Everyone climbed into the car. Chu Yu said, "Stay sharp. Fei Lang could very well have gotten ahead of us."
Whether Fei Lang had pulled ahead was unknown, but Shabi had already arrived at the Heishuigou Road exit. Still sporting his indolent swagger, he listened to rock music and drove along, turning onto Heishuigou Road without the slightest hesitation. The exit bore an uncanny resemblance to the entrance—both were three-kilometer stretches of cliffside road.
At the entrance, the cliff dropped off on the left; at the exit, it dropped off on the right.
Shabi drove to the narrowest midpoint of the cliffside road and stopped. For three hundred meters, the average width was a mere 2.1 meters. Shabi pushed open the car door, leaned out, and looked down. Below was a bottomless abyss. Taking a long, hard look, a surge of adrenaline rushed through him, sparking a long-lost thrill of shuddering pleasure.
Closing the door, Shabi sat quietly in the driver's seat, waiting like a hunter in ambush. Before long, a sound carried over. He opened his eyes. A motorcycle appeared a hundred meters ahead, ridden by a man draped in a black cloak with a cloth mask concealing his face.
*Hey, how is that a motorcycle? That's cheating!* Shabi had no idea this was the wanted criminal, Fei Lang.
Before Shabi could think further, the motorcyclist, Fei Lang, charged straight at him. Shabi floored the accelerator to ram him head-on, only to see the motorcycle's front wheel rear up, ride over the hood, and vault clean across the roof.
Shabi was furious, but fury was all he had. Reversing to chase after him was unrealistic. Getting out to shoot was equally impossible, as stepping out meant stepping off a precipice. Firing backward from inside the car was not only an awkward posture, but also offered a very narrow angle of fire. Shabi could only watch as the motorcycle sped away into the distance.
Fuming with bottled-up rage, Shabi drove forward until he reached a five-meter-wide passing bay to turn around. His vehicle was a C-class sedan, five meters long, making a U-turn in a five-meter space theoretically difficult. However, overall length was not the same as wheelbase; a five-meter car typically had a wheelbase of around 3.1 meters.
When NB711 arrived, they saw Shabi's car with its nose pointed straight at the cliff and its rear facing the rock wall, looking for all the world as though it were about to plunge off the edge. Indeed, right as Shabi had managed half of his multi-point turn, NB711 happened to show up.
NB711 pulled to a halt. Mumu stood on the car's left, Ding Shi on its right, both leveling their guns at Shabi's vehicle.
Ding Shi called out loudly, "Hey, dumbass brother in there, what are you doing?" With tinted windows and Shabi dressed in a black suit like an agent, Ding Shi didn't recognize his identity at first glance.
Shabi, however, recognized Ding Shi a dozen meters away. He suddenly understood why his first clone had died—nine times out of ten, he had run into Ding Shi. Regardless, Shabi had to admit one thing: without an ambush, facing Ding Shi alone in a fair fight offered slim odds of victory. Exact figures were hard to state, seeing as he had never won once.
Shabi decided to abandon the car. He kicked open the door and stepped out, the sedan separating the two sides.
The moment Shabi pushed the door open, Mumu and Ding Shi fired simultaneously. The two bullets struck Shabi in the back and arm respectively. He went with the momentum, dropping to the ground, took aim, and fired. A bullet whipped out from beneath the car.
Mumu let out a cry of pain and collapsed, the bullet having torn through her left foot. A second bullet followed immediately after, piercing straight through her head.
Why target Mumu instead of Ding Shi? Because Ding Shi had kept his feet shielded behind the tires all along. Mumu lacked real-combat experience and hadn't noticed this vital detail.
In the era of firearms, life and death were decided in the span of a breath; bullets showed no mercy just because someone was beautiful.
Shabi's car wasn't bulletproof. Ding Shi estimated where Shabi had fallen and fired ten shots in rapid succession. Most of the rounds tore through the car's body and struck Shabi. Only then did Ding Shi drop into a prone position, line up his sights on the head of Shabi's motionless corpse, and pull the trigger once more.
Just as Ding Shi was about to step forward to inspect Shabi, Chu Yu's weeping cries rang out from the left. "Mumu! Mumu..."
Ding Shi hurried around the hood to the left side. Chu Yu was sitting on the ground, resting Mumu's head on her lap and cradling it with both hands, sobbing inconsolably.
Seeing the bullet hole in Mumu's forehead, Ding Shi tried to comfort her. "Don't cry. She isn't really dead. This is just a game."
Chu Yu paid him no heed. Behind her, Brother Kai hung his head, his expression dark and somber, clearly struggling to accept the reality of Mumu's death.
Ding Shi pressed on with his reassurance. "Maybe the system will reward a revival card?"
Chu Yu stopped crying and glared at Ding Shi, her voice laced with resentment. "We never should have listened to you! Taking some non-signal zone, accepting some lousy quest... If we hadn't, Mumu wouldn't have died, no matter what!"
Ding Shi spread his hands. "I'm sorry." He said nothing more, walking over to loot Shabi's corpse, and took his belongings before tossing the body off the cliff.
Ding Shi climbed into the black sedan. After several back-and-forth maneuvers, he got the car straightened out. Shabi's car was exceptionally fine—not only was the interior luxurious, but its zero-to-hundred acceleration, cruising speed, and top speed were all remarkably good.
How did one judge whether a vehicle was a luxury car? One couldn't rely solely on brand; a Mercedes, for instance, could range anywhere from two hundred thousand to over ten million. There was a little trick: look at the top speed displayed on the speedometer. The higher the top speed, the more likely the car was expensive.
The situation was somewhat complicated now.
Ding Shi got out and walked back to Chu Yu's car. Chu Yu had draped her jacket over Mumu's face, and she and Brother Kai stood in silence before Mumu's body.
Chu Yu said, "Put Mumu in the back seat. Let's drive both cars out first." With that, she sat in the front passenger seat, keeping her head bowed low.
Ding Shi and Brother Kai laid Mumu's corpse in the back seat. Brother Kai took the driver's seat of Chu Yu's car, while Ding Shi got behind the wheel of the black sedan.
One behind the other, the two cars navigated the cliffside road and emerged onto a flat plot of land. One kilometer ahead lay the exit of Heishuigou Road.
Both vehicles pulled over to the side. Twenty meters away in the reeds, a pair of sinister, emotionless eyes watched them intently. It was, of course, Fei Lang.
Fei Lang's ambush spot sat at a sharp turn where the road narrowed, forcing any passing vehicle to slow down. He had devised various plans to kill the lead car's driver and flee to lure the enemies into pursuit, never anticipating that this group would come to a halt in that clearing by the cliff.
Ding Shi and Brother Kai carried Mumu's corpse from the back seat out onto the open ground. Both looked toward Chu Yu: what should they do with her?
Dig a grave? Impossible. The ground was rock-hard, and they had no digging tools. As for cremation, there wasn't enough fuel to reduce Mumu's body to ash; it would more likely turn into a barbecue.
Ding Shi would have suggested a sky burial or a cliff burial, but with Mumu's death, he had been pushed to the fringes of the team. Once they dealt with Mumu's body, he would likely have to part ways with the others. So he kept his mouth shut.
After a long silence, Chu Yu spoke. "Remove the back seats from the black car and move Ritian over. Then put Mumu in the driver's seat of our car and push it off the cliff."
A car burial? Rather than the method of burial itself, Ding Shi was more curious about Chu Yu's thinking. Given her personality, she wasn't the type to force everyone to stay together just for a funeral. Now that they had two cars, and everyone blamed him for Mumu's death, wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to part ways?
Could it be that after losing Mumu, Chu Yu felt the team couldn't manage without him, leaving her with no choice but to stay bound to him?
Ding Shi spoke up. "Captain, we've gathered some money along the way—enough for gas and food. You don't need to enter non-signal zones anymore."
Chu Yu replied, "Ding Shi, first, I want to apologize for what I said earlier. It was everyone's decision, and we all knew the risks before we made it. Yet I took Mumu's death out on you. I'm sorry."
A little caught off guard, Ding Shi said, "It's fine."
Chu Yu continued, "Since you also said we don't need to gather resources in non-signal zones anymore, and we already hold a quest that can raise our instance rating, shouldn't we stay out of non-signal zones from now on?" Although Fei Lang hadn't killed anyone, he had cast a heavy shadow over Chu Yu and the rest of the group.
Ding Shi understood what Chu Yu meant. She wanted him to give up on exploring non-signal zones any further. Ding Shi nodded. "All right."
Chu Yu said, "Ritian's condition doesn't look promising. We'll rest along the fringes of the non-signal zones during the day and travel at night, aiming to reach our destination on the fifth day."
Ding Shi said, "Yuyu, you're the captain. You don't need to clear it with me."
At that, Chu Yu broke into a sweet smile. "Then let's get moving, everyone."
Chapter 55