Searching for someone in northern Myanmar, and you call that earning tuition fees?

"Are you coming or not?" Li Changfeng asked in a low voice.

Su Ming put the AK-12 back on his lap and stared at the gray snow line to his left rear.

"Keep driving, don't slow down."

"Aren't you going to slow down?" Li Changfeng's right hand gripped the steering wheel tighter. "A silenced sniper rifle, at least 1200 meters away. He has plenty of time to correct the trajectory at this distance. My beat-up truck has no armor; the body is as flimsy as paper—"

"So don't stop," Su Ming said. "If you stop, you'll become an easy target."

Li Changfeng gritted his teeth and floored the accelerator again.

In the back row, Ah Xue was hunched over under the seat, her face pressed against the cold metal floor, her voice trembling: "What do we do? Drive faster and shake him off!"

"We can't shake them off." Su Ming shook his head. "The sniper chose a high point to set up his gun, which means he had already calculated our escape route. This snowfield is open and has no cover, so no matter where we go, we'll be within his field of fire."

"Isn't that a dead end?!"

Su Ming did not answer.

His eyes were half-closed, and his mind was racing.

A silenced sniper rifle with a range exceeding 1200 meters, capable of precise single-shot firing. The bullet hole angle in the rearview mirror is 45 degrees to the left rear, which, combined with the location of the signal tower earlier…

He quickly sketched out a trajectory of death in his mind.

1,500 meters away, at the top of the signal tower.

The man codenamed "Hawkeye" lay prone in the snow, his body blending seamlessly with the environment. He was the ace of the Arctic Fox mercenary group, a top predator who could lie in wait for three days and three nights in the Siberian cold, all for a single, decisive strike.

He missed with that shot; the fresh bullet mark on the edge of the rearview mirror seemed to mock him.

"Interesting." Hawkeye licked his chapped lips, showing no annoyance but rather excitement in his eyes.

He adjusted the magnification of the scope, and the crosshairs locked onto the military truck that was moving clumsily across the snow.

The man in the driver's seat was a skilled operator, constantly disrupting his firing rhythm with irregular, serpentine movements.

But even the most cunning prey has moments of weakness.

Hawkeye's crosshairs moved smoothly, passing over the driver's cab and landing in the back of the truck. Through the not-so-clean glass, he saw the figure of a girl huddled in a corner.

Ah Xue.

The information states that she is the core target of this mission.

well.

Hawkeye took a deep breath, his finger lightly resting on the trigger. He was waiting, waiting for an absolute opportunity. Wind speed, humidity, bullet trajectory... all the data was calculated in his mind.

The truck was swaying from side to side, moving erratically.

Seven seconds.

Twelve seconds.

Nineteen seconds.

There's a raised snowdrift ahead, and the truck has to choose between either going around it on the left or slowing down to pass it. Either way, the truck will briefly come to a stop.

This is what he's been waiting for.

The truck driver chose to turn left.

The vehicle tilted to the side, and its speed dropped sharply.

Goodbye, drunkard.

Hawkeye pulled the trigger.

-

Su Ming moved the moment the truck tilted to the side.

He didn't know from which angle the bullet would come, but he did know that the back seat was the most dangerous place the car came to a stop.

"Get down!"

He sprang from the passenger seat and lunged towards the back. He pressed Ah Xue's head down with his left hand, pinning her firmly under the seat.

"Bang!"

A muffled thud.

The 7.62mm full-power bullet pierced through the upper edge of the rear window, passed through Su Ming's right shoulder, took a small piece of fabric and a layer of flesh, and embedded itself in the metal of the opposite door.

Blood splattered on Ah Xue's face.

"Su Ming!" Li Changfeng saw the bloodstain on Su Ming's right shoulder in the rearview mirror and slammed on the brakes.

Old Zhao also opened his eyes and saw the wound on Su Ming's shoulder. The thermos cup fell to the ground with a "clatter".

"Are any bones broken?!" Old Zhao leaned half his body over, his voice cracking.

Su Ming sat up and looked down at his right shoulder. His thick coat had been torn open with a fist-sized tear, the edges charred black. The muscle inside had been ripped open by the hot bullet, leaving a deep, bone-revealing gash, and blood was gushing out.

"Abrasions," he said.

"Abrasion my ass! That's a sniper rifle!" Old Zhao ripped open Su Ming's collar to check the wound, his hands trembling.

"Two centimeters off course again! Your arm would be ruined! Are you fucking crazy?!"

Ah Xue was still lying under the seat, her face covered in blood and tears, completely terrified.

Su Ming pulled out a first-aid kit from his canvas bag, took out a roll of bandage and gauze, bit open the package with his teeth, and expressionlessly pressed the thickly folded gauze firmly onto the wound. Then he quickly wrapped the bandage tightly around his shoulder. The movements didn't look like he was treating a gunshot wound, but rather like he was patching up a torn package.

"Brother Li, stop the car."

Li Changfeng was already slowing down: "What do you mean?"

Su Ming placed the AK-12 on the seat and opened the car door.

A cold wind blew in, and he squinted, turning his head to look at the outline of the signal tower, which was blurred by the wind and snow, more than a thousand meters away.

"He's bothering me."

Li Changfeng's hands, gripping the steering wheel, froze.

Old Zhao's lips twitched, and he reached out with trembling hands to touch the medicine bottle.

Ah Xue crawled up from under the seat, her face covered in blood, her voice trembling: "What are you going to do?"

"Let's talk to him." Su Ming jumped out of the car, his feet making no sound as they stepped into the snow.

The moment he stepped out of the car, he darted to the left, his shadow disappearing into the snowstorm, close to the undercarriage of the truck.

Hawkeye's pupils contracted slightly.

In the scope, the passenger door opened and someone jumped out.

And then—that was it.

Like a drop of water falling into the snow, leaving not even a trace.

Hawkeye's pupils suddenly contracted.

He scanned frantically through the scope, zooming in to the maximum.

There was no one next to the car.

There was no one behind the car.

On the snow, there was only one deep footprint, which stretched for less than ten meters before ending.

It's broken?

He subconsciously raised his head and looked into the distance with his naked eyes.

There was nothing on the vast, white snowfield.

The wind was howling, and snowflakes were hitting his goggles.

A cold sweat broke out on Hawkeye's back.

After lying back down with his gun down, he pressed his right eye firmly against the scope and began scanning in a fan shape with the vehicle as the center.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes...

There are no moving targets.

This is not reasonable.

Moreover, he kept his eyes on the scope the whole time; such a large, living person couldn't just vanish into thin air.

Unless... he took advantage of the terrain.

Eagle Eye moved his sights toward the dried-up, frozen ditch on the right side of the vehicle. The ditch was about half a meter lower than the ground, and if a person were to crawl in it, it would indeed be difficult to spot them through the scope from above.

However, the ditch runs south, opposite to the direction of the signal tower, and does not pose a threat.

Hawkeye's pupils contracted slightly; he suddenly realized a possibility—

The other party is not avoiding it.

The other party is approaching.

"Whoosh—"

A hand reached out from behind him and gripped his right wrist like a pair of pliers, prying his index finger off the trigger, while another hand pressed down on the back of his neck.

Hawkeye tensed all his muscles at once. He was a reconnaissance soldier who had retired from the 45th Special Forces Brigade of the former Soviet Union. Close combat was his basic skill.

He did not struggle.

Struggling is an amateurish reaction.

Hawkeye suddenly rolled to the right, simultaneously striking backward with his elbow—a strike aimed directly at his opponent's ribs.

My elbow struck something hard. It was the opponent's raised knee.

The force was completely dissipated.

Hawkeye used the momentum of his roll to create two steps, then knelt on one knee. His right hand flashed as he drew a tactical short knife from his waist, gripped it in reverse, and pointed the tip backward—a standard Russian fighting stance.

He finally saw who it was.

The person who arrived was young, with black hair and an Asian face. He was wearing a torn winter coat, and blood was still seeping from a wound on the outside of his right shoulder.

That's the person who jumped off the train.

Hawkeye's pupils contracted. At a distance of 1,300 meters, in a blizzard with temperatures below -40 degrees Celsius, the other party had managed to silently approach him.

"You chose a good firing position." Su Ming stood on the edge of the signal tower platform, his breathing slightly rapid, but his eyes remained cold.

"However, according to Article 37 of the 'Regulations on Safety Along Civil Railways in the Ice and Fog Zone,' the use of lethal weapons within 500 meters of a railway protection zone is a Class A violation."

Hawkeye didn't understand the second half of the sentence, but he didn't need to.

He moved.

The short sword drew an arc, aiming straight for Su Ming's throat. This strike was both swift and cunning, its angle unpredictable—an instinct honed through nearly a hundred real battles.

Su Ming turned his head, and the blade flew past his ear, but he did not retreat.

Instead, they took a step forward.

With his left hand, he grabbed Hawkeye's wrist, which was holding the knife, and pressed his thumb precisely on the styloid process of the ulna—the most vulnerable bony prominence on the wrist.

Hawkeye's five fingers went numb, and he almost dropped the knife.

He reacted extremely quickly, his right fist already slamming down, aiming straight for Su Ming's injured right shoulder.

The punch was accompanied by the sound of wind.

It hit.

Su Ming took the punch head-on, his body sinking down with the force, his right leg wrapping around Hawkeye's ankle like an iron hook and dragging him backward!

Hawkeye felt his lower body suddenly give way, and he lost his balance and fell backward.

Just as his body was falling through the air, Su Ming's legs wrapped around his right arm like a python. The moment the two of them hit the platform at the same time, a sharp armbar locked them in place!

Hawkeye's elbow joint was stretched to its limit in the opposite direction.

"Click."

It's not broken, it's reached a critical point.

Hawkeye was in so much pain that his vision blurred, his teeth were clenched so tightly they were grinding, and he was frantically pounding Su Ming's thigh with his right hand, trying to break free.

Su Ming added a little more force.

"ah--!"

Heart-wrenching screams echoed across the snowy plains.