Chapter 656: Waiting
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Two more shots rang out, but neither hit anyone.
Even so, it was enough to terrify the rioters who had originally surrounded him.
Most of them were merely there to collect their daily wages and swell the numbers; they were perfectly fine with bullying people in a favorable situation, but when their lives were truly at risk, they would undoubtedly flee faster than anyone else.
"Don't panic, everyone! He only has one bullet left!" the leading protest organizer shouted through a salvaged megaphone, attempting to rally morale.
A standard Imperial Guard officer's pistol held only six bullets, and now, with five having been haphazardly fired, Lun Heping's gun indeed had just one round remaining.
But the band of small fry merely exchanged glances.
Though only one bullet remained, none of them wanted to gamble on whether it would be fired at them.
Lun Heping, however, knew he had to make a run for it immediately, or the Imperial Guard would soon arrive to arrest him.
...
"Don't run!"
"Hey kid, don't run!"
The first to turn and flee was Lun Heping.
The Imperial Guard officers, seeing their colleague's gun snatched away, pursued with some hesitation, after all, everyone was just trying to make a living, and life was precious.
"Damn it! Those old foxes tricked me!" Lun Heping had only run a few steps when he discovered two more pistols stuffed into his pockets!
Even if he were denser, he would have understood by now: those old officers had deliberately given him their guns, intending to "kill with a borrowed knife" and eliminate those troublesome individuals.
The lower-ranking Imperial Guard officers truly responsible for maintaining order on site had long harbored extreme resentment towards the troublemakers due to various past unfair treatments.
However, constrained by the strict orders of their corrupt superiors and their fear of the law, they had never dared to use force directly. Lun Heping's sudden intervention, though, provided them with an excellent opportunity for retribution.
...
"If we had used guns on those scoundrels, it would be intentional homicide, probably leading to life imprisonment. Now that the guns are gone, at most it's a six-month suspension, and I'll retire right after that."
"Officer Chen, you're brilliant! To 'kill with a borrowed knife' like this, it truly avenges us!"
"It's just a pity for that kid, burdened with such a heap of charges for no reason."
"What's there to pity? We gave him a chance to save his life! Without those guns, that kid would have been torn apart alive by those mad dogs."
A few older Imperial Guard officers, somewhat out of breath and lagging behind, were proudly discussing their plan.
"Three guns... eighteen bullets... if he still can't escape with those, then it's simply heaven's will to destroy him, kid." The middle-aged man called Officer Chen quickly stopped, panting.
Officers assigned to the thankless task of maintaining order on site were generally those disfavored by their superiors in the Imperial Guard, or those who simply coasted along, taking it easy day by day.
Other officers, unaware of the full scheme, truly did not want to push a fierce individual like Lun Heping—who dared to forcibly seize an officer's pistol and fight back—into a desperate, suicidal confrontation.
...
"Boss, you screwed me over..." The closest pursuer, a hoodlum, was clutching his injured foot and wailing in pain.
A few minutes earlier, in the panic, Lun Heping had quickly fired the last bullet from the pistol.
Seeing all the bullets expended, the small fry eagerly charged forward, ready to claim the first credit.
The boss had already promised a hefty reward of five hundred thousand for whoever could capture the target.
But to their surprise, Lun Heping pulled another gun from his pocket and blasted the closest pursuers with several bangs.
Now, no one dared to pursue further, only able to watch him leave.
...
"Imperial Guard bulletin: An egregious incident occurred last night. The suspect, taking advantage of an officer's unpreparedness, stole their service weapon and fired upon passersby, resulting in two severe injuries and five minor injuries... The culprit is currently at large. Citizens are advised to take precautions."
The next morning, Lun Heping, lounging like a salted fish at home, saw the news about himself, accompanied by a reconstructed image that was ninety percent similar to his disguised face.
After returning from the scene last night, he had stayed up all night surfing the web, checking various news sources to understand who had attacked him.
Eventually, as he read, he even found himself feeling a little pity for the troublemakers.
Of course, that didn't include those who had tried to hack him down.
The incident had initially begun with a group of disheartened youths, devoid of hope due to poverty, expressing their dissatisfaction through gatherings.
They uniformly wore green vests to signify their organized nature.
But as time went on, and with the Castilla Federation's massive financial handouts, the ranks of the gatherings became a mixed bag of individuals with various agendas, including even gangsters.
The green-vested organization's activities also grew increasingly radical, escalating from initial peaceful sit-ins to extreme acts of smashing, looting, and robbing, completely distorting the nature of the movement.
More people simply sought to profit and vent through the smashing and looting, rather than striving for any higher ideals.
Lun Heping, an otherwise studious individual who had never cared about economic issues, specifically looked into the deeper reasons for these young people's despair this time.
There was only one true culprit—
The housing prices in New York City.
The price of houses in this city generally exceeded two hundred thousand per square meter, and they were constantly soaring year after year.
For people with an average monthly salary of less than fifteen thousand, this price was simply despair-inducing, as they could never afford a home even if they worked their entire lives.
Lun Heping had never cared about these things before, because his adoptive father, Lun Si Te Jue Shi, was considerably wealthy; it didn't matter if housing prices rose to a million per square meter, his family could still afford to live in a villa regardless.
Idly turning off the television, he quietly approached his sister's room...
Don't misunderstand, he didn't have any strange intentions; he was merely very curious about what this beauty, who rarely left her room all day, did inside.
...
"Hoo... hoo... hoo..." Lun Qin's heavy breathing came from behind the door.
"If I do as you say, will you really take me back?" This time, it was Lun Qin's voice.
"Mm... ah..." Then came some other strange sounds.
"Sister!"
Lun Heping couldn't listen anymore. He upheld his family's excellent tradition and once again burst through the door.
He then saw his sister, flushed and panting, speaking to a blank sheet of paper.
"I promise you!" She quickly finished uttering those four words, then immediately tore the paper in her hand to shreds.
...
"Lun—He—Ping!"
"Sister, are you alright?!"
"..." Lun Qin suppressed her urge to hit him.
She had finally managed to speak with a life form that had actively sought her out, claiming to be Bai.
The entity had immediately revealed her identity as a transmigrator and was now offering her a chance to return to her original world.
Just as the excited Lun Qin was about to agree, Lun Heping barged in.
...
"Everything is too slow; I can't wait." After vanishing from the paper fragments, Bai Mo muttered to himself.
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