Chapter 159: The Sky, It Has Cleared!

The shock of seeing Liu Mu was so great that even Jiang Hanzhong, who was being helped up by a gritting-his-teeth Jiang Lin, did not notice where Niu Boyi had gone.

"Jiang Lin, Jiang Lin," Jiang Hanzhong trembled like a winnowing sieve; the pain of losing his fingers seemed to have transferred into his brain, and the shrewdness he had honed from years in officialdom could not save him from his current despair.

"She's here, let's go, hurry and go!"

Jiang Lin could not understand his uncle's terrified state and tried his best to persuade him: "Uncle, she is only one person, we still have reinforcements, we can put up a fight!"

"You, you, sigh! You don't know how terrifying she is!" Jiang Hanzhong had seen with his own eyes Liu Mu beat his guard to death in one blow, but that alone was not enough to terrify him to this extent.

As a high-ranking official of the Haicheng Barrier, he could easily obtain a lot of internal data, including combat footage of Liu Mu. The footage was not long, but it was clear that this woman's combat power had long since transcended the human category.

Terms like cold-blooded, ruthless, or killing without blinking an eye were no longer enough to describe Liu Mu.

In Jiang Hanzhong's view, Liu Mu was simply a combat machine without humanity, fearing neither force nor authority; such a person... was the most terrifying!

Jiang Lin, who did not know much, naturally did not understand the root of Jiang Hanzhong's fear, but he knew he could not let his leader just run away like this.

Today was not just about a steel factory, nor was it just about Jiang Hanzhong obtaining benefits; it was the first step for him, Jiang Lin, to make a name for himself in the Haicheng Barrier and consolidate the Jiang Family's cooperation with the Sky Viper, so there could be no mistakes.

As the two men, each with their own agendas, tugged at each other, they actually forgot to warn their men that there were enemies behind them.

The two gangs, completely unprepared, had thought that relying on the cover of the trucks would surely lead to a quick victory, until they felt a wind at their backs.

Rat-tat-tat—

It was the roar of machinery, and even more so, the curse of the Grim Reaper.

The impact of heavy machine gun bullets was simply not something the human body could withstand. In an instant, limbs flew behind the trucks; the gang members didn't even have time to react before they became souls under Liu Mu's gun.

This scene happened too fast; let alone the Jiang uncle and nephew, even the Factory Guard Army felt their scalps go numb watching it.

Setting aside whether to accept surrender or not, was it really okay to just kill like this?

Soldiers trained in peaceful times had not even experienced war before the disaster, and after the disaster, they had killed more mutated beasts than people; they could not accept this kind of slaughter that didn't even offer a chance to surrender.

But without a cease-fire order, they had to shoot at the people who were running away by bypassing the trucks.

Seeing that the gang was about to be wiped out, Qiu Hentian grabbed the corpse of a gang member used to block bullets, his blood-red eyes fixed on the woman on the wall, as if he wanted to skin her and pull out her tendons with his gaze alone.

He did not know this woman, but he swore that as long as he could escape today, he would make killing this person his goal for the rest of his life.

Remembering the woman's appearance, Qiu Hentian no longer hesitated and fired his gun directly at the truck's fuel tank.

Thick smoke from the explosion filled the air, temporarily blocking the sight of both sides. Liu Mu saw those fleeing figures but did not go to chase them; that was the Guard Army's job.

She handed the heavy machine gun to the guards, sprinted across several protrusions on the wall, and finally landed in front of the brawling Jiang uncle and nephew.

"What's all this about? Why are you two fighting so well?"

Liu Mu crossed her arms, wearing an expression of "I really don't understand you," and was particularly disapproving when she saw the redness and swelling on Jiang Hanzhong's face.

"Little Lin, it's not that I, your sister, am lecturing you, but how could you strike your own uncle? This is unfilial; if this were in the past, you'd be thrown into a pig cage."

"Thrown into a pig cage? It's not like I committed adultery..."

Jiang Lin had been kicked in the head twice by Jiang Hanzhong and was still a bit dazed, not immediately reacting to what Liu Mu had said.

"Is that so? Did I remember it wrong?" Liu Mu teased. "Are you going to get up yourselves, or do you need me to give you a hand?"

Jiang Lin was pinned under Jiang Hanzhong, the latter's fingerless arm choking his neck, while Jiang Lin's hands gripped Jiang Hanzhong's hair, which was originally slicked with pomade. The two men's four legs were twisted together in an incredible posture, like a knot.

Liu Mu silently raised her leg and asked sincerely, "Can I step on you? This twisted posture of yours is truly rare. I guarantee at most a fracture."

At these words, the two men on the ground immediately separated like slippery loaches and crawled three meters away.

"Liu Mu, I am the Commercial Minister of the Barrier, you cannot kill me!"

Jiang Hanzhong had just wanted to run but was stopped by his own nephew; in his desperation, he had struck first. He never expected that this boy, who usually obeyed his every command, would actually dare to fight back.

Of course, Jiang Lin also never expected Jiang Hanzhong to be so cowardly, causing his months of painstaking preparation to go down the drain, and on top of that, wanting to run away first—how could that be?

"It was he who asked the gangs from Mei City to come and seize the factory; it has nothing to do with me. I only just found out, too."

The incident happened suddenly, but Jiang Lin had already conceived several plans in his mind. At this moment, he did not hesitate to shift the blame onto Jiang Hanzhong. "Uncle, why would you do such a thing that harms others without benefiting yourself? Chief Liu has already given you such an important position as Factory Director; how can you not be satisfied? My dear uncle, this time I really have no choice but to put righteousness before family."

"You, you brat, what are you saying?" Jiang Hanzhong saw Jiang Lin actually crying with heartbreak, as if he were truly some loyal little Red Flower of the Barrier.

"It was clearly you who incited me to seize power; if it weren't for you saying..."

Liu Mu found it quite interesting to watch them dog-eat-dog. She casually took out a camera phone, turned off the beauty filter, and started recording.

The two arguing men noticed her behavior and gradually stopped, their hearts full of hatred, but on the surface, they only feigned embarrassment.

"Done arguing?" Liu Mu pressed stop on the recording and put away her phone with some regret. "Actually, you didn't need to argue at all, because neither of you is going anywhere!"

After speaking, without waiting for the two to react, she delivered a hand-blade strike, and both men were knocked unconscious.

"Lock them in a cage and escort them back to the Barrier for trial."

After Liu Mu finished instructing the guards, she was about to leave when she was blocked by a human wall.

Cheng Long, who had arranged for people to clean up the scene, had a dark expression. Only after his subordinates dragged the two men surnamed Jiang away did he speak in a deep voice.

"Acting Chief, I do not approve of your actions today. Although those people are guilty, they cannot... cannot all be killed. Our army does not have a tradition of killing prisoners."

"Prisoners?" Liu Mu gave a cold sneer and patted Cheng Long on the shoulder. "Captain Cheng, only those who surrender are called prisoners. Did you see even one of them wanting to surrender?"

Things had developed too quickly; Cheng Long wanted to say that even if those people had wanted to surrender, they had no chance at all.

Seeing his dissatisfaction, Liu Mu thought for a moment. "Come with me."

Dozens of meters away, corpses lay broken and scattered.

Liu Mu casually grabbed a corpse with a chest and abdomen shot through and turned that bruised, distorted face toward Cheng Long and the surrounding guards. "This cripple from the Black Snake Gang raped and murdered thirteen women in the past two months, two of whom were pregnant, and four were under twelve years old."

She threw it aside, grabbed another one that was only half a body, and again faced the crowd with the head. "This deputy leader of the Ruthless Gang killed four families in the past month. Even when these families offered up the supplies they had collected with both hands and knelt to beg for mercy, they were still tortured to death by him one by one. Each method was different, but every single one of them suffered for over a dozen hours."

"This one, in order to join the gang, used a kitchen knife to hack to death the single father who raised him..."

"This one, also to join the gang, broke his own wife's legs and sent her to the gang cadre's bed, and she died."

"And that one, from the Ruthless Gang, killed eight elderly people, three children..."

"The Thunder Snake Gang one, likes to eat human brains, says they are tender..."

Among the hundreds of people, Liu Mu spoke of the evil deeds done by whoever she happened to touch, even if the other person had been burned until only half a face remained.

Gradually, the scene grew quieter and quieter, and in the end, even the act of collecting corpses stopped; standing in place, the anger nearly burned away their reason.

"You, you said, is, is it true?" Feng Mo, who was helping, trembled, pointing at one of the corpses, his speech becoming fluent due to his anger, "I know this person; he kidnapped a girl from our Black Fire Gang. When we went to find them to demand the person back, that girl had already been... we only found the corpse, it was too, too, too miserable."

"And those few over there, as far as I know, what Chief Liu said is all true."

The last trace of doubt vanished; everyone felt ashamed for the doubt they had harbored toward Liu Mu, and they felt deep loathing for the actions of these animals.

Especially the soldiers from the Haicheng Barrier who went on field missions; they had once gone city by city to promote the rescue Base, hoping to save even one more person.

Yet after they left, how many innocent people were coerced by this scum and died in the man-made disasters following the apocalypse.

Even now, in those abandoned settlements without official forces to maintain order, many people are still facing the same dangers and predicaments.

Under the leadership of Liu Mu, the numerous corpses were dragged onto a factory Truck and hauled all the way into Mei City.

When they arrived, they discovered a giant wolfhound and a man wearing military uniform leading many people gathered in one place.

The man and the dog had quite a bit of blood on them, and those people also had many new wounds; it appeared that while the battle at the factory was taking place, several fierce fights had also occurred within Mei City.

"Awoo! The corpses have all been piled up here..."

Niu Boyi saw Liu Mu and wagged his giant tail, causing the few children beside him to be shocked beyond measure.

Of course, only Liu Mu could understand what Gouzi meant at the scene.

The corpses from the urban battle were transported by the people rescued by Luo Sanlin and Niu Boyi; naturally, the Black Fire Gang also played a part in this.

The corpses from the two locations were piled into a small hill, and the guard soldiers poured accelerant over them.

Liu Mu stood on high ground, holding a torch, "From now on, there will no longer be gang members oppressing you in Mei City, and the Haicheng Barrier officially takes over Mei City. You may choose to work at the Steel Mill or settle nearby, or you can accept rescue and go to the Barrier."

"There is only one thing I hope everyone remembers: the apocalypse has arrived, and humanity can only continue if we watch over and help each other and unite; if there is any more oppression or harming of the innocent, this is the end!"

The fire roared to life, and the thick smoke from the burning corpses blotted out the sky, yet it swept away the true gloom that had weighed on the bodies and minds of the Mei City Survivors.

This cremation burned all the way until the next morning.

When the thick smoke dissipated, the sky, which had been dark and heavy for months, actually split open a crack.

That crack was not large,

but sunlight like a sharp sword pierced straight down,

cleaving the firmament...

The sky, it cleared!