Chapter 34: Every Shot Hits
Note: Since Chapter 33 was extensively revised, readers who read the old version should re-read Chapter 33 before continuing.
"That's the Xuanzhu." Ran Yao pointed through the Xiang-fei bamboo blind toward a flower boat moored along the embankment.
Lin Shenhe raised his binoculars and slowly adjusted the focus. Beyond the window, dusk had begun to settle over the water, softening the light into something gentle and diffuse. Perfect weather for what they had planned.
They occupied a private room on the third floor of a tavern overlooking White Goose Pool—the highest vantage point available. The escort-bureau men had reserved it the day before, and Ran Yao and Beiwei had spent a full day here, watching and cataloging every detail until the entire situation lay bare before them.
The criminals had chosen their hideout well. "He" embankment was the outermost pier at White Goose Pool, and the Xuanzhu sat at its farthest end, the last vessel in a long row of moored boats. One sweep of the oars and they would be out on the broad expanse of the Pearl River. Easy to board, easy to abandon, easy to slip away unnoticed—and easier still to flee if trouble came calling.
Their reconnaissance had also revealed a network of lookouts. One man worked from a small congee-selling boat at "Ren" embankment, just one pier over from "He." Another stood on the shore, hawking medicine. On the flower boat itself, two guards kept watch—one fixed at the rear deck, the other a bouncer who moved constantly on and off the vessel. The escort guards had confirmed as much to Ran Yao.
Lin Shenhe adjusted the focus bit by bit, sweeping his gaze down the slope below as he calculated distances. From here to the end of the embankment was roughly a hundred meters. The Xuanzhu sat apart from the other flower boats, isolated at the pier's terminus—likely a security buffer the criminals had deliberately maintained. It was clever, as far as it went. Unfortunately for them, it also made his job considerably easier. Had the boats been packed together like the others, he would never have had a clear line of sight to the deck.
Was Director Wen truly aboard that flower boat? And if so, was he lounging amid soft fragrance and warm jade in some den of pleasure—or suffering unspeakable torment? There was no way to know.
He mentally called roll on his targets, one by one. All of them were thin, dark-complexioned men; since arriving in this timespace, he had yet to encounter a single fat person. Everyone on the team had studied photographs of these individuals repeatedly before the operation. They had memorized the faces of the madam and the prostitutes too.
If any of the women showed unusual behavior, they would have to be killed—even the women. Beiwei had warned him specifically, citing numerous examples of Vietnamese female special agents from the Sino-Vietnamese War to drive the point home.
What grudge did he hold against any of them? Though these weren't good people, they were strangers to him all the same—no different, emotionally speaking, than Director Wen himself. Lin Shenhe shook his head, trying not to overthink it. As a transmigrator, the calculus was simple: anyone who endangered the transmigrators' interests could be killed.
Having confirmed each target's position and distance, he set down the binoculars and dragged a table closer. He placed a modified pillow on its surface—prone shooting was far more accurate than kneeling, and from this height, he could lie across the table and fire with stability.
"When you hear firecrackers downstairs, start shooting." Ran Yao reminded him one last time, then hurried off. Lin Shenhe checked his watch: 5:20.
He removed his helmet, then stripped off his bulky outer jacket. Even the thickness of clothing could throw off accuracy at this distance. Once he had settled into a prone position on the table, he adjusted his body angle using his left elbow as a pivot, bringing the rifle to bear on his first target.
Ran Yao had chosen it: the medicine peddler stationed at the entrance to "He" embankment.
In an instant, the man's head filled his entire scope. Lin Shenhe raised his abdomen slightly off the table so that neither his breathing nor the pulse of major blood vessels would transmit through to the rifle. Achieving a first-shot hit at a hundred meters outdoors with an unfamiliar weapon demanded absolute concentration. He swallowed once and spoke into the walkie-talkie: "Lin Shenhe ready."
Beiwei's team lay in ambush aboard a small rowboat a hundred meters from the Xuanzhu.
Xiao Zishan waited farther back with the escort-bureau pickup team and two mule carts.
As each team reported ready over the walkie-talkie, Ran Yao felt the world grow quieter around him. His five-shot shotgun was chambered; his hunting knife was ready to draw. He reminded himself once more: this was a rescue operation, not an arrest.
The instant the firecrackers crackled to life, Lin Shenhe squeezed the trigger. His index finger moved with such practiced smoothness that his right hand barely registered the motion. The first bullet went slightly wide, kicking up a puff of dust from the ground.
Almost without pause—purely by reflex—eject, chamber, fire. A red dot bloomed on the medicine peddler's forehead, and he collapsed. In the fraction of a second it took to adjust his scope, Lin Shenhe glimpsed Ran Yao charging toward the flower boat with his shotgun raised, cloak billowing behind him to reveal camouflage fatigues and an '80 steel helmet. Against the classical backdrop of peach blossoms and green willows, the image was utterly incongruous. Years later, he would still remember it.
Ran Yao knew that Lin Shenhe's second target was the porridge vendor. Amid the firecrackers, individual gunshots were impossible to distinguish, but the vendor clearly hadn't been hit. The man bared a mouthful of gleaming white teeth and drew three throwing knives from behind his back, their handles wrapped with blood-red strips of cloth. Ran Yao squeezed the trigger almost on instinct. The five-shot shotgun spat a blindingly bright tongue of fire. The knife-thrower crumpled into the water as if struck by an invisible fist, his red-ribboned blades scattering in every direction.
Screams erupted along the embankment. The few pedestrians and vendors scattered in panic, none daring to run toward the entrance where this grim specter had appeared. Some threw themselves into the water; others pressed flat against the ground, trembling, burying their faces in the dirt.
Lin Shenhe shifted to the archer on the rear deck. Their prior intelligence hadn't identified this threat—they had assumed he was merely an ordinary lookout. Through the scope, every movement was magnified fourfold. The moment he saw the sentry reach for a bow, he fired twice in rapid succession. The marksman—he who could hit a willow leaf at a hundred paces—crumpled dead on the deck.
The bouncer saw two black-clad figures charging grimly toward his flower boat. Knowing something had gone terribly wrong, he backed toward the cabin while shouting a warning, iron rod already in hand. Ran Yao was about to shoot when a crimson flower suddenly blossomed on the man's shoulder—a .22 caliber bullet punching clean through his back. He toppled stiffly into the hold.
They stormed the cabin. Several women knelt on the floor, too terrified to speak. These fierce, strange figures exceeded anything their imaginations could conjure. Ran Yao didn't waste time with questions. He was about to kick open the middle-cabin door when the curtain stirred. He and his teammate fired almost simultaneously, and thick gunpowder smoke filled the enclosed space. With a strangled scream, a large dark figure tumbled out, drenched in blood, clutching a dagger in one hand and a seven-star dart in the other.
"Brother Wang!" one of the prostitutes shrieked.
Though his face was now a ruined mess of shotgun pellets, his build, his clothing, and the prostitute's cry confirmed what they needed to know: this was the Wang surname ringleader behind the kidnapping. Ran Yao exhaled in relief—the mastermind hadn't escaped. He was about to continue searching when Lin Shenhe's urgent voice crackled over the walkie-talkie: "Go rescue Director Wen! A small boat near the flower boat is getting away!"
From his vantage point, Lin Shenhe could see the boat moving, but the flower boat blocked his angle. He couldn't hit the rower.
Fortunately, Beiwei was already on the water to intercept. The moment Lin Shenhe spoke, Beiwei spotted the fleeing vessel. He fired twice at the stern, and screams followed immediately.
"Row! Now!"
The two escort guards at the oars sat frozen, dumbstruck. Only after the sharp command did they snap to and begin rowing furiously.
As the two boats drew closer, Beiwei gauged the distance and leaped aboard. But before he could find his footing, a man burst from the cabin, slashing at his face—fast and vicious. In close quarters on a rocking rowboat, Beiwei was no match for this man's blade work. But he had a five-shot shotgun. He squeezed the trigger on reflex. The technological gap proved lethal: sixteen pellets at virtually point-blank range turned the man into a honeycomb. They were so close that blood sprayed across Beiwei's face.
Without hesitation, he charged into the cabin. This small boat served as sleeping quarters for the flower-boat crew—a cramped space with barely room for a bed and a small table. Director Wen lay on the bed.
"Target eliminated!" Beiwei shouted into the walkie-talkie. "Director Wen located." He checked the man's breathing—steady and normal. He appeared to be in a drugged sleep. "He's safe."
"All teams withdraw!" Ran Yao's voice came over the radio. "Check the cabin for any modern items. Take what you can; throw the rest in the water."
"What about you?"
"Searching for stolen items. Leaving once done. Rendezvous at pickup point!"
"Stay safe."
"Understood."
Beiwei directed his teammate and the escort guards to carry Director Wen out while he searched the cabin. Besides some women's cosmetics in a drawer, there was nothing. He went out on deck, collected the spent shotgun casings, and searched the two bloody corpses—stuffing whatever scraps he found into his nylon pouch. Then he hurried back to the rowboat and rowed hard toward the pickup point.
From the first firecracker to Director Wen being loaded onto the mule cart, the entire operation had taken just over four minutes. The criminals had been utterly defenseless against this meticulously planned assault. As the cart pulled away, the string of firecrackers was still crackling in the distance—as if celebrating the transmigrators' first victory.
(End of Chapter)