Hurried footsteps echoed endlessly down the dim streets.
With military police patrolling across all of Sijiucheng, the populace hid trembling inside their homes.
Darting across the roof ridges, Liu Ren crouched low and clicked his tongue in disbelief. "Isn't this a bit too much commotion? Did I really hit them that hard?"
At that thought, suspicion crept across his face. That made no sense—could the intelligence lost during the day really be that critical?
Setting the question aside for now, Liu Ren quickly produced several Type 38 rifles and laid them out before him.
As the rifles were dismantled one by one, the schematic of a Thompson submachine gun surfaced in his mind.
"Recompose!"
As various parts interlocked and clicked into place within his palms, a brand-new Thompson submachine gun materialized in his grip.
Gazing at the familiar weapon, Liu Ren beamed brightly. Thank goodness he had worked in the arms industry in his past life; otherwise, if he had to handcraft a Thompson submachine gun from scratch, it would have been the death of him.
The ability of Decomposition and Recomposition sounded formidable, but without an understanding of an object's internal structure, producing it was utterly impossible.
As things stood, the weapons Liu Ren could construct were limited to the Garand, the Thompson submachine gun, and a few varieties of defensive grenades.
Don't ask why he could only recompose weapons—ask and the answer was simple: it matched his field. He worked in arms manufacturing, not nuclear physics!
As for handcrafting a nuclear detonation, Liu Ren readily admitted he couldn't do it. He truly couldn't, because he simply lacked the brains for it!
Back then, even when he got his hands on Elder Qian's original manuscripts, he had spent two whole years staring at them without figuring out what those letters strung together even meant!
Liu Ren: I've had some schooling, but not much!
Zhang Cheng: Me, I'm just a barbarian!
"Damn it, I've got to go to university in the future! Otherwise, won't this ability go to waste?"
Imagining himself one day becoming a "Nuke Immortal," Liu Ren felt a surge of excitement swell in his chest.
Moving through the darkness of the night, he decomposed the Japanese melon grenades and reassembled them into defensive grenades.
Don't ask why defensive grenades—anyone who had ever caught the blast of one knew why!
An offensive grenade might not necessarily kill you, but a defensive grenade was guaranteed to take your life!
Three thousand steel ball bearings detonating in an instant—that terrifying concussive force could tear through anything in its path!
American defensive grenades typically relied on shrapnel to inflict damage, but Silver Rock Arms was different. Their defensive grenades were the ultimate offensive weapons.
Because there was nothing a single defensive grenade couldn't solve. And if there was, you called in an attack helicopter for saturation fire!
Navigating by memory, Liu Ren arrived outside a hospital reserved exclusively for the Japanese military.
Tucked carefully into an alley, he observed their patrol intervals.
Half an hour later, when the patrolling Japanese soldiers appeared to begin a shift change, Liu Ren frowned slightly.
He couldn't be certain whether they were actually changing shifts or merely circling back on their rounds.
Yet he had no time left. The critically wounded man was still waiting for medicine to save his life; he couldn't afford to hesitate.
With that in mind, Liu Ren darted out of the alley and moved to scale the rear perimeter wall.
Planting his foot on a tree, he looked up at the coiled barbed wire topping the hospital wall and cursed under his breath. "If you knew, you'd call it a hospital; if you didn't, you'd think it was a damn military fortress! Who are they trying to keep out? Bastards!"
Reaching out one hand toward the barbed wire, Liu Ren endured the sting of the barbs piercing his skin and instantly pulled it into his Storage Space.
While his Storage Space was vast—seemingly boundless—storing something required his physical touch.
Retrieving items, however, had no such limitation; anything within ten meters was fair game!
Pushing off the top of the high wall, Liu Ren vaulted over, rolling across the lawn to absorb the impact.
Yet the moment he rose to his feet, he ducked straight into the bushes.
Clack, clack, clack!
Footsteps approached. Liu Ren cursed inwardly, *Damn it, who the hell is out here in the dead of night?!*
"Taguchi-kun, are you really... really willing to marry me?"
Gazing affectionately at the doctor before her, a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform tilted her head up, her face brimming with delight.
"Kana, please believe me. I will definitely marry you!"
Cupping the nurse's cheeks, Taguchi spoke with tender devotion.
As the moonlight fell upon their faces, Liu Ren, hiding in the brush, felt his fists clench.
Of all the places these two bastards could have gone, did they have to come right here?
*Holy crap, they're starting to strip down already?!*
Staring in shock at this pair of doomed lovers, Liu Ren's mind momentarily went blank.
This was hardly the time to watch a show—he had a life to save!
"Kana, believe me. I will make you happy, because I love..."
"Love my ass! Go confess in hell!"
A blade plunged through Taguchi's neck, and Liu Ren gave it a sharp twist.
Before Nurse Kana's eyes could widen in horror and let out a scream, Liu Ren's blade swept across, silencing her voice forever.
Watching the two bodies collapse coldly to the grass, Liu Ren grimaced in disgust. "With so many rooms in this hospital, you had to pick this spot? Huh? If nowhere else, the morgue was wide open! Blocking my way out here—looking to die, weren't you?!"
"Tui!"
Spitting on the ground in revulsion, Liu Ren turned and walked away without the slightest hesitation.
His heart was colder than an icicle; anyone who stood in his path would die!
Slipping inside the hospital, Liu Ren used the Japanese signs along the corridors to quickly locate the pharmacy.
Yet confronted by the bewildering variety of medicines, he froze. Although he could read a few characters, he couldn't tell them apart.
"Damn it, why didn't I pay more attention when watching those movies back then?"
Fighting the urge to slap himself, Liu Ren stood at a total loss.
A second later, however, he simply swept every last medicine into his space. It didn't matter that he couldn't read them; he could always find someone who could.
Worst-case scenario, he could just kidnap someone who knew Japanese!
"Damn it, you really do have to learn a foreign language. There's no getting around it!"
You never realize how little you know until you need it, and Liu Ren felt deeply remorseful.
*Wait... in a hospital this big, there must be some big shots staying here, right?*
Plots and schemes flickered rapidly through his mind, and a sinister grin spread across his face.
Whoosh!
A struck match ignited a nearby curtain. Liu Ren kicked a jug of medicinal alcohol into the flames, then took off in a dead sprint. "Now that's a rush!"
Outside the Japanese military hospital, the patrolling soldiers noticed a sudden glow and muttered in confusion, "Strange... is it dawn already? Why so early today?"
The instant they turned back toward the hospital, their minds short-circuited. The entire building was on fire!
"Bakayarou! The hospital—the hospital is burning!"
Screams of terror rang out as military policemen began shouting at the top of their lungs.
As the gendarmes scrambled recklessly inside to fight the blaze, Liu Ren narrowed his eyes, observing the people fleeing the inferno.
Catching sight of a dust-covered doctor panting heavily in the smoke, Liu Ren crept out of the shadows, raised a brick in his hand, and brought it down hard on the man's skull.
"Doctor Sakata? Huh? Where's Doctor Sakata? Where did he go?"
Looking around in bewilderment, the nurses nearby grew alarmed when they realized their colleague had vanished.
By then, however, Liu Ren was already sprinting into the distance with Doctor Sakata slung over his shoulder.
Half an hour later, back in the basement hideout, Liu Ren delivered several sharp slaps across Doctor Sakata's face to rouse him from his stupor.
Clutching his stinging cheeks, Doctor Sakata took one look at Liu Ren and opened his mouth to scream in terror.
In the next instant, his eyes caught the broomhandle Mauser leveled at him, and he stammered in fright, "Don't... don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"
"Save him. If he dies, you die!"
Liu Ren dragged a crate over, packed to the brim with Japanese-labeled pharmaceuticals and medical instruments.
Staring fearfully at Liu Ren, Doctor Sakata whispered, "I'm... I'm only an intern! I... I..."
"Shinda shinda!"
Staring coldly at Doctor Sakata, Liu Ren clicked off the safety.
Chapter 88