Chapter 26: Where Did Everyone Go?

  Three minutes later, a loud crackling sound, as if the great gate of heaven had been opened, clearly entered everyone's ears in the stormy night. This timely strong heart needle came just in time!

  Sherlock excitedly threw his arms around me, gave me a big kiss on the cheek, and exclaimed: "Officer Hong, you're even more lovely than our 'queen'!"

  I kicked open the foreign devil with a foot, opened the iron door and shouted at him: "Don't be disgusting, hurry up and run!" Sherlock didn't pretend to be polite either. He took an arrow step out of the cage, then slipped under his feet and fell into a dog-eating shit.

  Right after that, Nie Kun and Xu Lai stopped fiddling with their belts, looking at me with eyes full of hope and even pleading. I understood them implicitly - they were afraid I would abandon them after crossing the river. Indeed, I had considered this viable option; the core principle of the Military Unity's special agent survival law is to preserve one's own life, and here, the only life that needed preserving was my own. However, first, I wasn't so heartless, and second, when we would be facing Cai Lingyu in the ship's cabin later, Nie Kun and his men would be a great help to me. My hesitation lasted for less than a breath, but on my face, it looked like I had made up my mind. With one swift kick, I exploded the belly of a floating corpse blocking our way, quickly unlocking the door for Nie Kun and his men. Knowing that I wasn't afraid of the corpse poison, I became much bolder - who let these corpses be so fragile? I had become their nemesis.

  This scene looked completely different to Nie Kun and the others. I had thoroughly transformed into a true hero who was as chivalrous as the clouds and willing to sacrifice himself to save others! Those four people were so moved that they almost cried, Nie Kun tightly grasped my hand: "A friend in need is a friend indeed! From now on, you are my sworn brother, my own brother!"

  "It's also for me, Xu Lai! And even more so for our true friends from the Shanghai Bund Qingbang!" Xu Lai said loudly. As for the other two people, they were one level lower and naturally didn't dare to be on equal terms with Nie Kun and Xu Lai.

  "Damn it, the promise of the Qingbang middle layer, if it were a few years ago, just these two people's words would be enough for me to swagger around Huangpu with no one daring to care. Now... whether Shanghai can hold on is a problem, and when the Communist army arrives, what about the Qingbang? Even Huang Jinrong himself doesn't know if he can spend his old age in peace." I muttered to myself, but my hands didn't dare slow down. The locks of the two cages were of the same model, after 'feeling' the internal structure of the first one, the second one opened easily. Under their cover, I opened the lock in ten seconds.

  Four people rushed out and dragged me towards the cabin, I whistled, and Da Ba and Xiao Qiu followed.

  At this time, Sherlock, who had taken the lead, dodged and weaved to avoid the snakes, but was stuck at the entrance of the corridor. There were more than 20 snakes slithering around there, and if he rashly passed by, it was certain that he would become the next pillar of ass explosion.

  "Damn it, just one step away from the 'gate'!" I cursed in a low voice. The cage had come out, and we couldn't afford to fail at this point. The stench of corpses wafted up behind me, and several more floating corpses climbed up. My eyelids twitched wildly. Although their bodies were extremely weak due to being soaked in the sea for a long time, they could only rely on corpse poison to harm people. In the torrential rain, the corpse poison was diluted to the extreme, so we weren't afraid of them now. But if there were too many of them, our demise would be inevitable.

  I sent out Tauros and Diglett, only hoping that the two little critters could pull off a surprise victory. But hope was shattered once again as Sandshrew and Ekans faced off against each other, neither one daring to get close. We were stuck in place once more.

  "What are we going to do?!" We were in a great hurry, every minute and second was unbearable.

  "Got it!" Sherlock's mind suddenly lit up, and he looked at the corpse of the Green Gang member in the cage, shouting: "We can use him to lure away the snake!"

  As soon as I heard it, I was suddenly enlightened, and indeed it was a good idea. But the next moment, the cage was quickly surrounded by a group of floating corpses, and now passing through is even more troublesome.

  Just as I was about to give up on this most practical method so far, I suddenly noticed that Xu Lai and Nie Kun secretly exchanged a neck-wiping gesture. In the midst of crisis, I only heard these two people muttering a phrase each in a low voice: "On the road to the Yellow Spring, two vast expanses, younger brother dies for older brother, an eternal natural law!"

  The other two Qingbang disciples immediately changed their faces upon hearing this and were terrified: "Don't!"

  Nie Kun and Xu Lai had just finished saying the word "ran" when they suddenly turned around, using their waist strength to deliver a heavy punch to the abdomens of two Green Gang thugs, who were on the verge of having their eyeballs pop out and fainted after spitting out white foam.

  Nie Kun and Xu Lai let out a loud shout, throwing their bodies outwards, pressing down on the swarm of parasitic wasps above. Almost at the same time as they landed, a large number of parasitic wasps swarmed up, drilling into every orifice of the two men's eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and groin. In just over ten seconds, most of the parasitic wasps in the surrounding area had drilled in, opening up a wide and spacious road.

  A chill ran down my spine as I looked at Nie Kun and Xu Lai, who were both beaming with excitement. I thought to myself, "This is what it means to be ruthless! They're even willing to use such vicious tactics on their own people." I made up my mind that no matter how they tried to reassure me by patting their chests, I would never trust them again.

  But it's come to this, and I'm not a hypocrite. Everyone has already paved the way for you, what else can you do? Just follow along then. In a chaotic world of war, those who are overly sentimental won't survive.

  Xu Lai and Nie Kun suddenly sprang out, I followed closely behind. Sherlock, on the other hand, hypocritically walked over to investigate the two Green Gang disciples, but as soon as he approached, they suddenly convulsed violently, stood up with a strange posture, their faces twisted in extreme pain. Sherlock was startled, and hastily ran towards us.

  "Don't leave me behind!" he wailed.

  The cabin door was already half closed, Sherlock was desperately trying to squeeze in, I got angry, grabbed his head and forcibly pulled him into the cabin with his fat body. If it were Xu Lai, he would have kicked him out long ago.

  We quickly locked the 'door' shut.

  Through the round glass on the 'door', I saw two Green Gang disciples with seven orifices bleeding, their fingers scratching the cabin 'door'. My heart felt a pang of fear. They might still have a glimmer of hope for survival, but even if they were saved, they would be better off dead in this state. And behind them, a large number of floating corpses surged forward in succession.

  "Hoo-hoo~ Hallelujah, it's great to be alive~" Sherlock let out a long sigh, and we all deeply agreed. People are like this, when they know they're going to die, they might be willing to die heroically, but after passing through the gates of hell once, their mindset will undergo a complete reversal - being alive is more precious than anything else. Especially for those ruthless people like Xu Lai who build their survival on sacrificing their companions, they are even more afraid of death and would do whatever it takes to stay alive.

  The cabin door was locked, this is a plug lock, the plug is as thick as an arm, very solid. Of course, we dare not confirm whether the outside things can open the "door". Even in the best case, the floating corpse cannot open the "door", but with the astonishing number of floating corpses, if they all climb onto the ship, it will inevitably sink under the weight. The safest way is to add horsepower and drive the boat away from the range of the dead sea.

  We knew that this place was not suitable for a long stay, so we slowed down our breathing and tiptoed carefully towards the corridor. Da Ba and Xiao Qiu followed closely behind me, and I had already decided that if we escaped this disaster, I would keep them as pets and take good care of them.

  All the way through, under the dim fluorescent lights in the corridor, there was a faint smell of gunpowder, and the wet floor had been flooded with rainwater from outside. The explosion left many scars, but it could be seen that the amount of explosives used was well controlled, without causing serious and irreparable damage to the hull.

  What struck our nerves was that on the ground lay seven or eight sailors' corpses. Most of them had been blown to pieces, their limbs shattered and their intestines spilling out.

  "Can Qianlong's 'jade' coffin be separated from the ship?" I asked Sherlock, who replied decisively: "It's impossible. It's being pulled in a fishing net, suspended by welded iron rings at the middle and rear of the ship. There's no way to separate it from the Jinhua wheel unless someone jumps down and cuts off the net!"

  I pointed at Sherlock and said: "You're the ringleader of this whole thing, you go!"

  Sherlock shook his head: "I can't swim."

  At this time, we arrived at a fork in the corridor. From memory, going straight would lead to a small staircase up to the dining room, where all passengers on the Jin Hua were locked inside, and beyond that was the control room. The right-hand corridor led to other rooms, eventually extending to the cargo hold.

  What to do? We looked at each other in dismay. Our situation was extremely embarrassing, and when we met Cai Lingyue and Xie Lao San, what could we say? Should we say "Hey, beautiful woman, sorry about that, there were zongzi outside, so we ran away, now we're back to continue being your captives"?

  Thinking of this, we hurried back and searched the dead sailor's body. There were no guns, they must have been taken away. Fortunately, we found a few daggers and an arm-long stiletto. I quickly grabbed the most stylish stiletto, feeling its weight was just right, and with the weapon in hand, I felt at ease.

  We made a collective decision to split up and act separately. To avoid being caught off guard by Cai Lingyu's people all at once, Sherlock and I headed towards the cargo hold, while Xu Lai and Nie Kun went towards the helm control room. We hoped to encounter the hero who triggered the explosion first. Of course, that person was likely to be either Si Lao, Gui Ye Jiao, or the escaped Qing Bang member. If we were unlucky enough to run into Cai Lingyu's gang, we would have to reveal the external crisis. We didn't intend to hide because we knew the external crisis wouldn't give us much time to hide, and hiding was equivalent to waiting for death.

  "Wait, let's switch. I'll go with Sherlock to the control room instead, that's where the key controls are, and it's more likely that Cai Lingyu and the others will be there. I haven't killed anyone before, they might show some mercy." I changed my mind. Xu Lai and the others listened and realized that their original route was indeed more dangerous, so they patted me on the shoulder in a very brotherly manner: "Good brother!" Then they decisively switched directions with us.

  After two pairs of people and horses said goodbye, Sherlock asked me inexplicably: "I want to ask you a Shanghai dialect."

  I nodded and Sherlock mouthed at me, actually using poor Shanghainese to say six words: "You know nothing about it!"

  "You've gone mad!" I exclaimed, pointing ahead: "Up front is the dining hall where passengers are being held captive. If you were Xu Lai and Nie Kong, those two fugitives, what would you do if you saw so many people?"

  "I'll let everyone out, let them cause a commotion, and we can take advantage of the chaos to survive!" Sherlock suddenly reacted, weakly asking: "Then aren't we also..."

  "Hmph, I'm not that cold-blooded!" I shook my head decisively. Those people were unarmed, and once the chaos erupted, it would be a bloodbath. Sherlock recalled the scene of Xu Lai and Nie Kun slaughtering their companions on the deck and couldn't help but shudder.

  In just a few minutes, we carefully passed by the restaurant where people were shouting for help and mercy. The 'door' outside was tightly locked, and I only then realized that the 'door' of the restaurant was a thick door similar to a cold storage room, which was too solid and obviously retrofitted later. Generally, a cruise ship wouldn't need to spend so much money on this, it seemed that Cai Lingyu and others had already studied all the details to ensure that passengers were trapped inside and couldn't get out. What's strange is that there was no one guarding outside, judging from the noise, only passengers were locked inside the restaurant.

  I held my breath with Sherlock, slowly passing through the dining hall and arriving at the helm control room. It was very dark inside, and there was no one else, only a few instrument panels spinning around. We didn't know how to drive, so we could only stare blankly. If I had known to learn sailing earlier, we would have rushed out by now. Through the glass of the control room, the sea of corpses outside almost surrounded the ship, making it impossible to escape.

  I was anxious in my heart and said to Sherlock: "There's no one here, go take a look at the stern of the ship."

  After finishing speaking, we then walked back.

  They walked back to their original position and saw that Xu Lai and others had also returned. As soon as they met, they opened their mouths: "Not a single living person was found, what about your side?"

  "I was shocked: 'Apart from passengers, we didn't find anyone else.'"

  We were stunned at once.

  Jinhua Wheel has walked a circle, but where have all the people gone?