Even if Adu had been loaned two extra brains, he never would have guessed that Wuchang would kindly warn them to dodge the cannibals. Besides, he had assumed all along that Wuchang was only trying to scare them—after all, this place was still a long way from the Pillar Forest, and by any reckoning they had not yet reached the cannibals' traditional territory.
But today Wuchang had taught them all a lesson: with him around, anything was possible.
In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Adu's mind. Ever since Wuchang had appeared, the abandoned mining zone had never had a moment's peace—not just that clash last time, but the top-grade crystals that kept being dug out one after another. Every last bit of it proved that with Wuchang around, anything was possible. No wonder everyone called him Ghost Wuchang.
Today especially: Wuchang said one word about cannibals, and a whole pack of cannibals actually turned up.
"Open fire! Everyone, open fire…" Adu was the first to drop into a crouch, the assault rifle in his hands flickering with energy. The killers behind him did not dare hesitate either; they poked their barrels out to both sides and opened fire at once.
The narrow mine shaft could fit only three killers firing at the same time, and even at full rate three assault rifles could not weave a dense curtain of fire—against a freak with movement skills as bizarre as Wuchang's, it was pretty much useless.
Wuchang had been a mercenary once, and in those days he had handled plenty of guns. Earth's gunpowder weapons were not the same as this world's high-energy bullet guns, but they had one thing in common: the same ballistic trajectory. As long as your footwork was fast enough, you could still escape with your life.
Fortunately, Wuchang's footwork was absolutely fast enough. During that earthquake he had carried Pike on his back and still outrun the shockwave—much less now.
On top of that, Wuchang was thoroughly versed in the battlefield art of seeking advantage and avoiding harm. He knew how to trade a light wound for a heavy one, even a heavy wound for a fatal one. Sure enough, by the time two energy beams had grazed his left ribs and the outside of his right thigh, he was already right in front of Adu.
"Get out of the way!" Wuchang swung an open hand straight into Adu's faceplate and knocked him flat with a single slap. Then he sprang at the rock wall beside him and actually swam along it like a gecko, vanishing past the rear of the column in no time.
The dumbstruck killers had never seen such bizarre movement in their lives. Before they could make sense of it, Wuchang was already gone.
For some reason, the moment Wuchang was wounded by Adu and his men, the charging cannibals let out a collective roar. They looked furious—probably enraged that these outsiders had laid hands on their cheese.
"Mother of God…!" Some killer in the column screamed in terror and then turned and ran. He had no choice—twelve men trying to fight nearly sixty cannibals was a pipe dream.
One runner bred another. Adu could not hold out either—when he saw the three rows of sharp teeth in those huge cannibal mouths, the last shred of courage to resist drained out of him.
"I don't want to be eaten! I don't want to end up as shit in the Pillar Forest…" Adu, out of his mind, opened fire—but his targets were the killers behind him.
"Out of the way! Get out of the way!" A full magazine of bullets blasted open an escape corridor. Adu was worthy of being a martial artist who's made it into the dan ranks—his speed at running for his life was hardly slower than Wuchang's.
The swarming cannibals vented all their fury on the wounded killers. The dark, swarming brutes tore the wounded apart alive, stuffing raw flesh into their mouths while still charging forward.
Like army ants crossing the carcass of some small animal, in mere moments seven or eight wounded killers were reduced to gleaming white skeletons, not a scrap of flesh left on them.
By now three of the squads Adu had brought had been wiped out. The remaining two had learned the grim situation over the walkie-talkies, and after turning it over and over they too chose to retreat.
Three hours later, when the exhausted Adu crawled out of the mine shaft with his beaten remnant, what greeted him was a ringing slap and a huge fist.
"Useless! You're useless, a total waste—the money I spent on you would have been better spent raising a few hellhounds!" Coyote Seven, in a fury, kicked Adu to the ground and set on him with a beating.
"Stop hitting me—boss, please, no more! We ran into cannibals, a whole black swarm of them, a hundred at least…"
"Bullshit. You weren't even up to the Pillar Forest. How the hell could there be cannibals?"
By then the surviving killers had gathered around too, kneeling and pleading. "It's true! We're really not lying to you. Look at George's arm—who else could make a wound like that except a cannibal's mouth?"
Seven walked over and studied the mangled, bloody wound carefully. He looked at it for a good long while before he was certain: this had been bitten by a cannibal.
"Damn it all. Are the dirty rats telling the truth this time? Is that Wuchang really a ghost Wuchang?"
Seeing Seven's expression soften, Adu scrambled over and clutched his leg. "Boss, it's not that I didn't fight my heart out—there really were just too many cannibals. If I hadn't lost my portable terminal on the way, I could show you the video. I really did record it."
Seven shook his head. "Forget it. Let it go. If those bastards didn't die by our hands, dying by the cannibals' isn't so bad…"
"Right! The boss is brilliant!" The crowd burst into cheers.
Just as the people above ground were congratulating themselves on escaping with their lives, the wounded Wuchang was struggling south through the tunnels below. He had already gone around three shafts and four forks; if not for his extraordinary memory and his thorough grasp of the map, he might very well have gotten lost long ago.
Having shaken off both the killers and the cannibals, Wuchang sprayed a bit of first-aid aerosol on his wound and spent a full two hours before he spotted the guide markers Boss Pan and the others had left. A short while later he finally rejoined them.
"What happened to you?" The moment Lane saw the blood on Wuchang's shoulder he darted over and eased him down to sit. Everyone else crowded around right after.
"Light another emergency lamp. I'm a little cold…" Wuchang said, letting out a long breath.
Pike obediently hammered three emergency lamps into the rock wall. When the light and the heat came at the same time, the pallor on Wuchang's face finally eased a good deal.
"I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"
"The good news—I want the good news," the little thief A Yun cut in.
"The good news is that Adu and his men have pulled out, and they pulled out clean. It's no feint."
"Then what's the bad news?" Boss Pan asked.
"The bad news?" Wuchang said with a bitter smile. "There's a whole nest of cannibals living right near us. Looks like more than sixty of them…"
"Huh?" Everyone gasped. Gopher Pike especially burst into tears on the spot. "I don't want to die—I really don't want to die! No, no, no—I'd rather be crushed to death in an earthquake than die in a cannibal's mouth!" With that, Pike leapt up and tried to bolt.
Old Dirty Lane's nose twisted out of joint with rage. He stuck out a foot and tripped Pike, who went down flat on his face.
"Are you out of your mind, kid? Go off on your own and you'll die faster. Sticking together is the only way any of us lives." Lane hauled Pike up and gave him a thorough cursing-out.
Then Eileen spoke up. "Wuchang, I can tell you're a capable man. So tell us what to do. I trust you."
Wuchang smiled bitterly. "You trust me? I'm afraid you won't be saying that in a minute." He took a mouthful of water to wet his throat and went on.
"Right now our first job is to dig out the traitor among us. Otherwise Seven will find us all sooner or later."
"Huh?" Everyone was taken aback. "That can't be. Everyone here has been friends for years—there's no way one of us is the traitor."
Wuchang paid the others no mind. He simply fixed his eyes on the little thief A Yun and said coldly, "Stop hiding it. Did you really think you could keep it from me?"
Wuchang's words stunned everyone present, and Eileen flared up on the spot. She pulled A Yun behind her and glared at Wuchang like a hen guarding her chick.
"What did you say? You're saying A Yun betrayed us all—are you insane?"
Wuchang shook his head. "A Yun, do you know how you gave yourself away? You actually first aroused my suspicion the moment you started pestering me to teach you the trade."
"I showed you that little trick of hiding a gold coin twelve times, and not once did you find the coin. Did you think you could fool my eyes? I watched closely, and five separate times the corner of your eye flicked to the right spot. It was less than half a second, but you can't fool me."
"And besides—look at this." With that, Wuchang tossed over a portable terminal: the very one he had lifted off Adu in passing.
"You explain to me why your identity tag shows up in his terminal. And why, when all our terminals are switched off, yours is on standby?"
These words struck like a thunderclap and left everyone present speechless. A flustered Eileen dragged A Yun out from behind her and snatched the terminal off his wrist.
Sure enough, the terminal really was on standby.
"God. Oh God, oh God! I gave you this terminal for your tenth birthday—it cost me twenty gold coins! I never imagined the gift I gave you back then would become the tool you used to betray me…" Eileen could not go on. She raised her hand and slapped A Yun hard across the face, then covered her face and wept.
Even Eileen had admitted it; the matter was now nailed down. The thoroughly dejected Pike seemed to find a sudden outlet for his feelings. He rushed over, seized A Yun by the collar, and slammed him against the rock wall.
"You animal! You little animal! Why would you do this to us? Eileen treats you like her own son—how could you betray her?"
"Do you know, Eileen and I have saved up a full fifty rainbow coins? We were going to give the Ration Center a big renovation. Our dream was just about to come true, and you've ruined everything for us…"
Tears streaming from his eyes, Pike boxed A Yun's ears four times, forehand and backhand, then squatted on the ground and bawled. "My money! My dream…"
Boss Pan and Wild Bull were mad with rage as well, Wild Bull especially—Eileen had saved his life, and he could not bear to see her heartbroken. He pulled the pistol from his waist and jammed it hard against A Yun's temple.
"Give me an explanation. Now…"
A Yun was crying too. He did not know where the strength came from, but he screamed himself hoarse.
"What was I supposed to do? What else could I do? I found my real mother. She's one of the prostitutes under Blood Rose's control, and she's learned to take drugs too. That's my own mother—was I supposed to just watch her get beaten to death…"
The moment those words were out, everyone present was shocked.
"You're not lying to us? You really found your birth mother? You're sure you didn't mistake her?"