The Scavengers

Chapter 53: Temporary Cooperation in Intrigue

25 September, 14:00

The bridge across the river was blown up. If they wanted to cross the river, they could either make a detour or walk through the water.

This river was a tributary of the Yang Tze River that crossed several cities. City H was just blocked by it. The river was not very wide here. The three river crossing bridges built by City H were the shortest.

The six mercenaries came to the two broken bodies and remained silent for a minute for them. After a while, several people remove all the things they could use from the two bodies, and the bodies were put together.

“Patter patter patter”, raindrops continued to splash into the river, forming countless round water halos.

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Xue Li Hong glanced at Xiao mo.

There was a map in Xiao Mo’s brain. When a road was blocked, it would automatically show other roads leading to the destination.

Xiao Mo enlarged the map nearby in his mind.

The following parts of the text will be scrambled to prevent theft from aggregators and unauthorized epub making. Please support our translators by reading on secondlifetranslations (dot) com. If you are currently on the site and and you are seeing this, please clear your cache.

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Mbl xld kd xkzkvyau wdkqsax aykple vblka oakpvp yde zssjle yv vblka oyvnb. Gv 13:50, vblu byhl yzalyeu oypvle vss xwnb vkxl swvpkel vbl nkvu!

Fsxlsdl oydvle vs ypj Dkys Ys obyv vblu olal eskdt pvydekdt cu vbl akhla.

Mbl xld kd wdkqsax altalv vbyv vblu eked’v xyjl kv nzlya kd vbl nya. Mblu rzyd vs xyjl y elvswa yde qkde ydsvbla oyu vs vbl nkvu. Rv’p alypsdyczl vbyv vblu pbswze ts vblka plryayvl oyup dso, cwv yqvla pllkdt vbl vos xld kd ynvksd, lprlnkyzzu vbl vyzz yde vbkd sdl, vbl xld kd xkzkvyau wdkqsax bye vs vbkdj voknl.

Dwl Nk Tsdt vswnble Dkys Ys’p pbswzela.

Dkys Ys eked’v jdso obyv bl oyp osaakle ycswv, eked’v ydtlzp byvl aykdu eyup? Xa oyp kv vbyv vblu nswze dsv qkde qsse kd vbl nkvu, ps vblu ralqlaale vs bwdv kd aykdu eyup? Ebkzl bl oyp eyuealyxkdt, bl jlrv zssjkdt yv vbl zkdlp rashkele cu vbl pupvlx xyr, vaukdt vs qkde vbl xspv nsdhldkldv yde pyql sdl.

Yyucl ol nyd vau vbkp oyu.

Dkys Ys vssj ydsvbla vos pvlrp qsaoyae, vssj swv bkp vlzlpnsrl qasx bkp cynjrynj yde zssjle ynaspp vbl akhla vs vbl aktbv. Rv pllxle vbyv bl oyp zssjkdt qsa psxlvbkdt.

There, Xiao Mo uses his finger to point at the other side of the river and opened his mouth to Xue Li Hong.

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Xue Li Hong looked along his fingers and vaguely saw a row of several thick drainage pipes.

The six mercenaries didn’t know what they were doing. They gestured to Xiao Mo and Xue Li Hong to followed them.

Xue Li Hong shook his head and pointed to the other side of the river.

The Scout of the group of six suddenly slapped their leader hard and pointed to the direction of H city.

There in the sky, a pair of huge white wings are flapping to fly here.

“Shua, Shua!” Everyone felt like they heard the wings breaking through the air.

Come on! Come with us! Xiao Mo turned back to make a mouth shape, and then he lowered his body and ran to the river stairs with light and fast action.

Xue Li Hong followed without hesitation.

Six members of the mercenary team fell in a daze, before all five of them looked towards the man in camouflage uniform.

The uniformed man looked at the approaching angel and looked around. He gritted his teeth and waved to everyone to follow the two men in front.

One person after another slowly sank into the water.

When they were on the way here, Xiao Mo made sure to check the relevant data of H city. According to the data he checked, the river basin here was not very deep. The deepest part was less than 10 meters, the narrowest part of the river was only more than 160 meters, and the water flow was very gentle. If the swimmers weren’t not flurried and careful, they could easily swim to the other side.

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But currently, they were all quietly sticking to the riverside, only showing the upper half of their faces.

“Shua! Shua!” the flutter of wings swept over the river.

All eight faces immediately submerged into the water.

There was a reflection on the river which was not very clear and soon disappeared.

Eight faces came out one after another.

Seeing that the angel went away, someone wanted to move and Xiao Mo wanted to follow suit to swim, but Xue Li Hong held on to Xiao Mo, making him wait a while longer.

The others saw their interactions and followed suit, all returning to their original positions and waited quietly.

Soon, Squawk! It was like the shrill cry of sadness coming from a distance, and the sound of flapping wings came from the sky again.

The eight of them immediately submerged within the waters again.

The angel circled in the sky nearby, as if trying to find the culprit who killed his companion.

“Shua Shua.” Finally, the sound of flapping away.

“Poof!” Xiao Mo couldn’t hold his breath, so he went up to the surface and took a big breath, and almost choked and coughed, but was covered by Xue Li Hong.

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The rest also slowly came out of the surface as well.

Are you OK? I’ll help you to swim across, Xue Li Hong pulled on Xiao mo.

Xiao Mo gently pushed him away to signal that he was ok and raised his middle finger to say that he was going to the middle drainpipe.

Xue Li Hong’s mouth twitched. He quickly took the lead in breaking the waves and swam to the opposite bank. Xiao Mo followed closely, and the six people followed after. Fortunately, none of the eight people could not swim.

There were iron fences at the outlet of the drainage channel that blocked them from swimming to the opposite side. However, Xue Li Hong didn’t stop at all, he swiftly pulled it down by kicking at it few times.

After gently putting the fence aside, Xue Li Hong took out a flashlight from his backpack and shone at the water passage. It was dark inside.

Xiao Mo swam in.

Xue Li Hong slanted his head, indicating that it was safe inside. He got into the middle drainage pipe.

Xiao Mo wiped the rainwater and the river water, packed his backpack and followed him in.

The other six people saw the passage and followed up one by one after another.

Xue Li Hong put on his headlamp and turned it on. As soon as Xiao Mo came in, he took him inside.

Xiao Mo laughed. He pushed him away and lead the way. He also took out the miner’s lamp and put it on.

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“Hello, the two of you, please wait!”

Xiao Mo and Xue Li Hong looked back.

The six stopped. One of them turned on his flashlight, took out a map from his waterproof backpack and opened it. They seemed to be studying the direction.

“Where are you going?” The uniformed man came to them and asked in a low voice.

Before Xiao Mo could answer, one of the six mercenaries saw that he was not far away from the exit. He pushed two steps inside and said anxiously in a very low voice: “Shall we go inside again? Maybe the angel will report back to the city. If it brings more angels later… “

“They won’t be able to locate this place, as long as we don’t speak out.” Xue Li Hong calmly replied: “Tell me, what do you want from us?”

“We’d like to ask you to do us a favour. If you come to the city, we can cooperate. It is said that angels hate rainy days. When we go to the city now, we should be able to avoid them if we are careful. ” The man in camouflage uniform also took out a flashlight to light up and wiped the water on his face.

“Sorry, we are in a hurry to find someone…” Xiao Mo wants to refuse.

The uniformed man raised his hand, “Don’t be in a hurry to say no, you are going to the city to look for people, so are we. The task we received was to find and escort five people to the designated place before the time limit. Originally, there were eight of us, so one person will protect one of them, and the other three, two of them will lead the way and one to cover behind. But now there are only six of us. “

Xiao and Mo didn’t really come to the city to find relatives. Therefore, they were reluctant to take on some other job when they are still doing the other mission.

The man in uniform didn’t give up. “Where’s the man you’re looking for? Our mission target is in Qian Rui building which happens to be in the centre of the city.” 

Xiao Mo held out his hand and expressed regret, “Sorry, our relatives live outside the east city. We need to cross the whole city…”

Before he finished speaking, he heard the uniform man excitedly interrupt him: “Do you also go outside the east city? where? Is it near the Grain Bureau of H city? We’re just going to escort the target there. ”  

Grain Bureau? Xue Li Hong’s expression unchanged, but Xiao Mo, who was wearing a coarse cloth work jumpsuit slightly picked his eyebrows. The last place these people wanted to go was the same as their destination!

“What? Is there any problem with the Grain Bureau? ” The uniformed man, who had been paying close attention to their expressions, immediately asked.

“I don’t know if there is any problem, but the person we are looking for is also in the Grain Bureau.” Xiao Mo hesitated and replied.

“Oh? Is it? What a coincidence.” The uniformed man felt a little suspicious of this coincidence, but he thought that the other party wouldn’t be able to snatch anything from them, so he could only treat it as a pure coincidence.

Moreover, the terrain of H city was special. If you come from the west, you must cross the river. If you wanted to make a detour, there was no place for you to go around. You could not even drive to the bridge in other cities, and then go around a big circle from other cities to the east of H city. He was not sure how dangerous they would encounter on the way.

Do you want to take the task? Xiao Mo asks his partner with his eyes.

Xue Li Hong asked the uniformed man, “Did your employer set the time limit for you?”

“Yes.” The uniformed man was respectful to Xue Li Hong, and explained, “The employer asked us to evacuate the people out of the city before 17 o’clock this evening and take them to the designated safe place, that is, the Grain Bureau outside the east city.”

“Why specify a time limit? And why is it so short? “

The uniformed man lowered his eyes and replied, “I don’t know. It’s the employer’s request.”

Xue Li Hong noticed that the mercenary who opened the map was slightly stiff.

Xiao Mo just had doubts and took the opportunity to put forward, “Just what’s the situation in H city? Are there many angels? Did the army come to clean up once? Will they come back to clean up again? How many survivors are there in the city? “

This time, the uniformed man replied quickly, “The military just cleaned up once at 10 o’clock this morning, so it’s safer to go in now. I heard that the army has eliminated many angels and level 2 and level 3 mutant rats. I don’t know if there’s a second clean-up. As for the survivors, as far as I know, there are still some people in the city who haven’t had time to escape. “

Xue Li Hong swept the expression of the other mercenaries and grabbed Xiao Mo’s arm to pull him away.

The uniformed man didn’t understand how he suddenly turned away, and immediately whispered to him, “What’s the matter? Don’t think about cooperation? Since you’re going to the city, we can negotiate… “

Xue Li Hong turned back: “You’d better tell the truth. Who knows if we’d meet up again later?”

“What truth?” The uniformed man lied.

Xiao Mo also saw the problem, turned around and said: “why does your employer limit three hours? Don’t say you don’t know the reason, just like we ask you now, you would be sure to ask the employer clearly. “

The man in uniform grinned bitterly and looked at each other with his companions.

“Well,” the uniformed man raised his hand, “I didn’t answer just now. I just didn’t want to scare you.”

At this point, the uniformed man paused, “At 17 o’clock this evening, the military will drop bombs on H city and blow up the whole city.”

Xiao Mo blurted out: “But there are still survivors in the city.”

Another mercenary added: “I’ve been informed. At 7 o’clock this morning. Because the telephone, Internet, television and other means of contact in H city have been cut off, only the radio is available. Considering that there are very few people who have radios, in order to ensure that the survivors in the city can get information, the municipal government and the military sent UAVs to throw leaflets into the city at 7 o’clock this morning and put out horns to inform the survivors. For this reason, the UAV will be destroyed, and the angel will attack the aircraft. “

The uniformed man then said: “After that, the military will send in fighters to clean up the city for the last time at 10 o’clock sharp, just to give the survivors who have not escaped this morning another chance. I think you should be aware that there are problems all over the country. There are not many fighters that can be assigned to H City, and one pilot is dead. It is not easy to have the morning clean-up, and at that time, the military also sent in ground support. “

“But there would still be people who have not escaped.” Xiao Mo’s sentence is not a question, but an affirmative sentence.

However, he knows that this was the best effort the government could make. After all, there was more than one city in H that was in trouble. What the city government could transfer was only the local garrison, and there weren’t many of these soldiers. In the previous rescue and evacuation, they helped citizens of H city and as a result, sacrificed a lot of their numbers. What’s more, these people must reserve their strength to protect the safety of their base.

So even if the rich and powerful wanted to rescue the people in the city at this time, they could only seek the help of mercenaries.

The uniformed man nodded heavily, “The task we are working on now is to take the target out of the city and to the Grain Bureau on the outskirts of eastern city before the bombing at 17:00, where it is said that there is a deep underground air raid shelter.”

Xiao Mo and Xue Li Hong look at each other, this is probably what Qiu Feng wants to tell them, but when they set out, it may not have been decided, but now it has become a conclusion.

Xiao Mo was planning not to take the task.

They don’t know about these mercenaries, but from the fact that the other party wanted to hide such important information, it was obvious that the other party wanted to use them as cannon fodder or bait to cooperate with these people, which was quite dangerous.

If it wasn’t for the time limit of their mission, he would have chosen to leave H city with Xue Li Hong immediately and try to make a detour to the mission site after the explosion. But now, in order to make it within the time limit of the mission, they could only choose to go through H city. Even if they all must take the same road, there was no need to walk with these people and help them with their tasks.

Xue Li Hong raised his wrist and looked at the time. He was not optimistic about the task of uniformed men. “It’s less than three hours until 17 o’clock. Going to the city to find people and bring them out safely- Don’t you think it’s too short? Don’t forget that angels are sensitive to sound, so they can only choose to walk into the city. “

“Not short. We know where the people are, and we have a map of the city. If we move fast enough, three hours is enough. ” The man in uniform looks confident.

“After you send these people to the Grain Bureau, will the task be considered finished? Even if all of them didn’t survive?”

The uniformed man promised, “one is one, five is of course the best. We have to send them to the gate of the Grain Bureau, before we can consider the task as complete.”

“So eastern city Grain Bureau has become a safe base in H city?”

“It is said that there are air raid shelters there. When the bomb destroys H City, it is safest there.”

Xue Li Hong raised his hand to the uniformed man, “Can we have one minute.”

“Please.”

Xiao Mo and Xue Li Hong went to one side and made eye contact.

Xiao Mo shook his head.

Xue Li Hong moved closer to his ears. “The Food Bureau has become a safe base. We need to go in and look for the target, either pretend to be refugees or help the uniformed men to complete the escort task. The latter is obviously more convenient for us. “

Xiao Mo back to two words: “Dangerous.”

“We still have two days to go, and we have plenty of time now. But if we refuse to help now, these guys might give us trouble if they survive. It’s just escorting five people along the way. We can earn another reward. Boss, last time you promised to make beef dumplings for me to eat, the promise still has not been fulfilled.”

Xiao Mo laughed out and pressed his voice down. “I’m afraid these people will be evil and do things like using us as bait or something.”

“There are more advantages than disadvantages.”

Xiao Mo thought about it and nodded.

Xue Li Hong turned around.

The cold and inflexible voice of the system suddenly rang out in Xiao Mo’s mind: “It is not recommended to accept another task. Please pay attention to the task, Xiao Mo, the recycler.”

Xiao Mo replied in his mind: “I believe in Xue Li Hong’s judgment.”

System:”…”

Xiao Mo: “What are you doing?”

System: “I’m searching to see if there is a possibility of recycling the bastard next to you.”

Xiao Mo’s mouth twitched. It was definitely not his illusion that his majesty and Xiao Hong were tired of each other.

“If you recycle that hybrid garbage called Xue Li Hong…” the system pauses for a second. “I can exchange ten secondary energy crystals for you.”

Oh, it’s a high exchange rate. I haven’t seen this stingy system so generous.

Xue Li Hong looked back and asked him: what’s the matter?

“Nothing.” Xiao Mo smiled and followed up.

Xue Li Hong seemed to understand something, he showed a gloomy look.

When Xiao Mo talks with Xue Lihong, the men in uniform were also talking in a low voice.

“Boss, why do you have to fight for these two people? Time is running out. We have to hurry up. “

“I know. But we are short of manpower. We have five goals. We only have six people. We can’t protect them at all. But with them, they are different. When necessary… “

The mercenaries understand.

Xue Li Hong touched his ears and came to Xiao Mo with no expression on his face.

Xiao Mo looked at the man in uniform, “Where is this Qian Rui Building? I want to know the exact location. “

“Zhang Jian, map.” Excited, the uniformed man slapped his partner to bring the map.

He didn’t say anything to his companions. The situation was critical just now, and if they hadn’t met these two people, he was afraid that they would have lost most of their staff before they entered the city. They wanted to monopolize this lucrative task. Yet, no matter how lucrative the reward is, they must live to enjoy it.

These men in military uniforms could survive the chaos and were in a good position, so they were not just greedy people with narrow vision.

When the man named Zhang Jian heard the order, he immediately came over with the paper map, squatted down again, and spread it out on his knees.

The others got out of the way and let Xiao Mo and Xue Li Hong look at the map.

The map was so detailed that even the main underground exits are marked.

“First of all, our rescue target is here.” The uniformed man pointed to the location on the map, which had been marked by a fluorescent pen, just in the center of the city.

“Qian Rui Building, 10th floor, an outdoor club. A total of five people, all young people, action should be unimpeded. There are mutant rats in the sewer. We can’t walk too long down here. We can get here, go out from this exit, and then go straight along the avenue to Qian Rui Building. “

The exit that the uniformed man said was not far from the one Xiao Mo planned to go up, and he didn’t want to walk in the dark underground passage full of mutant rats.

In addition, the underground road in the inner city of H was not reconstructed at the same time. It was the original narrow sewer system. Even if they wanted to walk from the sewer to the city center, they were unable to do it, unless they wanted to crawl in the muddy water in the second half of the journey.

“When the target is rescued, we will escort these five people across the city to get here!” The uniformed man reached out and pointed to the place where they had drawn a circle – Dong Cheng Grain Bureau.

Xue Li Hong is straight forward, he asked: “Reward?”

The uniformed man first stretched out a finger, and then turned it into five. “If you participate, after you send people to the designated place, a live mission target is 100 standard carbon-based alloy particles. If five people can arrive safely, you can get 500.”

The comrades of the men in uniform were all surprised to see the men in uniform. One third of the score was given out, but there were only two people on the other side. Would it be a little more?

Although these two people helped them, one of them looked just like a patient who had just recovered from a serious illness. The other looked like he could fight, but he did not have much killing spirit. Were these two helpers worth a third of their pay? Was it really not just pure chance that they could kill an angel just now?

Xue Li Hong did not believe in such a dangerous task. Their reward was only carbon-based alloy, but the price of carbon-based alloy for one person was not low, and they were just on the way, so he said: “deal.”

The uniformed man smiled and reached out his hand. “Light mercenary team, Zhang Di.”

Xue Li Hong didn’t reach for her hand, but said faintly, “Xue Li Hong, he’s my boss.”

Zhang Di was surprised that the two men were not partners or brothers, but employees.

Xiao Mo couldn’t bear to laugh, but also held out his hand, “Xiao Mo, you can call me Lao Xiao.”

Zhang Di smiles and shakes hands with him, “Boss Xiao.” Then give them two walkie talkies and tell them the team channel.


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