Chapter 162 – Interception

“What happened?” Li Heng stopped at once and asked. The others all raised their gun muzzles nervously. They had only just come through one fight, and everyone was a little on edge.

Su Lifeng snapped back to himself as well and looked toward Firebug. Firebug was clutching his arm. His pale face was covered in sweat.

“It’s nothing. The wound just hurts a little.” Seeing everyone look at him, Firebug gritted his teeth and said.

“Take some painkillers. If you can’t keep going, hand your pack to Old Eight and rest for a bit,” Yu Zai said. The soldier called Old Eight silently held out his hand.

At that moment, Su Lifeng noticed that Firebug’s eyes seemed to waver for an instant. Then he refused. “No need. I’m fine.”

Fine, while you’re sweating buckets? That was not how a man should force himself to hold on. Su Lifeng could not help giving him another look.

After the team started moving again, Su Lifeng glanced, as if by accident, at the spot where Firebug had just been standing. His brows immediately tightened.

While the others had already walked ahead of him, Su Lifeng crouched down as he passed the spot and flicked at the ground with his scalpel.

It was discolored blood. It was far thicker than a normal person’s, and it gave off a strange odor…

When Su Lifeng raised his head, he found the female soldier staring at him. He froze for a moment, then stood up as if nothing had happened.

As he passed the female soldier, Su Lifeng said quietly, “Keep an eye on this comrade of yours.”

The female soldier did not react. He had no idea whether she had taken it in.

“Something is definitely wrong with Firebug’s wound. I just don’t know whether it has anything to do with this…” Su Lifeng secretly took a red object from his pocket and looked at it. It was only the size of a fingernail. In its details, it actually looked very similar to a Xenospecies’ main body. The only difference was that one was thread-shaped, while this one looked like countless threads mixed with blood and congealed together.

If this really was a Xenospecies corpse, Su Lifeng would not be too surprised. Humans were affected by changes in climate. After Xenospecies absorbed humans and Earth’s organisms, would they really remain completely unchanged?

“A product of genes fused together…” Su Lifeng thought. But the piece in his hand was clearly only a fragment, probably broken from a larger red blood clot, or left behind after a Xenospecies had been injured.

“I wonder where its owner is now.” Thinking of that, Su Lifeng even felt a little excited.

After they walked nearly three kilometers along the tunnel, the team stopped in a side passage.

While Yu Zai repeatedly checked their position against the surroundings, Li Heng inspected the safety of the passage.

“Ah…” Firebug leaned against the wall with a groan of pain. He was still pressing hard on his arm, and a strange look flashed through his eyes from time to time.

“We’ll wait here,” Yu Zai said. He glanced at his watch. “About half an hour. All of you adjust yourselves as quickly as you can.”

The “all of you” he mentioned did not include Su Lifeng anymore, because far from adjusting himself, Su Lifeng had already taken out his scalpel and begun studying a corner again.

Yu Zai could still understand scraping moss now and then, or catching a few small insects. But what was he doing knocking everywhere with a knife?

Su Lifeng ignored their looks. Only after he knocked around the place and confirmed there were no hollow spaces did he relax slightly.

The Xenospecies rat that had suddenly appeared earlier had probably punched through a hole and jumped out, so he had to guard against it.

Firebug huddled in a corner, his somewhat blank eyes sweeping over the others from time to time. When Su Lifeng stood up, their gazes happened to meet. Perhaps sensing that there was something meaningful in the way Su Lifeng looked at him, Firebug’s expression panicked, and he turned his head to look aside.

Half an hour passed quickly. Then a sudden “woo, woo, woo” came from inside the subway tunnel.

Yu Zai, who had been checking his firearm, immediately stood. His expression shifted. “They’re here.”

Su Lifeng’s heart stirred as well. Today’s main event had finally begun.

“There are only six of us, while they have more than twenty people. Make it fast, no matter what.” Li Heng pulled back the bolt with a clack, and a faint, inexplicable excitement appeared on his face.

“But the most important part will be up to you,” Yu Zai said to Su Lifeng. Then he gave Firebug and the female soldier a look. Only after Su Lifeng watched them walk behind him did he realize they were also going to move with him.

The subway was moving very fast. No sooner had they finished speaking than the sound, which had still seemed far away, rapidly magnified inside the tunnel. Yu Zai shouted something else, but Su Lifeng could not hear him at all. From the shape of his mouth, he guessed it was probably something like “it has to succeed.”

The tunnel was soon lit up by the train lights. Everyone hid in the side passage, watching from a short distance as the subway roared past in front of them.

But just as half the train had already passed, the rushing wind suddenly vanished, and the moving subway stopped.

“What’s going on?” More than twenty people were sitting in one carriage. When the train stopped and no platform appeared, they immediately grew alert.

“Go check the cab,” said the leading officer.

At that moment, the lights suddenly went out as well.

Along with the darkness came gunfire.

“Ambush!”

“Lv Zifeng is doing this the hard way!”

Amid a burst of chaotic shouts, the sound of shattering glass soon followed. Gunfire and screams quickly tangled together.

Within that commotion, however, Su Lifeng had already reached the door of the rear carriage with Firebug and the female soldier the moment the train stopped.

When the lights went out, that door opened too.

Su Lifeng walked in while tossing his backpack to the side.

According to Yu Zai and Lv Zifeng, this batch of officers had all come from Shencheng.

But inside the Ningnan Military District, people held different opinions on how to deal with those officers. Some thought they should talk first. Others even felt that merging might not be entirely unacceptable. From their point of view, those considerations might not be wrong, but in Lv Zifeng’s eyes, all of it was nonsense.

That was why he had chosen a very small but trustworthy team, and to ensure the success rate, he had invited an outside helper like Su Lifeng.

Su Lifeng’s task was to go in and kill their leader while Yu Zai and the others used guns to draw attention and pin down their firepower. It was an extremely dangerous task. No matter how much of the enemy fire was restrained, the people left beside the leader would still be the strongest.

But that risk was not part of Su Lifeng’s calculations. He went straight to the connector between the two carriages, then gave Firebug a hand signal.

Yu Zai had taught him that signal on the way. The moment Firebug saw it, he nodded.

He took a deep breath, then suddenly stepped into the middle of the connector and pulled the trigger.

“Bang, bang, bang!”