69: Chapter 69 Dawn

At 5:20 AM, the Beishan Safe Zone was still shrouded in a layer of night mist that had yet to disperse.

The gate of Courtyard 37 slid open silently. When Captain Wang Xuan stepped out, members of the Iron Wolf Group were already waiting at the entrance of the alley. There were four burly men, all dressed in dark short-sleeved shirts. They carried no lights, communicating with each other solely through hand gestures. The scarred, bald man leading them gestured to Captain Wang Xuan that everything was ready.

Captain Wang Xuan glanced back into the courtyard. Li Wei stood behind the door, his saber already hanging at his waist in the easiest position to draw. The newly wrapped hilt cord gleamed in its clean, natural color under the morning light. Xue Xing squatted at the base of the wall, tightening the wrists of a pair of heavy-duty gloves. Gu Lan sat on the threshold with her eyes closed, her Psychic Energy faintly circulating around her, causing a very faint crackle of static electricity in the air.

Hu Xiner flipped down from the roof, landing with almost no sound.

"There are currently twenty-three living people inside the Black Tiger Gang's building. Eleven on the first floor: four in the warehouse, three behind the main entrance, two in the corridor, and two in the kitchen. Seven on the second floor: Boss Hu is in the parlor, lying on the sofa, awake. His bald henchman is in the next room cleaning a gun, and the remaining five thugs are scattered along the corridor and the stairwell. Four on the third floor: two guarding the archives, and two patrolling the corridor. The basement entrance is a hidden door beneath the stairs, with a single guard behind it." She opened her eyes. "Boss Hu hasn't slept all night. Because we didn't make a move, he thinks we didn't dare to."

"He got half of it right." Captain Wang Xuan tightened the wrists of his gloves as well. "We indeed didn't make a move last night. But he didn't foresee today."

He walked toward the alley entrance, and the four men from the Iron Wolf Group followed silently behind him. Hu Xiner flipped back onto the roof. Her perception was the eyes of the entire operation; every person's movement and every change in position would be transmitted through her to Captain Wang Xuan's radio. Gu Lan and Miss Gu Rui stayed behind to guard Courtyard 37.

The leader of the Iron Wolf Group, Captain of Iron Wolf Corps, was already waiting at the alley entrance where the East District met the Settlement Area. He had brought twelve men tonight, all of whom were retired garrison soldiers. They had fought in gang wars within the Safe Zone and knew how to lay siege to a building without alerting the patrols. The twelve men were split into three groups: one group would launch a feint attack from the main entrance, one group would block the back alley to prevent escape through the windows, and one group would follow the demolitions expert to the side wall.

"There are at least two light machine guns set up behind the main entrance." Captain Wang Xuan squatted on the ground, shining his flashlight on a layout of the building hand-drawn by Hu Xiner. "Boss Hu has concentrated his firepower at the first-floor main entrance. Three thugs are taking turns on guard behind the door, and four are on standby in the warehouse. A frontal assault on the main entrance isn't worth it. Your feint group doesn't need to charge in; just draw their fire from outside."

Captain of Iron Wolf Corps nodded. "What about the side?"

Captain Wang Xuan pointed to the side wall on the layout. "The side exterior wall is a reinforced brick wall, three bricks thick, and Boss Hu had a steel plate added inside the wall, so ordinary battering rams won't break it. The breaching point will be 1.5 meters off the ground, which will create a half-man-high opening once blown. Your demolitions expert needs to control the explosive charge to just blast through the exterior wall without damaging the building's structural integrity. Our people will enter through the breach, while your people press in from the main entrance, sandwiching them."

"What about the kitchen?"

"We'll set fire to the kitchen first. Old Lu will take two men and sneak in from the back alley, pile up a bunch of diesel-soaked rags outside the kitchen, light them, and run. The fire doesn't need to be big, but the smoke must be thick. Once smoke rises from the kitchen, Boss Hu's men will inevitably split off to rush there. That's when we'll follow up with the side breach, catching them completely off guard."

The Thin Tall Guy squatting next to Captain of Iron Wolf Corps was the demolitions expert for this mission. Surnamed Meng, he was formerly with the garrison's engineering company and had an old scar across his right eye from a piece of shrapnel. He pulled two blocks of plastic explosives from his backpack and laid them on the ground. "I calculated the explosive charge last night. It's a shaped charge. The blast diameter will be half a meter, the shockwave will direct outward, and the debris will fly outward instead of splashing inside. Your entry team should stand five meters away from the breach point, cover your ears, keep your mouths open, and charge in within one second after the blast."

"5:25 AM." Captain of Iron Wolf Corps glanced at his watch. "The patrol just finished their shift change. The next time they pass through the East District is 5:50 AM. We have twenty-five minutes."

Captain Wang Xuan stood up and brushed the dust off his knees. "Let's move."

Thick smoke rose first from the back alley.

Old Lu of the Iron Wolf Group was once a mess hall sergeant, and he knew the layout of kitchen exhaust pipes better than his own home. He stuffed three diesel-soaked rags outside the exhaust vent of the Black Tiger Gang's kitchen and struck a match. The flames caught silently, but the smoke was as thick as a grayish-black python, pouring inside along the exhaust vent. In less than half a minute, chaos erupted in the kitchen. Someone was shouting "Fire!", pots and pans were knocked to the ground, the iron door clanged twice, and the sound of rushing footsteps surged from the kitchen toward the depths of the corridor.

"The two from the kitchen have run to the front hall. Four on the first floor have come out of the warehouse and are heading toward the kitchen." Hu Xiner's voice came through the radio, her tone steady but her pace extremely fast. "The three behind the main entrance haven't moved. Boss Hu has sat up on the second floor, glanced out the window, and sat back down."

"Prepare for breach." Captain Wang Xuan squatted against the side wall five meters away from the designated breach point, raising his hand to signal Xue Xing and Li Wei to cover their ears. Little Meng had already affixed the plastic explosives to the wall, run the detonator wire ten meters out, and kept his finger pressed on the detonator.

"Any patrol at three o'clock?"

"No. There are no garrison troops within two alleys."

"Blow it."

Little Meng pressed the detonator. A muffled explosion shattered the silence of the early morning. The shockwave from the shaped charge precisely blasted a half-man-high breach through the three-layer brick wall. Rubble and steel plate fragments splattered outward, and brick dust kicked up a cloud of yellowish-white smoke in the morning light. Before the sound of the blast had even faded, Li Wei had already stepped onto the edge of the breach and slipped inside, his saber unsheathing the very second he entered the building.

In the first-floor corridor, a thug who had just rushed back from the kitchen ran straight into Li Wei. His first reaction upon seeing Li Wei was to open his mouth—an instinctive gasp of terror triggered by the gleam of the blade. Li Wei gave him no chance to make a sound, striking the side of his neck with the flat of his blade, causing the man to groan and collapse to the floor. Xue Xing slipped in right behind him. Swinging a short-handled iron bar with both gloved hands, he brought it down toward a second thug running out from the warehouse. The man raised his arms to block, and the iron bar struck his forearm with a dull crack of breaking bone. Before a scream could escape his throat, Xue Xing kicked him hard in the chest, sending him sprawling backward into a pile of clutter in the corner.

"First-floor corridor cleared." Captain Wang Xuan was the third to slip inside, speaking into the radio clipped to his collar. "Captain of Iron Wolf Corps, are the three behind the main entrance still there?"

"Still there. They haven't moved—probably waiting for Boss Hu's orders."

"Press in."

The Iron Wolf Group's feint attack group outside the main entrance struck simultaneously. A burly man swung a battering ram against the hinges of the iron door, causing it to vibrate violently. The three men behind the door finally panicked. A machine gun barrel poked out from a firing port, but there was no one outside; the feint group had dodged to the side of the wall immediately after striking. The gun barrel turned twice in the port without finding a target and retracted. Immediately after, a second blow struck the exact same spot, and the hinges let out a metallic groan of impending failure.

On the second floor, Boss Hu had already stood up. Barefoot on the carpet of the parlor, he roared at his bald henchman at the door, "What's the situation on the first floor? Tell them to hold the main entrance! Was the side wall blown up? Send someone to look—"

"Boss Hu, the side wall was blown up!" A thug came stumbling down the corridor. "The Creeper's people have already entered the first floor! The Iron Wolf Group is battering the main entrance, and we don't have enough men—"

"Hold the main entrance!" Boss Hu grabbed a modified shotgun from beside the sofa and walked toward the stairwell. "How many came in through the side wall?"

"I... I don't know..."

The bald henchman drew the pistol from his waist and took two steps toward the stairwell. His sequence ability was Strength Enhancement; his muscles bulged, stretching his cuffs tight. But he had no chance to go down the stairs. Li Wei vaulted up to the second floor from below the stairs, stepping on the handrail to flip himself over. His blade slashed upward, cutting the bald man's forearm. The pistol flew out of his hand, discharging as it hit the wall. The bullet pierced the ceiling, triggering a chorus of screams and chaotic footsteps on the third floor. Clutching his bleeding arm, the bald man retreated. Li Wei did not pursue, pointing the tip of his saber at Boss Hu at the end of the corridor.

Boss Hu raised his shotgun. The old scar at the corner of his mouth twisted in the dim light, his finger tightening on the trigger. But Captain Wang Xuan had already come up the stairs from another direction, standing two steps behind Li Wei, holding the standard-issue short sword he had brought back from the Bell Tower.

"Boss Hu. Twelve of your men are already down. The hinges on the main entrance won't last another minute. The ground floor is crawling with our people. Put down your gun, and let's talk terms."

"Talk terms?" Boss Hu sneered, chewing on something between his teeth. "An outsider Caravan teaming up with the Iron Wolf Group to set fires and blow up walls on my turf—what terms is there to talk about?"

"Your men don't all have to be sent to the Black Prison. If you name your inside source in the Registration Office, you can get a lighter sentence. And if you hand over that item in the basement of your own accord, we can remove one charge from the garrison's search warrant," Captain Wang Xuan said.

Boss Hu's face changed the moment he heard the word "basement." His expression wasn't one of anger, but rather a brief, blank look of someone whose trump card had just been exposed. His finger on the trigger tightened slightly, then relaxed.

"How the fuck do you know about the basement?"

"I don't just know about the basement." Captain Wang Xuan took a step forward. "I also know that the item you hid shares the same energy signature as the disappearances in the Industrial Park. You think it's a containment object, and you think you can control it. But you don't have the perception ability of a Sequencer; you don't realize it's draining your life force. Wearing that tooth necklace every day, haven't you noticed you get tired more and more easily? Haven't you noticed your wounds heal slower and slower? That's not a containment object; it's a strange parasite. It's using your life to sustain itself."

Boss Hu looked down at the strange tooth necklace around his neck. The teeth glowed with an abnormal dark red under the dim light—the color of long-term saturation with decay energy. His Adam's apple bobbed as if he wanted to say something, but the tip of Li Wei's blade was already pressed against the hollow of his collarbone.

The gun slipped from Boss Hu's hand and clattered to the floor.

At that moment, the iron door hinges finally snapped. The main entrance was battered open from the outside by the burly men of the Iron Wolf Group, crashing to the ground with a resounding boom as dust filled the air. The Iron Wolf Group's men flooded into the first floor, clashing with the three thugs behind the main entrance. Deprived of machine-gun cover, the three thugs had almost no room to resist and were pinned to the ground. One who tried to draw a dagger had his wrist stepped on by Captain of Iron Wolf Corps. When the thugs in the second-floor corridor saw a blade held to Boss Hu's neck, they threw down their weapons one after another. Hearing the quiet descend below, the men on the third floor gave up any futile resistance as well.

5:40 AM. The entire building was secured. Hu Xiner slid down from the roof, nodded to Captain Wang Xuan, and walked toward the basement entrance. The hinges of the hidden door were cut by the Iron Wolf Group's bolt cutters. Once the door was pulled open, a sweet, rotting stench surged up from below. Captain Li arrived at the scene five minutes later with a search warrant and a garrison squad. Inside the basement, they recovered a containment object wrapped in lead sheets, a large quantity of raw materials for strange fog bait, and the ledger records between the Black Tiger Gang and Glasses from the Registration Office. That bespectacled registrar was escorted away from his post by the garrison that very afternoon.

When Boss Hu was escorted away, the strange tooth necklace around his neck had already been sealed in a lead box. He was led barefoot from the second floor to the first floor, his bald head smeared with dust, looking as though he had suddenly aged ten years. He paused as he passed Captain Wang Xuan, turning his head to glare at him with bloodshot eyes.

"You think that because you took me down, your outsider Caravan gets to call the shots in the Safe Zone?" His voice was raspy and hoarse. "The waters of the Beishan Safe Zone are deeper than you can ever fathom. Now that I've fallen, there are even tougher nuts waiting for you." He let out a laugh—the kind of laugh from someone who had completely hit bottom but still wanted to throw broken glass under someone else's feet. "Just you wait and see."

Captain Wang Xuan said nothing. Captain of Iron Wolf Corps waved his hand at the escorts, and Boss Hu was marched out of the main entrance. The iron door dragged along the ground, making a dull, metallic scraping sound.

5:50 AM. The footsteps of the garrison patrol echoed from the alley entrance, as punctual as a clock chime. They paused for a brief moment at the alley entrance—likely seeing the blown-open side wall and the rubble-strewn ground—before continuing forward. They didn't enter to question anyone, nor did they call for reinforcements. The veteran soldier leading the patrol nodded to Captain of Iron Wolf Corps as he passed, and Captain of Iron Wolf Corps returned the nod. The tacit understanding between retired garrison soldiers didn't need to be written on paper.

Captain Wang Xuan stood on the first floor of the Black Tiger Gang's headquarters, stepping on the shattered bricks and shell casings scattered across the floor, watching Boss Hu's retreating back disappear at the alley entrance. The morning light poured in simultaneously from the main entrance and the breached side wall, illuminating the entire building.

"It's over," Xue Xing said.

"The Black Tiger Gang is over." Captain Wang Xuan took off his gloves and wiped the dust from his hands. "But you heard Boss Hu's last words. How could Glasses from the Registration Office and a D-class Sequencer with Strength Enhancement hide a C-class decay containment object in their basement for over half a year without being discovered? Without someone covering for him, he couldn't have hidden it."

Captain of Iron Wolf Corps fell silent for a few seconds. "Are you saying there's someone above Boss Hu?"

"Not a person." Captain Wang Xuan pulled the energy fluctuation record sheet that Hu Xiner had just retrieved from the basement out of his pocket and unfolded it. Aside from the previously marked location of the decay fluctuations, there was a newly added line of handwriting: *Source tracking failed; suspected link connection to the abandoned section of the North District and the deep layers of the Industrial Zone.*

Captain Wang Xuan turned and walked back toward Courtyard 37. Li Wei followed behind him, his saber already returned to its sheath, though his knuckles on the hilt remained white. The Black Tiger Gang had fallen, but the fluctuation link of the containment object they had hidden for over half a year had not yet been traced to its end. These waters indeed had no bottom in sight.