Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Two hundred meters underground.

Sun Laoqi finished his last cigarette, crushed the cigarette pack, and threw it on the ground.

The cigarette butt made a very faint hissing sound in the muddy water and went out.

Most of the lamps in the mine tunnel had long since broken, with only a few still lit, casting intermittent grayish-white light on the slippery rock walls.

He had just counted the number of people.

All twelve children are present.

The one with the fever has had it subside a bit.

Sun Laoqi leaned against the rock wall by the iron gate, his triangular eyes half-closed, staring at the tightly closed iron gate at the end of the corridor.

There was no sound inside.

Those little brats have already learned to keep quiet.

He went to see it three days ago.

The oldest boy, the eleven-year-old, huddled in the corner, holding the youngest four-year-old girl in his arms, patting her back gently.

The girl's lips were cracked from the fever, her eyes were half-open, and she couldn't even cry out.

Sun Laoqi glanced at it and left.

It's not that I'm soft-hearted.

They were afraid the goods would die, and they wouldn't be able to explain it to their superiors.

He has been guarding this godforsaken place for three years.

In three years, he delivered at least eighty to a hundred "goods".

Some were transferred to underground laboratories in the Northern Republic, where they were exchanged for boxes of cash and medicine.

Some were disposed of on the spot.

The solution is simple: go into the innermost "treatment room," lock the door, and wait for the gas inside to dissipate on its own.

Then they put the person into a black body bag, hoisted it up through the ventilation shaft, and threw it into the abandoned mine pit behind the mountain.

Sun Laoqi had lost count of how many corpses he had personally hoisted up.

He only remembered that before the children were carried inside, they would grab his trouser leg and beg him with those tearful eyes that he was already tired of seeing.

"Uncle, I was wrong, I will never cry again."

"Uncle, I want to go home."

"Uncle, my mom is still waiting for me."

Every time, Sun Laoqi would pry their fingers off his trouser leg one by one, and then kick them back in.

"go home?"

"May you be reborn into a better family in your next life."

He never felt there was anything wrong with it.

People live for money.

He'll do things if his superiors give him money.

Whatever you do, it's still doing something.

"Seventh Brother, what did the higher-ups say about the situation in Shanyang?"

One of his men came over and asked.

My subordinate is called Er Gou, and he was transferred here half a year ago.

He was 25 or 26 years old, big and burly, with a scar on his face that looked scary, but in reality, he was the most timid person, needing someone to accompany him to the toilet in the middle of the night.

Sun Laoqi glanced at him sideways.

"What nonsense. Huo Kun is dead, and the Changning branch has disbanded. There's still no official word from above."

"So, shall we stay here?"

Er Gou's voice carried a clear sense of unease.

"If we don't stay here, tell me, where are we going? All the roads out of the province are blocked by the authorities, Black Falcon's men are watching us from the shadows, and those bastards from Fireseed are not to be trifled with. Going out now is just suicide."

Sun Laoqi crushed the cigarette box and threw it on the ground.

"Go, check those kids down there again. Especially that four-year-old girl, the one with the fever. Don't let her die in our hands, or the goods will be ruined."

"understood."

Er Gou turned and walked towards the iron gate.

Sun Laoqi lit another cigarette.

Before he could even bring the lighter to the cigarette butt, his phone rang.

A red alarm message popped up on the screen.

The alarm system at the surface entrance of the mine area was triggered.

Sun Laoqi squinted his triangular eyes and stared at the prompt on the screen.

An object is approaching from the east side of the entrance fence.

It is not an animal.

The system's thermal imager captured a human silhouette.

Right at the main entrance.

"Someone has come in."

He grabbed a mini-barrel from the wall and gave a wink to his men.

"Let's go up and take a look."

Besides Er Gou, there were four other henchmen in the mine tunnels.

Five people followed him up the narrow mine tunnel.

The mine tunnels were so narrow that only two people could walk side by side.

Their footsteps echoed between the rock walls, like drumbeats on tin.

Er Gou walked at the very back, his hands gripping the handle of the stun gun tightly, his knuckles turning white.

He muttered something under his breath.

"Could it be someone sent from above?"

Sun Laoqi did not turn around.

"People from above won't come through the main entrance."

"Could it be the police?"

"If the police were here, there would already be dozens of vehicles surrounding this mountain. The alarm only shows one person."

Sun Laoqi didn't stop walking, but lowered his voice a few decibels.

"Release the safety pins on your hands."

Several of his men cocked their guns.

The air in the mine tunnel grew colder and colder, carrying a night wind blowing in from the ground.

The wind carried a very faint metallic smell, along with another indescribable odor.

Like mud after rain.

It's like blood that's been dried up for a long time.

Sun Laoqi frowned slightly.

He had been walking in this mine for three years and had never seen the wind change so quickly.

unusual.

It's too quiet.

He slowly stopped walking.

The men behind him also stopped.

"Seventh Brother, what's wrong...?"

Before Er Gou could finish speaking, a figure slowly emerged from the darkness at the end of the mine tunnel.

It's not about leaving.

It floats.

Li Su was suspended in the middle of the mine tunnel, with her feet half a foot off the ground.

Her black bodysuit blended almost seamlessly into the surrounding darkness, with only her pale face glowing faintly from the last lamp in the mine tunnel.

Her eyes shone with a pale white light in the darkness.

The light was faint and not dazzling, yet it made the hairs on Sun Laoqi's body stand on end in an instant.

He recognized him.

He had seen the surveillance screenshots that had leaked from Shanyang City.

That face belonged to the woman who massacred the city square three days ago.

"Who are you--!"

Sun Laoqi suddenly picked up the small cup of liquor.

He made his move.

The gun muzzle spat out flames, and the bullets left dense, bright streaks in the narrow mine tunnel.

"Da da da da da!"

The gunshots were deafening, echoing repeatedly between the rock walls, as if the entire mine tunnel was about to collapse.

The bullets swarmed towards Li Su like a dense swarm of locusts.

Li Su did not dodge.

She simply raised one hand.

All the bullets stopped three meters away from her, as if they had hit an invisible wall of water.

The warhead hovered in mid-air, still spinning at high speed, churning the surrounding air into a blurry ripple.

Sun Laoqi's face turned pale instantly.

He pulled the trigger, firing the last bullet, the bolt clicking shut with a hollow sound.

Then he saw Li Su's finger bend slightly.

All the hovering bullets turned around simultaneously and shot back at an even faster speed.

"Puff puff puff puff—!"

Sun Laoqi's two henchmen were instantly riddled with bullets, falling into the mine shaft before they could even scream.

Blood and flesh splattered on the rock wall, turning the grayish-white surface into a dark reddish-black.

Er Gou was so frightened that his legs went weak and he sat down on the ground with a thud. The stun gun in his hand fell to the ground at his feet, and his crotch was soaked.

The other two henchmen were also terrified. One turned around and tried to run away, while the other frantically changed the magazine.

Sun Laoqi did not run away.

He threw away the empty gun, pulled a dagger from his back waist, gripped it with his hand behind his back, and hunched over like a wild dog cornered.

"Don't come any closer!"

He shouted hoarsely.

"I don't care who you are! If you dare to kill someone here today, will the Five Sacred Mountains let you get away with it!"