Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

"Where do we go?"

"Go to the main gate of Cui Ting Garden."

Zhang Desheng slung his backpack over his shoulder, picked up his walkie-talkie, and tuned it to the channel for the tool truck at the gate. "Old Ding and Liang Wei are over there at the tool truck. Four people are better than two."

He pressed the call button: "Old Ding, we've been out of contact with the commercial complex for over six minutes. Old Wu is probably in grave danger. The water tower is too isolated; Xiao Zhao and I are preparing to evacuate to your side."

Old Ding's voice came through the walkie-talkie, steady but noticeably tense: "Roger that. There's no movement at the main entrance here for now. Be careful on the road—if he can eliminate four people in the commercial complex without alerting anyone, it means his abilities are even more unpredictable than described in the report."

"clear."

Zhang Desheng turned off the walkie-talkie, picked up his backpack, and walked towards the iron ladder.

Zhao Ping followed behind him, holding a submachine gun with the muzzle pointing downwards and his finger resting on the trigger guard.

His steps were a little unsteady as he climbed down the iron ladder, and rust from the ladder fell down from his feet.

The two climbed down the base of the water tower and walked towards the iron gate at the bottom of the tower.

At the same time, on the fourth floor of the old middle school teaching building on the east side of Cui Ting Yuan, Liu Wei and Sun Hao also discovered that the business community's communication had been interrupted.

The old middle school has been relocated for five years, the teaching building is vacant, and most of the window glass is broken.

The names of the students on duty for the last class are still on the blackboard in the fourth-floor classroom, the chalk writing faded to just faint white marks.

Liu Wei and Sun Hao set up a high-powered telescope and a parabolic microphone near the window, which faced the main entrance of Building No. 3 in Cuitingyuan.

Sun Hao turned off the walkie-talkie and turned to Liu Wei, saying, "Old Wu's not making any noise. Should we retreat too?"

Liu Wei hesitated for a moment.

He picked up the walkie-talkie and tuned it to the tool vehicle channel, just in time to hear Zhang Desheng and Lao Ding's conversation—the water tower was too isolated, so they were preparing to move it to the tool vehicle area near the main gate.

He pressed the call button: "Old Ding, the old middle school heard that too. Our location is a bit better than the water tower; there are two flights of stairs leading down. But the old middle school is 300 meters from Cui Ting Yuan, and the whole area in between is all narrow alleys."

Old Ding's voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Withdraw. Meet at the main gate of Cui Ting Yuan. Don't take the main road, take the alley—he might be blocking people on the main road."

"receive."

Liu Wei turned off the walkie-talkie and began packing up the equipment.

As Sun Hao collected the money, he cursed, his voice trembling: "We'd been staking out for three days and hadn't seen a single person, then suddenly they said they'd come and killed four of them—Old Wu, a 15-year veteran of security, didn't even send out the alarm signal—"

"Stop cursing. Focus on retreating."

Liu Wei interrupted him, but didn't stop what he was doing.

He folded the binoculars and stuffed them into his backpack, pausing halfway through zipping them up before glancing at Sun Hao.

Sun Hao's face was frighteningly pale, his forehead was covered in cold sweat, and his hands were shaking as he tried to unplug the microphone power cord. He had to unplug it three times before he could finally get it out.

Liu Wei didn't say anything more, slung his backpack over his shoulder, picked up his submachine gun, and walked towards the stairwell.

Outside the main gate of Cui Ting Yuan, a fake water and electricity repair vehicle was parked in a temporary parking space outside the community wall.

The utility vehicle was painted with the words "Kwang Yang Plumbing & Electrical Repair" and a green logo, and a signal repeater disguised as an air conditioner outdoor unit was mounted on the roof.

The rear seats inside the vehicle were removed and converted into a simple monitoring and living cabin.

Old Ding sat in the folding chair behind the driver's seat, with three portable monitoring screens in front of him, showing real-time images from three high points: the commercial complex, the water tower, and the old middle school.

Liang Wei sat in the passenger seat, clutching a stun gun in his hand, his knuckles white.

Old Ding worked in Xiongbei for twelve years, rising from a security guard to the head of a field team. He had handled cases involving the transport of contraband drugs, kidnapping by competitors, and the pursuit of defectors, but he had never taken on a mission like this before—staking out a target whose arrival time and method of arrival were unknown.

Three days ago, when Zheng Daoyuan gave him the order, his tone was unusually serious: "The target capability is related to cement, and all personnel must avoid staying on cement roads."

He pondered those words over and over for three days, and it wasn't until tonight, when he heard that all four members of the business group had gone missing without a single shot, that he truly understood the weight of those words.

Liang Wei gripped the handle of the stun gun, the plastic barrel slippery from the sweat on his palms.

He is 23 years old this year, and this is his third time participating in field surveillance. The first two times he accompanied Lao Ding as an escort and never encountered the target head-on.

When he heard the news on the walkie-talkie that Lao Wu and the other three had gone missing, the first thought that popped into his mind was: My mother's medical bills haven't been settled yet.

Old Ding put down the walkie-talkie and tapped his fingers twice on the steering wheel.

He turned to look at Liang Wei, whose face was two shades paler than usual and whose lips were tightly pursed.

"The water tower and the old middle school are being moved towards us."

Old Ding spoke, his voice not loud, but every word clear, "If Shen Hanzhou wants to intercept someone, the best time to ambush him is during the retreat."

Liang Wei was silent for two seconds before speaking in a low voice: "Brother Ding, the water tower and the old middle school are retreating towards us. If Shen Hanzhou wants to intercept them, the retreat route is the best time to ambush them."

"I know."

Old Ding said, "But we only have two choices—let them retreat, hoping they won't be intercepted on the way; or let them stay where they are, hoping Shen Hanzhou won't attack the high ground. Which do you think is more likely?"

Liang Wei fell silent again.

His fingers rubbed back and forth on the grip of the stun gun, and after a long while he spoke: "The probability of them retreating is higher. At least if they come, the four of us can crossfire."

"Yes. So I told them to withdraw."

Old Ding looked at the monitor screen showing the water tower and the old middle school; both windows were empty—they had already left. "Shen Hanzhou is alone; he can't intercept both the water tower and the old middle school at the same time—he has to choose one. We're betting on the one he won't choose."

Liang Wei's voice was lowered to almost a whisper: "What if he doesn't let either side go?"

Old Ding did not answer.

In the underground parking garage's electrical control room, Zhou Ming and Qian Kun also heard the entire conversation over the walkie-talkie.

The power distribution room is located in the southeast corner of the underground garage of Building 3 in Cuitingyuan. It is less than six square meters in size and is filled with power distribution cabinets and spare cables.

The two people crouched in the narrow space behind the electrical distribution cabinet, with a portable monitoring screen in front of them, connected to the images from four cameras in the garage.

On the screen, the vehicles in the garage were parked in their respective spaces, and the concrete floor gleamed a dull gray in the faint green light of the emergency exit indicator.

Qian Kun turned off the walkie-talkie and lowered his voice, saying, "They're going to retreat to the main entrance. What about us? Continue to camp in the power distribution room?"

Zhou Ming remained silent for a moment.

He worked at Xiongbei for seven years, starting as a security guard in the chemical synthesis department. After three years, he was transferred to the field team, where he handled tasks related to the escort of chemical raw materials and security around the laboratory.

He knew Shen Hanzhou better than anyone else outside Cui Ting Yuan—during his three years in the Chemical Synthesis Department, he had shared a lounge in the same corridor as Shen Yanhui.