Chapter 1849 - The Arrest (Part 1)
Behind Cui Hantang, Lian Nishang gritted her teeth and followed in silence, maintaining a vigilant posture at all times. Even when she slipped and fell, she simply rose without a sound and pressed on.
As deputy section chief of the Household Registration Section, she wouldn't normally have been required to participate in arrest operations. However, Guangzhou was already short of experienced police officers, and those with complete training who could serve as commanders were even scarcer. So she had volunteered to join—in her mind, her posting to Guangzhou carried an element of atonement, and she had specifically requested the assignment from Mu Min.
Because Cui Hantang had insisted on leading the charge—"You don't understand the tricks these sorcerers use"—Mu Min was somewhat concerned for his safety. She had considerable confidence in Lian Nishang's combat skills, so she assigned her to accompany Cui Hantang with instructions to "protect the chief's safety at all times."
Lian Nishang naturally understood this was Director Mu giving her a chance to prove herself. Of course, if anything happened to this Daoist Cui, she would truly be beyond redemption.
Behind her came several local police officers serving as guides, mostly locals familiar with the terrain outside the Great North Gate. However, none of them had ever been here in the dead of night, and their faces all showed extreme tension.
Insufficiently trained and inexperienced in nocturnal cross-country movement, their nerves stretched taut, they were soon gasping for breath. They stumbled and lurched along, barely managing not to fall behind.
Behind them came a small squad of National Army soldiers, a diverse group: soldiers from the Li-Miao mountain company with cutlasses at their waists and crossbows on their backs; Sword-Drawing Platoon soldiers with twin blades at their hips; riot squad troops clad in leather and rattan protective gear, bearing shields and steel helmets.
The arrest team reached the perimeter of the burial grounds around the fourth watch, when darkness was at its deepest—moonless, stars dim, the fields pitch black in every direction. Silently, they surrounded the grounds with an airtight cordon. According to plan, the raid would launch at dawn, when the first light provided better visibility, to capture the sorcerer in one swoop. Mu Min had ordered that he be taken alive if possible.
Were it not for that requirement, Cui Hantang would never have been given the honor of leading the assault.
By the time Cui Hantang reached his position, he was drenched in sweat and panting like a bellows. He plopped down on a fallen, cracked tombstone behind a desolate grave and gulped water.
This was where the Special Reconnaissance observation post was located. The scout hidden there whispered, "Chief, this is the place," and pointed in a direction.
Cui Hantang drank a few mouthfuls, then peered out from behind the grave mound. Following the scout's gesture, he made out a slight rise in the terrain about a hundred meters away, where a cluster of dark buildings loomed. He silently raised his infrared binoculars. Through the lenses, he saw a dilapidated wall with closed doors, surrounded by many tall trees. The wall, though crumbling, was not low; outside it, the underbrush beneath the trees grew knee-high, and a single narrow path wound through the thorns to the steps.
Even with his build, scaling that wall would be rather difficult, Cui Hantang thought. They would have to ram straight through the gate.
He glanced at his watch: nearly four o'clock. In another hour or so, dawn would break. He and Mu Min had agreed to commence at five.
"Everyone rest in place. Keep watch in shifts!" Cui Hantang ordered.
As the eastern sky began to pale with the first hint of fish-belly white and daylight crept into the world, Cui Hantang checked his watch—the hands were approaching five. He nodded, signaling the start of the operation.
Two Li soldiers assigned to clear the path nodded their understanding. Drawing their cutlasses, they crept forward one after the other, using the weeds and trees near the gate for cover as they approached in alternating bounds. They were within a few paces of the door when one of them stumbled on something, and from the grass came a melodious jingling of bells.
Their faces went pale. They knew they had tripped an alarm; the element of surprise was lost, and now it was a frontal assault. They sprang up and lunged for the gate.
Cui Hantang cursed under his breath—this was bad—and leaped to his feet to charge forward. Suddenly he felt something soft underfoot, then something struck his shin hard. He started and looked down: beneath his boot writhed a small snake, about a meter long, its body banded with black and white rings—a deadly banded krait. Its belly was pinned under his foot, its slender tail thrashing, and its jaws were clamped onto his boot.
Cui Hantang breathed a silent prayer of thanks. The snake was clearly venomous; had they not all worn high boots or thick gaiters today for extra protection, he would be in dire straits. He raised his other foot and stomped down hard, crushing the snake's neck into the dirt. He ground his heel and stomped again—four or five times—until the head was pulverized beyond any hope of survival.
In the seconds that elapsed, the two Li soldiers had already reached the gate. They slid their cutlasses into the crack and pried upward—a practiced motion—but the bolt refused to budge. It was secured from within by a door ring. They had no choice but to work the blade tip through the gap, inch by inch, trying to pry it loose.
Before the bolt could be freed, two National Army riot squad soldiers were already running up with a battering ram, following the backup plan. But Cui Hantang couldn't wait for them. He growled, "Out of the way!"
He took a running start and charged forward with the wind at his back. The two Li soldiers dove aside. Cui Hantang ducked his head, twisted his shoulder, and slammed into the gate.
Cui Hantang stood nearly 1.8 meters tall and weighed over 180 jin; add the twenty-odd jin of chainmail, and his total mass exceeded two hundred jin. At a full sprint, he was practically a battering ram himself. With a thunderous crash he hit the door, snapping the bolt in two and shaking the frame loose from the lintel. A yellow gourd tumbled down, trailing clods of earth.
Cui Hantang shook his slightly dazed head and rolled his shoulder, about to congratulate himself, when he caught sight of the gourd rolling on the ground.
That gourd, knocked loose by the impact, had shed several chunks of its mud seal. Holes were now visible in its belly, and from within came an ominous buzzing.
Cui Hantang's face went white. "Run!" he shouted.
Before anyone could react, he yanked off his Daoist robe, wrung it into a bundle, and bolted.
The two Li soldiers, still marveling at Cui Hantang's fearsome charge, saw him flee and stood frozen in confusion.
By the time they realized something was wrong and tried to run themselves, it was too late. From the gourd swarmed a cloud of hornets as long as half a finger—twice the size of ordinary wasps—their bodies shiny black with yellow stripes visible even in the dim dawn light. They circled briefly, then dove at the two soldiers.
The Li soldiers, having spent their lives in the mountains, knew full well how deadly hornets could be. They turned and ran. One, a beat slower, was instantly engulfed by the swarm and stung repeatedly. He collapsed, writhing and screaming in agony, then lay still.
Seeing the hornets' terrifying lethality, no one else dared approach recklessly. The swarm, having claimed their victim, did not disperse but hovered around the gourd at the gate, circling up and down.
Cui Hantang cursed under his breath, twirled back to don his robe, and fished something from his bag of tricks—a smoke grenade produced in Lingao. He wrenched the pin and hurled it at the gate.
The cylinder hit the ground and shattered into fragments. Immediately, billowing white smoke poured forth and enveloped the entire doorway.
Veterans among the naturalized soldiers recognized it as a smoke bomb; the new recruits gaped in wonder at what sort of talisman this Daoist had deployed.
But Cui Hantang had no time to gloat. The smoke grenade might disperse the hornets, but it also blocked his view. If the sorcerer slipped away in the confusion, things would be even worse. Ignoring the lingering haze, he bellowed, "Quick—charge!"
The smoke grenade had done its work. Dead hornets littered the ground around the gourd; some still twitched, fluttering feebly on the packed earth.
The courtyard was large but held few structures. Only the three main halls looked intact; the flanking rows of small sheds were in ruins, their broken doors and windows yawning open to reveal rows of coffins within—an unsettling sight.
National Army soldiers immediately fanned out to search. Cui Hantang led his group straight for the main hall. Lian Nishang meant to rush ahead, but he held her back.
"Watch for traps!" he said, motioning everyone to keep their distance from the building.
The doors and windows of the main hall were shut. After all the commotion, if the sorcerer was still inside, he would surely make a move. Though Cui Hantang had volunteered to lead the assault, he had no real certainty of what tricks the enemy might employ. He had already faced venomous snakes and hornets; what came next was anyone's guess.
Fortunately, they had breached the courtyard and surrounded it tight as an iron barrel. As long as the sorcerer remained inside, he couldn't possibly escape.
Just as Cui Hantang was pondering this, soldiers returning from searching the rear courtyard reported that, aside from a latrine, there was nothing else.
"Use tear gas! Flush the sorcerer out!"
At Cui Hantang's command, riot squad soldiers shouldered their shotguns and fired a volley that shattered a window shutter. Immediately, four or five tear-gas grenades sailed through the opening. In an instant, billowing smoke poured from the main hall, and a pungent, stinging odor filled the air.
Violent coughing and sneezing erupted from inside. Cui Hantang was elated—the sorcerer was still here! He thought: As long as he's in there, let's see where he can run! Unable to resist a bit of swagger, he remarked, "A measly poison-wasp gourd and he thinks he can show off? Since we can't go in, we'll let him come out on his own!" With that, he clasped his hands behind his back and struck a pose of lofty composure.
(End of Chapter)