Chapter 656: Some die, some live
Then, the communication was completely cut off, and this time it was truly silent.
Xiao Jiuzi, however, still maintained the highest standard of prostrating himself, with his forehead pressed against the cold and sticky ground, like a petrified, thin-skinned skeleton.
One second, two seconds, five seconds, ten seconds...
All his strength drained away with this final call.
He slowly raised his head, and the abnormal blush on his face was rapidly fading at a speed visible to the naked eye, replaced by a grayness that was even darker than before.
He used up his last bit of strength and tightly grasped the communicator.
Snap!
The precision instrument was crushed by his bony hands, and tiny metal and crystal fragments slipped through his fingers, silently mixing into the sewage and mud under his feet, leaving no trace.
After doing all this, he once again looked towards the empty air in front of him, choking and uttering his final wish:
"Xiao Jiuzi thanks you, Master. I wish you good luck and good health..."
The words of blessing dissipated in the fetid air.
After saying that, he struggled and stood up shakily.
The excruciating pain of his soul being torn and burned surged back again, more violently than ever before, about to completely shatter the last bit of his consciousness.
This time there was no kind homeless person to relieve his pain.
He knew that his time had really come.
He staggered with each step, like a rusty puppet, stepping on the dirty water under his feet, walking towards the deeper and darker depths of the sewer.
He wanted to leave here, use up the last bit of strength in this body, and get as far away as possible from the place where the parchment was hidden.
He wanted to throw this useless body of his into a corner where no one could find it, as far away from the young master's important things as possible.
The staggering and limping footsteps echoed in the empty and deep pipe, gradually moving farther and farther away and becoming weaker and weaker.
One step, one step.
Xiao Jiuzi's figure was eventually slowly swallowed by the bottomless darkness of the sewer.
Probably...it will be as he wishes.
Die in a corner where no one can find you, rot and dissolve silently, and eventually become an insignificant part of this sewer, guarding your loyalty until death.
Soon, the sewer returned to its tranquility.
All that was left was the gurgling sound of the slowly flowing sewage, which sounded like a whimper.
And there were the rustling noises and occasional sharp squeakings of rats hiding deep in some rusty pipe or garbage dump.
They seemed to be whispering, discussing the uninvited guest who was sometimes crawling and sometimes standing upright, and what he took away and left behind...all the secrets that could not be revealed in broad daylight.
Elsewhere in the city, in the underground sewer of an abandoned chemical plant.
Li Shang and Chang Erbing were huddled in there at the moment, looking like two frightened mice, almost blending into the thick shadows in the pipe.
After racking their brains, they finally decided that the intricate, maze-like underground sewers were the safest and most suitable for Tibetans.
It’s true that the stench that is everywhere in the air is more reassuring than fresh air.
However, they are not just hiding, they also have a plan to "escape."
Li Shang and Chang Erbing found a suitable location in the underground shaft and threw their mobile phones onto the wet ground.
The force was well controlled, and the phone screen was covered with fine cracks, but it did not completely malfunction. A faint light still shone through the surface, like the last ray of life of a dying firefly.
Then, the two of them cut hideous wounds on each other's bodies quickly and efficiently, letting the blood drip around the phone and on the path extending outward from the phone.
In just a few minutes, the scene was disguised as a "crime scene" where someone seemed to have been attacked and their cell phone accidentally dropped.
On the ground, a string of intermittent bloodstains extended forward, dripping and winding for several meters, as if someone was wounded and running wildly, desperately escaping into the darkness deeper in the well.
If you follow the bloodstains and go deeper, you will find another law enforcement device in the mud and sewage.
It was half-hidden in the dimness, the screen also shattered, with a cold light flickering, like a silent witness, silently telling of its owner's panic and unfinished escape.
In fact, it is in the opposite direction of the other side, not far or near.
After doing all this, the two of them quickly evacuated, but did not go deeper along the fake bloodstains. Instead, they quietly sneaked into the darkness on the other side.
The distance is neither far nor near, about forty meters.
This was a carefully calculated distance that allowed for vague observation of the situation at the "first crime scene," while being dark and concealed enough to be difficult to detect.
They found a sunken pothole filled with a layer of muddy sewage.
The two men gritted their teeth and lay down, letting the cold sewage almost submerge their entire bodies, leaving only their eyes, mouths and noses exposed.
Li Shang and Chang Erbing lay quietly in the sewage, secretly monitoring the "crime scene".
As a detective, forging and returning to the "crime scene" are the simplest and most basic operations.
What really tests one’s heart is the silent waiting that follows.
Time seems to have lost its concept of flow rate in the dark underground shaft.
There was only coldness, only darkness, only the pervasive stench, and only the heavy and slow beating of the heart in the chest.
Chang Erbing felt that his body was gradually losing consciousness, and his mind began to freeze and become fuzzy.
He almost wondered if they would freeze to death or drown silently in the sewage.
Just when he was about to fall asleep.
despair--
An extremely subtle sound, but completely different from the sound of dripping water, came from the darkness.
Li Shang's fingers suddenly clasped Chang Erbing's arm, and the pain instantly woke the latter up. He immediately held his breath and concentrated, with his ears perked up.
It wasn't the sound of water, nor the sound of a rat running.
It’s... footsteps!
The footsteps gradually became clearer, a little chaotic. Chang Erbing silently counted the number of people in his mind:
“One, two, three, four!!!”
Soon, several flashlight beams pierced the darkness and swept back and forth across the "crime scene" area they had carefully arranged.
Suddenly, a beam of light froze and fell on the phone with a broken screen.
The exclamation suddenly rose in volume, causing waves of echoes in the underground shaft:
"Found it! Here. Weird, Captain Li's phone fell here..."
The beam of light trembled and slowly moved towards the vicinity of the mobile phone. The dark red bloodstains were nowhere to be found under the strong light of the flashlight and had solidified into a shocking black patch.
Another voice sounded, with shock and panic:
"There's blood all around... all around. Was Captain Li attacked here? Look—the blood is going that way!"
Several beams of light immediately converged and shot towards the depths of the well like spotlights, tightly biting the two extending bloodstains.
The footsteps sounded again, moving quickly in that direction. Within half a minute, new discoveries came from the depths.
"Wait a minute! What's this...what's in this water? ...Looks like a recorder?"
"Pick it up and have a look! Be careful!"
"It's the body camera from the bureau. The screen is half broken. I'll give it a try... Huh? It seems... it can still be turned on?!"
There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
Another voice hurriedly urged:
"Captain Li and Er Bing must have fallen here. Let's play it and see if they've caught something."
Chang Erbing felt Li Shang's fingers gripping his arm suddenly tighten, and both of them felt a chill in their hearts.
In that body camera, there was a video that they had edited and saved a little bit, recording the scene before the two of them were attacked. Ninety percent of it was true, with only slight deletions and modifications.
The silence during the dozens of seconds of waiting was suffocating.
Even the people in the distance stopped talking. Their heads huddled together, all their attention focused on the half-broken screen.
Suddenly, several horrified exclamations rang out from the shaft:
"I can only see half of the screen, and it's too shaky to make out clearly. Wait, that thing in the corner looks like... [Mask]?!!"
"[Masked]?!"
The others cried out in surprise almost at the same time.
The next moment, the air suddenly became quiet, and the responses became smaller in unison.
"Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up! Captain Li must have been attacked by [Mask]. We can't stay here anymore. Get the hell out of here!"
"But didn't the higher-ups tell us to come find Captain Li?"
"What the hell are you looking for! Captain Li and Er Bing must have died in this shaft!"
"...Go! Go! Quickly!!!"
The noisy voices and hurried footsteps quickly twisted into a ball. The few people no longer cared about the mission and fled in the direction they came from - fearing that if they were a step slower, they would bump into the pale and strange mask with no facial features in the video.
The flashlight beam moved around like a frightened hare, leaping hastily in the darkness and quickly disappearing into the distance.
Chang Erbing turned his head abruptly, dirty water dripping down his face, and lowered his voice to the utmost:
"Captain Li, listen carefully. There are four of them. They're leaving. What should we do?"
Li Shang's face was hidden in the darkness, his expression uncertain. His fists, soaked in sewage, were clenched tightly, his knuckles turning white. His mind rapidly replayed every word he had just heard, every fluctuation in tone.
A few seconds later, a ruthless look flashed across his eyes, and he said in a deep voice:
"There are only four people here, and they are not here to arrest us. It seems that what we did has not been exposed yet!"
Chang Erbing swallowed hard. The strange smell mixed with sewage made him feel nauseous.
He naturally believed in Li Shang's ability to reason. He had believed in it before, but it was a different kind of belief. The recent cases made him truly believe it.
——Captain Li really has the power of a detective!!!
But this time, it's completely different.
If in the past, Li Shang's reasoning was wrong, it would be the criminals who would lose their lives;
And this time, if he was wrong, they would be the ones to die.
Li Shang sensed Chang Erbing's hesitation and fear. He took a deep breath, and the foul, rotten air instantly rushed into his chest. However, his tone became increasingly calm, as if to dispel Erbing's uneasiness and to confirm his own judgment:
"That's right, there are only four people here... and they were just calling me 'Captain Li'.
Although I still don’t know what happened to the special envoy, Feng Ju and Ma Bin, and where they are now.
But judging from their conversation, it seems highly likely... the police station still doesn't know anything. The situation is actually much better than our worst-case scenario!"
As Li Shang spoke, he slowly got up from the ground and limped out pretending to be weak.
Chang Erbing gritted his teeth and got up, wiped the blood off his face, then supported Li Shang and walked out together with difficulty.
Every step created a heavy splash of water that echoed far away in the silent pipes.
Sure enough, the footsteps that had already escaped to a considerable distance suddenly stopped.
One of them exclaimed:
"Wait a minute! Listen... there seem to be footsteps in that direction!"
"What are you waiting for? Waiting to die? That must be [Masked]? Run away!!!"
The footsteps that had originally stopped sounded again, and even more hurriedly.
Listening to the footsteps in the distance that paused and then suddenly accelerated, obviously running away faster, Li Shang looked at Chang Erbing beside him helplessly, and Chang Erbing immediately understood.
He took a deep breath, then used all his strength to shout out something extremely weak, hoarse, yet clear enough, and the sound echoed faintly in the pipe:
"Lao Wang... Lao Wang... is that you? Ahem... Help! Come and help us! We're over here... We can't hold on any longer..."
According to the original plan, after Li Shang and the others confirmed the situation, they planned to pretend to be unconscious and wait for the police to discover them.
However, the brothers who came to look for them were really too alert.
They had no choice but to get out on their own.
In the distance, the sound of running footsteps suddenly stopped again.
There was a dead silence.
After several seconds, Lao Wang's voice, full of suspicion and uncertainty, sounded, as if he was asking his companions, or as if he was talking to himself:
"Does this voice sound familiar to you? It seems...it seems to be Er Bing's voice?!"
Another voice replied, "It seems to be Chang Erbing?"
“So what just now…?”
The footsteps began to move back hesitantly, cautiously, step by step.
The footsteps began to hesitantly and extremely slowly move back. The flashlight also trembled and probed towards the source of the sound, sweeping the beam left and right, as cautiously as if finding the way in a minefield.
After a long time, the flashlight finally trembled and illuminated the figures of two "bloody men" who were supporting each other and staggering forward.
"Oh my god, it's Captain Li! Captain Li is not dead, and there's still Er Bing!!!"
Lao Wang screamed in surprise, and the previous fear was instantly replaced by shock and disbelief.
Several flashlights were focused together, illuminating the miserable appearance of Li Shang and Chang Erbing - they were soaked, covered with black and red stains, their faces were pale (partly due to blood loss and partly due to sewage), and they could hardly stand.
"Quick! Go over and help!"
Lao Wang shouted and came over first. The other three followed hurriedly and hurriedly took over the almost "exhausted" Li Shang and Chang Erbing.
"Captain Li! Second C! You...what's going on with you?!"
Lao Wang's voice was trembling, and the hand that was holding Li Shang's arm could feel the coldness of the other's body and the uncontrollable trembling.
"Don't...don't ask...get out first..."
Li Shang shook his head weakly, his eyes half closed and half open, as if saying one more word would exhaust his strength.
"Yes! Get out! Get out now!"
Chang Erbing also echoed weakly, leaning his entire weight on his companion.
(End of this chapter)
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