Chapter 13

They arrived at the designated trading location and waited for two days, but no one showed up. So the group began to head back to the China-Myanmar border, eager to knock a good amount of money off their employer.

Because it rained for the past few days and then cleared up, the road conditions improved a lot. They took turns driving for two days and finally found the village where their employer was staying.

This area was like a country supported by drug cultivation and trading. There was no law, no government, and no universal values or morals understood by normal people. The only thing here was the rules set by the drug lord. If you want to survive, you have to work according to his arrangements.

Their previous mission was to guard the employer’s transaction with the Americans, but the transaction did not take place here. Therefore, except for Ayer, they were all visiting the employer’s stronghold for the first time.

When the car drove into the village, Ayer immediately felt that something was wrong. Not only him, but everyone else also noticed the abnormality of the village as the cars headed deeper. Where did all the villagers go?

Various crude living necessities were littered everywhere in the village, as if people had left in a hurry and didn’t have time to take them away. It seemed that many locals used to come and go, but now they suddenly disappeared into thin air. The situation was too strange.

Ayer radioed for everyone to slow down, fearing that it might be a trap.

Finally, the convoy came to a complete stop. The once bustling village was suddenly deserted, and in the face of this situation, no one dared to enter rashly.

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Gula saelale lhlausdl vs alvalyv yde oykv swvpkel vbl hkzzytl wdvkz eyaj, vbld vblu’zz plkgl vbl srrsavwdkvu vs ynv.

Fs vblu alvalyvle plhlayz xkzlp yoyu yde plv wr nyxr kd y hyzzlu.

Gaswde 3 s’nzsnj kd vbl xkeezl sq vbl dktbv, Gula qswde Fbyd Ykdt yde ypjle bkx vs pdlyj kdvs vbl hkzzytl vs byhl y zssj. Rq bl ldnswdvlale ydu eydtla, bl kp vs kxxlekyvlzu alvalyv. Rq bl nswzed’v tlv yoyu, bl kp vs qkal y pktdyz qzyal, yde vblu oswze nsxl vs bkp alpnwl aktbv yoyu.

Fbyd Ykdt oyp y cayhl xyd okvb y pvasdt nwakspkvu. Tl oyp hlau kdvlalpvle kd obyv bl bye plld ewakdt vbl eyu yde iwknjzu liwkrrle bkxplzq clqsal oyzjkdt vsoyaep vbl hkzzytl sd qssv.

Gp bl yrrasynble vbl hkzzytl, Fbyd Ykdt cltyd vs yehydnl yzsdt vbl oyzzp, clkdt lmvalxlzu nywvkswp yzz vbl oyu. Tsolhla, yqvla oyzjkdt qsa y zsdt vkxl, bl cltyd vs qllz xsal yde xsal zkjl y qssz. Mblal oyp vawzu dscseu kd vbl hkzzytl.

Tl pdlyjle kdvs y bswpl yde qswde qalpbzu nwv nyccytlp pvkzz sd vbl nswdvla. Mbl bswpl oyp kd ekpyaayu, okvb hyakswp kvlxp pnyvvlale yzz shla vbl qzssa. Mbkp oyp vurknyz sq vbl bsxlp sq rlsrzl obs bye qzle kd y bwaau, oydvkdt vs vyjl hyzwyczl vbkdtp okvb vblx cwv dsv byhkdt ldswtb vkxl, alpwzvkdt kd y xlpp.

Fbyd Ykdt Ykdt’p pwprknksd talo blyhkla. Pke vblka lxrzsula tlv yvvynjle yde yzz vbl hkzzytlap ayd yoyu?

Mbl sdzu oyu vs qkde swv vbl ydpola vs vbkp iwlpvksd oyp vs nsdvkdwl xshkdt qsaoyae yde qkde vbl lxrzsula.

Without any other discoveries, Shan Ming push opened the door and walked out. However, as soon as he stepped out, he ran into someone face-to-face. Shan Ming kicked the person down with one foot, stepped on his chest, and pointed the gun at his forehead.

The man screamed, but deliberately kept his voice low. Judging from his expression, he was begging for forgiveness.

Shan Ming took a closer look and realized that this person was a local. Perhaps he had fled during the day but returned at night to retrieve valuable items while no one was around.

Shan Ming attempted to ask the person what had happened in English, but the man expressed he couldn’t understand at all. He kept begging for mercy and was on the verge of tears.

Since Shan Ming couldn’t get any information from him, he let him go. The man ran away as quickly as he could. Shan Ming continued walking towards the end of the village, following the route that Ayer had told him. However, the village was still quite big, and he still couldn’t find what he was looking for after so long. It wasn’t until his sensitive nose caught a whiff of a bloody smell.

He knew that if he followed the smell of blood, he’ll eventually find what he was looking for. Sure enough, he found the place in less than ten minutes.

Previously, this place should have been an orderly and heavily guarded meth plantation, but now it was a bloody battlefield.

The entire stronghold was littered with dead bodies. The stench of blood was so strong it made people nauseous. There was no sign of life around, and in the serene moonlight, it looked extremely eerie and terrifying.

Shan Ming tensed his nerves, gripped his gun tightly, and slowly moved towards the biggest house on the right.

As he made his way, he didn’t come across a single living person. The scene was cleaned up very “neatly”, and apart from the dead locals, he found no bodies belonging to the attacker.

Shan Ming flipped over one corpse after another with his feet, hoping to find some clues. The scene was scattered with AK rifles, the weapon of choice for Asians, but they appeared to belong to the Burmese.

After searching for a while, Shan Ming noticed a magazine shell half-buried in the soil. He picked it up and blew off the dirt on it. He found that it was a shell from a Type 95 assault rifle, a 5.8 caliber that was unique to China. He continued to search and found some remnants of Chinese-made plastic explosives. The attackers used equipment that were standard issue for Chinese special forces, and considering that this was the China-Myanmar border, it can be initially deduced that the attackers came from China.

Were these government troops? Why did they suddenly raid a Myanmar drug lord? If it was because of border crimes, the issue would be very complicated, and cooperation with the Myanmar government would be necessary. Why would they just rush into the stronghold and kill everyone?

Many questions popped up in Shan Ming’s mind but he couldn’t find any clues.

He decided to come back later to study the scene more carefully. First, he decided to go to the drug lord’s house and see if anyone there was still alive.

When he entered the house, he still saw dead bodies everywhere. In the living room on the first floor, he found a person wearing luxurious clothes lying on his stomach on the ground. The man was quite fat and was tied up with thick hemp rope. His silk pajamas were stained with blood. Shan Ming had seen his employer during the last mission. Even in this situation where he couldn’t see the other’s face, he could tell that he had found the person he was looking for.

Shan Ming grabbed the rope, lifted the dead man and threw him on the sofa.

It was indeed the drug lord, though his face was unrecognizable. Judging from the bloody traces on his body, he had been tortured before he died, and the methods were very cruel and professional.

Shan Ming examined his fatal wound, which was a stab wound that pierced his heart. He then leaned in closer to observe the wound on his face, which ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear. He noticed that the wound was very thin, it was a smooth and even cut. He pressed it with his hand… looks like it didn’t hurt the bone either. It must have been made with a very thin blade, one that could cut through flesh but not bone, most likely a surgical scalpel.

Shan Ming furrowed his brow. Even if it wasn’t a surgical scalpel, why would someone bring such a thin blade to the battlefield? You can’t even use it for self-defense, what else can it be used for?

Surely it couldn’t be used like a flying dagger, right? Shan Ming thought as he recalled the chaotic fight scenes in Chinese martial arts movies where knives flew everywhere, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

For some reason, the drug lord was all tied up and interrogated until he was fatally stabbed in the heart. What did those special forces want to know from him? They actually used such underhanded methods to interrogate such a shameful person.

It can be inferred that this was definitely not a righteous and open operation. Even if it was related to the Chinese government, it had to be carried out in secret. However, based on the way these people were killed and silenced, Shan Ming was more inclined to believe that there was some sort of undisclosed secret.

He put down the corpse and looked around in other places. As he turned into the kitchen, he suddenly heard a faint breathing sound.

Shan Ming’s ears immediately perked up. He tightened his grip on the gun and followed the sound to the kitchen balcony, where he discovered the personal bodyguard of the drug lord outside the balcony.

He had dealt with this person before, this person spoke better English than his boss and often acted as a translator.

Shan Ming quickly crouched down. The man had been shot and was barely alive, he was in a semi-conscious state, but still breathing.

Shan Ming gently shook him and said, “Hey, you’re still alive, stop acting like a dead man, wake up.”

He called out a few more times, and the man finally opened his eyes, looking at him dazedly.

“Do you still recognize me?”

The man shook his head, then nodded, and then looked at him confused.

Shan Ming urgently asked, “What happened here? Are those special forces Chinese? What’s their objective?”

The man gasped for breath and said intermittently, “Child.”

“What?” Shan Ming put his ear closer to him, “What did you say?”

“A child, they… wanted… a child.”

“A child?” Shan Ming searched his mind, ruling out various words with similar pronunciations. Combined with the context and grammar, he finally concluded that he hadn’t misheard. The man said that those people came here to massacre because they wanted a child.

“What kind of child? Who are they?”

“A…… Chinese…… boy…… they’re searching…… they’re, insisting…… in this area……”

An alarm bell went off in Shan Ming’s mind.

A Chinese boy, in this area. He knows one, the son he picked up for free.

“What other information did they leave behind? Tell me everything you know. Are those people Chinese?”

The man grabbed onto Shan Ming’s arm, “I don’t know… just kill me… I won’t survive… kill me…”

Shan Ming watched the man struggle in his dying moments, knowing that he was in a lot of pain. He realized that he wouldn’t be able to get any more information out of him even if he asked, so he stood up and drew his knife, then swiftly cut off the man’s neck.

He stood there for a long time, with cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

If those people were really looking for Shen Changze, then…

He knew nothing about Shen Changze’s background, but there differently aren’t many people who could afford a private plane. If he wanted to look into it, it might not be too difficult. He could simply look up recent information on airplane accidents, it might show up.

However, if those soldiers from special forces eliminated the largest local drug lord only because they were looking for a child whose chances of dying in a plane crash were almost 100%, it was way too unusual.

If they want to find someone locally, shouldn’t they be seeking cooperation instead?

The only thing Shan Ming could think of was that those people did not want this information to leak, so they silenced them directly.

What kind of interests could that child possibly have to make the regular troops of the Chinese government cross the border into another country and eliminate the local drug lord?

Who on earth is that child?

Shan Ming was filled with doubts. He stood there for about ten minutes before he remembered that he should use a signal flare to call Ayer and the others over to sweep the scene and make up for their losses.

However, before that, he had to check this place again to make sure that there were no survivors.

Shan Ming didn’t care about Shen Changze’s identity. Even if he was the son of the emperor, he was now Shan Ming’s son. However, he couldn’t let Ayer and the others know about this for the time being.

He planned to investigate in secret when they get back. If Sheng Changze’s identity turned out to be truly special, he will think about the next steps then.