Chapter 150 Black Chess
The rain was pouring down like a bucket. The drainage system in this area was not very good, and soon a thick layer of water accumulated on the ground. The sewage had risen to the ankles, and plastic bags, leaves and other debris floating on the water would occasionally hit the calves.
The drain outlet gulped down the dark grey water with a thin strand of red mixed in it, flowing in through the gaps in the iron rod and soon mixed with the sewage, making its original colour unrecognizable.
Zhou Dong held onto the wall and staggered a few steps. He heard hurried footsteps not far behind him, so he quickly turned around and hid behind a pile of boxes. As soon as he hid, a team of people wearing raincoats and holding flashlights passed by to search the area. Their rain boots made a "pat pat" sound as they stepped on the water.
In the darkness and rain, people were searching for him everywhere. Even if he couldn't be found for a while, he would have nowhere to escape once the day broke.
After the large-scale jailbreak in City A, most of the prisoners were recaptured within a few days, and some were shot dead. There are only three people still at large, including Zhou Dong. Wanted warrants for them have been issued to various provinces, cities, and villages, and one is posted on every few telephone poles. Even if ordinary people don't pay attention to those photos and can't connect them to the real person after seeing the photos, he still hides like a stray dog, and dares not show up wherever there are people.
But Zhou Dong didn't think he could hide for much longer. The intensity of the hunt for them this time was much greater than before. He couldn't even find a place to stay. If there weren't people around to help him, he would have been arrested in the first week.
If he is caught again, he will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. Instead of that, it would be better to exchange this life for something else, for example, Lu Yanwang's life.
Lu Yanwang, also known as "Lu Yanwang", is said to have started his career by being involved in gangs. Now he has completely cleaned up his name, but he still has a large number of brothers who used to fight and kill each other. His business methods are not clean either. There are countless small business owners who have been forced to lose their families by him. The rich second generation who bullied Zhou Dong's sister was Lu Yanwang's son. Speaking of it, the reason why the young master Lu acted so recklessly was because he had the support of this old man. He was the real culprit. Zhou Dong wanted to find him a long time ago, but he was surrounded by tight security and he never had the chance to do it.
After escaping from prison this time, he hid and came to the vicinity of Lu Yanwang's residence with his own unclear expectations, and unexpectedly found that there were no police around. Lu Yanwang was going to attend a charity party, and there were few people following him. The security personnel of the party were scattered and the inspection was not strict, which gave him the opportunity to sneak in. Who knew that when Zhou Dong sneaked in and found Lu Yanwang, he found that this was all a trap for him. Lu Yanwang refused the protection offered by the police because he wanted to personally avenge the murderer who killed his son.
Although Zhou Dong discovered the abnormality in time and escaped from the encirclement, he had been shot in the abdomen. It seemed that his internal organs were not injured. However, if he continued like this, he would die from excessive bleeding sooner or later.
——I won’t accept this! I won’t accept this! I won’t accept this!
Zhou Dong clenched his fists and punched the wall several times. He felt no pain even though his knuckles were bleeding. When he closed his eyes, he seemed to see his sister lying in a pool of blood with her body twisted and her eyes staring straight at the sky.
There was a sound of tapping footsteps coming towards this direction. If he went forward he would definitely see him. Zhou Dong was about to run when he suddenly noticed that the electronic display screen on the wall not far from him changed.
The indicator light that was originally flashing green "Emergency Exit" flashed twice and turned into the two words "Squat Down!" plus a punctuation mark.
Zhou Dong was stunned, his brain was a little insufficient.
Suddenly the indicator light changed back and a flashlight flashed over. The other party was closer than he thought. It was too late to run now. He squatted down without thinking and heard the footsteps getting closer and closer. Soon they were only about one meter away from him. If he went forward, he would definitely find him!
Zhou Dong tightly grasped the butcher knife hidden in his arms, ready to fight to the death.
“Beep…beep…beep…beep…”
Suddenly, a series of car alarms were heard from a distance, as if someone had accidentally hit a car in the underground parking lot. The search teams shouted "He's there!" and all surrounded the area.
Zhou Dong breathed a sigh of relief. He looked again and saw that the indicator light had changed to two new lines of small characters: "Go left for 55 meters, turn right and go up the stairs."
Zhou Dong couldn't figure out what was going on, but at this point, there was no need for Lu Yanwang to use such means to trick him. He had no choice but to believe this mysterious message.
He followed the instructions on the message and went up the stairs. When he looked up, the camera at the corner of the stairs turned around with him. Zhou Dong subconsciously wanted to hide, but he saw the red light on the camera suddenly flashed. He was stunned, and then saw that the display of a nearby indicator light also changed to "Go up to the third floor, hide in the left room."
Zhou Dong hesitated for a moment and then did as he was told.
Next, under the guidance of the mysterious indicator light, he went upstairs and downstairs. Every time a search team approached, he would remind him in advance to avoid them, or make unusual noises elsewhere to lure people away. More than ten minutes later, he successfully arrived at the empty parking lot, and with a car key found in the room on the third floor, he opened the lock of a nearby car.
Sitting in the car, the feeling of being surrounded by the iron sheet on all sides gave him a sense of security. Zhou Dong started the car and couldn't help asking, "Who are you?"
He knew that he looked silly talking to himself, and of course he didn't get any response. But the car's navigation system screen once again showed a familiar flicker and change, this time it was not a text instruction, but a crooked navigation map.
After the engine roared low for a few seconds, the black car rushed out and blended into the equally dark rain and night.
…
Gong Lan anxiously rubbed her hands and walked around the room. When she heard the door open, she ran over immediately. Zhou Dong walked in, holding his stomach, and fell down as soon as he entered the room.
"Hey, hey! How are you? Are you okay...blood! You're bleeding!"
Gong Lan was so scared that tears started streaming down her face. She wanted to help Zhou Dong up, but her thin arms and legs made it impossible for her to do so. She could only hold his shoulders and drag him a few steps into the house, put him on the carpet, and then looked at the wound on his stomach, at a loss as to what to do.
"What should I do? What should I do? Oh, call an ambulance... Dial 119... No, no, no, it's 120..."
Gong Lan took out her cell phone, her hands were shaking so much that she couldn't dial the right number for a long time. Suddenly, two slender white fingers took the phone away from her hand. Gong Lan was so scared that she screamed "Wow" and sat down. Looking at the person who suddenly appeared in front of her, she asked with trembling lips: "You...you...who are you? How did you get in?"
The man who came was a man wearing thin-rimmed glasses, a white shirt and gray trousers. He looked gentle and had very fair skin. He pushed his glasses and said, "Excuse me, I saw the door was not closed, and there was no response when I knocked, so I just came in." He looked at Zhou Dong lying on the ground and said, "By the way, I'm a doctor. This is the patient you want to help, right?"
"Doctor?" Gong Lan only then noticed that the man was holding a medical kit. Without even thinking about why this man showed up in time, she quickly nodded and said, "Yes, yes, yes, doctor, please save him!"
"Of course, that's why I'm here." The doctor smiled gently at Gong Lan, then bent down and easily picked up Zhou Dong and placed him on the bed in the bedroom. He opened his toolbox, revealing various surgical tools and medicines that were shining with cold light.
Gong Lan followed him, watching his professional and smooth movements, and gradually felt at ease. Only then did she have time to think about other questions - for example, who is this person? Is he someone Zhou Dong knows? Will he call the police?
She was daydreaming when she suddenly heard some noise in the living room. Thinking the door might not be closed yet and that the blood on the floor might be seen by others, she ran out in a hurry and saw two tall and strong men standing in the living room. Gong Lan's legs went weak all of a sudden.
One man looked ordinary, but his eyes were as cold as ice. He stood by the door, leaning against the wall, looking at people with a chilly look, as if his life was in danger. The other man was very handsome and wore earrings. He took a can of beer from the refrigerator and drank it down without asking her, the host, and then turned around and accused her: "I'm talking to you, why didn't you even close the door? What if a stranger saw you and thought there was a murder and called the police?"
Gong Lan apologized subconsciously: "I'm...I'm sorry..."
—Aren’t you strangers?
The indifferent man asked, "Where is the owner of this place? Why didn't he show up when he called us here?"
Gong Lan leaned against the wall and stammered, "I... I didn't... call... you guys..." Under the man's cold gaze, she felt as if she had made some mistake. Her voice became lower and lower, and her legs shook more and more violently.
That thing on this guy's waist that's slightly exposed, isn't it a gun? Isn't it a gun? Really isn't a gun?
Hearing her words, the pressure around the man dropped even lower, and his eyes were like knives. The man with earrings said in surprise, "Really?" He walked over, lifted Gong Lan's chin and looked at her, and said curiously, "You look like an ordinary person! Or should I say..." He moved closer, lowered his voice and asked with a smirk, "Are you pretending to be a pig and eating the tiger?"
Although this person was smiling, he looked more dangerous than the ice-faced one. The inexplicable sense of crisis made Gong Lan feel scared, wronged, and confused. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't help but hiccuping .
The man with earrings opened his eyes wide and round like a cat.
"Who's inside?" the cold man asked again.
Gong Lan said: "He..."
“Boom boom boom.”
The house, hitherto deserted except by the landlord, seemed especially popular that evening.
The men looked at each other, and the two men used their eyes to force Gong Lan to open the door. Gong Lan didn't want to go, as she had a bad feeling, but she didn't dare to refute either of them . She had to go to open the door reluctantly and stood hesitantly by the door for a long time.
“Boom boom boom.”
The person outside the door waited for a long time but received no response, so he knocked three more times. Under the pressure of two gazes from behind, Gong Lan had no choice but to open the door.
Outside the door was a drug addict-like figure, with a hunched back, pale complexion, dark eyes, and as thin as a bamboo pole. His hair was so long that it completely covered his ears, and he seemed to have not taken a shower for a long time. He had a strange odor all over his body.
He looked at Gong Lan weakly and said, "I'm here to report." After that, he ignored Gong Lan's question "What are you reporting?" and pushed her aside, walked in, sat down on the sofa, kicked off his shoes and put his feet up, curled up and started playing with his mobile phone.
Being completely ignored, Gong Lan's mouth twitched. Looking at this group of uninvited guests who had taken over the nest, his mind was screaming wildly - what on earth was going on?
When a young man who looked like a student, a beautiful woman with a seductive look, a flat-chested girl with a ponytail, a middle-aged man with a short beard who smoked non-stop, and an old man with gray hair and a strong smell of alcohol came in one after another, Gong Lan was no longer surprised - she was really not surprised at all!
Besides, apart from talking to her for a few words at the beginning, these people ignored her existence without any prior agreement. There was a subtle but real contempt in their eyes, as if she was not from the same class as them. Someone went to find the doctor inside, and after a few words, they seemed to have reached a consensus and began to wait quietly.
Only the beauty talked to Gong Lan for a few words. Gong Lan wanted to ask about their origins but failed, but was tricked into revealing her own origins. After learning that she was once rescued by Zhou Dong, and later helped him escape and provided him with a hiding place, the beauty lost interest in her and started to pay attention to Zhou Dong instead.
Afterwards, Gong Lan cooked for them under their instructions, but she could only eat leftovers in the kitchen; at night they slept on beds, sofas, benches and the living room, and she could only sleep on the floor of the hallway with a sheet. It is better not to mention all these tragic things.
The next morning, when Zhou Dong woke up, he was also shocked to see a room full of strangers.
The owner of the house, Gong Lan, was pitifully driven to the balcony to get some fresh air. Looking at the rest of the people, the doctor, playing with a scalpel in his hand, said, "I think all of us here have received help from the same person and were guided and summoned by him. He was once the person we feared the most, but now he is our boss. We may have intervened in injustice and suffered misfortune, or been oppressed but unable to resist, or wanted to take revenge because we lost important people but were unable to do so..."
He looked at everyone's faces one by one, and when he heard the last sentence, Zhou Dong's face couldn't help but jump.
"He will tell us how to do all the things we wanted to do but couldn't do before ; he will also help us solve all the difficulties we are facing now. Of course, this will not be without cost. He will give us a list, and every person on the list is guilty of heinous crimes and deserves death. Those who don't believe it can use their own methods to verify the truth of the crimes he points out, or collect evidence and hand it over to the police, or..." The doctor paused and said meaningfully: "Solve it in other ways. But there are three conditions - first, no innocent people can be harmed; second, relatives, friends and subordinates can't be involved; third, no torture and killing."
Most people nodded. Some looked excited, while others looked thoughtful. Zhou Dong thought of those mysterious and precise instructions and asked in confusion, "Who are you talking about?"
The doctor looked at him and said, "Crow." He looked at Zhou Dong's shocked expression and said, "And the first person we need to deal with is Lu Yanwang. I don't need to repeat the numerous crimes of this Lord Yama, right?"
