Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Gunfight
Under a derelict bridge, a group of homeless people had lit a bonfire and were cooking a mushy-looking stew.
Luo Kai walked up to an old man with a messy beard and said, "Big Beard, I’m here to crash with you."
The old man’s shifty eyes glanced at the girl next to him, and he grinned. "Xiaoluo, I knew I wasn’t wrong about you! Bringing a little girlfriend home so soon!"
"She’s a pretty one. You’re a lucky man, Xiaoluo!" The surrounding homeless men all started catcalling.
The girl got scared and immediately shrank behind Luo Kai.
"Knock it off. She’s my sister," Luo Kai said. "Big Beard, find us a place to sleep, and make it a clean one."
"Say no more! I’ll make sure your little ’sister’ is comfortable!" the old man said, thumping his chest. He then led them to a culvert in the corner.
Inside the culvert, scraps of cotton and cardboard were messily spread out. It was crude, but it blocked the cold wind from outside.
Luo Kai traded half a crumpled pack of cigarettes for a bowl of the stew. It was a hodgepodge made from leftovers Big Beard and the others had begged for at restaurants and taverns, all cooked together in one big pot. It didn’t look pretty, but it tasted surprisingly good.
He placed the stew in front of the girl and pulled out a few steamed buns. "Eat something, then get some sleep."
The girl furrowed her delicate brows. She didn’t touch the bowl of stew, instead nibbling at a steamed bun in small bites.
Luo Kai also chewed dryly on a steamed bun. "If this really doesn’t work out, we’ll just leave," he said as he ate. "It’s a big world. There’s got to be a place for us somewhere."
The rims of the girl’s eyes went red. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then stopped.
Luo Kai waved his hand dismissively. "If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. It’s fine."
Silence fell. Luo Kai was exhausted and starving. Washing them down with gulps of water, he wolfed down the entire bag of steamed buns and then polished off the bowl of stew. Afterward, he blocked the entrance with a wooden plank, curled up by the opening, and fell fast asleep. To him, food and sleep were the best medicine for his injuries.
He didn’t know how long he’d slept. When he woke, it was the dead of night. In the darkness, a pair of shimmering eyes was watching him.
Luo Kai stretched languidly. He saw that his wounds had already scabbed over and breathed a sigh of relief. He got up, found a candle, and lit it.
The girl’s fair face shimmered in the candlelight. She spoke to him in a low voice, "My name is Xiaozhuo. My father is Zang Haisheng. The person who had me captured was most likely my uncle, so I can’t go back."
Luo Kai didn’t know who Zang Haisheng was, and he couldn’t be bothered to ask more. He just scratched his head and said, "Alright, then you can stay here for now. They’ll never find you."
Early the next morning, Luo Kai figured he should go out and earn some money. Xiaozhuo was too scared to stay alone, and Luo Kai didn’t fully trust the lustful eyes of the other homeless men, so he took her with him.
The two wandered the streets for a bit. There was never a shortage of manual labor jobs, and Luo Kai found work as a porter at a logistics warehouse. He earned one hundred and twenty Star Dollars for the day. Calling over Xiaozhuo, who had been watching from the side, he began searching for a restaurant to eat at, feeling like he’d just struck it rich.
They found a restaurant specializing in Big Plate Chicken. In this world, large livestock was expensive, so poultry was much cheaper and served as the main source of meat for common people.
After eating their fill, Luo Kai took Xiaozhuo for a stroll through the streets. They didn’t head back toward the bridge until it was dark. He knew what a temptation a woman could be for those homeless men, and he wanted to avoid any potential conflict.
These homeless men were all wretched souls, and most were disabled. Big Beard, for instance, had lost a leg and wore a prosthetic. In this world, there were no charitable organizations. They survived like beggars, relying on the handouts of others. It wasn’t an easy life.
As they left the city proper and drew near the bridge, they found the area underneath it completely empty. The group of homeless men was gone without a trace. Luo Kai stopped in his tracks, cautiously scanning his surroundings.
A middle-aged man with white eyebrows emerged from the very culvert they had stayed in. Upon seeing them, he stomped his foot with such force that it cratered the ground, then charged straight for them in huge strides.
A single one of the man’s steps covered the distance of five or six normal paces. He was on them in the blink of an eye, his hand reaching for Luo Kai’s shoulder.
Luo Kai hurriedly pushed Xiaozhuo away and met the attack with a cross punch.
The man changed his grab into a fist, colliding with Luo Kai’s punch. THUD! The impact sent them both stumbling back a few steps. Realizing their opponent was formidable, they simultaneously drew pistols from their waists and aimed, though neither dared to shoot.
Luo Kai’s forehead was beaded with nervous sweat. At this range, dodging a shot to a vital organ was impossible. A single hit would be certain death.
What had seemed like a long chain of events had actually taken only a few seconds. Xiaozhuo, off to the side, finally came to her senses and shouted, "Uncle Fu, Big Brother is a good person!"
The middle-aged man’s gaze softened, but he didn’t lower his gun. "Xiaozhuo," he said, his voice hoarse, "you’re still young. You can’t tell good people from bad."
Xiaozhuo stood between them, saying stubbornly, "Big Brother saved me! He has to be a good person."
’This middle-aged man must be close to Xiaozhuo.’ Luo Kai breathed a sigh of relief. He was just about to lower his gun when he suddenly saw a steam truck charging down the main road. In the back, a group of men in black were raising their guns at them from afar.
Luo Kai’s face changed. He quickly tackled Xiaozhuo to the ground just as bullets slammed into the concrete beside them, sending fragments of rock flying everywhere.
The middle-aged man’s reactions were just as fast. He dove to the side, firing at the distant steam truck even as he fell.
The three of them scrambled into a nearby ditch.
For a moment, the air was filled with the deafening roar of gunfire and the WHIZZ of bullets cutting through the air. It felt like being on a brutal battlefield.
Luo Kai wasn’t nervous; this wasn’t his first live-fire combat. But tonight’s situation was far worse. He was no longer a hunter hiding in the shadows but a target out in the open. The enemy’s firepower was too intense. The three of them were pinned down in the ditch, unable to even peek their heads out.
He could hear the roar of the steam truck getting closer. ’If I don’t find a way to break out of this,’ he thought, ’we’re all dead!’
It had come to a life-or-death moment again. Luo Kai took a deep breath and brought his heart rate under control. For the first time since the battle at the fishing village, he activated his Qi and Blood Surge. His eyes turned completely blood-red as countless minute details of his surroundings flooded his brain, threatening to split his skull with a searing headache. And yet, that feeling of omniscient, all-powerful strength once again coursed through him.
"I’ll provide cover! You get Xiaozhuo to the culvert!" Luo Kai said, his voice raspy as he fought back the pain in his head. Seizing a lull during a burst of gunfire, he charged out, moving so fast that he seemed to leave an afterimage in his place.
It was as if time had slowed. He could see the trajectories of the bullets as they sliced through the air. His body moved like a writhing snake, making constant, minute shifts to dodge the incoming fire. At the same time, the pocket pistol in his hand fired its first shot, precisely hitting the driver of the steam truck. The top of the driver’s head was blown clean off, splattering the cab with red and white.
He fired a second bullet, hitting the man in black in the passenger seat square in the forehead. Now driverless, the steam truck tipped over and crashed into the ditch. The men in black leaped from the truck bed, methodically returning fire while seeking cover.
Luo Kai began to circle the steam truck. Even while moving at high speed, his pocket pistol never missed. Every shot he fired brought another man in black down.
Uncle Fu, his face a mask of astonishment, crawled with Xiaozhuo toward the culvert. The gunfight was simply unbelievable—a single young man had actually forced a whole group of professional gunmen onto the defensive.
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