The men froze for a second, then couldn't help bursting into laughter.
*Hell's Sharpshooter* had hit theaters on October 5th, and everyone present had seen it, so they immediately recognized Chen Ge's words as a line from the film.
Viper from Assault Team Two raised his rifle and said gravely, "Hammer Brother, you take command! Wipe out these sons of bitches and avenge Wild Boar and the fallen brothers!"
The rest shared the same sentiment, implicitly accepting Chen Ge as their field commander.
The reasons were simple: first, Chen Ge was leader of the Fire Support Team; second, their own squad leader, Hacksaw, had willingly deferred to Chen Ge's command; and third, Chen Ge's combat prowess was beyond question—following him gave everyone a tremendous sense of security.
The Ukrainian gunfire abruptly ceased. Chen Ge flashed a hand signal for silence and held his breath, listening intently.
The din of battle echoing across the Asphalt Plant area was deafening, like a massive fireworks barrage at midnight on New Year's Eve. An ordinary person would struggle to hear someone speaking just a few meters away.
Chen Ge was different. He could filter out the background chaos, picking up the Ukrainian officer barking out tactical deployment orders, preparing to rush them, wipe them out, and break out to evacuate.
*Think you can get away? Fat chance!*
Chen Ge looked toward the ruins of the stairwell, where Octopus was quietly crawling up, peeking half his head out to signal him.
Chen Ge pointed down the southern corridor, and Octopus nodded in understanding.
"Lightbulb, Manhole Cover, Night Cat, Tanker, lay down suppressing fire on the enemy in the northern corridor rooms. Viper, Corn, Tire, push forward with me. Move!"
Having issued the orders, Chen Ge followed his usual habit: clearing the way with grenades.
Pulling out two M67s, he stepped up beside the breach in the wall, pulled both safety pins, let the spoons fly, and cooked them for two seconds before hurling them out.
The reckless maneuver made Octopus's scalp tingle with fear. He instinctively wanted to pull his head back to take cover, but forced himself to stay put.
He knew how to cook an airburst grenade too, but he would never dare cook two simultaneously. That demanded absurdly precise timing; a split-second mistake meant blowing yourself to bits.
Three Ukrainian soldiers had just stepped out of a doorway in tactical formation when the grenades slammed through the air right into their faces.
"*Suka*, grenade—"
*Boom!* An airburst. The shrapnel instantly tore through the three soldiers and sent them crashing to the floor, while two more inside the doorway were thrown back, one killed and the other wounded.
Chen Ge threw a third grenade, this time without cooking it.
As the grenade flew, Lightbulb, Manhole Cover, Night Cat, and Tanker slipped through the breach in perfect coordination, opening up with their rifles simultaneously to suppress the Ukrainian soldiers in the northern corridor.
Chen Ge raised his machine gun and charged toward the first room on the left side of the southern corridor, with Viper, Corn, and Tire right on his heels, followed closely by Octopus and eight mercenaries rapidly scrambling up.
"Lightbulb, you take the north! Octopus, detach four men to back up Lightbulb, and take the rest to clear the rooms on the right side of the south!"
Chen Ge shouted his orders, raised his machine gun, and squeezed the trigger. Firing with the precision of a designated marksman rifle, two short bursts dropped two Ukrainian soldiers. Just as three more near a breach were about to open fire, the barrels of Viper and Fishing Rod were already leveled at them.
*Da-da-da!* Emptying their magazines, the three Ukrainian soldiers collapsed.
Chen Ge dove behind an overturned metal cabinet and bellowed, "Grenades, take cover!"
Viper, Corn, and Tire were seasoned veterans. In a flash, they dove flat behind Chen Ge.
Two RGO grenades flew through the breach, hit the floor, and detonated. Shrapnel clattered noisily against the metal cabinet.
Tire lifted his head, waved away the smoke and dust with his hand, and praised, "Hammer Brother, your hearing is unreal!"
Corn chimed in, "Seriously impressive. There's no way in hell I'd ever hear the sound of them pulling safety pins."
Viper pushed himself up onto one knee, looking at Chen Ge with wide, bewildered eyes.
"Hammer Brother, did you hear that or see it?"
Chen Ge tapped his ear. With his other hand, he popped the quick-release buckle on his vest, pulled out a two-hundred-round soft ammo pouch, held the trigger down to dump the rest of his belt, slapped the fresh pouch on, and racked the bolt to chamber a round.
"You know my vision is better than average, but my hearing is actually pretty sharp too!"
The three looked at each other, cursing in their hearts at how unfair God was.
"Don't lose focus. Anyone got smoke grenades? Throw everything you have!"
Viper and Corn were out, but Tire still had a tan cardboard RDG-2Ch black smoke cylinder.
Seeing this antique smoke grenade that resembled an oversized firecracker, Chen Ge felt his blood pressure spike and nearly cursed out loud.
*Damn it! What an eyesore! It's painful just looking at it!*
*Is this really fucking 2022?*
"Throw it! Hurry up and throw it!"
Tire glanced in confusion at Chen Ge's look of utter disgust, tore off the paper covers on both ends, yanked the pull cord, and tossed it through the breach.
Thick black smoke billowed out, obscuring the Ukrainian troops' line of sight. Ukrainian machine guns and rifles opened up blindly toward the breach, their 7.62×54mmR rounds punching straight through the thin partition wall.
Chen Ge lowered his voice. "Draw their fire. I'm climbing across from the window."
"The window?"
Viper and the other two stared with wide eyes, glancing at the window and then back at Chen Ge.
The laboratory building was a classic example of Stalinist architecture, encircled at each floor and the roof by concrete cornices, its exterior walls decorated with bas-reliefs of wheat sheaves, five-pointed stars, and hammers and sickles. In spring, summer, or autumn, when the weather was dry, one might have managed to inch along the cornices.
Right now, however, it was the mud season. Humidity was through the roof, rain was falling, and the exterior walls and cornices were slick as grease—there was nowhere to gain traction or purchase.
Tire quickly urged, "Hammer Brother, the window to the adjacent room is at least seven meters away..."
Chen Ge cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about it. If I say I can do it, I can."
He patted Tire's helmet, got up, dashed over to the window, and poked his head out for a quick look. Leaping onto the sill, he made a show of gripping the concrete cornice as he shifted toward the next window, while in reality the barb-like spines on his palms adhered securely to the wall surface.
Corn stared anxiously at the window. "Can Hammer Brother really pull that off?"
Viper slammed in a fresh magazine, leveled his rifle, and fired suppressing bursts through the breach.
"Have faith in Hammer Brother! Keep firing to draw their fire!"
The window of the adjacent room had been halfway barricaded with concrete blocks by the Ukrainian troops to serve as a standing firing port.
Chen Ge crawled over. Even without looking inside, he could pinpoint exactly how many Ukrainian soldiers were in the room and where they stood.
Instead of entering, he continued shifting forward until he reached the final room at the end of the corridor. It appeared to be an archive room; filing cabinets lined the walls, filled with document boxes, and loose papers were strewn across the floor. Only two wounded Ukrainian soldiers lay huddled in the corner.
He slid smoothly in through the window. Hearing the disturbance, the two wounded soldiers turned their heads, their minds going completely blank as they stared dumbly at Chen Ge.
They snapped out of it quickly enough, instinctively reaching for the rifles beside them.
*Da-da-da!* Chen Ge fired and eliminated both men, then sprinted over to the breach in the wall. Through the smoke, he fired five bursts at the five Ukrainian soldiers blindly trading fire with Viper, Corn, and Tire.
Three rounds per man—not a single bullet wasted!
Having dispatched all five in an instant, Chen Ge shouted, "Viper, get over here!"
Hearing Chen Ge's voice, Viper and the other two jogged through the breach, crossed the smoke, and pulled up in front of him.
Giving them no time to speak, Chen Ge pointed across the hallway.
"Go out through this door. I'll take the adjacent side. Remember to call out Octopus's name so we don't end up in friendly fire!"
Across the hall, in the four opposite rooms, one of the three mercenaries under Octopus had already been killed. The surviving Ukrainian forces—consisting solely of Kyrylo Budanov, commander of the 3rd Company, 5th Battalion, 58th Brigade, along with three soldiers—had retreated into the far corner room.
The steel door of that room was barricaded from the inside. Chen Ge stood before it, listened intently for a moment, then stepped to the doorframe of the adjacent room and yelled, "Octopus, can you handle this?"
Chapter 53