Chapter 1591 - Annihilation
Miejing whirled her sword in a gleaming arc and drove it straight through the policeman's chest. Blood sprayed across the street.
Her murder sparked instant chaos. Pedestrians and vendors scattered for cover. Shop assistants who'd been gawking from their doorways vanished in a heartbeat.
Whistles shrieked from every direction. Several plainclothes operatives—both indigenous and naturalized citizens—drew pistols and batons and rushed toward her.
"Die!" Since she'd already committed to violence, Miejing abandoned all hope of an easy escape. She attacked with full force, shouting, "What are you waiting for? Shoulder to shoulder—charge!"
The disciples and fellow martial artists around her drew their weapons. Several plainclothes officers, caught off guard in the close-quarters melee, were stabbed and cut down. Some managed to fire haphazardly. Both sides suffered casualties, and the scene dissolved into smoke and chaos.
Miejing's new opponent possessed genuine skill. He didn't panic despite the sudden assault—he sprang back a step, dodging her killing stroke, though the wind of her blade swept the kerchief from his head.
"Fine swordsmanship! Fine technique! So you're from the Mt. Heng Sect! I am Jiang Jieshi of the Forest-Penetrating Northern Legs—let me be your opponent!"
The plainclothes policeman drew a deep breath, his presence swelling, his eyes piercing. A short rod slid from his sleeve; with a shake, it extended into three sections. He swung it at Miejing's lower body. Sand and stones erupted in its wake. Miejing was taken aback—martial artists of this caliber serve the thieves? This man is a disgrace to the martial world!
With profound skill and seasoned experience, she leaped high and unleashed more than a dozen sword-flowers, forcing Jiang Jieshi into continuous retreat. While parrying frantically with his baton, he seized the whistle on his chest and blew several sharp blasts.
On this side, the heroes held the advantage of numbers, and they quickly slaughtered the handful of plainclothes police. Though they lost several of their own, morale soared: The thieves' firearms aren't so fearsome after all. Close the distance and they're no match for us.
Someone grew intoxicated with killing and shouted: "Slay the thieves—" Suddenly, with a thunderous BOOM, a plume of thick smoke erupted from a window along the street. More than a dozen lead pellets hammered into him. Seven or eight bloody holes appeared instantly from head to toe. He crashed to the ground, limbs twitching—clearly beyond saving.
"Senior Brother!" A mournful cry pierced the air as a young girl broke from the group of heroes and threw herself onto the corpse, weeping bitterly.
"Junior Sister Lanhui, stop crying—vengeance matters now!" Another young disciple stood beside her, sword in hand, speaking with righteous conviction. "The dead cannot return! Restrain your grief, wait for Senior Brother to kill a few more thiev—"
Before he could finish, another explosion sounded. Half his skull erupted upward, trailing blood and brain matter. Gore splattered across Junior Sister Lanhui's face and body. She screamed and collapsed in a faint.
Miejing cursed these disciples of minor sects for their uselessness. In this instant, she pressed her advantage with relentless speed, forcing Jiang Jieshi into complete disarray. His police uniform was slashed in numerous places, blood flowing freely, and he seemed on the verge of collapse.
But at that moment, whistles rose from every corner of the street. The pedestrians had vanished entirely, replaced by the rapid drumbeat of approaching boots. Within moments, officers in black uniforms materialized at both ends of the street.
"It's a trap!" Horror shot through Miejing. The thieves were prepared—they set a snare for us to walk into! In the instant her attention wavered, Jiang Jieshi rolled three or four zhang away. Ignoring his sorry state, he turned and fled.
"Where are you running, dog thief!" Someone started to give chase.
Miejing shouted: "Don't pursue! The thieves have overwhelming force—we must withdraw first!"
"Drop your weapons! Hands behind your head—kneel! Otherwise you will be killed without mercy!" The deafening command echoed as police at both ends of the street advanced steadily. In front came those holding rattan shields and wearing rattan helmets, armed with a mix of long and short batons. Behind them stood ranks of police with double-barreled shotguns. They moved in time with beating drums, their steps perfectly synchronized, pressing forward like an advancing wall.
The heroes paled. They excelled in single combat and small-group skirmishes. Against such a disciplined formation of trained soldiers, they stood no chance—not to mention the thieves' devastating firearms, which had killed and wounded several of their number in mere moments. A direct confrontation would mean annihilation.
"To the rooftops!" Abbess Miejing waved her sword. "While we live, hope remains! Move!"
Pan Jiexin stood on the roof of a nearby tall building, observing the street through binoculars. This area bordered the gymnasium, so command had deployed heavy forces—not only police and agents but also riot squads. The Special Reconnaissance Team had stationed marksmen at positions all along the street.
Honestly speaking, the coordination between police, agents, and the Special Reconnaissance Team today left him unsatisfied. Everything felt a beat too slow.
"This professional level, this tactical quality..." Pan Jiexin couldn't help muttering complaints.
Two things bothered him. First, the on-site command of the plainclothes police force had made obvious blunders. The enemy numbered more than twenty, yet only a dozen operatives had been assigned to monitor them nearby, with most personnel waiting further away. When the arrest team's initial action met resistance, reinforcement was inadequate. Not only did they fail to capture anyone—they were wiped out themselves.
Second, the support personnel positioned on rooftops and in shops had reacted too slowly. By the time they responded, the arrest team and enemy were already locked in close combat, making supportive fire impossible.
Still, they maintained the overall advantage and had quickly turned the situation around. It appeared the enemy was about to retreat.
"This is too amateur—completely different from what I imagined." Pan Jiexin's grumbling now shifted to the heroes.
Their helplessness against firearms was understandable—the technological gap was simply too vast. But what was this business of climbing up building walls? Shouldn't they leap to the rooftops in a single bound? Why did they have to grab the eaves first and haul themselves up one by one? If this was qinggong, parkour traceurs had far better qinggong than these so-called martial artists...
Of course, even from a modern perspective, their movements could be called agile, and their muscle strength was impressive. The problem was that none of this matched the "flying over eaves and walking on walls" image that Pan Jiexin had formed from wuxia novels.
Thick smoke erupted from rooftops and windows on both sides of the street. Gunshots crackled continuously. Heroes attempting to scale the walls were shot and tumbled to the ground one after another. Someone tried to rush into a shop to clear out the musketeers but caught a face full of buckshot and died on the spot.
"No entertainment value whatsoever. At least the fight between Jiang Jieshi and the old nun was somewhat worth watching..." Pan Jiexin shook his head and lowered his binoculars. He'd lost interest.
Unable to reach the rooftops, and with lead pellets still erupting periodically from the shops on both sides, the surviving heroes were forced to shelter behind market stalls. They dared not show their heads, yet snipers on the rooftops continued picking them off. Bodies accumulated on the street. From an original group of more than twenty, the majority had fallen, leaving only five or six clustered around Abbess Miejing. The drumbeats pounded onward, each beat seeming to strike their hearts. The police walls on both sides pressed ever closer, musketeers in shops and on rooftops continuing to deliver death at intervals. Lying still meant death... No road to heaven, no door into earth. Seeing the street carpeted with corpses, the handful of survivors huddled around Miejing.
Suddenly, the drumbeats and gunshots ceased.
The electric loudspeaker blared again: "People inside, listen! We give you five minutes! Drop your weapons and come out one by one with your hands raised—stand in the middle of the street!"
"Abbess..."
"Say no more!" Miejing declared. "It has come to this—we can only seek life in death. Everyone charge together; if even one escapes, that's enough!" She spoke with righteous conviction: "Even if we cannot fight our way out, we shall at least die gloriously! Leave behind a heroic name!" Sword raised, she prepared to charge.
But something seized her arm. She looked back to find the handful of survivors ashen-faced, utterly bereft of the morning's heroic spirit. A few even regarded her with malicious eyes. Miejing's fury flared: "What do you think you're doing?!"
One of them spoke: "Abbess, if you wish to throw your life away, we won't stop you. But we still want to live. The moment you charge, the thieves will open fire indiscriminately. None of us will survive..."
Lanhui, recently revived, added through tears: "Abbess, as long as green hills remain, there's no fear of running out of firewood. I think perhaps we should... we should..."
Before she could say "surrender," the loudspeaker boomed again: "Time's up! If you don't come out, we will open fire!" In unison, the shotguns behind the rattan shields leveled. Black muzzles trained on the handful of figures in the center of the street.
Miejing sneered. She leaped up, rushed to the center of the street, and charged the shield wall with sword whirling.
Mu Min had already received the phone call. The terrorists disguised as female students had been captured in the square. Simultaneously, another group of terrorists had been eliminated on the street near the stadium.
"...We also captured three females and one male in the square. Another male was killed by the Special Reconnaissance Team sniper while launching the signal cannon, and one male was killed resisting arrest. All wore naturalized citizen clothing. Weapons were found on the suspects and the dead; some also carried throwing darts." Zhou Shizhai reported over the phone. "The Public Security Army and uniformed police have now sealed off the entire square and are checking identification one by one."
"...A total of ten terrorists were eliminated on the street: ten killed, six captured. Four of our police officers died in the line of duty, and one was seriously injured."
"Good. What about the whereabouts of the people on the list sent by the Political Security Bureau?"
"We're currently comparing the corpses and prisoners. It appears the number of people apprehended doesn't match the list. Approximately half are still unaccounted for."
Mu Min cranked the phone once, then twice more: "Connect me to Wu Mu's office!"
Wu Mu sat in his office, silently reviewing the latest telephone record delivered by the communicator. The arrest at Qiongan Inn had concluded. The group of enemies who'd remained there had attempted arson but failed, and were all killed while trying to break out.
Another group of enemies preparing to carry out sabotage at East Gate Market had also been eliminated in time. Most had been annihilated, with only a few taken prisoner.