Chapter Fifty-two: Midnight Assassin

  The content of Dai Li's letter was simple. Regarding the reconstruction of Nanjing Station, he would entrust everything to Lin Xiaotang for handling, and the Military Bureau would also provide full support. Considering the special nature of Nanjing, he would dispatch a cadre to personally guide and assist Lin Xiaotang in completing the reconstruction work, making Nanjing Station a poisonous thorn buried in the enemy's heart. Of course, Dai Li also subtly emphasized his importance to Lin Xiaotang. As for the next step in cooperation between the two parties, he would send someone to contact Lin Xiaotang later, and the purpose was clear to both parties, so there was no need to explain further.

  After reading the letter, Lin Xiaotang immediately burned it and asked Liu Chengfeng to bring an oral message to Wang Tianmu: "The letter has been received, set off for Nanjing in a few days!"

  After seeing off Liu Chengfeng, Lin Xiaotang suddenly felt much lighter all over, and the recent hustle and bustle and life-and-death struggles seemed to have gained value. Dai Li was a clever person, and Lin Xiaotang's benevolent signal was immediately understood by him, let alone this cooperation was beneficial to him without any harm, the only possible variable was that he didn't understand Lin Xiaotang well enough.

  In other words, after the reconstruction of Nanjing Station, Dai Li must have been thinking of taking advantage of the situation, but Lin Xiaotang is not a fool, and he will never do something that would make him a scapegoat for others again. From this point of view, Lin Xiaotang should indeed be grateful to Yuan Jianfeng.

  Shanghai has been calm and peaceful for the past few days, with Zhang Shuo Lin's series of actions being carried out in secret. The city remains tranquil. Early the next morning, Lin Xiao Tang issued an order to launch a full-scale attack on Zhang Shuo Lin's transportation route through the communication channel previously arranged by Long Wang. He firmly believes that within a week, all of Shanghai will be thrown into chaos, but this is limited to the underground world. Counter-attack agent 52 of the Republic of China.

  Within three days, Lin Xiaotang instructed Guo Zhu and Lin Huai to take care of things, which gradually took shape. Given the huge difference in strength between him and Zhang Xiulin, Lin Xiaotang's counterattack plan emphasized "fast, accurate, and ruthless". If he didn't move, then so be it; but if he did, he would aim straight for Zhang Xiulin's vital points. Although he couldn't take his life yet, at least he wanted to make him feel the threat of death, so that he wouldn't dare to act rashly again.

  For this, Lin Xiaotang and two brothers who understood the car bed craftsmanship hid in a small factory under the name of Wan Mulin, and after two days of hard work, the necessary action equipment was finally completed.

  On the tenth day of the first month, Shanghai was still immersed in the festive atmosphere. Although it was already late at night, the city's sky was still bursting with brilliant fireworks from time to time, and the sound of firecrackers was incessant day and night.

  The southern part of the French Concession, Lu Jia Shi Bridge, is the intersection of the French Concession and the International Settlement. The south side of the bridge belongs to the International Settlement, while the north side falls within the jurisdiction of the French Concession. Lu Jia Shi Bridge spans a small tributary of the Huangpu River, with scattered old houses on both sides of the river. The residents here do not belong to any administrative region, and Shanghai is near yet far for them.

  Zhang Xiaolin chose this place as a storage location for his tobacco, opium and ammunition.

  The warehouse is located just north of Lujiazui Bridge, a large open area away from the slums. This was originally the site of the Shanghai Xinxing Textile Mill, but it was later taken over by Zhang Ailing and poorly managed. It was eventually converted into a warehouse, as the factory buildings were idle anyway. Zhang Ailing arranged for fifty guards to be stationed here, and since it is only a five-minute drive from both the Central Police Station in the International Settlement and the French Concession's Huishen Police Station, Zhang Ailing believed that storing goods here was completely safe.

  The guards still had to stick to their posts during the Spring Festival, naturally they were full of complaints, but fortunately the boss had prepared good wine and food, and also let everyone take turns resting, which alleviated their dissatisfaction.

  The night watch had been arranged, and the head of the guards finally let out a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard a "popping" sound outside, followed by several muffled groans. He sprang up from bed, grabbed his gun, and rushed outside, only to run into one of his subordinates: "Big brother, it's not good! Someone has launched a sneak attack, and several of our brothers on patrol outside have been taken out!"

  The boss hastily summoned the subordinates in the warehouse to get up and prepare for defense, while he himself quickly picked up the phone receiver and dialed the public rental district central police station's phone number.

  "Hello? Is this the police station? This is Xinsong Textile Factory. We are under attack...".

  The phone on the other side hung up like avoiding a plague god before he could finish speaking.

  The chief's face was covered in sweat, and he hastily dialed the French concession police station again. The other party responded quite readily this time, but said a sentence that almost made the chief collapse to the ground: "No problem, we'll definitely rush over, it's just that it will take about an hour, there are too many people on the streets today and traffic is congested!"

  Listening to the busy tone on the phone, Head Mo's back was also covered in cold sweat. He quickly dialed Zhang Xiaolin's mansion again. But before it even connected, the sound on the phone stopped, and it was clear that the telephone line had been cut off by someone.

  At this time, Lin Xiaotang had already thrown the Kar98 sniper rifle with a silencer he designed to Lin Huai, and the few patrolling people outside were all taken out by him in one breath. Originally, sniping was a job that suited Huo Yan very well, but since he was still recovering from his injuries, Lin Xiaotang had no choice but to take matters into his own hands.

  Lin Huai took over the sniper rifle, and his eyes lit up instantly. He fondled it lovingly, looking like an old lecher who had just seen a beautiful woman throwing herself at him. Lin Xiaotang gave him a white eye: "Be careful, this thing is precious, and the bullets are even more expensive, don't secretly fire!"

  Lin Huai Bu smiled fawningly and stretched out two fingers: "Boss, just shoot twice!"

  Lin Xiaotang punched him in the chest with a scowl: "You said it, fire two shots! If you can't hit the target with two shots, don't bother thinking about me again!"

  Lin Huai stepped forward and gave a military salute: "You just watch!"

  Having lost all external aid and communication channels, the leader was disheartened and could only command his subordinates to fight with all their might to block Lin Xiaotang's attack. At this time, a sudden burst of firecrackers sounded in the slum area, deafening sounds shook the sky, completely covering up all the sounds on the factory side. ?? Counterattack 52

  The guards' best weapon was only the Type 38 rifle, and they were no match for Lin Xiaotang's professional soldiers equipped with automatic weapons. In a short while, more than half of them were eliminated, and the rest, seeing that the situation was unfavorable, hastily dropped their weapons and surrendered. The leader was shot in the head by Lin Huai and died instantly.

  Lin Xiaotang ordered his subordinates to drag all the corpses out of the warehouse and tie up all the surrendered people on the trees outside the warehouse. Each person was tied tightly, with a piece of broken cloth stuffed in their mouths. After carefully checking the items in the warehouse, Lin Xiaotang and others suddenly gasped in shock.

  These two warehouses were packed to the brim with crates of opium and morphine, estimated to be worth around three million. There were also several crates of military ammunition, but they were not of good quality, just some outdated models. Lin Xiaotang took a look and ordered his men to load one crate of American-made hand grenades onto the truck.

  Guo chased after Lin Xiaotang with a gasoline can: "Boss, are you really going to burn this? This is real money!"

  Lin Xiaotang gritted her teeth: "What else can we do if we don't burn it? Move it away? Where is there so much time, this thing is held in our hands, sooner or later it will be a disaster. Burning it clean, saves trouble for others, right, remember to move out two boxes and put them in a conspicuous place, the police station helped us so much, we should show some gratitude!"

  Lin Xiaotang's Mars fire flew out and landed on the wooden box covered with gasoline, and the flames were like a giant dragon that broke free, instantly occupying the entire cargo hold. At this time, the firecracker sounds from the direction of the slum area finally stopped gradually, leaving only the dark sky illuminated by this growing flame.

  At the same time, Ma Qixiang appeared at the Hui Zhong Restaurant on the Bund. He was wearing a dark-colored suit with two wisps of whiskers stuck to his mouth, sitting leisurely on the sofa in the lobby, holding a newspaper in his hand, and his eyes occasionally swept towards the direction of the door.

  At the stroke of eleven at midnight, Ma Qixiang's eyes suddenly lit up. Five people walked in from the entrance, with a bald middle-aged man in the center embracing a seductive woman wearing a cheongsam. Their footsteps were slightly floating, seemingly under the influence of alcohol. The two were laughing and joking as if no one else was around, accompanied by three bodyguards.

  Ma Qixiang gave a signal with his eyes to a waiter near the stairway, and the waiter understood, turned around and ran upstairs quickly.

  A bald middle-aged man walked to the elevator with a seductive woman, three bodyguards stood on either side of him, one in front of him waiting for the elevator.

  Two minutes later, the elevator arrived at the first floor. The bodyguard opened the elevator door and escorted the bald middle-aged man into the elevator. Other guests also wanted to get in, but were blocked by the last two bodyguards who entered.

  The elevator slowly ascended, and the bald middle-aged man's large hand had already brazenly reached into the woman's cheongsam, eliciting a series of giggles from her. The bodyguards exchanged amused glances.

  The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and before the bodyguard could open the door, two men in black suddenly appeared in front of the door, their eyes coldly raised the pistols with silencers in their hands, and expressionlessly fired.

  Muzzle flashes flickered repeatedly, and blood splattered everywhere.

  At the same time, in the French concession on Hai Ge Road, Shen Pangzi was wriggling his massive body, waving to the masseur, humming a tune as he walked out of the massage room. The lenses of his glasses sparkled under the dim light, and due to the steam, they seemed somewhat blurry.

  Shen Pangzi jumped into the hottest pool, and let out a comfortable sigh. It was already close to midnight, and there were no other guests in the pool, except for one person lying against the wall of another pool behind Shen Pangzi, with a white towel covering his face, seemingly dozing off. At the entrance of the bathing hall, two men stood with towels wrapped around their waists, guns slung over their shoulders, and cigarettes in hand, chatting.

  Suddenly, a noisy sound came from outside the bathroom, startling the man wrapped in a white towel. He lifted his head, took off the towel, and with an expressionless face, nodded slightly towards the two people at the door, indicating for them to go out and take a look.

  After a while, the two of them still hadn't returned, and the man was getting somewhat perplexed. He stood up and was about to leave when Shen Baozi turned around and smiled at him: "Ah Five in the long gown, it's been a while!"

  The man clearly saw Shen's appearance and suddenly exclaimed: "Glasses!", saying that, he immediately went to grab his own gun holster by the bathtub.

  Shen Pangzi didn't move at all, his left eyebrow raised slightly, the lens fell down, he stretched out his hand to catch it, wiped his fingers, and with a flick of his wrist, the lens shot out with a cold glow.

  The man stood frozen in the bathtub, his hand holding the gun holster, and his mouth kept making "hōu hōu" sounds.

  The lens was embedded in his throat. Counter-attack agent 52 of the Republic of China

  Shen Pangzi jumped out of the bathtub, walked to his side, reached out and pulled out the mirror piece, and fresh blood spurted out. Shen Pangzi gently pushed, and Hanzi's corpse fell into the bathtub.

  Shen Pangzi wiped clean the bloodstains on the mirror with clear water, turned his head to glance at the floating corpse with disdain, and walked out of the bathroom in big strides.