64: I was careless and didn't dodge (please add)

Strangely enough, very few cars were parked in this service area, yet there were twenty to thirty people dining in the restaurant.

Zhao Feipeng immediately sensed something was wrong. He quietly leaned in and whispered to Li Xiao, "Boss, the situation doesn't look good. Everyone in this restaurant is male, and their eyes are cold and sharp. They have a heavy murderous aura; each of them must have at least a few lives on their hands."

"Don't rush. Tell the brothers not to be nervous and to keep a level head!"

After entering the restaurant, Li Xiao noticed the atmosphere was very eerie. Almost everyone was glancing at them, whether intentionally or not.

He went to the counter and saw that the food inside looked quite good.

"Come on! Everyone, pick whatever you want. It's on me!"

"Alright!"

"We can have a real feast today!"

Di Yun, Leng He, and the others crowded around to choose their food. Li Xiao ordered a bowl of rice noodles, two marinated eggs, and a grilled sausage, then took his tray to find a seat.

Just then, he noticed that the empty seats by the main entrance had been taken by two burly men at some point. He had no choice but to find a spot as close to the door as possible and sit down.

Soon, Di Yun and the others also sat around Li Xiao with their food, their rifle muzzles pointed outward.

The rice noodles were well-stocked with large chunks of beef. The marinated eggs were tender and flavorful, and the grilled sausage was packed with lean meat. Li Xiao thought to himself that while this was very likely a shady establishment, their culinary skills were top-notch.

As he ate, Li Xiao saw out of the corner of his eye that people were starting to pull out guns. One fat man sitting by the entrance even had the barrel of his revolver poking out from under the table.

Swallowing the last bite of his sausage, Li Xiao silently added 10,000 maximum health points to each of the eight people on his side. Then, he gave Zhao Feipeng a look, and everyone's bodies instantly stiffened.

The next second, Li Xiao suddenly stood up, intending to draw the Type 05 pistol on his thigh. However, his head spun, and his vision went black. With a thud, he collapsed to the ground.

The same thing happened to Di Yun and the other seven; within a second or two, they were all slumped over in various positions.

"Damn... I was careless..." This was Li Xiao's last conscious thought before passing out.

When Li Xiao woke up again, he had no idea how much time had passed. His surroundings were incredibly dim, with only a sliver of light filtering in.

He could vaguely make out that it looked like a man-made cave. His hands and feet were shackled with iron, and his legs were tied so tightly with wire rope that he couldn't move at all.

Di Yun and the others had met the same fate, lying on the ground tied up.

"Di Yun! Di Yun! Zhao Feipeng! Yan Yizhou!"

Li Xiao called out to them in a low voice. After a while, they slowly regained consciousness.

"Boss... what's going on?"

Zhao Feipeng tried to hop around and found himself tied up like a mummy.

"I don't know. We must have been drugged by them—it was the food!"

"Drugged?" Leng He said gloomily. "No wonder I thought that food smelled so good."

"These guys have no sense of honor!" Di Yun cursed angrily. "If you've got the guts, fight us one-on-one!"

Li Xiao signaled for everyone to be quiet. "Don't panic yet. Since they didn't kill us, it means they still want to use us for something. Let's first find a way to save ourselves."

Li Xiao tried to summon the inventory interface, but his hands were tied behind his back, making it impossible to operate the virtual screen. He tried using his mouth and tongue to touch it, but it had no effect.

"This is bad..."

Li Xiao was starting to panic. He opened the friends interface, but sending a voice request also required manual operation.

"It's over, it's over..." Li Xiao felt a secret sense of dread. If he had been killed while unconscious, so be it, but the feeling of being tied up and waiting for death was unbearable.

Although their mouths weren't sealed, the handcuffs, shackles, and wire rope as thick as a pinky finger couldn't be bitten through. Saving themselves would be exceptionally difficult.

Just as Li Xiao was racking his brain for a way to break free, the lights in the cave suddenly flared. The sound of an iron door clanging came from outside, followed by a series of heavy footsteps.

Before long, three armed bandits arrived at the iron bars where they were being held.

The reason Li Xiao called them bandits was that the trio's attire certainly looked the part. The leader wore snow camouflage pants and a Leather Jacket.

The two behind him wore either jungle camouflage or black combat uniforms, looking like a mismatched set. Both had AK112s hanging from combat belts across their chests, and their posture was extremely arrogant.

The most prominent feature was that all three wore black cloth masks, revealing only their noses and eyes. If this wasn't the typical image of a bandit, what was?

The man in the Leather Jacket walked up to them, looked around, and asked, "Which one of you is the Commander?"

"It's me!"

Li Xiao stood up unsteadily.

"Good! Take him away!"

With that, the two men behind him stepped forward, opened the iron bars, and pulled Li Xiao out.

"Boss!"

"Boss, don't go!"

Seeing this, Di Yun and Zhao Feipeng shouted urgently, but Li Xiao signaled them with his eyes to stay calm.

It truly was a man-made cave. After passing through a corridor about a dozen meters long, he emerged from the cave entrance.

In the sunlight, the outside looked like a village. Dozens of wooden huts were hidden under tall trees.

It was midday, and wisps of smoke rose from the village. However, a closer look revealed that almost everyone inside and outside the houses was carrying guns. Twenty or thirty pickup trucks parked together were spray-painted in various colors.

But this couldn't hide the vehicles' age and dilapidation. However, the heavy machine guns and rocket launchers mounted on them meant Li Xiao didn't dare underestimate them.

"Is this some kind of terrorist organization?"

Seeing this equipment that was both familiar and strange, Li Xiao's confusion deepened.

Then, Li Xiao's shackles were opened, and the wire rope on his legs was cut with hydraulic pliers. He was shoved into the largest wooden house in the village.

This was a large house with a span of thirty meters. As soon as he entered, Li Xiao was nearly sickened by the thick stench of sweat and tobacco.

Fortunately, he managed to hold it in. The light in the room was dim. A row of sofas—some leather, some fabric—lined both sides of the long room. In front of the sofas was a long string of coffee tables.

Leftover bones, various fruits, and countless wine bottles were scattered across them. Naturally, there were even more cigar butts all over the floor.

There were about a dozen people in the room, almost all styled like bandits, and each more burly than the last.

Right at the front, on a large chair carved from an old tree root, a Bald Man was drinking while holding a scantily clad young woman. When he saw Li Xiao enter, he stubbed out his cigar in the fruit plate in front of him.

"Look who's here!"

"Move!"

The man in the Leather Jacket pushed Li Xiao forward and barked, "Kneel!"

Li Xiao remained indifferent, staring intently at the Bald Man. The man was shirtless, and from his stomach to his shoulders and back, he was covered in a variety of tattoos. There were Chinese characters and English, Eastern dragons and tigers, as well as Western wyverns and black wolves.

On his shoulders and chest, there were unusual protrusions, appearing to be formed from the healing of bullet wounds.