Chapter 191: The Hero's End

"Mom! Mom!"

In the night, the boy's crying was especially grating, carrying far and far.

In an instant, a sound of wind rose by his ear; the boy holding his mother stopped crying for a moment. He turned back in fear and saw several people wearing green uniforms, holding guns, with eye patches on their faces.

They all wore armbands with a large green question mark on them. The boy recognized these people. A few days ago, this group had a gunfight with another group wearing black clothes. His father had been hit by stray bullets from the crossfire between the two sides and then died.

Seeing this group searching toward the ruins, the clever boy immediately realized how loud and how dangerous his crying was. He desperately covered his mouth, holding back his sobs and cries of shock, while tears of fear flowed endlessly, wetting his face.

But the dense sound of footsteps grew closer, making the boy more and more desperate. He suddenly remembered there was someone behind him, so he turned around and desperately pushed his mother into the crack of the ruins.

"Boss, do we really need to get involved in so much? Anyway, that sound just sounds like a kid, that's all."

"'That's all'? I think you're getting cocky. What was the Riddler's order? Don't you remember?"

"Patrol, capture soldiers, take hostages..."

"Kids and women are important. If a woman's husband or a kid's father becomes our soldier, then those kids and women are the best leverage to guarantee their loyalty."

"What if their father was killed by us?"

"Then they can serve as hostages too. Stop wasting words. Search carefully. If we don't capture enough, our bonus will go down the drain."

In the war zone, the Joker's side inherited his bottomless ruthlessness in conduct, while the Riddler's side's style was to capture women and children but not kill them, because they were still useful. But don't misunderstand; the Riddler's soldiers would still shoot decisively at anyone who resisted.

As the saying goes, your wife is not a child, and your son is not a woman.

In the end, there was no difference between the Joker and the Riddler's two sides.

The sound of their conversation approached this pile of ruins, but the boy had only moved his mother's body a little bit; his strength was simply too small.

Finally, the voices of that group arrived beside the ruins.

The boy trembled all over. He was still pushing the woman's body with force in his hands, but it was obvious that it was already too late.

"Come to think of it, why did that crying stop?"

"I don't know. Maybe he cried himself into a faint? Who cares? I feel that sound was right near this pile of ruins."

Soldiers holding guns one by one finally stepped into the ruins.

The boy shut his eyes in terror.

Grek strode forward, raising his gun, and walked into the ruins.

He looked around; everywhere were collapsed walls, roofs, or other building materials and debris, layered upon layer. On the ground, there were only a few corpses and smashed furniture and such.

It seemed there was nothing special about it.

At this moment, another soldier walked over.

"Grek, did you find anyone on your side?"

"No one here." Grek shook his head: "Just a few corpses."

"Then just shoot a few extra rounds to be safe. Let's go check the other side."

"Alright."

Bang! Bang!

On the ground, a woman's corpse struggled for a moment at the instant she was shot, but that was all; then there was no sound.

"There really was one who wasn't dead. What a pity. If I had known, I would have shot the body; that way, we could have captured them."

Dark red blood flowed from the woman's body, slowly spreading and flowing, running from the ground into the collapsed building ruins.

"Stop talking nonsense. Let's go. See where that kid ran off to."

Two pairs of shoes disappeared from his sight. In the crack of the ground ruins, half of the boy's face was dyed red by the blood on the ground. If a pair of big hands hadn't covered his mouth, he would have been unable to hold back a scream when the gunshots rang out.

A moment later, Chuck's figure squeezed out from the ruins, then dragged out an unconscious woman and a tear-stained boy from within. He touched his kite backpack; fortunately, its size was not large, barely enough to squeeze into the crack with him; otherwise, it would have been really hard to handle.

He secretly made a hushing gesture to the boy, signaling him not to make a sound, then tiptoed to peek outside.

It seemed no one was there, Chuck thought. Fortunately, he had landed relatively quickly, and his position was on the other side of the ruins; otherwise, he would absolutely have had no chance to stuff the boy's mother into the crack and then hide with the boy.

"I will take both of you out of here." Chuck said to the boy in a low voice: "But you must stay quiet. As long as that group doesn't come back—"

"Ha! Sure enough, there's a fish that slipped through the net!"

Just as he was speaking to the boy, an excited voice suddenly rang out from behind. Chuck's body froze at that moment.

He turned around and saw two pitch-black gun muzzles. A soldier smiled proudly: "Grek, see what I told you? Maybe someone is hiding in the ruins."

Grek, standing nearby, did not look quite so happy. He seemed somewhat guilty, but the gun in his hand remained held steady.

"Hey, hey, we don't have to do this. Listen, buddy, I'll give you fifty thousand dollars. You let us go, and we promise not to tell anyone about this—"

"What's with all that talk? Fifty thousand is only enough to buy your life, not enough to buy both of them. Hand over that kid, give us the money, and then you can go."

Hearing the other party's words, Chuck instinctively glanced back at the boy. At this moment, his face was a mess of blood, tears, and dust; only his eyes remained filled with terror and helplessness.

Just like little Charlie on the hospital bed.

"No, no—uh, how about this? Fifty thousand to buy their lives. I'll go with you. I'm very useful; the Riddler certainly needs me. I even worked for the Joker—"

Bang!

The gunshot rang out. A bullet grazed past Chuck's foot. That soldier didn't care at all about Chuck's proposal: "I said, hand over that kid and that woman, then pay up and leave."

Chuck trembled all over. Compared to the shooting by Deadshot that night, the soldier opposite was even more lethal, because he truly wanted to kill him.

But he had no more money; the remaining money had all been used to make the kite backpack.

He gritted his teeth, his mind a bit hazy. He didn't know what he was doing; his body simply made an instinctive reaction.

He pulled the boy behind him.

"No," he said. "I won't hand him over to you."

"Oh, looks like you're still a hero."

The soldier opposite sneered, raising the gun in his hand toward him.

"Pity. Those who want to be heroes mostly have only one outcome."

(End of this chapter)