Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

It was a dark gray sedan, its roof covered with withered plane tree leaves, wet with night dew, clinging to the metal like a layer of brown paper.

Lin Shen opened the driver's side door, and Shen Qinghou put Su Wan in the back seat before getting in himself. The remains of the zither were placed at his feet, the broken body of the zither hitting the plastic trim panel on the inside of the car door with a hollow sound.

Lin Shen started the engine.

The moment the ignition coil was switched on, Yue Sheng led his team out of the building entrance.

His left shoulder was still drooping, his left hand fingers were numb, and his right hand was gripping a gun with the muzzle pointing to the ground.

The beam of a tactical flashlight swept across the doorway of the electrical room—Gu Mingyuan's body was leaning against the meter box, the chest of his suit jacket was sunken, his eyes were still open, but the light in his pupils had already faded.

Four of his men's corpses lay across the door, two of them still bleeding from their chests, leaving dark red puddles on the cement floor.

Yue Sheng paused for a second.

Gu Mingyuan wasn't in the command sequence. When did this old man come downstairs? Where did these subordinates come from? These questions flashed through his mind but didn't take up much of his time.

Han Qiming walked behind him and glanced at the corpse in the power distribution room.

The beam of the tactical flashlight shone on Gu Mingyuan's face, revealing his stunned and unwilling expression.

Han Qiming's face turned ashen: "Where is he?"

Yue Sheng squatted down to look at the footprints on the ground.

There were two deep and one shallow footprints on the muddy ground at the edge of the green belt. The treads on the soles of the shoes were blurred, but the direction was clear, extending towards the back alley.

He looked up and said, "They ran into the back alley. One of them was carrying someone on his back; the footprints were faint. They just left, less than a minute ago."

Before the words were finished, the roar of an engine came from the direction of the back alley.

The car tires slipped on the wet asphalt, making a sharp screech.

As Lin Shen started the engine and the car sped out of the alley, two armored off-road vehicles from the Sharp Blade Brigade circled out from the main gate of the family compound.

The blazing headlights pierced the entrance to the back alley, the beams of light passing through the narrow passage and casting two distorted car shadows on the walls of the old buildings on either side.

Yue Sheng's voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Attention all perimeter units, target: black sedan—correction, dark gray sedan, fleeing west from the alley behind the residential building, three people in the car, carrying musical instrument debris. Intercept the target immediately upon sighting, do not engage in single combat, await support from the Sharp Blade Brigade."

Lin Shen saw two beams of headlights turn into the back alley in the rearview mirror.

I floored the accelerator, the tachometer needle plunged into the redline, and the engine roared as if it were being pushed to its limits.

The car tires spun half a circle on the wet asphalt of the narrow alley before finally gripping the ground. The car jolted violently, and the rear of the car swung off course by more than ten centimeters, scraping past a pile of waste cardboard boxes in the corner. The cardboard boxes were smashed open, and the foam particles inside flew everywhere.

Shen Qinghou pressed down on Su Wan's shoulder with one hand, fixing her in her seat.

Her body was pressed against the seat by the accelerating acceleration. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and she slid to the left, her forehead almost hitting the door armrest.

Shen Qinghou pressed his palm on her shoulder, his fingers pressing hard to push her back into the center of the seat.

His other hand clutched half a string, the blood on it had dried and formed a dark red scab.

He stared at the approaching high beams outside the rear windshield, his arm muscles taut.

The armored off-road vehicle crashed into the piles of garbage cans and waste paper boxes at the alley entrance.

The metal trash can was lifted into the air by the safety lever, rolled twice on the roof of the car, and crashed onto the road three meters behind the vehicle, splattering the kitchen waste inside all over the ground.

Waste cardboard boxes were crushed into flat pieces, mixed with broken glass and plastic bags, making a screeching tearing sound under the wheels.

The two cars were locked in a tight alley, less than 100 meters apart. The alley was only wide enough for one car to pass at a time, leaving no room for overtaking or turning around.

Lin Shen made two sharp turns in a row through the maze-like narrow streets of the old town.

The steering wheel was jerked left and right, the car body scraped against the corner of the wall and scraped off the plastic shell of the right rearview mirror, the lens flew off and shattered into pieces on the ground.

The rusty sheet metal canopy was scraped by the car roof, producing a screeching metallic scraping sound. Rust and dust poured down from the canopy, landing on the rear windshield and covering the entire surface.

The first car was left behind.

The armored off-road vehicle was too wide, so it had to slow down in the narrow bend. The tires scraped against the corner of the wall, chipping paint off the bumper. By the time it rounded the bend, the taillights of the car in front were already three blocks away.

Before Lin Shen could even catch his breath, a second car cut in from an intersection three streets away.

The blazing high beams suddenly pierced through the alleyway on the left, the beams shining through the car's left window and illuminating the entire interior in a blinding white light. The high beams once again locked onto the broken bracket of the left rearview mirror.

Yue Sheng's voice came through the walkie-talkie, muffled by the roar of the engine, but Lin Shen heard the words "blockade the south of the city" clearly.

Without turning his head, he said to the person in the back seat, "Someone's waiting for us in the south of the city. Hold on tight, I'm going to take the intercity expressway."

Shen Qinghou nodded, his fingers tightening their grip on the strings even more.

The car roared through an intersection with a flashing yellow light.

The moment the red light came on, the car had already crossed the zebra crossing, and the silhouette of the pursuing armored off-road vehicle was reflected in the broken bracket of the left side mirror—three vehicles were converging on the same intersection from different directions.

In the right-side rearview mirror, another set of headlights merged into the main road from the south auxiliary road. The vehicle was traveling at a very high speed, and the tactical spotlights on the roof were flashing a blinding white light in the dark night.

The three loaves of bread are closing together.

In the broken bracket of the left-side rearview mirror, the high beams of the second armored vehicle had filled the entire mirror surface, the white light so bright that Lin Shen had to squint his left eye.

In the right-side rearview mirror, a third armored vehicle cut in from the auxiliary road, its tactical spotlights on the roof casting two bright beams in the darkness, rapidly closing the lateral distance.

In the rearview mirror, the first armored vehicle caught up again, its front end smashing through the garbage bags flying at the alley entrance, now less than fifty meters away.

Lin Shen's fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and his nails dug into the leather texture of the steering wheel, leaving four shallow crescent-shaped marks.

But the corners of his mouth relaxed a little.

He saw the markings painted with fluorescent spray paint on the rock face ahead.

A crooked arrow was sprayed onto the bare gray rock wall, its fluorescent orange glow reflecting a blinding light under the car headlights, pointing straight into the depths of the quarry.

We're almost there.

The agreed-upon place.

Three minutes earlier, another phone in his pocket received an encrypted message containing only one line of text.

The cold light from the screen reflected on his face, which he glanced at briefly.

The person who sent the message is currently atop the cliff ahead. The ambush is in place at the quarry south of the city. (Xu)

"Hold on tight, someone's waiting for you up ahead."