The Overlord Flower's Guide to Intercepting a Woman's Wife's Death and the Male Lead&

Zhou Bingheng walked over from the scree slope on the south side.

The wind lifted the hem of his old military uniform, then pressed it down again, his steps unhurried.

The three people stood in a triangle on the wasteland.

Zhou Bingheng looked at Su Xingmian first.

His cotton coat was covered in sand, his hair was mostly disheveled, his lips were chapped, and his face was pale.

But she stood there, holding the map cylinder, standing steadily.

He turned his gaze away and looked at Ho Yiu-tsu.

"Bingheng".

He Yaozu lowered the muzzle of his gun slightly, no longer pointing it directly at Su Xingmian's chest.

"I knew it was you."

"The hideout was raided too quickly. In the Helan Mountains area, only you could use this method to close the net."

Zhou Bingheng stood fifteen paces away, his gun held horizontally.

"Officer He, you flatter me."

The voice was neither hurried nor slow.

"These are all things you taught me in 1963."

He Yaozu's facial muscles twitched, and he moved the gun from Su Xingmian to Zhou Bingheng.

"Did you come alone?"

Zhou Bingheng did not dodge the gun barrel, but instead took half a step forward.

"What does Staff Officer He think?"

He Yaozu glanced around.

The wilderness was vast, and there wasn't even a rock big enough to hide a person in.

Follow-up troops are still cleaning up the mess at the rear outpost, and judging from the distance, it will take at least two hours to arrive.

Zhou Bingheng truly caught up with him all by himself.

He Yaozu's breathing stabilized again, and the gun barrel stopped swaying.

"Bingheng, you are still too young."

"He caught up with us all by himself, without even a communications officer with him."

"Are you here to save people or to die?"

He took two steps back to create shooting distance, and the muzzle of his gun moved slowly between the two men.

"I don't need the map; what I have in my head is enough."

"But neither of you will return alive."

Su Xingmian sensed it.

He Yaozu's murderous intent was genuine; his heartbeat was frighteningly steady, just like when he killed that thug in the ditch.

Zhou Bingheng did not back down because of those words.

He did something that neither He Yaozu nor Su Xingmian expected.

He crouched down and placed the gun on the gravel at his feet.

My hands are empty.

He Yaozu frowned.

The flower bud inside Su Xingmian trembled.

Zhou Bingheng picked up a pebble and drew a line on the sand.

"Officer He, let me do the math for you."

"Your radio station broke down 36 hours ago. The last valid transmission was yesterday morning, and the other end received only a garbled string of text."

The pebbles are depicted with simple, clean lines, each stroke distinct and precise.

"According to the standard operating procedure of the intelligence agency on the other side, if the receiving party receives a scrambled signal, they will determine that you have been exposed or arrested and activate the emergency plan."

"The waiting window is forty-eight hours after the last valid signal is received."

"The report you sent yesterday morning will be at 8:00 AM this morning, 48 hours later."

"It's four in the morning now, and your walking speed is just right to get there."

He raised his head.

"But are you sure the other side is still waiting for you?"

He Yaozu's gun barrel deviated by two degrees.

Zhou Bingheng stood up and patted the sand off his hands.

"When you defected in 1963, the area was in dire need of people who understood military deployment in the Northwest, and you were highly sought after."

He tilted his head.

"I let you sneak back this time to squeeze out the last bit of value from you."

"Do you think the other side will still have the patience to wait for an agent who sent gibberish, exposed their location, and even had their subordinate group taken down?"

He Yaozu's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

Zhou Bingheng's last sentence was casually inserted.

"Officer He, in your three principles for site selection, the ability to escape is ranked last."

"Because you yourself know that when it really comes time to run..."

"There's a high probability they can't escape."

He Yaozu made a move.

He didn't fire at Zhou Bingheng; instead, he lowered the gun and lunged at Su Xingmian.

Without a map tube, the coordinates in his mind are just isolated evidence. With physical evidence, the value of the intelligence doubles, and the other side might be willing to risk providing support.

This is what Su Xingmian has been waiting for.

Instead of backing away, she took a step to the side.

The gravel beneath her feet remained perfectly still, as steady as a girl who had walked for eight hours in the dark.

He held a silver needle in his hand and stabbed it at He Yaozu.

He Yaozu's fingers brushed past the seal of the cylinder but didn't grab it. He used the momentum to swerve and dodge the silver needle that Su Xingmian was thrusting at him.

Zhou Bingheng made his move almost simultaneously, the gun already back in his hand, but with less than a meter between He Yaozu and Su Xingmian, he wasn't confident and released his finger from the trigger.

He Yaozu failed to grab the gun and stumbled into the gravel, his knee hitting the ground with a dull thud. He then flipped over, sprang up, and created distance, aiming his gun at Zhou Bingheng again.

His left hand began to tremble, trembling entirely from anger.

As the blood and qi rush upwards, the tendons in my temples start twitching again, and the deep-seated tendons in my meridians begin to stir. With each twitch, my vision blurs for a moment.

He Yaozu steadied the gun with his left hand, his teeth grinding together.

"You two, one uses a needle and the other uses her mouth, you're cut from the same cloth."

Zhou Bingheng tilted his head slightly.

"Officer He, you flatter me."

"She's my fiancée, it's only right that she follows her husband's lead."

He Yaozu's lips twitched, and his eyes narrowed.

No wonder you arrived so quickly.

He looked at Su Xingmian.

"Bingheng, your fiancée is no ordinary woman."

"I've lived for thirty-six years, and this is the first time I've been so thoroughly outmaneuvered by an eighteen-year-old girl."

He took a breath.

"She destroyed my radio station right under my nose, and I still can't figure out how she did it."

Zhou Bingheng's expression didn't change, but he took a step forward, a very small step, so small that He Yaozu didn't even notice.

Su Xingmian noticed it.

He was using his body to block her.

He Yaozu made the final decision.

A gunshot rang out, and the bullet flew towards Zhou Bingheng.

Zhou Bingheng turned to the side, and the bullet grazed the outside of his left arm, tearing a gash in his military uniform sleeve, from which blood seeped out.

Su Xingmian gripped the cylinder tightly, leaning forward half an inch before stubbornly remaining rooted to the spot.

He did not back down.

Instead, they rushed forward amidst the echoes of the gunfire.

He Yaozu didn't even have a chance to fire a second shot.

The refined and gentle deputy company commander who could read topographic maps faster than him in 1963 has been toiling away in the wind and sand of Helan Mountain for five years and is no longer the person he remembers.

The two of them twisted together.

He Yaozu is a good fighter; he has received five years of special training, and close combat is his livelihood.

However, Zhou Bingheng is younger and stronger, while He Yaozu's right hand is still partially paralyzed, and he can only exert force with his left hand.

The gun slipped from his left hand and hit the gravel.

Su Xingmian stepped forward and kicked the gun away.

He Yaozu's lips twitched slightly.

"You are indeed better than me."

Zhou Bingheng pressed him down onto the gravel, his knees pressing down on his back.

"I'm not much better than you; you've chosen the wrong path."

He Yaozu turned his head to look at Su Xingmian and spoke while panting heavily.

"I can recite the map from memory, but you can't take me with you, and don't even think about getting a single coordinate from me."

His left hand reached behind his waist.

Zhou Bingheng felt the waist muscles of the person beneath him suddenly tighten, and his entire spine became as taut as an iron rod. Looking down, he saw that He Yaozu's fingers had hooked the pin of a grenade.

Zhou Bingheng didn't dodge. He tackled He Yaozu to the ground, covered him with his whole body, and turned his back to Su Xingmian.

The voice was forced out from deep in his throat, urgent and low.

"Mianmian, run!"

The roots of that domineering flower deep within her soul were frantically warning her, every meridian screaming for her to escape, but she took a step forward.

Its body was covered in thorns, and it stomped heavily on the ground with its bare feet.

The last of the demonic power poured out, seeping into the soil beneath his feet, and flowing back along the remaining root system to all the grass and wood nails in He Yaozu's body, triggering them simultaneously.

The power of plants flows from the temples to the back of the head, from the spine to the extremities, simultaneously penetrating all motor nerves.

He Yaozu's finger stopped on the pull ring, his entire arm from shoulder to fingertip lost all strength, the grenade rolled out of his palm and bounced twice on the gravel.

Su Xingmian rushed over and pressed down on the grenade; the pull ring was still there, and the safety was intact.

She took a couple of breaths and added a sentence.

"Mr. He, I have memorized the telegram code you sent, word for word."

He Yaozu's face was buried in the rubble, and more blood and qi surged up, impacting the nails in his meridians. Dizziness overwhelmed his consciousness like a tide.

He turned his head with difficulty, his lips moved, and only a muffled breath escaped his throat.

Zhou Bingheng rolled over, pulled out a rope from his waist, pressed his knee against He Yaozu's back, tied his hands behind his back, and tightened the knot cleanly and efficiently.

He stood up.

Su Xingmian's legs went weak.

He sat on the gravel ground, holding the cylinder tightly in his arms.

She and the old fox won.

He and she are both alive, and the cylinder is still there.

The sound of horses' hooves came from afar, and Liang Jin led his cavalry company out from the mouth of the ravine to the south.

Liang Jin dismounted.

The first thing he saw was He Yaozu, a traitorous spy, bound to the ground.

The second person I noticed was the political commissar.

His left arm was bleeding, and he knelt on one knee in front of a girl.

Liang Jin's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

He turned his head and made a gesture to the cavalry company.