CH 184

“Boss, can you please not speak with a tone that suggests any restaurant would do for dinner tonight?” Wang Chao took two steps back, almost wanting his boss to see how many armed militants were surrounding the factory building.

Zaratul’s men were not grazing sheep. They were all bloodthirsty, inhumane individuals. Although those militants were now picking their feet and smoking behind the bunker, Wang Chao had no doubt that as soon as they revealed any trace of their presence, they would be shot into pieces by their assault rifles.

“Is there a difference?” Xing Conglian exhaled a mouthful of smoke and said, “If you don’t want to go in, we can leave now.”

“But boss, why do we have to go in by ourselves? Can’t we think of other ways?”

“It’s too late.” Xing Conglian shook the ashes from his cigarette. “The Gaomeng Tribe has been besieged there for at least 48 hours. Why don’t you think Zaratul just rush in and kill them?”

“Why?” Kang An asked. “Boss, I don’t understand this matter anymore. Why did the high-ranking Gaomeng Tribe, who were once killers, become the target of massacre? How did the Gaomeng Tribe provoke Zaratul and be driven here? Why is Zaratul besieging and trapping the Gaomeng people here instead of attacking them?”

His boss looked at Kang An and pointed to his face and asked, “Do I look like an encyclopedia?”

“Boss, I’m really confused. Please tell me,” Kang An said stubbornly.

Xing Conglian said, “Zaratul spent so much time driving the Gaomeng people here for only one reason. Their boss wants to catch them alive.”

“Boss, it feels like you have a long-standing relationship with Zaratul,” Wang Chao suddenly said.

“Fuck off.” Xing Conglian even had a layer of frost on his brows. He seemed to have the momentum of quickly flattening Zaratul, then leaving.

Comrade Xiao Wang, who was glared at, didn’t dare speak again. “Find the blueprint of that factory.” His boss changed his foot on the stake and hooked his fingers at him.

There were only four of them; a useless technical dog, a brainless bar owner, and a mentally ill person who only had love on his brain. Only his boss, the lovelorn dog, was all the combat power left. But how could one person be worth a thousand? He could only say, “Boss, this is an illegal building at first glance. I might not be able to find blueprints online!”

“Cut the crap.”

Comrade Wang Chao swallowed his saliva and didn’t dare talk nonsense anymore. His hands were flying, cackling the keyboard for a long time, until he finally dared to say, “Boss… I really can’t.”

Hearing this, his boss raised his binoculars, scanned the abandoned sign at the entrance of the factory, and said, ‘This should be a mine built by the British. It has the style of a Bredensen Mine. Look online for a similar model.”

“Oh!” Comrade Xiao Wang’s eyes lit up. Soon, a similar factory floor plan was laid out in front of him. Looking at the similar factory layout on the drawing, he almost wanted to kneel and call his boss dad. “Boss, it’s really there!”

As he spoke, he turned the screen around and looked up at his boss.

In short, he didn’t know what his boss was looking at. After about ten seconds, his boss nodded, turned his head, and walked back.

Wang Chao hurriedly closed the laptop, but Kang An had followed after Xing Conglian before him.

“Boss, how do we get in? You can’t just leave us like this. Xiao Wu may be with the Gaomeng people inside there!”

When Wang Chao heard this, he wanted to pick up his notebook and smack Kang An unconscious.

Soon, they were back at the Dana River again. His boss glanced at the river, then tilted his head and said to Kang An, “Go down.”

As expected, there would be casualties!

Kang An let out an aggrieved sigh and said, “Me… Why?”

“Didn’t you ask how we’re going to get in?”

While speaking, his boss also began to take off his shoes slowly. “The mines have sewage treatment systems, and the drainage outlet is in the Dana River. We’ll enter through the drainage outlet.”

“Boss, what you say makes sense. Why didn’t I think of it?” Hearing this, Kang An began to take off his clothes without hesitation.

Wang Chao looked at the wide and turbid river in front of him. The sound of rumbling water rushed toward his face. He then looked back at the Zaratul militants patrolling in the sun in the distance. Those dark guns were illuminated coldly under the sun, but he felt as if the two men undressing in front of him were completely dismissive of it.

“Boss, I… I’m not going in, right?”

“Yes.” Xing Conglian’s answer was straightforward.

Just as Wang Chao wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, he heard his boss say, “There are no wolves in the rainforest, so you won’t die.”

Comrade Xiao Wang trembled with fright. Thinking of the many sinister legends of the Dana Rainforest, he wept. He took out his waterproof bag from his backpack and began to pack his electronic equipment. His boss and Comrade Kang An, who was mentally handicapped, each picked out some lightweight firearms and packed them in waterproof bags. In the end, when the three of them had finished packing their things, the Gaomeng man, who had been watching the entire thing, stared at him bewildered.

“Boss Xing, are we going to sneak into the factory from the water?”

“Oh, keep up and don’t get lost,” Xing Conglian said as he picked up his backpack and carried it on his back.

Kang An was also ready to make final preparations before going into the water. “Boss, I only have one last question. If the Gaomeng people are besieged by Zaratul, why don’t they ask for help? Why didn’t anyone come save them?”

“Why didn’t they ask for me?” Xing Conglian sneered.

“Who would they call?”

“You.”

Before his voice fell, his boss had already jumped into the water first.

……

Lin Chen developed a fever before arriving in Dana that evening.

The gauze attached to his palm had been torn off by Duan Yang long ago, and the sutures began to fester. It was no longer itchy, leaving only the pain of corroding flesh behind. The wound was exposed to the rain and passed through a cabin full of bacteria. With little sleep in the past few days, it wasn’t surprising that it became infected.

Before the helicopter landed, there was a vast expanse of greenery outside the porthole. He remembered the words Mrs. Jiang used to describe the Dana Region and felt that she was indeed a student of science. Her choice of words wasn’t exaggerated, but he didn’t expect that he would set foot on this land one day and in such a bizarre way.

As Duan Yang helped him out of the helicopter, the propeller fanned the reddish-brown sand all around them, causing them to choke and cough involuntarily.

What was even more bizarre than kidnapping them to Dana was that there was still an abandoned factory in the rainforest area. Lin Chen looked around, and through the gaps in the dust, he could see armed men with guns. There were things around the abandoned factory buildings that he couldn’t name, so he considered them to be rockets.

With guns pressed against them, they bypassed two factory buildings and were escorted to a place close to the river.

Lin Chen looked up. Half of the factory building had collapsed, and the corroded and rusted tower cranes traversed the middle of the factory building.

Just when he was worried about sheltering from the rain, someone casually pulled the planks off the ground and pushed them into the cellar.

Their trip was probably related to dark, confined spaces.

There were only two dim wall lamps in the cellar, illuminating the entire long corridor. On both sides of the corridor were iron cages for holding wild animals. Some cages were empty, while others had people locked up. The lights were too dim, so he could barely see the blurry figure crawling in the cage along with some dried things that he didn’t know were blood or vomit.

The sound of iron chains was heard as someone opened an iron door. It seemed he and Duan Yang were confined together in the same cage.

They sat on a pile of haystacks. The surroundings were damp and sultry, and he could hardly see Duan Yang’s face clearly.

He leaned against the cage. The previous short walk had exhausted his last trace of physical strength. Lin Chen didn’t know if it was because he was suffering from a fever, but he felt the air he sucked into his lungs was terribly hot.

Duan Yang pushed him, measuring his heartbeat with one hand and stroking his forehead with the other, as he did to the unidentified middle-aged man in the dark cabin of the fishing boat.

Lin Chen gently touched the iron ring in his hand and heard Duan Yang’s voice full of worry. “Consultant Lin, close your eyes and rest for a while.” The young man stretched out his leg and said to him, “It’ll be more comfortable for you to use my lap as a pillow.

Lin Chen finally knew that getting sick couldn’t be avoided by being mentally strong. He didn’t refuse and laid down. The moment his body touched the cold iron bars, he felt a throbbing pain all over.

He coughed lightly.

“Consultant Lin, you told me about your ‘tips’, but in fact, you don’t believe in it at all, do you?” Duan Yang asked.

Since they were in a foreign territory, naturally they couldn’t talk about the conspiracy of a multinational pharmaceutical company or the undercover encounter on the fishing boat. They could only say irrelevant things casually. Of course, the most critical issue was that, in a desperate situation, the details of right and wrong weren’t really important.

“Of course. Do I look like the coaxing type?” Lin Chen replied.

“No, but I think what the book says may make sense. Why don’t you try to believe it, and if you persist, I think we can escape?”

“Duan Yang.” Lin Chen looked at the wrinkled face in front of him and said, “You make me feel as if my life is in danger, but it’s not that easy for me to die.”

“After listening to the tips you told me, I have always had a very strong feeling.”

“You think you’re going to see your teacher?”

“Yes.” Duan Yang’s tone was firm.

“Using hints with your intuition isn’t effective on me. I’m not the type that’s easily influenced by suggestion.”

“Consultant Lin.” Duan Yang was suddenly discouraged, and his scowling face got tighter.

“What?”

“Why are you so difficult?” Duan Yang said almost at a loss.

Lin Chen laid on the ground and laughed. Duan Yang was really cute. If he could stay with such an interesting person in the last period of his life, it wouldn’t be too boring. At least it was better than trying to avoid thinking about things that would make him feel regret, such as Xing Conglian.

“Your expression is wrong,” Duan Yang said.

Lin Chen changed his posture and laid on his side. “If your wound hurts to death like mine and you have a high fever and can’t get treatment, your expression will be the same as mine.”

“You’re being too negative, Consultant Lin. There’s no one you especially want to meet? Can’t you persevere?”

“Yes.”

“Then think about that person, okay? As long as you will it, they might show up!”

“Not good.”

“Why?”

“It’s nothing. I’d rather he not be here and not know these things,” Lin Chen said calmly.