Chapter Thirty-One: Smooth Return to the Army

  As soon as it dawned, people who stayed in the county town all came out of the city and gathered at a temporary residence in the south of the city.

  "Comrades! Our mission has been successfully completed!", Li Xinmin said with excitement.

  "Captain! Is that all you're going to get for betraying Lu Ri?!", asked Fan Xiaoping, the captain of the second squad, very reluctantly.

  "Let him jump around for a few more days, when we have the chance to clean him up it won't be too late!", Li Xinmin said. He knew his subordinates were all very proactive and would actively complete the tasks he assigned. Now their team hadn't completed the task, several team members felt somewhat resentful, after all others had finished, they didn't need to be worse than others, why couldn't they complete the task?

  "It's not the right time to make a move now. When the time is ripe, we will naturally take care of that dog thing!" Li Xinmin continued to persuade.

  Three battalions of people, led by Li Xinmin, were rushing back and forth in high spirits. At this time, the county seat of Liao County was in a state of chaos. The first news to arrive was that Wang Xijiu had been killed. When Wang Xijiu's guards went to call him for breakfast, they found that he had already been killed, his head gone. He immediately reported Wang Xijiu's murder to Lu Ri.

  "Bastards! Are you all pigs?" Lu Li cursed.

  "Everything was normal last night, didn't hear any noise, and the brothers even patrolled the yard several times!", the security guard explained. In fact, they did patrol last night, but they only made one round before hiding in the gatehouse to drink wine. They had no idea about the arrival of the killer.

  "Is there any clue? Do you know who did it?" asked Lu Li.

  "I don't know! There were no useful clues left behind, the brothers only found signs of someone climbing over at the south wall." The guard replied timidly.

  "Get out! A bunch of useless trash!", Lu Li was so angry that he flipped over the office desk, scaring the security guard who quickly ran out.

  "Report!", someone outside the door asked to see him again just after the guard left.

  "Come on in!" said Lu Li with a burst of laughter.

  A soldier pushed open the door and walked into the office of Road One, seeing a mess on the ground, he couldn't help but shrink his neck. "Report to the captain! Just found XXX, dead in his own room."

  "What? Say it again?" Lu Li asked incredulously.

  "Wu Yingchang is dead in his own room, and it was just discovered by his guards." The soldier repeated again.

  "Go! Take me to see!", the soldier followed him to Wu Yunsheng's room, and found that Wu Yunsheng was really dead, and it was a poisoning death, and he had been dead for a long time. Wu Yunsheng's face was dark purple, and all seven orifices were bleeding with dark red blood, and there were many scratch marks on the bed, showing that he had struggled before his death.

  "Hurry! Go and get Zhao Lianchang for me!", Lu Li was somewhat frightened, several people had died one after another, he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart, would the next one be himself? He thought to himself.

  "Captain, you're looking for me?" Zhao Zuofang panted as he followed the guard running over.

  "Are you okay?!", Lu Li asked with concern.

  "What's wrong?!", Zhao Zuofang looked at Lu Ri strangely.

  "It's nothing! I'm fine!", Lu Li smiled and replied as soon as she saw Zhao Zuofang, indeed nothing had happened.

  "Oh! I heard that Wang Lianzhang and Wu Yingzhang have encountered some trouble?" Zhao Zuofang asked afterwards.

  "Not bad! Wang Lianchang was killed at home, and his head was even taken away by the killer. Wu Yingchang died of poisoning in his own room." Lu Li said with a very low mood.

  "What's going on? Who did this?" Zhao Zuofang asked in puzzlement, he also became tense.

  He had just said that nothing was wrong, then he started coughing non-stop, and the frequency of his coughs got faster and faster. He ended up spitting out blood, vomiting it out in large mouthfuls.

  "Old Zhao! What's wrong with you?" The road was in a hurry today, what's going on? Has he been possessed by an evil spirit or something? How can they all be dying one after another.

  "Are you all dead? Hurry up and go find a doctor!", someone shouted hoarsely from the road.

  The guard immediately ran to find a doctor. Shortly after the guard left, Zhao Zuofang stopped breathing, his eyes wide open and staring blankly at the sky with unfinished blood foam at the corner of his mouth.

  "Old Zhao! Come on! The doctor is coming soon!", Lu Li shook Zhao Zuofang desperately, but Zhao Zuofang didn't have a single reaction.

  "Squad leader! The doctor is here!", the guard said as he brought the doctor over to Lu's side.

  "Damn it! What are you guys eating? Now you're coming? Come on! Give me a hand and kill them!", Lu Li was extremely emotional at this moment, stimulated by the death of Zhao Zuofang and the other three.

  "Captain! It's a miscarriage of justice, Captain! Spare our lives!" The guards and the doctor hastily shouted "miscarriage of justice", but without the commander's order, the executing soldiers lifted them up and walked away. "Bang bang!", several gunshots rang out, and then there was no more shouting from them.

  The soldiers in the courtyard all knew that Lu Ri was in a terrible mood at this time and must not be provoked, otherwise it would be death.

  "Qiguo is far away! You are in charge of leading a team to investigate the cause of Wu Ying's and Zhao Lianchang's deaths and report back to me!" Lu Li ordered.

  "Yes! Don't worry, Captain!", Qiguo Yuan hurriedly guaranteed on his way.

  Since Lan Guoqing's disappearance and Zhang Shaodong's death, this road has been taken over by the new team leader, Qi Guofar, who was also promoted to company commander. He is very loyal to Lu Ri and executes every task assigned to him with great care, like a son would. Lu Ri is quite at ease with him.

  The atmosphere in the Garrison Command was extremely tense at this moment, and Guizi Bridge Benlian team leader sat there silently, listening to Routi's report.

  "Commander! I seem to detect a hint of conspiracy." said Lieutenant Commander Suzuki from the side.

  "Suzuki's right! This is a huge conspiracy against the security team!", said Fujita, who was also standing by.

  "I suspect Zhang Shaodong and Lan Guoqiang were both killed by this group of people!", Suzuki continued to analyze.

  "Oh! So that's what Suzuki-san thinks?", At this time Hashimoto finally spoke up.

  "Yes! Your Excellency! These past two days, I sent people to re-gather intelligence and discovered some suspicious points. This is a conspiracy aimed at killing Zhang Shaodong and the batch of Eighth Route Army officers who surrendered to our Great Japanese Imperial Army."

  "Not bad! Now only Hachiro's suspicion is the greatest, it can be determined like this." Hashimoto also affirmed Suzuki's analysis. Hashimoto knew that now even more accurate analysis would be useless.

  "Suzuki-kun! I'm counting on you for this matter. Make sure to get to the bottom of it." Tomo ordered.

  "Yes! I will definitely get to the bottom of the whole thing." Suzuki replied with great certainty.

  The devils will not rest until they have figured out this matter and will surely carry out a crazy revenge like mad dogs.

  At this moment, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army in Wangjiayu, Li Xinmin was reporting to the leaders about the situation of this action. The leaders of the headquarters gave great affirmation to Li Xinmin and his men for their actions this time. It was decided to award the personnel who executed this task with a major merit reward, and also to allocate a certain amount of silver dollars as a reward. However, Li Xinmin refused the silver dollar reward, after all, the headquarters needed these silver dollars more at that time.

  "Hahaha! You guys have really outdone yourselves this time!", the advisor said with a smile.

  "Haha! Thanks, Chief. This time we also took advantage of the enemy's carelessness and got a bargain. I believe the enemy has already strengthened their defense by now." Li Xinmin replied with a smile.

  "By the way, Chief! Does Lan Guoqiang have any instructions?" Li Xinmin then asked about Lan Guoqiang's situation.

  "I'm not very clear about this either, but from his mouth we learned a very important piece of information. Our contact point in the county town has been infiltrated by the security team's agents, and people have already been sent to deal with it. You guys are really lucky this time, you didn't go meet up with our comrades there, otherwise Zhang Shaodong and his men would probably have known about it before we even made a move."

  Li Xinmin and his party returned safely to the third camp, where Zhang Dawei led the soldiers in a grand welcoming ceremony. Li Xinmin then convened a celebration meeting for the whole camp, which was very lively.

  PS: Thank you for your support and love! Wishing you a smooth work, good health and a wonderful weekend. Three more updates this weekend as a thank you gift.