Chapter 149

The mountain road suddenly became brighter, and the convoy of three bulletproof off-road vehicles had already come over.

Jiang Ting quickly lowered his head, turned on the lights, stepped on the accelerator, and rushed up the mountain road to join the convoy according to Wen Shao's original plan. The driver of the third bulletproof car saw the jeep coming up from the side of the road, and the light flashed in the car reflected Jiang Ting in the driver's seat wearing a baseball cap and a dark blue jacket—the driver recognized him after seeing the familiar clothes. It was logical that he recognized his accomplice and directly turned on the car communicator: "The back car, prepare to act according to the plan! The back car, prepare to act according to the plan!" 

——Act?

Jiang Ting was slightly stunned, and his thoughts spun.

Without allowing himself to hesitate, he looked out of the window of the passenger seat and saw that the back car had adjusted its speed, driving side by side with his jeep with only half a body gap.

Immediately afterward, the back door of the car opened, and Wen Shao leaned out half of his body in the strong wind—

 This action made Jiang Ting instantly understand everything.

Before leaning over to open the passenger door, he grabbed the phone!

Snap.

 The lights illuminated the night like day, the rapid police lights flickered outside the police cordon that ran through the valley, and countless SWAT officers were waiting in line.

In stark contrast, the huge valley behind the police car was empty; only the bomb disposal personnel and the anti-explosion team were working nervously under the hot bright lights, under the focus of countless eyes.

Suddenly, the police car approached from a distance and stopped outside the cordon. A chubby old man wearing a helmet staggered out of the car without waiting for anyone to help him. The surrounding SWAT officers made way for him, and the surprised voices kept coming one after another: "This…" "Isn't he…" 

 "Chief Lu!" The on-site commanding officer strode forward: "The road here is too dangerous, why are you here?"

Chief Lu raised his hand to stop him, his bloodshot eyes full of solemnity: "What's the situation?"

"Four out of six are dismantled, and the remaining two are still being handled at the same time!"

 "Commander Yang——" a SWAT officer rushed over, "The No. 5 detonation point has been eliminated!" 

The subtle sounds of relief sounded together from all around, but Chief Lu's fat face, which was aging and haggard because of staying up for several nights, was still tense: "Where is the last detonation point?"

The on-site commander immediately beckoned someone to bring the map: "Here!"

 The satellite map of the valley was enlarged again and again, and six red crosses were drawn on the image with different depths. Now there was only one still lit by a scarlet light. Chief Lu looked at it for a moment and suddenly frowned. He took the tablet from Commander Yang's hand and observed it carefully for a while, and his face suddenly changed: "It's not right." 

"What?" Several SWAT instructors around became nervous at the same time.

 "..." Chief Lu tapped on the last red cross with his stubby fingers. If one listened carefully, one could find that the end of his voice was slightly unstable: "This detonation point is at the narrowest part of the gorge. Once it explodes, it will easily cause a chain reaction, forming a landslide in the entire canyon, and it will be too late for everyone to retreat… Call the anti-explosion experts from the provincial department, hurry up!"

 Everyone was in an uproar at the same time.

"Reporting to the command vehicle! Reporting to Commander Yang!" At this moment, the roar of the officers at the observation point in front came from the radio: "The three vehicles of the main target are only one kilometer away from the ambush point, and they are heading towards the detonation point at full speed!" 

As soon as the words fell, the car lights dimly lit up the mountain road in the distance, and the roar of the engine in the strong wind got closer and closer—

 "Snipers, get ready!" "Observation post, get ready!" "Everyone——!"

The noise of the doors of the vehicles being shut sounded one after another, and a large number of sirens suddenly resounded!

"Someone, come to cover Chief Lu!" Commander Yang could not help but push Chief Lu into the police car forcibly. But in this extraordinarily chaotic moment, Chen Chu suddenly stumbled down from the pile of rubble in the distance, holding his mobile phone and yelling, "Chief Lu—! The Nail has sent an urgent report!"

 Chief Lu's cheeks trembled, and he grabbed the phone with an agility that was completely out of proportion to his size: "Captain Jiang?"

On the other side of the mobile phone was the whistling sound of the wind, and even Chen Chu, who was standing next to him, could hear it. It seemed that the caller was driving at a high speed: "The three cars of the main target are just bluffs, and Wen Shao is not in any of them."

Chen Chu asked in a low voice, "Then where is he?"

 In an instant, Chief Lu recalled what Yan Xie said on the road just now:

"Qin Chuan said that the King of Spades seems to like to play tricks and told us to be careful, just in case…"

" …Hurry up! Let the SWAT team go for reinforcements!" In an instant, Chief Lu's roar coincided with Jiang Ting's answer on the phone: "——Wen Shao is with the Nail!!"

 ...…

Wen Shao leaned out of the back door of the bulletproof car into the front passenger seat of the Jeep.

The distance between the two rushing cars was half a meter, and if one of them drove at a slightly different speed, he would stumble and be caught under the car, turning into a pile of bloody pulp in an instant—but his stride across the air was very steady. He held the edge of the roof with both hands at the same time to gain momentum, and the whole person got into the passenger seat and closed the door with a "bang!"

The three off-road vehicles accelerated immediately and sprinted toward the brightly lit police cars in the distance.

Wen Shao exhaled almost inaudibly and turned his head to the back seat—his eyelids twitched.

The back seat was empty, and his hostage was gone.

 "Don't move." The muzzle of the gun was silently pressed against the back of his head, and Jiang Ting said coldly, "Otherwise, I'll shoot." 

The car was bumping and roaring, but this small space seemed to be frozen, just a few seconds turning into centuries. Finally, Wen Shao laughed, seemingly very helpless, and said: "It's my fault. I should have thought that it would not be so easy to subdue you."

Jiang Ting said: "It doesn't matter. I also didn't expect you to fall into the trap."

 Jiang Ting held the gun in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. The stress sequelae from the car accident three years ago no longer affected his superb driving skills, and the Jeep drove smoothly along the narrow mountain road. Wen Shao's body swayed slightly with the bumps. It was completely dark outside the car window, and only half of his smiling face was reflected in the glass as if he couldn't feel the cold muzzle of the gun being pressed against his head at all: 

"Really?" He said, "You expected wrong." 

Before he finished speaking, he suddenly turned around and grabbed the gun. This action was no different from suicide. The gun let out two bangs, and the bullet passed close to his own temple and pierced through the roof of the car!

 Jiang Ting clenched his teeth. The gun came out of his hand and jumped into the air under the force of the recoil. Wen Shao stretched out his hand to grab it, but Jiang Ting slammed the gun into the air with an elbow, "Bang!" The third fire went off, the bullet passed Jiang Ting's nose and shattered the front window, and the gun body flew to the back seat!

Wen Shao failed to snatch the gun, so he reacted very quickly, grabbing the steering wheel with his pincer-like hands.

Snatching the gun and grabbing the steering wheel—these two actions were tantamount to a lunatic's life gamble, and it would be impossible for anyone with a lesser degree of mental illness to do it. However, at this moment, Jiang Ting slammed on the brakes, and the Jeep stopped abruptly. The huge inertia caused Wen Shao to lean forward, and the corner of his forehead hit the dashboard. Amidst the loud noise, there were only two click sounds—the handcuffs were locked on both of his wrists at lightning speed!

 Wen Shao got up and suddenly felt severe pain in his right rib. He looked down and saw Jiang Ting pulling out a blood-stained knife from under his rib and then stabbing it even harder without saying a word. Wen Shao let out a muffled groan amidst the gushing blood, and immediately a knife was pressed to his throat.

"I've thought many times that if I got a chance, it would be best to kill you." Jiang Ting said lightly, "Do you want to give me this chance to fulfill my wish?" 

Wen Shao continued to inhale. Following these movements, the blade drew tiny bloodstains on his throat. Finally, he sighed with a long smile: "You should have broken my two legs first. It's not good to just make me unable to use my two hands. Why didn't you directly shoot earlier?"

 The Jeep was parked in the middle of the narrow mountain road, with a cliff on one side and a steep abyss on the other. Jiang Ting's eyes shone brightly in the darkness, and he said, "I really want to, but if I had killed you, those drug transport channels, coordinators, and upper and lower lines, people who had helped you develop the blue gold molecular formula in the United States back then, and the smuggling routes for selling drugs to Southeast Asia and even North America for so many years, who will account for these innumerable heavyweight pieces of information?"

 In the police car, on the communication channel of the mobile phone, Jiang Ting's voice sounded amid the buzzing sound of the electric current: "…Now your life is worth more than mine."

Chief Lu's eyes trembled.

The fierce gun battle continued through the car windows, and in the dark night, the submachine guns continued to spew flames. The SWAT officers in bulletproof vests pressed forward, layer by layer. The three bulletproof vehicles were riddled with holes and were scrapped, but the drug dealers were still using the bodies of the vehicles as cover to keep fighting.

"Response from sniper point D, response from sniper point D——" 

"Sniper point D is ready!"

 "Fire!"

A drug dealer had just poked his head out from behind an open car door, and before he could throw a self-made grenade, a sniper bullet spun and flew through the vast night sky, piercing through his skull in an instant.

Bang——The grenade fell to the ground at the same time as the corpse, and four seconds later, the entire car exploded into the sky in the air wave!

The explosion caused rubble to fall from the sky, scattering all over the ground. Deputy Chief Wei and Chen Chu, who were squatting outside the bomb disposal cordon, shrank their heads together, and their necks were covered with sand.

"Bah, bah, bah…" "Cough, cough, cough!" The two were shaking their collars in embarrassment when they suddenly saw a faint movement in the distance, and the anti-explosion team jumped up at the same time. A few seconds later, an excited report sounded from the walkie-talkie: "Command Center, Command Center, the sixth detonation point has been successfully dismantled!"

The blood pressure of the two leaders soared at the same time, and both were on the verge of collapse, almost scaring Commander Yang on the site out of his wits.

"Old Chen, go and report to Old Lu!" Deputy Chief Wei made a decisive decision: "Let the anti-explosion team start removing all explosives immediately!"

Chen Chu sighed. At this time, no one could see the arrogance of the special commissioner of the provincial department in him. He moved nimbly like a rabbit with its tail chopped off. He jumped up and ran toward the police car: "Chief Lu! There is a news from the bomb disposal site—"

His voice stopped suddenly when he saw Chief Lu staring straight at the front window of the car. The drug dealer's car in the distance was burning after the explosion, and the flames were reflected in the cloudy pupils of the old chief: "…not good."

 Chen Chu: "Ah?"

Chief Lu turned his head slowly, and Chen Chu looked at him, only to hear him say hoarsely:

"…The explosion just now seemed to have sounded twice."

 ...…

The sound of gun battle seemed to be very far away, swept away by the rustling wind in the woods, disappearing without a sound.

"You want me to explain?" Wen Shao's black eyes were filled with ridicule: "But based on my understanding of mainland law, my crime is enough to be shot 108 times. Even if I cooperate with the police investigation, it is absolutely impossible to exchange for a reprieve from death. What's the point of telling the truth?"

 Jiang Ting said flatly, "Maybe I can help you replace the shooting with an injection; at least you would be able to die with dignity."

Wen Shao seemed to have heard something particularly funny: "Then why don't you just stab me to death now, or stab me to death slowly. I have the most dignity to die in your hands." 

The two looked at each other, and Jiang Ting smiled slowly for a while, but the smile was cold enough to make people feel chilled: "Don't worry, the police will have a way to pry your mouth open."

He pulled up the handbrake and was about to start the car—but suddenly, Wen Shao shouted: "Wait!"

Jiang Ting raised his eyebrows.

"Do you want me to confess?"

 "..."

"If you participate in every interrogation, I will tell all the secrets the police want to know. How about it? Deal?"

Jiang Ting's expression seemed to be like a deep pool; from the curling of the eyelashes to the curvature of the corners of the lips, there was no emotion at all.

 There was a knife pressed against Wen Shao's throat, and the blood kept rolling down, but he didn't seem to feel the pain, and even his smile became more obvious: "Your phone should be connected to the command center; maybe they can see my sincerity first. Do you know how the three children, Wang Rui, He Liang, and Shen Xiaoqi, died?"

Jiang Ting wanted to remind him that Shen Xiaoqi had been rescued, but he didn't make a sound.

It was useless to remind him. Wen Shao's paranoia had long since become terminal, and in his eyes, Shen Xiaoqi was no different than dead.

"Every July, I think about our childhood experience. If I have any regrets in my life, that life-saving rope might be the only thing I want to turn back time for and go back to the past to stop and change the matter. But as you said, it has been more than 20 years, which is too long. Even if one looks back, there is no point." 

"This incident later became a thorn in my heart. It wasn't until I came back from the United States and found that you were completely on Wu Tun's side, this throne became a bleeding point, and I could feel it spreading and festering every day, gradually becoming calamity in my heart." 

"So you forced Teng Wenyan to kill Wang Rui and Li Yuxin to kill He Liang." Jiang Ting kept his eyes still and said, "You actually want to kill yourself, but you don't want to die, so you can only find these innocent children as substitutes."

 Wen Shao was silent for a moment, then his eyes flashed: "I am actually willing to die by your hands, just like when I got into the car just now and asked you why you didn't shoot."

Jiang Ting sneered.

"But I'm still very glad that you understand me." Wen Shao said gently, "I've always loved you, Jiang Ting. In exchange for cooperating with the police, please send me to Chief Lu with your own hands."

If in the past, these three words would have caused Jiang Ting to be entangled in the poisonous circle of hatred and self-loathing and even forced to suffocate, now he only feels very ridiculous in his heart.

"I'm sorry I didn't understand you. I've never understood you very well." Jiang Ting smiled and said mockingly, "The person responsible for analyzing the criminal motives in that case was Yan Xie." 

He stepped on the accelerator, and the Jeep buzzed and drove forward.

 The side view mirror reflected the scene behind them, and there was a faint light at the end of the mountain road—those were the headlights. It seemed that a police car was chasing them from behind.

Jiang Ting glanced distractedly at the side-view mirror and then heard Wen Shao's laughter becoming clearer and clearer.

This person often laughed when chatting with Jiang Ting, but rarely laughed out loud like this. For some reason, Jiang Ting's heart sank, and he frowned and asked, "What are you laughing at?"

 "It's like Teng Wenyan didn't kill Wang Rui, so she died too…" Wen Shao said regretfully, "That's why I just asked, why didn't you shoot directly?"

"..."

Wen Shao held Jiang Ting's hand, which suddenly started to tremble, as if he was holding a priceless treasure, not caring at all that the tip of the knife pierced his thin neck muscles. With that relieved smile on his face, he said slowly, "In order to completely destroy the clues after I got away and prevent the police from tracking me down, I installed bombs in all four vehicles…" 

 Jiang Ting suddenly withdrew his hand and threw away the knife. He opened the glove box under the dashboard with a bang, and his pupils constricted instantly.

In the light, a stack of explosives was fixed at the bottom of the box. The detonating device was extremely delicate, consisting of two small metal balls fixed by electromagnetic wires—

"Keep going; don't slow down." Wen Shao's tone seemed to have a little regret: "This is an inertial trigger device. The metal ball can detonate after three collisions. You just stopped and started again, and the inertial force has already caused it to collide twice. As long as you step on the brake again, you and I will be blown to pieces."

"I love you, I want to live with you." The voice of the King of Spades was heard clearly in the command car: "If it's not possible, we can die together."

The faces of all the leaders changed instantly. Chief Lu's tea mug fell to the ground with a bang!

"Reporting to the command center!" At this moment, Captain Yu's loud voice sounded in the communication channel: "I have set up checkpoints ahead with reinforcements. Captain Jiang's car is only 200 meters away from us!" 

Deputy Chief Wei lost his voice in anxiety: "No—"

Ding-dong! The in-vehicle satellite phone rang, and Chief Lu pressed the connect button with trembling hands.

"Reporting to Chief Lu, I just caught up with Jiang Ting from behind." Yan Xie was driving a police car, and through the front window of the car, the taillights of the Jeep were reflected in his surprised eyes: "Can you connect me to Jiang Ting's channel? He doesn't seem to have any intention of slowing down to join me; what's going on?"