Chapter 1729: Rescue

"They're surrounded! Several vehicles! Wang Yan, what do we do?"

All along the way, Bai Ju had followed Wang Yan's instructions well; now, at this critical moment, she instinctively sought his opinion.

"Of course we fight them! If the two of us leave, Duo Jie and the others are truly dead." Wang Yan lowered his binoculars, gripping Bai Ju's shoulders with his hands. "Steady! Why didn't you just kick your foot into the engine?"

Bai Ju smiled awkwardly as the vehicle's speed began to drop.

Wang Yan retrieved a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle from the rear and stuffed two handfuls of ammunition into his pockets. "Their vehicles are stuck; don't get too close. Use the blind spots between the two cars to approach—we'll still need to tow them later."

"Is there still a chance to tow them? Them?"

"With your excellent marksmanship, what are you afraid of? Focus on driving!"

Bai Ju took a deep breath, calming her nervousness and excitement, steadied her mind, and drove toward Duo Jie's position.

This was an open flatland, or rather, a basin enclosed by Gaoshan. The distance between the two parties seemed close, but in reality, they were still several kilometers apart; it took some time before the vehicles became clearly visible.

Old Han said, "That's our vehicle!"

Since he was primarily responsible for repairing and maintaining the patrol team's vehicles, he knew them well; even from a distance, he recognized them as the ones previously captured.

Zha Cuo, whose face was deathly pale and who had been weak and listless, suddenly regained spirit: "The college student has come to save us."

Samba said, "Even if he comes, it's just sending himself to death. There are dozens of people over there, and some are excellent marksmen too. When we were driving earlier, many bullets hit our vehicle."

To control the general point of impact while moving, separated by four or five hundred meters and bouncing up and down, one's marksmanship could already be considered quite good.

Samba waved his hand and shouted, "Don't come! Go back! Don't come!"

"Are you stupid? No wonder the Mountain God doesn't like you," Zha Cuo said. "He isn't stuck; he can come and leave again, and even take Duo Jie and the others with him, leaving some behind to cover the retreat. At least not everyone will die; if Duo Jie returns, he can still secure compensation for us."

Old Han said, "It seems you're not going to die yet, Zha Cuo; your mind is still so clear."

"It is the Mountain God's protection!"

Duo Jie and the others watched silently as the vehicle approached, stopping when it was still several dozen meters away. Immediately afterward, they saw Wang Yan jump out with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, while on the other side, Bai Ju emerged holding a rifle.

"Wang Yan! Why did you bring Bai Ju here? Aren't you just putting her in harm's way?" Duo Jie panicked.

Wang Yan smiled cheerfully. "Her marksmanship is excellent. Bai Ju, go show them."

Bai Ju said nothing; silently holding a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, she crouched on the ground, poked her head out to observe, and then raised her weapon to take aim...

Wang Yan patted Duo Jie on the shoulder and distributed cigarettes to everyone. "Relax; it'll be fine. I'm a sharpshooter; what's there to fear? You've been hunted for so long, and only Zha Cuo got injured. They don't dare advance; I can scare them to death by picking them off one by one. The tables have turned, comrades."

"I hit one! I hit one!" Bai Ju excitedly stood up, only to be yanked back down by Wang Yan immediately.

Suddenly, the poachers' firepower intensified dramatically, with bullets raining down like hail.

"If you hit one, fine, but why are you jumping around?"

After scolding Bai Ju, Wang Yan examined Zha Cuo's wound: a bullet had struck his shoulder, the projectile lodged in the bone; due to the lack of timely treatment, he had lost quite a bit of blood, but his overall condition remained relatively stable. Wang Yan immediately retrieved bandages from the vehicle to stabilize the injury, then administered painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicine.

While he was treating Zha Cuo's wound, Duo Jie and the others were not idle either; they were debating who Wang Yan should take away and who should stay behind to die, actually beginning to argue and fight over it.

"Look at you all; why is morale falling apart?" Wang Yan racked the bolt with a click, loading a round. "Just watch me."

As he spoke, Wang Yan moved to the side, hiding behind the front of the vehicle and poking his head out to observe the enemy.

The two sides were nearly two hundred meters apart; for an ordinary person, one could barely make out shadows, let alone hit a target, which was even harder. Bai Ju had already fired twenty or thirty shots; aside from some beginner's luck at the very start, her performance was merely decent.

After a rough observation and a pretense of careful aiming, Wang Yan finally fired. The first shot missed its intended target but struck near the ear of one poacher; Wang Yan watched as the man jumped in fright.

Immediately afterward, Wang Yan fired again, and that man collapsed.

Panic spread among the poachers; after fighting for so long with few casualties, now, in such a short time, two of their men had been taken down. Thus, they cautiously hid behind their vehicles while simultaneously directing even denser firepower toward the patrol team.

"See? We've made them anxious, haven't we?"

Hiding behind cover, Wang Yan waited for this wave of attacks to subside, then said, "Those of you who are able, fire a few aimed shots to help draw their fire. Don't spray bullets; our ammunition is limited."

"Need you even say it?" He Qingyuan laughed heartily, already having taken a opportunistic shot; regardless of whether he hit or not, he simply felt extremely exhilarated in this moment.

"Oh, Old He, I just remembered: Wangmu wrote you a reply letter; I have it right here on me."

As he spoke, Wang Yan pulled out the letter and handed it over; He Qingyuan eagerly snatched it.

He had previously prepared himself for death, yet the one thing he could not let go of, the one thing he cherished deeply, was Wangmu. Now, holding the letter sent by Wangmu, even facing death now made him hesitate slightly.

Everyone leisurely teased He Qingyuan; even Duo Jie rarely spoke up: "Qingyuan, you should make your feelings clear to Wangmu. We nearly died this time; can't you see that now? If you don't speak your heart before you die, you won't be able to close your eyes even in death. Besides, I can tell that Wangmu has feelings for you too."

"Exactly; why make things so complicated?" Samba patted He Qingyuan on the shoulder.

Thus, the group chatted casually, occasionally moving to fire a few shots; they provided suppressing fire while Wang Yan delivered precise strikes.

Everyone's perception of time differs; here on the patrol team's side, unhurried, chatting, laughing, smoking, and eating, time seemed to pass quite quickly.

On the other side, the poachers besieging them, watching the number of injured and even dead steadily rise, felt time dragging excruciatingly slow, as if undergoing torment.

Gradually, they huddled behind their vehicles and refused to emerge, since several comrades who had stuck their heads out to shoot were already dead, the injured were weakly crying out in pain, and those awaiting death were twitching on the ground as their lives flashed before their eyes.

Seeing their numbers dwindle continuously while being unable to close in and finish off the patrol team, these poachers began to entertain thoughts of retreat, preparing to flee to save their lives.

However, their desire to leave would prove very difficult to fulfill, for no other reason than that all their vehicle fronts were facing toward this side.

Wang Yan remained low-profile, not seeking to exterminate them completely; he only targeted the men in those three trucks, preventing the poachers from driving them away.

Meanwhile, Duo Jie and the others also fired, preventing the poachers from boarding their vehicles successfully; thus, in the end, only two off-road vehicles managed to escape. Without fuel and lacking food, whether they could make it out remained uncertain.

"I knew you could do it; worthy of being a college student!" Zha Cuo exclaimed, his voice weak yet filled with excitement.

Bai Ju voluntarily claimed credit: "I hit a few people too!"

"Bolamula is still too dangerous, and the situation is becoming increasingly severe; as a female comrade, you truly aren't suited for entering the mountains. You've seen the situation this time; from now on, there's no need to keep longing to enter the mountains."

Duo Jie waved his hand; the two people Bai Ju had hit played some role, but not a critical one, far less decisive than Wang Yan's contributions.

Bai Ju did not argue, because this expedition into the mountains had indeed turned out completely different from what she had imagined; had she acted together with Duo Jie and the others, she would merely have been waiting here to die alongside them. Her excellent marksmanship still fell far short of Wang Yan's, unable to inflict massive casualties.

By joining the patrol team, she was simply adding one more person, and a woman at that; living in the mountains alongside a group of men indeed presented many inconveniences.

Yet she still wished to patrol the mountains together...

At this moment, no one paid attention to Bai Ju's thoughts; seeing the enemy huddled behind their vehicles and refusing to emerge, everyone used the small truck driven over by Wang Yan and Bai Ju as cover, coordinating infantry and vehicle movements to slowly advance.

The poachers never expected the reversal to come so quickly and so suddenly; earlier, they had been laughing at the patrol team's incompetence, planning to wear them down slowly and kill them off without losing a single soldier, yet in the blink of an eye, they themselves had become the ones being played to death, forced to hide behind their vehicles and witness their comrades' miserable fate.

With no further exchange of fire, the poachers, terrified by the killing, realized they could neither fight nor flee; resisting stubbornly meant death, so they had no choice but to surrender their weapons.

Afterwards they got beaten up, and Samba and the others, having survived a disaster, threw a few punches to celebrate. Even Zhacuo was shouting, telling the others to hit him hard, to beat out his share too.

Bai Ju watched the scene, wanting to say something but not knowing how. Especially since among them were two young people of seventeen or eighteen, looking especially pitiful.

"What, can't stand watching?" Wang Yan asked with a cigarette dangling from his lips, smiling.

Bai Ju let out a long breath: "I understand them hitting people, but look at those two, still so young, already coming to Bolamula to break the law and commit crimes, really…"

"It's all because of poverty," Duo Jie said. "It's an economic issue. Young people have nothing else to do, and they're not well-behaved, so they fight, brawl, and break the law. But you need to put away your compassion, Bai Ju. This is Bolamula. You may feel sorry for others, but others won't feel sorry for you."

Wang Yan smiled and said: "Bai Ju, go help clean up the corpses. When we cremate them later, watch carefully too. Get some practice for your nerve."

"Don't listen to him. Go with them and watch those poachers. Don't be careless—they're all here to kill us." Duo Jie still wouldn't let Bai Ju near the corpses. He pulled Wang Yan over to collect the bodies and started lecturing Wang Yan as well.

He blamed Wang Yan for bringing just the two of them, Bai Ju and himself, into Bolamula without considering the consequences. If they ran into other situations, the two of them simply couldn't handle it—things like that, all words of concern.

Wang Yan cheerfully brushed it off. Duo Jie didn't understand how powerful he was, and explaining it to Duo Jie wouldn't make it clear. Instead, Wang Yan just cheerfully brushed it off; after Duo Jie rambled for a bit, he himself shook his head and fell silent.

In the end it all boiled down to Wang Yan being young and hot-blooded, acting impulsively without considering the consequences.

The casualties this time were heavy. Nine died outright, another three were on the verge of death, and they breathed their last after Wang Yan and the others moved them around a bit. Another three had limbs injured, and two with torso injuries could more or less hold on.

And this poaching gang had only come with thirty-nine people in total; they directly wiped out half of them. Only three drove away in a car; the remaining twenty-four were captured.

The twelve corpses were doused with gasoline and burned. Bai Ju actually observed, and at the same time listened to Wang Yan describe the various reactions a corpse undergoes, and its final fate. Bai Ju watched and gagged, really about to throw up her gall—she had never seen such a scene, and probably wouldn't sleep well for some time afterward.

Fear is what makes one remember, what makes one cautious. For Bai Ju, this was a good thing.

By the time the bodies were burned, the sky had already grown dark; they couldn't leave today.

Even though Zhacuo was injured, there was no way to drive at night. At night you can't see the road, easy to veer off, and in the vast uninhabited area, getting lost would be terrible. If they sent one person ahead to escort Zhacuo out, then everything Duo Jie had scolded Wang Yan about would apply—and they really couldn't handle it, no different from sending someone to die.

So the group dragged the car out of the mud, took stock of the poachers' supplies, and began to set up camp and rest.

Wang Yan also got back to his old trade, gathering food and drink to cook for everyone.

Seeing Bai Ju about to hand a big stack of flatbread to the poachers, He Qingyuan stopped her: "Don't feed them. Let them go hungry. Just give them some water."

"Why? I remember before, when we caught people, we treated them well, right?"

He Qingyuan said: "Before, we caught few people. Here there are twenty-four—how can we look after them all? Tie them all up, let them starve, no strength left—that's how we'll be safe."

Bai Ju thought it over, understood the reasoning, and put the dry flatbread back: "Then don't let them drink water either. They say a week without water is fine. Saves them drinking water and then wanting to pee and poop!"

Everyone went quiet for a moment, as if seeing Bai Ju in a new light.

"Why are you all looking at me?"

Wang Yan smiled and said: "I see these guys don't have much money either, and they might take revenge on us later. How about we just kill them all? What do you say, Bai Ju?"

"No! Not letting them drink water won't kill them, and it's for everyone's safety, so everyone can relax. But if we kill them all now, then what does our mountain patrol team become? Besides, didn't we agree before not to kill indiscriminately? Why are you saying this now?"

Bai Ju said, "Wang Yan, it's not for me to say, but you've just killed too many people—you've come to despise human life. There's still the law. You can't be lawless."

"Circumstances change. Before, we were talking about poachers who hit the antelope and resisted our arrest. Now this bunch came specifically to take our lives—the nature is completely different.

And compared to what they've done, going through the procedure to prosecute them would definitely not get them the death penalty. That's too light. If we kill them now, it's just right."

Duo Jie waved his hand: "We've already beaten more than ten to death, and they're all scared now. Even if they can't get the death penalty, they can get eight or ten years. When they come out, they'll all behave."

The others had no objections either. Even the injured Zhacuo magnanimously let these people off, all because his side's losses were small.

But in reality, this couldn't diminish the poachers' crimes.

However, Wang Yan didn't say anything more. He was only making a suggestion; the actual decision was Duo Jie's to make. He himself didn't really care either way.

Because these people couldn't cause him the slightest loss. If pressed, at most he had spent a little bit of energy.

Thus they rested one night. By the next day, the group took the poachers and their vehicles, drove out of Bolamula, and returned to where there was law…

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