Chapter 24: Betrayal

A right turn off the street outside the restaurant led straight onto an eight-lane main road. The morning rush hour wasn't over yet, and this business with the rocket launcher had sent the whole downtown area into an uproar. Car alarms went off in droves, their piercing wails overlapping. Drivers slammed on their brakes and swerved between lanes, trying to get away from the trouble, only to throw traffic into chaos. Nearby pedestrians scattered amid a nonstop barrage of screams and curses.

Steel Commandment members charged out in groups of three or five and began fighting HL's armed assault teams in the streets immediately surrounding the seafood restaurant.

But in equipment, numbers, and military training, HL held every advantage. The difference in tactics was especially obvious, and HL gradually gained the upper hand while suffering virtually no losses.

The assault teams' standard equipment consisted of body armor, ballistic helmets, gas masks, and semiautomatic assault rifles. They also carried military knives for close combat, but rarely had occasion to use them. This wasn't a game of COD, and don't go believing those movie scenes where someone in body armor takes a shotgun blast at close range. The fact is, if a rifle bullet hits you anywhere at all, you're immediately out of the fight. With a bit of bad luck, even a shot to the knee can kill you.

So on a real battlefield, what matters is teamwork: providing cover, coordinating, suppressing the enemy, wearing them down, and only then advancing. Individual heroics are the last thing to encourage in the age of firearms. Even an ability user who tries to take on a well-trained, well-equipped unit head-on will only end up riddled with bullets. There are exceptions, of course, such as someone whose ability happens to be particularly suited to fighting an army, or someone who has already reached Fierce rank or above.

Forced to attempt a breakout, the Steel Commandment faithful panicked and ran wherever they could. They weren't of one mind, either. Some figured they might as well go for broke. Kill one before dying and they'd break even; kill two and they'd come out ahead. Others were thinking about how to stay alive. Should they surrender right away? Or put up a bit of a fight and surrender only if they really couldn't escape? If they did break through, they might get promoted when they returned to the organization. But if they failed, wouldn't that be the end of them? Under these circumstances, it soon became clear whose faith wasn't quite so firm.

The sleeve cannons issued to Steel Commandment actually offered a considerable advantage in medium-range urban firefights. Their firepower could render an ordinary soldier's protective equipment completely irrelevant. In fact, they had been designed that way precisely because, nine times out of ten, a resistance organization would be fighting street battles against superior numbers.

In practice, though, the members fought on their own, without watching one another's backs or providing covering fire, and were gradually caught in the HL assault teams' interlocking fields of fire. The cordon tightened until every last Steel Commandment member had been pinned down inside the restaurant.

“Members of Steel Commandment, stop this pointless resistance. You have nowhere left to go. Lay down your weapons and surrender, and your lives can still be spared.” The man calling out was a second lieutenant leading the operation. It wasn't that he wanted to halt the attack and negotiate. He had no choice. Suppose he led a team into the building, only for the holder of the Commandment pocket watch to roar, “My will fulfills my Lord's, my body delivers divine punishment!” and blow the whole building sky-high, taking dozens of them with him. That wouldn't be much of a deal.

“Surrender?” a voice sneered. “Take that up with the senior cleric in charge here.”

Before the speaker had finished, something black flew out of a second-floor window. At first the assault troops thought it was an explosive charge or something of the sort and hastily fell back. Only after it landed did they see that it was a human head.

The head belonged to the short cleric who had been berating the two burly men upstairs. He had indeed considered surrender and asked the two knight captains for their opinions. As a result, his head had been twisted off with bare hands. Please note, it really had been “unscrewed” like a light bulb. His neck had been twisted like a braid until it tore apart, leaving a horrifying wound.

At that moment, everyone present understood... the people inside the restaurant would not compromise.

...

Meanwhile, on the top floor of the office building across the street.

They were dozens of floors up, insulated against both sound and vibration, and nobody was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows looking down. Apart from Gambling Snake, who had a rough idea of the situation, nobody in the meeting room had noticed what was happening just across the street...

Gambling Snake had just finished presenting the material, ended the slideshow, and shut down the computer. The meeting room was utterly silent, the atmosphere oppressive. Every business magnate seated there wore an expression that left plenty to the imagination.

Gambling Snake pulled the USB drive containing the material out of the laptop and put it away. Then he walked straight over to Li Wei, took a phone identical to the previous two from his inside jacket pocket, and handed it to him. “Take this. The third proposition is about to begin.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the door was kicked open from outside. Ignoring the situation across the street entirely, Ji Cheng had charged upstairs alone with his gun drawn. One glance into the meeting room was enough. Almost instinctively, he raised his gun and aimed at Gambling Snake. “Hands on your head!”

Gambling Snake made no response, merely looking at him calmly.

“I said, put your hands on your head!” Ji Cheng advanced a few more steps.

Just then, the phone rang. Li Wei froze for a moment and glanced at Ji Cheng, but Ji Cheng's eyes were fixed on Gambling Snake as though he might lose him if he so much as blinked.

“Hello?” Li Wei answered the phone.

Tian Yi spoke at the other end. “Young Master Li, how does it feel to share your secrets?”

“Who exactly are you? How could you possibly have that material? What exactly do you want?” Li Wei's voice trembled with fear, not anger.

Tian Yi knew that from this moment on, Li Wei would no longer be playing for Jiang Yun. He would be playing for himself. “Does it matter what I want? You have a more urgent problem to deal with right now.” Tian Yi paused, then continued, “More than ten of the most powerful people in the Dragon Commandery now know that you murdered that reporter and hid the body three years ago. The evidence in that material would make your conviction all but certain.

“Perhaps you think the law is your friend most of the time, but by now you should understand that a tool itself bears neither goodwill nor ill will. What matters is whom it serves. You know these people sitting in front of you better than anyone. You see a similar creature in the mirror every day. Ha... You should know that any one of them, and mind you, I mean any one, could use what they've just seen and heard to send you to prison, or even take this opportunity to bring down your father at court.

“So... will you choose to trust them? Trust in your ‘friendship’ with them, and believe that every last one of them will keep quiet about this?”

Unable to hear the conversation between Tian Yi and Li Wei, Ji Cheng kept Gambling Snake in his sights and asked without looking away, “What did the kidnapper say? Has he made any new demands?”

Li Wei didn't answer. He kept listening and gave Ji Cheng a slight shake of the head, signaling him not to interrupt.

Tian Yi continued his highly inflammatory speech. “Think about life in prison, Young Master Li. When the lowlifes you've trampled underfoot all your life find themselves on equal terms with you, what a wonderful life that will be. Ravished day and night, serving as an outlet for a bunch of strapping men's lust... As the verse goes, ‘The chrysanthemum drips with damp dew; along the thorny path lie withered weeds...’” He had even taken to reciting poetry.

Li Wei was feeling the pressure. “Enough!” he shouted.

“Heh heh... No need to get so worked up. I can help you solve this problem.” Tian Yi changed tack. “I'll give you two options. Your choice will also be your answer to the second proposition.

“Now listen carefully. For the first option, you don't have to do anything. Just hang up. That hitman beside you who looks like Al Pacino will escape with the USB drive. You and everyone there will leave safely and go on enjoying your lives. I'll also release Jiang Yun immediately and end the game.

“For the second, hand the phone to Captain Ji. I'll persuade him to take you out of this building so you can continue with your third proposition. As for the others in this room, all but one will die. That person will leave with the USB drive and destroy the material for good.”

After hearing him out, Li Wei hesitated for a moment, then looked up at Gambling Snake, only to find Gambling Snake looking back at him. The professional assassin paid no attention whatsoever to the HL captain pointing a gun at him from two meters away. He wasn't standing still because he was trapped at gunpoint and couldn't escape. He was simply waiting to see how Li Wei would respond.

“Captain Ji...” In the end, Li Wei held out the phone. “He wants to speak to you...”