Zuo Shandiao and his crew led the convoy down a muddy path and into the area behind the wall where they had previously hidden.
Behind the wall was a street. Though the surface had been weathered beyond recognition, the width of the street and the scale of the buildings on both sides were clearly much grander than those in Xima Town.
“What is this place?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Who are you asking?” Zuo Shandiao glanced at him. “Got no manners, huh?”
Qiu Shi was stunned—This guy is questioning my manners?
He looked at Zuo Shandiao for a moment before replying, “Diao’er, what is this place?”
Now it was Zuo Shandiao’s turn to be shocked. Even with a helmet on, his body language clearly showed it. “What the hell did you just call me?”
“What do you want me to call you then?” Qiu Shi asked. “Zuo’er?”
“Call him Boss Diao!” a gun-toting thug beside them immediately swung his weapon up and jammed it into Qiu Shi’s face.
“My ass!” Qiu Shi grabbed the barrel, yanked it upward, and slammed it into the thug’s face. “Your ancestor!”
The thug, still holding his weapon, got a nosebleed from the blow.
“Well now.” Zuo Shandiao looked at Qiu Shi in mild surprise. “You’re not just an arms dealer, are you?”
“I collect corpses,” Qiu Shi said.
Zuo Shandiao looked at him silently for a moment, then finally waved a hand. “Let’s go.”
Qiu Shi followed him.
“This is the outskirts of Benquan City,” Zuo Shandiao said, clapping his hands as they walked. “This isn’t some dump.”
With two crisp claps, the building beside the street suddenly lit up.
Four floodlights lit the building from each corner, and from top to bottom, LED strips wound down through vines, flashing in colorful lights…
Qiu Shi had to admit—when the lights came on, it was a little breathtaking. After all, the surrounding dozens of miles were pitch black, and suddenly a brightly lit building emerged from the darkness.
But the upward-facing floodlights, and the flashing red, yellow, and green string lights gave the whole thing a strangely eerie, horror-movie feel.
“Park the vehicles out front. Line them up neatly,” Zuo Shandiao said. “I’ll be checking the goods in a bit.”
“Just tell me what you want,” Qiu Shi replied. “You don’t get to check this shipment.”
“Whoa.” Zuo Shandiao looked at him. “Is this your first time running in the underworld? Don’t know the rules?”
A voice came through Qiu Shi’s earpiece—Xing Bi: “Give them some ammo. A few of their guns are empty.”
Qiu Shi reached a hand back. Ji Sui walked over with his head lowered and placed a box of ammo in his hand.
“What kind of rules?” Qiu Shi slapped the ammo box against Zuo Shandiao’s chest. “Let your boys load their guns first.”
Zuo Shandiao took the box, looked at Qiu Shi, then looked down at the bullets. Finally, he tilted his head. “Come on in.”
The first floor was like a tavern, with a layout similar to Dayan’s, only larger. The tables and chairs were also neater—not the kind roughly nailed together from logs like in Dayan.
There were four pillars at each corner of the room, which didn’t look like part of the original structure—they had likely been installed later.
One of the pillars had a man tied to it, head hanging low, covered in dried, blackened blood.
The already tense atmosphere became even more eerie. This wasn’t just a shady black market—it was a black market with a literal “Black Market” sign lit up in neon.
As Zuo Shandiao entered, several people rushed down the stairs.
“Boss Diao is back!”
Qiu Shi forced himself to ignore the absurd pageantry and sat down at a table. Xing Bi and Ji Sui stood behind him. Probably to avoid complications, none of the other bioroids came in.
Under the indoor lights, Qiu Shi could see the people clearly. They were all quite young—about the same age as Hu Xiaoling—around twenty.
When Zuo Shandiao took off his bulletproof vest and helmet, Qiu Shi was slightly taken aback.
He looked even younger than the people calling him “Boss.” Despite the long scar running from his left cheek across the bridge of his nose, he still looked very much like a youth.
“Your people can rest upstairs,” Zuo Shandiao said. “I won’t touch the cargo until we’ve reached an agreement. No need to assign guards.”
“I don’t trust you,” Qiu Shi replied.
Zuo Shandiao clearly didn’t like that. His expression darkened, but maybe the ammo box made him realize these people weren’t ordinary, so he didn’t explode.
“You want something to eat? We’ve got canned and fresh. Prices vary,” he said. “Also got booze.”
“What’s the fresh stuff?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Meat,” said one of the henchmen. “Just butchered a pig today. If you’d come any other time, we wouldn’t even have enough for ourselves.”
“Then keep it for yourselves,” Qiu Shi said. “Cans.”
The henchman tossed over a few cans. Bigger than the ones in Yuncheng, but very old—probably scavenged from some prehistoric warehouse. One of those “good for 100 years” types.
Possibly even looted—Qiu Shi noticed bloodstains on one of the cans.
Zuo Shandiao noticed too. He casually wiped the blood off with his sleeve and placed the can in front of Qiu Shi, then looked at Xing Bi and Ji Sui. “They’re not eating?”
“No,” Qiu Shi said, examining the can.
“They’re fine to eat—still good, smells great. What, they’re not hungry? Or…” Zuo Shandiao suddenly lunged across the table, a gun appearing in his hand.
But before his gun reached Qiu Shi’s forehead, Qiu Shi already had his own aimed at Zuo Shandiao’s head.
“Too much movement, Zuo’er.”
“Bioroids?” Zuo Shandiao still finished his line. “You’re walking around with two bioroids. Who the hell are you?”
“Sit down,” Qiu Shi said.
Zuo Shandiao reluctantly sat back down and irritably kicked the table.
“Stop jumping at shadows. We’re just passing through.” Qiu Shi opened the can and sniffed—it actually smelled good. “We’ll be gone by morning.”
“Don’t bother sniffing. It’s luncheon meat. Good stuff,” Zuo Shandiao said.
Honestly, Qiu Shi had never eaten much luncheon meat before. He dug out a chunk with the can lid and tasted it—surprisingly delicious. It made him want to bring a can back for Li Feng. The Security Bureau had produced the same three canned flavors for a hundred years—it was time for a recipe change.
“You guys headed east?” Zuo Shandiao asked.
“Yeah,” Qiu Shi nodded while chewing. “Isn’t there a bridge?”
“You haven’t been this way before, have you? Who still uses that bridge nowadays?” Zuo Shandiao said.
“Then how do you cross the river?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Use the bridge,” Zuo Shandiao replied.
Qiu Shi stared at him silently.
“There’s only one way,” Zuo Shandiao said. “If you came a month earlier, you could’ve made it. But now the bridge is occupied. Blown up. Can’t cross anymore. Even with…”
He glanced at Xing Bi and Ji Sui and shook his head. “Even with bioroids, you won’t make it.”
“Occupied by who?” Qiu Shi asked.
Zuo Shandiao looked at Xing Bi and Ji Sui again but didn’t answer.
“Bioroids?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Bioroid mutants,” Zuo Shandiao said. “The kind that can control the infected. Ever heard of them?”
“Yeah.” Qiu Shi gave a brief reply. Seeing the look on Zuo Shandiao’s face, he added, “Those two aren’t.”
“Hard to say,” Zuo Shandiao replied. “You usually can’t tell just by looking.”
“You usually see them?” Qiu Shi asked.
Zuo Shandiao didn’t answer. He just looked at him and said, “Why do you keep digging for information? You think I run some kind of intel station?”
“Come on, we’re just chatting,” Qiu Shi said. “If you don’t wanna talk, just walk away. Saves me the trouble of making conversation.”
Zuo Shandiao glared at him, then stood up abruptly and walked off. His whole crew followed him out through the back door, leaving only Qiu Shi, Xing Bi, Ji Sui, and the man tied to the post downstairs.
“I didn’t screw that up, did I?” Qiu Shi muttered as he ate from a can.
“No,” Xing Bi said. “There’s mutant activity nearby, and also symbionts.”
“According to Qu Shen’s map, there’s wiring on the other side of the bridge,” Ji Sui said. “This place might be where they plan to build a camp.”
The defense line at Donglin had just been established, and unlike Xima—where the entire town was crawling with bioroids and military—this spot was relatively weak.
“What do we do next?” Qiu Shi asked. “Am I supposed to keep chatting with him? He’s wary of bioroids.”
“Talk about something he’s interested in,” Ji Sui said.
“Like what? Why is he called ‘Zuo Shandiao’? There’s no way he came up with that name himself,” Qiu Shi said. “I don’t even have anything like ‘diao’ in my mental vocabulary. ‘Zuoshan’—what mountain is he sitting on? He must’ve picked that up from some antique book or something.”
“Smart”, Xing Bi said. “Try chatting about Tracks in the Snowy Forest.”
“What the hell is that?” Qiu Shi turned to look at him.
Before he could ask more, one of the lackeys came back in. “Boss Diao says the three rooms on the second floor are yours. If they’re too small, that’s your problem.”
“Thanks,” Qiu Shi said. “Where is he?”
“Got something to do.” The lackey stayed put, clearly waiting for them to head upstairs.
Qiu Shi stood up and went out with Xing Bi and the others.
“Let the soldiers rest upstairs,” Xing Bi said. “The mutant’s in the vehicle.”
“What did that big vulture say?” Sang Fan asked.
“There are symbionts nearby,” Xing Bi said. “We’ll try not to alert them when we cross the bridge, but the bridge is damaged… That big vulture probably knows another way. See if Qiu Shi can get anything out of him.”
“I’ll beat it out of him,” Sang Fan offered.
“I’m afraid you’ll beat him to death,” Ji Sui said.
“I won’t,” Sang Fan replied and headed for the shop.
“I’ll go,” Qiu Shi stopped her. “I’ve got it.”
Qiu Shi and a few soldiers went upstairs. The first floor was still fairly tidy, but the three rooms upstairs made it clear that no matter how much Zuo Shandiao postured, they were still just scraping by in this harsh world.
The rooms were bare—just a few planks on the floor with what might have been old clothes or rags tossed on top. There were a few blankets, but they were ragged and filthy.
This place had worse living conditions than the outer-city refugee shelters. Even the bunkers looked luxurious in comparison.
“If it’s no good, we can just go back to the car,” Qiu Shi said.
“It’s fine. The car’s cramped too,” a soldier replied. “Might as well rest here for the night—keeps them from getting suspicious.”
“Yeah.” Qiu Shi responded and heard voices from behind the building.
He walked to the window and leaned against the wall, looking down.
Zuo Shandiao and his crew were surrounding a woman. She seemed to be crying.
Just as he was about to look more closely, Zuo Shandiao suddenly looked up at the second floor. Qiu Shi didn’t have time to dodge, so he stayed still and locked eyes with him.
Then the light outside—illuminating the building—went out, and everyone vanished into the darkness.
Qiu Shi stepped out of the room. “Xing Bi, can you hear what they’re saying?”
“Can’t make it out,” Xing Bi’s voice came through the earpiece. “Just that he called her ‘sister.’ She wants to go somewhere, and he won’t let her.”
“Got it,” Qiu Shi said. “I’ll go check it out.”
Before he could head out the back, Zuo Shandiao walked in and blocked the doorway. “What’re you looking at?”
“Trouble?” Qiu Shi asked. “We’re just passing through—don’t drag us into your mess.”
Zuo Shandiao didn’t look happy. He just let out a cold chuckle without replying.
“Got any booze?” Qiu Shi sat at the bar in the corner, eyeing the empty shelves that looked like they’d collapse in two months.
Zuo Shandiao walked over, pulled out a small metal flask from the leather pouch on his belt, and set it in front of him.
Qiu Shi unscrewed the cap. The scent hit him before he even took a sip. He leaned in and sniffed—it was the kind of liquor only someone like Director Liu could get in Yun City. Even Director Li wouldn’t have touched it back before the coup.
“You haven’t even drunk it, what the hell are you sniffing it for?” Zuo Shandiao said. “If it’s too dirty for you, just leave it.”
Qiu Shi shot him a look, set the flask back on the bar, and screwed the cap back on. “If you’d talked to me like that two months ago, you wouldn’t have gotten past your first sentence before you were laid out on the floor.”
“Real tough guy,” Zuo Shandiao glanced sideways at him, then toward the door. “I believe it—you’ve got a serious background.”
“You’re not checking our vehicle, but we’ve got questions. I’ll ask, you name your price, you answer. That’s all,” Qiu Shi said.
Since coming back in after talking to the woman, Zuo Shandiao had clearly lost some of that forced bravado. Now, after hearing Qiu Shi’s offer, he didn’t speak right away. Instead, he took the flask back and drank.
“You guys wanna cross the bridge, right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Qiu Shi leaned on the bar, head tilted as he watched him. “You got a way?”
“If it weren’t for those vehicles, I’d have a hundred ways to get you across,” Zuo Shandiao said, frowning. “But with those trucks, you have to use the bridge.”
“How bad is the damage?” Qiu Shi asked.
“About as long as two of your trucks,” Zuo Shandiao replied. “And I mean your kind of truck—not regular ones.”
“That’s over ten meters,” Qiu Shi said.
“Yeah.” Zuo Shandiao looked at him.
“Anyone guarding it?” Qiu Shi asked.
“No guards. The monsters are some distance away,” Zuo Shandiao said. “But there are infected. They’re near the bridge.”
“Why break the bridge?” Qiu Shi asked. Zuo Shandiao didn’t seem very good at this—maybe he’d forgotten to charge for the info, so Qiu Shi jumped on the chance to keep asking.
“They were being chased when they came over,” Zuo Shandiao said.
Chased so hard the symbionts had to blow up the bridge to escape? Qiu Shi raised an eyebrow.
“Any idea who was chasing them?”
Zuo Shandiao didn’t answer but raised his own eyebrow—maybe just remembering he was supposed to ask for a price.
“Alright, name it. What do you want?” Qiu Shi asked.
“All those questions?” Zuo Shandiao asked.
“Yeah.” Qiu Shi waited for him to open with an outrageous price so he could slam his head into the bar and negotiate.
“On the house,” Zuo Shandiao said.
“On the house?” Qiu Shi blinked. That was unexpected.
“Yeah. These questions are crap. You could beat them out of any drifter and get the same answers,” Zuo Shandiao said. “But if I help get your trucks over the bridge—that costs.”
Qiu Shi didn’t say anything. Could this guy and his group of dumb-looking lackeys really get an entire convoy across a bombed-out bridge?
Sounded like a scam.
“Don’t doubt it,” Zuo Shandiao said. “I’ve been here five years. If I say I can get you across, I can. Ask around if you don’t believe me. I’m Zuo Shandiao…”
“Where would I go to ask around?” Qiu Shi said. “This street only has your black market shop.”
“You’ll see people when it gets light,” Zuo Shandiao said. “They just don’t dare come out at night. Sure, there’s no one on this street now—some ran, some were caught, some are dead. But near the houses closer to Benquan City, there are still plenty of people.”
Qiu Shi didn’t argue about that. “How are you getting us across?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Zuo Shandiao frowned. “You have to help me with something first.”
“Speak,” Qiu Shi said.
“Your weapons are decent, right?” Zuo Shandiao asked.
“Passable,” Qiu Shi replied.
“I’ll throw in a box of bullets just like that,” Zuo Shandiao said. “That’s not ‘passable’—only you guys can do this.”
“Let me hear it first. What kind of job?” Qiu Shi said.
“At the end of this street, there’s a small prison,” Zuo Shandiao said. “Go in there and kill someone.”
Qiu Shi went silent. Kill someone?
“What, never killed anyone before?” Zuo Shandiao looked at him with open contempt.
“And that’s a fair trade?” Qiu Shi looked back at him.
“Crossing the bridge will cost us our lives too,” Zuo Shandiao said.
That caught Qiu Shi off guard. He was stunned for a moment before finally speaking. “You’re willing to trade a life for a life just to kill that person?”
“Yeah.” Zuo Shandiao nodded.
Qiu Shi looked at him for a while, then glanced outside. “Xing Bi.”
Xing Bi got out of the vehicle outside and entered the shop.
“Who is it?” Xing Bi asked.
“A scumbag,” Zuo Shandiao spat through gritted teeth. “If he doesn’t die, everyone here is going to die.”
“What did he do?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Since he showed up, he’s been killing people, snatching women, running brothels. The women he takes don’t survive a month,” Zuo Shandiao said. “He’s got about a hundred people locked up in that prison. Planning to ship them off to those mutant bioroids.”
“Honestly,” Qiu Shi said, leaning his head on his hand, “the first half of that sounded like something you were doing.”
“I run a legitimate business!” Zuo Shandiao slapped the table. “You give me something, I give you service at the right price. Food! Drink! Shelter! I keep you safe!”
“Calm down,” Qiu Shi said.
“My sister’s going to be sent to him,” Zuo Shandiao’s eyes suddenly shimmered with tears. “If he doesn’t die, she will.”
“Your sister?” Xing Bi asked. “That woman from earlier?”
“Yeah.” Zuo Shandiao replied.
“Biological sister?” Qiu Shi asked. At this point in time, having siblings at their age was rare.
“No, adopted,” Zuo Shandiao said. “Why the hell are you asking so many questions?”
“Assassinations need background checks,” Xing Bi said. “You’ve never worked with killers, have you? We investigate the target and the employer.”
“You’re acting like this is some official job,” Zuo Shandiao scoffed but still cooperated and added, “This shop belonged to my brother-in-law. He’s dead. There are no women left around here. If my sister doesn’t go, everyone in this shop is going to die.”
Now Qiu Shi understood why Zuo Shandiao’s posturing didn’t match the vibe of the shop—it wasn’t really his world.
“How did you get the scar on your face?” Xing Bi asked.
“Shielding me from a knife!” a woman’s voice came from the back door.
Qiu Shi turned to look. A woman in her thirties, not pretty, a bit frail, but her gaze was fierce.
“What’s your name?” Xing Bi asked Zuo Shandiao.
“Zuo Shandiao,” he said.
“Respect to the Third Lord,” Xing Bi said.
Zuo Shandiao was clearly startled, then his eyes lit up. “You…”
“Real name,” Xing Bi said.
“Li Rui. I took my sister’s surname,” Zuo Shandiao said. “She gave me that name. I didn’t have one before.”
“Lead the way,” Xing Bi said.
“What?” Li Rui was taken aback.
“To kill him,” Xing Bi said.
Xing Bi’s decision caught Li Rui off guard. Qiu Shi, however, wasn’t surprised. The questions Xing Bi had asked were just to confirm if this “Diao’er” was telling the truth.
But even without asking, someone like Qiu Shi—educated at a refugee school with barely any quality instruction—could still tell that Li Rui was being honest.
“You think he really has a way to get us across the river?” Qiu Shi asked in a low voice as he glanced at Li Rui leading the way ahead of them.
“He probably does,” Xing Bi said.
“I feel like what he meant was that his method also comes at the cost of lives,” Qiu Shi said.
“If there’s really a method, and we do it, there might not be any casualties,” Xing Bi said.
“Yeah,” Qiu Shi responded.
In the darkness, they followed the ruined alleys behind the street’s buildings for a while before Li Rui stopped.
Qiu Shi could already see on the map a cluster of small bright dots up ahead—humans. Li Rui wasn’t lying. The prison did have a lot of people inside.
“He’s usually on the top floor,” Li Rui said in a low voice. “How are you planning to get up there? It’s heavily guarded.”
“Are you sure of his location?” Qiu Shi asked.
“Yes,” Li Rui said. “That guy tied to the pillar in the shop—he’s one of his men.”
Qiu Shi glanced at Xing Bi.
“Wait here for us,” Xing Bi said, then moved forward.
Following him were Ji Sui, Feng Zhi, and Sang Fan.
“Just the four of them?” Li Rui asked.
“Have you ever seen a bioroid mutant before?” Qiu Shi asked. “For a place like this, four’s already overkill.”
“I’ve seen one,” Li Rui said.
Qiu Shi said nothing more. He could see that Xing Bi and the others had already circled to the back of the prison—and then went inside, their speed not much slower than if they had walked through the front gate.
From the map, two of the guard dots disappeared. Then Sang Fan’s dot moved into the building.
In less than a minute, the top floor suddenly exploded. A bright flash of fire, followed by a loud bang.
Chaos erupted on the other side. Gunshots rang out—but not many.
In the earpiece, Sang Fan’s voice came through: “The boss is dead.”
“Control the rest,” Xing Bi said.
“Comms are down,” Ji Sui added.
“I’m heading to the lower floors to release the prisoners,” Feng Zhi said.
“He’s dead,” Qiu Shi looked at Li Rui.
Li Rui jerked his head around. “What?”
“The person you wanted dead is now dead,” Qiu Shi said. “Now they’re freeing the people.”
“That easy?” Li Rui was stunned.
“Yeah,” Qiu Shi said.
“They’re… they’re the legendary Hidden Guards, aren’t they?” Li Rui asked.
