Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The Sophie Vasi’s underground city was like a labyrinth that was full of bends and hidden traps. If one were not familiar with the layout of the underground levels and strayed into it, the activation of the hidden traps would cause them to become easily lost.
The underground city was divided into four sections: north, south, east, and west. A massive drug lab which did both research and production occupied the northern and western sides whilst the eastern and southern sides were storage areas for sundries.
As there were too many people at the headquarters, An Xunuo was forced to escape toward the southern side.
The underground city was lined with surveillance cameras, and the control room could clearly see wherever she was headed in. There was no way she would be escaping the underground city. That, along with how she was viciously outnumbered, made escape all the more impossible. Gunshots rang out and left a row of bullet holes on the walls of the underground city.
All of a sudden, the surveillance camera footage in the control room went awry. There was a mask, followed by darkness. The few intelligence personnel turned back to see Morales break into a gentle smile.
He had baited the fish.
As Ye Ningyuan was no warmonger, he followed the sounds of gunshots and headed for the southern side once he knew that An Xunuo was there. Given how familiar he was with the labyrinth and his judgment of the situation, he was able to locate her very easily. All was too smooth-sailing, so he decided to locate An Xunuo first despite knowing there was something slightly amiss.
“Halt! Who are you?” A loud guffaw came from Ye Ningyuan’s back. He frowned and suddenly turned around and leaped upward before holding the man’s hand. The bullet hit the roof, and he karate-chopped the man’s neck, knocking the man out. Several men behind the fallen man rushed forward and fired in unison. Ye Ningyuan dodged into the staircase nearby and avoided the bullets. He coldly smiled and decided he might as well clear the path ahead and thus fired back.
Once he fired, the people who were after Xunuo immediately turned tail. Ye Ningyuan changed his direction on the fly so that he would have disappeared into thin air once the men reached his previous position. It was as though the Sophie Vasi had made a decision to deploy most of their finest men and plenty of assassination teams here, and the entire southern side was full of armed men. Since they were in huge danger, he had to get An Xunuo out of here lest they lost their lives amidst the grave danger. As they escaped, he took down over ten men en-route and replenished his weapons. Ye Ningyuan avoided the armed men and headed up the southern side staircase and suddenly discovered two drops of blood on the ground. He frowned and looked up before looking down and going down the stairs. As he approached a corner, a cold gun was leveled at his forehead. He reached out to grab the gun but realized that it was Xunuo.
Her shoulder was grazed by a bullet, and blood trickled down. Seeing that the bullet was not lodged in her skin, it must be a flesh wound that was not too serious. Ye Ningyuan, who was quietly looking at her, suddenly heard gunshots and quickly hustled her to the door. Four to five men hurried past. “You go out first,” he softly said.
“What brings you here?” An Xunuo’s voice slightly shuddered as she looked down. Ye Ningyuan could only hear her trembling voice and not see her.
He gently stroked Xunuo’s head and softly said, “You wish I wasn’t here?”
She looked up with a complicated gaze and suddenly turned around. “Ye Ningyuan, you should not have come. It’s too dangerous.”
“Xunuo, do you think that our relationship is a joke?” Ye Ningyuan said solemnly. “When my woman is in danger, I won’t leave her in the dumps. Get it?”
His woman? An Xunuo’s lips broke into a gentle smile. What an overbearing man indeed.
Why did her heart ache so much? Her eyes were a little painful. An Xunuo closed her eyes to hide the emotions in them. “You’d better not regret it,” she softly said.
“I’m way more hopeful than you that I won’t regret this,” Ye Ningyuan said. He suddenly lifted up Xunuo’s chin and deeply kissed her. His kiss had anxiety and passion that he could not hide. “Xunuo, although I do not know whether I’ll love you and how much I’ll love you… I mean it.”
An Xunuo looked at Ye Ningyuan in a daze as Ye Ningyuan said, “Let’s get out first. We can save the rest for later.”
Thankfully, An Xunuo only suffered a flesh wound that would not affect her movement. The two of them deftly headed up the stairs which exit was at the center of the south-east sector. Orderly footsteps suddenly rang out at the quiet exit, and Ye Ningyuan and An Xunuo stopped in their steps. People like them were able to figure out the size of their enemies from afar, and the steps of their enemies suggested that the Sophie Vasi seemed to have mobilized professional killers who were well-trained by the Mafia.
Ye Ningyuan grabbed An Xunuo and ran in the opposite direction.
There was only one exit in the underground levels, and the exit was open ground with no cover. If they blatantly surfaced, they would meet certain death. Ye Ningyuan did not want to perish with An Xunuo, so they could only turn back.
Turning back was as fraught with dangers too.
“We’ve just avoided quite some people. What’s next?”
“That’s simple. Whoever gets in my way is dead meat!” Ye Ningyuan gently smiled and An Xunuo was slightly taken back. That was the first time she heard him say such vicious words. ‘Whoever gets in my way is dead meat’ utterly reeked of overbearingness.
He was always such a person. As they held each other’s hands tightly, they each turned in opposite directions, one to the left and the other to the right, before firing a few shots. A few men fell.
They collaborated seamlessly.
“How is your injury? Can you still manage it?” Even though it was a graze, the gunshot would agitate her wound and it would definitely hurt.
“Small issue!” An Xunuo plainly said. Ye Ningyuan nodded and led her downstairs. As they went down the stairs, the two of them took down several more people, pursuers and enemies alike. As they were firing on the move, they moved much more slowly and the enemies caught up with them. Their enemies’ steps grew closer. Ye Ningyuan held An Xunuo as they continued heading downstairs. An Xunuo was sweating buckets.
She looked up nervously. It wasn’t that she was afraid of death, but…
She gritted her teeth and looked at Ye Ningyuan before she pulled him to the side where there was a very-well-hidden lift door. As they entered the lift, the men pursuing them reached. The two of them dodged to the side and avoided a hail of bullets. The lift soon sped downward.
An Xunuo loaded her weapon and saw Ye Ningyuan looking at her calmly. “This lift leads to a concealed path within the underground city.”
“You knew about it long ago?”
An Xunuo looked down and plainly said, “On the fly. So sorry about that.”
“All is good, and it’s good you can recall it.” Ye Ningyuan slightly smiled, suddenly held her by the waist, and kissed her lips more intensely than before. He pinned her against the cold mirror whilst sucking away at her lips and the tip of her tongue until they became painful and numb. His kiss had an urgency and passion to it that Xunuo could not quite describe.
‘Damn you, Ye Ningyuan!’
While he wanted to kiss her as much as he could, he ought to still consider the occasion, no? Was he nuts to kiss her when there were pursuing soldiers behind them? Just as she was about to push him away, he held her wrist and brushed his arm over her wound, still kissing her as intensely. She experienced a bloody passion.
If the occasion and time were not right, she really wanted to…
“Xunuo, you’re really…” He landed a wet and warm kiss on her ears and gently said, “Contradicting.”
Before Xunuo could think about what he meant, the lift door had opened and she could only pull him out of the lift. They stepped out of the lift and rolled on the ground. As they leaned against each other, they fired a few times and a few men fell.
An Xunuo picked up the dropped guns and pulled Ye Ningyuan before running toward the end. They stopped at a stone door that had a voice and combination lock. An Xunuo quickly pressed a few buttons and a ‘wrong code’ error was displayed. She pressed the code again to no avail. An Xunuo squinted dangerously at how unbelievable Morales was. Ye Ningyuan held her shoulder and said, “I’ll do it!”
“No, I am faster. You just guard the door,” An Xunuo said and opened her necklace to reveal a small decoder chip. The steps sounded even more hurried, yet she remained calm.
Having put her life on the line once too often in her life, Xunuo was no longer startled by such situations. It was even more so this time. If she panicked, Ye Ningyuan would die and she had to force herself to calm down. Ye Ningyuan had the ability to decode the lock, but it was time-consuming. As she was long familiar with the underground city, she had the corresponding decoders prepared since it was a matter of when she would have to use them.
There was only one way, and it led to a dead end, and that was their end unless they could open the stone door.
The professional killers descended extremely quickly, but Ye Ningyuan was even faster than them. He fired a few shots before they could act and threw smoke bombs. Once the machine displayed the correct code, the stone door opened and An Xunuo pulled and then threw Ye Ningyuan behind it as she fired a few times to cover him. She suddenly saw a red dot on Ye Ningyuan’s back, and without hesitating, she leaped forth and fired in front of him. There was a grunt and the stone door closed.
“Xunuo!” Ye Ningyuan was shocked. An Xunuo gritted her teeth and gently smiled. “All’s good. Let’s go.”
While her face was terribly pale like paper, she smiled and pulled him as she was about to leave. Ye Ningyuan was not somebody who was easily convinced and immediately grabbed her shoulder. When he saw her shot in her heart, he felt as though his heart was punched so hard it became unbearably painful.
Did she leap forth to take that bullet? When they entered the stone door, their rearguard was indeed weaker, thus giving a chance to the sniper. The worst-case scenario was he was lightly wounded. Why was she silly enough to leap forth and take that bullet for him?
Ye Ningyuan had never expected her to do this.
His mind was blank.
Thirteen years ago, on Death Island, he was helpless when Nuo Nuo, in her bid to save him, was willing to sacrifice herself. He would never forget that smile and that shattered red figure for the rest of his life.
Thirteen years on, his skills were over-the-top and unparalleled. He was no longer the young kid but one who called the shots. Why did history have to repeat itself? Why did she have to smile and conceal the fact she was shot despite being clearly shot?
‘An Xunuo, why?’
Blood oozed out of An Xunuo’s chest. As she led Ye Ningyuan away, she gradually became unable to bear it. She clutched her chest and collapsed. Ye Ningyuan, in panic, held her collapsing figure and was lost for words.
“Ye Ningyuan, destroy the trap first.” An Xunuo propped herself up against the floor. Even though her face was pale, she still looked tough. Her toughness and calmness were expected of a girl who lived in chaos and wars around the clock.
The stone door was cut out of a special material, and regular demolition charges would not level it. Once they had destroyed the trap, they would have bought themselves some time. Ye Ningyuan nodded and destroyed the trap.
“Xunuo, why?” Ye Ningyuan’s hands trembled. An Xunuo was hit by a sniper rifle with an automatically-aiming scope, and the bullet nailed her square in her chest. Would she even survive such an injury?
He must not lose her. Absolutely not!
Ye Ningyuan’s gaze grew insidious, and he panicked. He did not manage to protect Nuo Nuo, and he did not want to lose An Xunuo. A sharp pain kept his heart going.
He was still trying to deceive himself by saying that he did not know much he loved her. Just who was he deceiving? He had clearly fallen deeply in love with her! He was just uncertain about how Xunuo felt and did not dare to tell her his deepest thoughts. If there were changes in time, he could tell himself that he could endure it.
Little did he expect things to spiral out of control.
She was drenched in blood, and his eyes hurt from the sight of it.
“Xunuo, don’t die, don’t die…”
Xunuo’s pale hands were on the back of his hand, and her face was terribly pale. “You knew that I laid this trap for you, so why did you still come?”
She had not thought through Ye Ningyuan’s words earlier and only understood it when she was decoding the lock. Ye Ningyuan knew that she had set this trap for him, so why did he still come? Why?
She really did not understand.
“Why did you take the bullet for me?” Ye Ningyuan tried to calm himself down but he panicked upon seeing An Xunuo’s life gradually fading away. Apart from Xu Nuo’s death, he had never felt this despondent.
He could only watch the person he loved leave him and do nothing about it.
“Why? I also want to know why I’ve become so silly. Hehe… You were right. I am very self-contradicting,” An Xunuo said as she smiled bitterly. “This works too…”
“No, it doesn’t. You can’t die. Don’t you want me dead? How can you die when I’m still alive?” Ye Ningyuan felt a pain in his head. Oh yes, Hailan! Hailan…”Hailan, dear Hailan, quickly come to your elder brother’s side. Hurry.”