailant's hood appeared very young.
So young, it was hard to believe.
It was Qing Chen.
Yet what the team leader found hardest to accept was that the young man's attention was already not on him, as if he had already judged that he could no longer fight.
Then, Qing Chen suddenly ducked to avoid a dagger that came flying by his side and instantly circled behind one of them. Between his fingers, he held a poker card that sliced through the rain, barely touching before the assassin's neck burst open with a line of blood.
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Rainwater and bloodwater mingled together as they fell to the ground, indistinguishable from one another.
No one knew why the paper poker card in the young man's hand was as sharp as a knife.
No, sharper than a knife.
Qing Chen silently held the body of the throat-slit assassin with one hand, slowly moving to the right.
The assassins watched in silent amazement, inwardly astounded.
The weight of over a hundred kilograms in his hand seemed as light as a bucket of cooking oil.
Three assassins exchanged glances in the night; this was a Transcendent!
They each pressed their hands to the pistol handles at their waists.
But the young man's figure was hidden behind the corpse, showing only a small portion of his face.
None of the three assassins was confident they could hit their target under these circumstances.
In the darkness, Qing Chen's cap brim continually dripped water, yet his breathing was steadier than ever before.
The four men moved slowly, each constantly shifting their center of gravity, pulling at each other's energy as if they were strings about to be strung tight!
Qing Chen had already felt the pistol at the waist of the assassin in front of him.
At the critical moment,
thunder and lightning flashed in the sky once again.
All three assassins heard a bizarre breath that reached deep inside their hearts amid their astonishment.
In the cold night rain and autumn, a breath as sharp as an arrow escaped from under the dark brim of the young man's cap.
In the illumination of the lightning, everyone saw the Fire Rune patterns blooming under that cap!
"Don't run," Qing Chen said calmly.
Time passed, unknown how long, when the team leader, struggling to rise from the rain-soaked ground, suddenly heard footsteps splashing through the puddles as they approached.
He slowly turned his head, only to see all his comrades already fallen in the rain.
And the murderous youth was squatting beside him, winding something around his wrist, unnoticed.
The team leader tried to rise but his skeleton ached unbearably.
In the roaring downpour, Qing Chen pointed a gun at the team leader's temple and asked, "What's your name? Speak, and you might have a chance to live. If not, you die."
The team leader was in extreme pain, and he had a premonition that once he gave his name, his fate would be handed over to someone else.
But the cold gun barrel at his temple reminded him that without a name, he would have no fate at all.
"Xu Yicheng."
In the dark night, the team leader's body moved like a puppet, rising up in an anatomically improbable posture under the pouring rain.
His already dislocated bones cracked and popped.
...
...
In a building somewhere, Lu Yuan stood quietly before a window.
Battle updates continuously came through the communication channel: "01 combat team has the assassin at the east gate."
"02 combat team has the assassin at the north gate."
It seemed as if Kunlun already knew the assassins' movements, their men stationed on the necessary routes for ambush, just waiting for the assassins to fall into their trap.
In the communication channel, Lu Yuan ordered, "The target is armed, no mercy, kill on sight."
"Received."
"Received."
"Received."
However, at that moment, Lu Yuan asked in the communication channel, "06, have you not encountered the assassin at the west gate yet?"
"Road Team, no."
Strange, according to the intelligence, assassins should have been attacking from all six gates, but why hadn't 06 encountered any yet?
"Go check it out, they must have entered the area already, we must find them," Lu Yuan commanded, "Be careful."
He frowned and waited quietly, yet five minutes later, the communication channel rang again, "Road Team, Road Team, the assassins at the west gate are all dead!"
"Dead," Lu Yuan suddenly looked up, "How many, did you kill them?"
"Five dead, one is missing, not by our hands," reported unit 06, "Two were throat-slashed, two died by gunfire, one's spleen was ruptured. A gun was missing from the assassins, taken by someone else."
Lu Yuan's eyes brightened; that youth had indeed come.
...
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