Chapter 89 Enemies from a Past Life Meet Again! Li Mazi Hanged from a Streetlight
The armored vehicle drove away from the civil air defense project where the black market was located, kicking up a cloud of scorching dust from its rear.
Lin Xingwan's stunt earlier in front of the septic tank had completely severed the ties of her past life.
She leaned back against the seat, preparing to close her eyes and rest.
"Hold on tight." Huo Yuan spoke suddenly, his voice extremely cold.
With one hand, he jerked the steering wheel, and the armored vehicle performed an extremely violent drift, veering directly off the main road leading back to Half-Mountain Villa.
"Are we being tailed?" Lin Xingwan opened her eyes instantly, her hand already reaching for the gun at her waist.
"They've been following us since we left the air-raid shelter." Huo Yuan glanced at the rearview mirror, a bloodthirsty curve hooking at the corner of his mouth.
"Three beat-up pickup trucks, modified, and following very closely. Looks like they've set their sights on the goods we brought out from the black market."
"They have a death wish." Lin Xingwan sneered softly.
Through the rearview mirror, she could clearly see the pickup trucks behind them, biting onto their tail like mangy dogs.
"Head to that abandoned heavy industrial factory zone up ahead. There are no cameras there, and no living people either."
Her tone was as calm as if she were choosing a prime piece of real estate.
Huo Yuan slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
The armored vehicle let out a thunderous roar, like a rampaging steel behemoth, and plunged straight into the desolate factory area a few kilometers away.
Under the scorching heat of over sixty degrees, the massive factory frames baked, emitting a pungent smell of rust.
Huo Yuan slammed on the brakes, skidding the vehicle across a dead-end alley.
The two pushed open the doors and got out. Huo Yuan drew the Tang sword from his back, while Lin Xingwan pulled out two polar military daggers with blood grooves.
As soon as they stood their ground, "Screech!" The ear-piercing sound of brakes rang out one after another.
The three modified pickup trucks arrogantly blocked the alley entrance, completely sealing off their retreat.
The doors opened. Over twenty thugs holding homemade shotguns, machetes, and iron pipes jumped out, cursing and swearing.
This group of people were all sallow and emaciated, but their eyes glinted with the viciousness of those who had killed before.
They were typical wasteland bandits who made a living by robbing lone survivors.
"Run! Why aren't you running anymore?" The man leading them jumped down from the first truck, arrogantly shaking the double-barreled shotgun in his hand.
He was wearing an oily undershirt, and his face was covered in disgusting pockmarks. His yellow teeth showed in a lecherous grin.
"Trading ten bottles of pure water for scrap metal in the black market—did you really think I was blind and couldn't tell you were fat sheep?"
Upon seeing the man's face, Lin Xingwan's pupils constricted sharply. Her hand gripping the military dagger turned white at the knuckles.
Li Mazi! She would recognize this disgusting, pockmarked face even if he were turned to ashes!
In her past life, when the extreme cold had just descended, Lin Xingwan had managed to find a large supply warehouse.
It was this very Li Mazi, who was the warehouse manager at the time! On the surface, he agreed to split the supplies with her, but behind her back, he tampered with the warehouse's rolling shutter door.
He locked her alone in a freezer at sub-zero temperatures for three whole days! If she hadn't been tough and survived by drinking her own blood until Gu Zichen came to "rescue" her, she would have long since become an ice sculpture.
New grudges and old hatreds flooded her heart in that instant.
"An old acquaintance." Lin Xingwan laughed out of extreme anger, her beautiful fox eyes churning with a heart-palpitating, violent murderous intent.
"You know this ugly freak?" Sensing something off about her mood, Huo Yuan slightly shifted his Tang sword, blocking in front of her.
"I'll handle it. Three minutes." He said it nonchalantly; in his eyes, thirty bandits were no different from thirty pigs waiting to be slaughtered.
"No." Lin Xingwan reached out and pressed down on the back of Huo Yuan's blade.
She stared unblinkingly at Li Mazi, like a female leopard that had finally locked onto its prey. "Don't intervene. I must take this man's life myself."
Lin Xingwan's voice was so cold it could freeze. Huo Yuan raised an eyebrow, sheathed his sword, and leaned against the hood of the armored vehicle.
"Fine, you play. I'll cover you." He pulled a lighter from his pocket and toyed with it, not even drawing his gun.
Li Mazi, on the other side, was furious to see the two of them actually having the leisure to chat.
"Damn it! You're about to die and you're still acting tough!" He raised his shotgun and aimed it at Lin Xingwan's head.
"Pretty boy, throw the bag on your back over here! And that car too! Otherwise, I'll blow this woman's head off!"
Lin Xingwan didn't pay any attention to the dark muzzle of the gun. She held her military daggers in a reverse grip and walked slowly, step by step, toward Li Mazi. Her footsteps were as light as a ghost's.
"You're asking for death!" Li Mazi's eyes turned ruthless, and he pulled the trigger directly. "Bang!" The shotgun spewed out a cloud of iron pellets.
But the moment the gun went off, Lin Xingwan's body suddenly slid sideways at an incredibly impossible angle!
The iron pellets grazed her afterimage and struck the shipping container behind her, sparking a burst of flames.
"What?!" Li Mazi's pupils constricted sharply; he didn't even have time to pull the bolt for the second round. Lin Xingwan was already right in front of him!
It was too fast. Her speed, after the marrow-cleansing of the spiritual spring, was simply something these malnourished bandits couldn't perceive.
"Puchi!" The cold military dagger, like a viper flicking its tongue, pierced accurately into Li Mazi's right wrist, which held the gun, and then flicked upward with force!
"Ah—!" The tendon in his hand snapped instantly. The shotgun clattered to the ground.
Li Mazi screamed and clutched his wrist as blood sprayed wildly. "Get her! Hack this bitch to death!" He howled at the top of his lungs.
The twenty or so lackeys around them finally reacted, raising their machetes and swarming them.
Lin Xingwan's figure was like lightning as she charged directly into the crowd. She didn't even use her gun. The military daggers danced in her hands, weaving streaks of deadly, cold silver light.
"Ssh!" Blades sliced through throats. "Crack!" Kneecaps were kicked and shattered.
She was like a heartless killing machine, every move lethal. Every time she struck, a bandit would inevitably fall, screaming.
Fresh blood splattered onto the ground and was instantly evaporated by the scorching asphalt, filling the air with a pungent smell of blood.
In less than a minute, over twenty bandits were all rolling on the ground, wailing, with not a single one able to stand up.
Li Mazi was scared out of his wits. Clutching his severed wrist, he crawled and scrambled, trying to dive under the pickup truck. This wasn't a fat sheep; this was a living Yama!
"What are you running for?" A black military boot stepped, not too lightly or too heavily, onto Li Mazi's back. Lin Xingwan looked down at him from above.
Beads of blood from the military dagger dripped down the blood groove, landing right on Li Mazi's face.
"Grandma! I was wrong! I didn't recognize your greatness! Please, just let me go like a fart!"
Li Mazi kowtowed frantically on the ground, his crotch already soaked.
Lin Xingwan squatted down. She patted Li Mazi's pockmarked face with the back of her blade. "Li Mazi, how did it feel in the freezer? Was it cold?"
Li Mazi froze completely. He stared in terror, eyes wide, at the woman in front of him who was wearing a voice changer and whose face was completely obscured.
"You... how do you know my name is Li Mazi? What freezer? I've never been to any freezer!"
Of course he didn't know. The debts of the past life would be settled in this one.
"It doesn't matter if you don't understand." A cruel smile curled at the corner of Lin Xingwan's mouth. Her hand rose and fell. "Puchi! Puchi!" Two consecutive stabs.
With extreme precision, she severed both of Li Mazi's Achilles tendons. "Ah!!!" A blood-curdling scream echoed through the abandoned factory area.
Li Mazi writhed in pain on the ground like a maggot. Both his hands and feet were ruined; he was completely crippled.
Lin Xingwan stood up and shook the blood off her military dagger with disgust. "This place is nice."
She looked up at a towering, abandoned streetlamp pole nearby. Under the scorching sun, the rusted iron pole was hot enough to fry an egg.
Lin Xingwan walked to the trunk of the armored vehicle and pulled out a special steel towing cable.
Ten minutes later, Li Mazi was stripped naked. Like a slaughtered pig, he was tied tightly by his ankles with the steel cable and hung upside down from that scorching streetlamp pole.
In the heat of over sixty degrees, the sunlight pierced his skin like poisonous needles. He struggled in pain, but his head, engorged with blood from hanging upside down, made him dizzy, and even the strength to scream was rapidly fading.
This was a desolate industrial zone. The ground was full of mutated poisonous insects and crazed red-eyed rats. The smell of blood would soon attract them.
Exposure to the scorching sun, dehydration, and the fear of being slowly gnawed and eaten alive by poisonous insects would be his final and most agonizing end.
"Huo Yuan, let's go." Lin Xingwan clapped her hands and turned toward the armored vehicle. The slaughter just now hadn't even disrupted her breathing.
Huo Yuan opened the car door, his deep eyes filled with undisguised admiration. "Well done." He lowered his head and kissed her on the forehead, handing her a wet wipe.
The armored vehicle restarted, crushed over the pools of blood and wails, and drove out of the industrial zone without looking back.
Inside the cabin, the air conditioning was blowing comfortably. Lin Xingwan wiped her hands clean, took out the blueprints for the individual exoskeleton she had exchanged for at the black market, and began to study them carefully.
Just then, the communicator at Huo Yuan's waist vibrated wildly again. Huo Yuan frowned slightly and pressed the answer button.
Lu Ting's rasping, broken-gong voice instantly exploded inside the cabin.
"Boss! Sister-in-law! You need to come back immediately!"
"That bunch of warlord remnants whose lair we bombed have united with several small shelters and brought several heavy cannons; they've almost reached our defense line at the mountainside!"