Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

Third Brother's neck twisted mechanically with a click, as if wound up.

A pair of deep green eyes almost touched the ground, scanning straight towards the direction where they were hiding.

Immediately afterwards, three blurry black figures slowly emerged from behind the slope.

With ambushes in front and pursuers behind, they were trapped in the middle, with no room to maneuver whatsoever.

Third Brother froze on the spot, his blood seemed to freeze, and even the thoughts in his mind completely solidified.

until……

"Xiao Feng, where are you running to?"

The fifth brother's exclamation suddenly pierced the deathly silence.

The one who ran away was the nephew, who was always the most taciturn of the five.

Third Brother stared at that staggering figure, his heart burning with anger.

This kid usually seems quiet and reserved, but I never expected him to be such a coward when it came down to it.

"Third Brother, I'll go and bring Xiao Feng back..."

boom.

A gunshot rang out as if crashing down from the void, piercing precisely through the fleeing man's calf.

"Xiao Feng..." The fifth brother's scream tore a bloody gash in the cold night.

This group of people are not ordinary thugs; they are a bunch of cancerous tumors with blood entangled together.

Husband and wife, brothers, uncle and nephew—they were all a blood-stained family of human traffickers.

"Go, run west!" Third Brother grabbed Fifth Brother and pointed his finger sharply in the opposite direction from Xiao Feng.

The shot was fired by the pursuers behind, but in this open field, the gunshot had already alerted the group that was turning back ahead.

Nearly twenty people, each with a hunting dog, were rushing this way with the wind.

Xiao Feng chose a high spot to the east, where there wasn't even a single tree to block his view; running there would make him an easy target.

Only the western side is covered with bushes and forests, and deep within lies a valley; once inside, one can completely escape the pursuers' sight.

"I'm not leaving, I want to save him."

*Slap!* A hard slap landed on Lao Wu's face, his knuckles going numb from the impact: "If you dawdle any longer, we'll all lose our lives here!"

"Wife, Shunzi, get the sled on and run!"

"Honey, what's the point of carrying all this baggage?"

"You don't know anything! The kids on that sled are our shields. Otherwise, why do you think those guys didn't attack us? It's because they were afraid of accidentally shooting the children!"

Third Brother's mind worked incredibly fast; he instantly calculated the pros and cons clearly.

"Dayong, over there." Chen Ye pointed in the direction they came from.

Gu Dayong had heard it long ago. Having spent years fighting on the battlefield, he could identify the gun type just by the sound of the gun: "It's Zhou Rui, he fired the shot. Quick, surround him!"

On the other side, Zhou Rui quickly put away his gun after firing that shot and hurried towards the direction of the human traffickers.

"Ruiwa, why don't you keep fighting? Just take down all these bastards and that's it." Liu Qingguo followed behind, panting heavily, the wind constantly filling his throat.

"The wind is too strong and the distance is too far. Firing again could easily hurt the child." Zhou Rui ran steadily, his breathing perfectly steady.

Suddenly, Big Yellow, who was beside me, broke free from the leash and charged forward. It caught a glimpse of four people dragging a sled and running wildly westward, over a small snowdrift, and about to disappear from sight.

"Big Yellow, come back." Zhou Rui called out in a low voice to stop the dog.

He couldn't tell if the other party had a gun, but he absolutely couldn't let Gouzi go forward to test the waters.

"Brother Qingguo, go over there and tie up the guy who got shot. I only shot him in the leg, not in any vital organs."

As Zhou Rui ran, he made arrangements. Liu Qingguo's marksmanship was unreliable, so following him wouldn't be of much help. Tying people up was the safest division of labor.

Zhou Rui's strides were as fast as the wind, leaving Gu Jiacheng far behind, and in the blink of an eye he rushed to the spot where the human trafficker had just been.

Just as I reached the highest point of the road, I saw four panicked figures bursting with their last bit of strength, rushing madly into the western valley.

The snow sled, propelled by the inertia of the downhill slope, sped along the ground and quickly surged ahead of the four people.

On the other side, Gu Dayong and his men were approaching with flashlights, but they were still far away and it seemed they would soon be unable to catch up.

Zhou Rui raised his gun, the muzzle slightly upwards, bang...

Gunshots rang out across the open field.

One of the four collapsed on the spot, his legs buckling. The rope he was holding on the sled tightened suddenly, and the three children sitting on it tumbled off the sled and into a snowdrift.

"What's going on? Isn't he afraid of hurting the child?" Chen Feiyue was so frightened he almost jumped up.

Before coming, Gu Dayong repeatedly instructed that they should not fire unless absolutely necessary, but he did not expect that the other party had no scruples at all.

Gu Dayong shook his head: "No, he fired the gun into the air. First, to give us our location, and second, to intimidate these kidnappers."

"Then how did this person fall down?"

Chen Ye chuckled: "He was scared. The first shot took one down, and when the second shot rang out, he was terrified. No wonder his legs went weak."

The remaining three people scrambled over to pick up the children; these three kids were their lifeline, and they couldn't afford to lose even one of them.

Zhou Rui crouched down and steadily placed the 98K on his shoulder; there were still three bullets left in the chamber.

The wind was blowing harder and harder, and a few snowflakes brushed past his eyebrows and fell down. Several figures opposite him were huddled together, each holding a child in their arms. In the end, he couldn't pull the trigger.

"Ruiwa, how is it?" Gu Jiacheng caught up and immediately lay down next to Zhou Rui, supporting him with his five or six legs.

"It's going to be tough, but I have no choice. I'm prepared to take the risk. If I run a few more steps, I'll be heading into the valley."

Zhou Rui took a deep breath as he answered.

He needed to regulate his breathing, clear his mind, and figure out a way to separate the human traffickers from the three children.

"Jiacheng, get ready."

"I don't need you to hit those kidnappers, but if the people are separated, you must keep them at bay and prevent them from getting close to the children."

Gu Jiacheng heard Zhou Rui's clear voice. He didn't understand what it meant, but he still brought his eyes close to the aiming point, waiting for the breath to appear.

The three children, including Chen Xiaoni, were quickly thrown back into the sled. The action was somewhat rough, and even the two sleeping children couldn't help but groan.

Third Brother helped his wife run towards the valley, while Fifth Brother and Shunzi had no choice but to pick up the sled's tow rope.

The two ropes pulling the sled were instantly taut, and Lao Wu and Shunzi were about to exert their strength.

Bang! The bullet, imbued with Zhou Rui's senses, ripped through space and struck a rope with pinpoint accuracy.

The rope snapped, and the fifth brother, clutching the broken rope, lost his grip and rolled on the ground like a gourd.

Shunzi's rope veered to one side, and he fell face down on the ground with a thud.

He scrambled to his feet from the snowdrift, not daring to look back, and tumbled and crawled after his aunt and uncle.

In an instant, all four people were at least seven or eight meters away from the sled.

After hearing the gunshot, the third brother turned his head and saw his fifth brother roll past him. The sled carrying the baby was no longer being watched.

He turned back as soon as he let go of his wife.

These children must not be lost; they are his lifeblood.

"Brother Jiacheng!" Zhou Rui shouted as he pulled the bolt of his gun.

With his face pressed against the gun handle, Gu Jiacheng could clearly see what Zhou Rui meant at the beginning.

Bang bang bang, three bullets of the fifth and sixth caliber were fired in quick succession, hitting the snow between the sled and the third brother, kicking up a cloud of snow mist.