Chapter 660

That night, the lamplight was dim and the rain poured down in torrents.

The rain, already scattered in the afternoon, grew fiercer and fiercer after nightfall. Before long, the dense rain firmly shrouded the Wuhan Three Towns.

In such vile weather, every household in Hanyang City kept its doors tightly shut. The entire city, save for a few scattered lights, had sunk into deep darkness.

Yet there are always exceptions.

After midnight, a column of black-clad figures appeared on the street.

These five black-clad men wore black bamboo hats, black rain capes, and uniformly wore thick-soled black cowhide imitation official boots on their feet.

The man at the front, agile in build and wearing a pair of Yukon Night Vision Goggles made in Belarus on his head, was none other than Wuhan Station Action Team Captain Mao Tai.

The night vision device, which worked on thermal imaging principles, could still function on a rainy night.

In fact, Mao Tai had no need to identify his targets at all. At this time point, the only infrared silhouettes that could appear in his line of sight, apart from the night watchmen at the various gate barriers, were the patrolmen making their rounds.

So he only needed to give the order to evade in advance.

In fact, Mao Tai's group had smooth sailing today: the heavy rain had virtually wiped out the patrolmen, and the few night watchmen and watchmen, in such low visibility, simply could not detect the ghost-like Action Team Members.

Thus, the action squad that had set out from midnight took less than 30 minutes to arrive at the familiar Yaxi Street, outside the West Side Gate.

Here, they would need to use some "hard" methods.

Because the West Side Gate was locked from the inside and could not be opened from outside, after arriving at the spot, Mao Tai observed left and right, then pulled a compact high-intensity flashlight from his bosom and made a wall-scaling hand signal.

Flying out with the flashlight beam was a steel claw with a tail rope attached.

After the three-pronged claw firmly hooked onto the top of the wall, a team member who had long been prepared shed his cape, revealing his skintight suit. This team member had come well-prepared; his hands, arms, chest, abdomen, and groin area were all covered with soft cowhide armor. The next moment, this team member nimbly climbed up the rope.

After climbing up, the team member first used the protection on his body to forcibly scrape away some broken porcelain shards embedded on the top of the wall, then he sat astride the wall top.

Although this outermost alleyway could not possibly be equipped with night patrol personnel or hidden sentries, it was best to be careful in all matters. So according to the prearranged plan, after steadying himself, the team member on the wall pulled out his night vision device from his lower back and began to observe.

Very quickly, after observing the alleyway below, the team member lowered the steel claw rope down the other side of the wall.

What followed was simple. The thin metal horizontal bar on the traditional old-style door lock could not withstand the Chromium-Vanadium Steel Cutter Head of the Horse Brand Wire Cutters at all.

With a speed rivaling that of electric bicycle thieves of later ages, the wall-scaling team member snipped open the door lock within seconds, then pulled open the West Side Gate from inside.

After the gate opened, Mao Tai and his three men filed in.

Closing the gate and dropping the door bar, Mao Tai's group turned around, crossed the alleyway, and arrived at the second gate.

This gate was even easier to deal with, because the lock faced outward. Following the same method, they used the wire cutters to snip the lock, and the lens of the night vision device slowly extended through the crack of the door.

After clearly observing the outside, five black shadows slipped in through the second gate.

Next, Mao Tai, still leading the way, walked at the very front wearing the night vision device. Very soon, rounding the alleyway and the wall corner, the action squad stood before the main gate of the prison.

Just as expected, they had not discovered any hidden sentries or patrolmen along that short stretch of road — hidden sentries were usually in the rear yamen protecting the officials' families. The soldiers patrolling the front yamen, on such a rainy night, would not frequently come near the prison to help the prisoners guard against thieves...

But this did not mean safety. Mao Tai was well aware that even on a rainy night, the patrolmen would definitely inspect every location in the front yamen; it was only a matter of time, so time was pressing.

Thus, the next moment, a team member reached out and knocked the copper ring on the side door of the prison.

The clanging sound of the copper ring knocking lasted for several minutes.

During this time, Mao Tai, burning with impatience, kept his back to the main gate and strained to observe the surrounding environment with his night vision device.

"May the General bless us, and Heaven be kind..." At last, hearing the small window on the door open, Mao Tai breathed a sigh of relief and prayed silently.

In the pre-operation deduction, the knocking step was the most dangerous, because it was the only uncontrollable link and was easy to expose.

Fortunately, tonight's rain had helped greatly, masking a portion of the sound.

The next moment, the small window opened, and an old face full of wrinkles, with a large black mole on the cheekbone, along with a beam of lantern light, appeared from behind the window: "Who knocks at the door in the dead of night? Do you not know this is the heavily guarded prefectural prison?"

"Heh heh... heavily guarded?" A sinister laugh rang out: "A mere gate-watching wretch, no better than an ant, and you dare boast wildly before an imperial inspector?"

Speaking in a pure Wuchang Prefecture accent, slowly raising his face and glaring fiercely at the jailer was none other than Zhou Yi.

Hearing such condescending mockery from the person outside the door, the mole-faced jailer behind the door instead spoke politely. In fact, the other party's tone was precisely the standard Great Ming civil servant posturing the jailer had grown accustomed to over the years: "Oh... may I ask which office the inspector hails from?"

"Hmph."

Zhou Yi slowly removed his bamboo hat at this moment, then unfastened his rain cape, revealing the black gauze official cap on his head and a proper official robe. The next moment, a rolled document was tossed through the small window, and immediately after, a black lacquered waist token was thrust directly against the mole-faced jailer's face: "This official is Huang Tong, Clerk of the Wuchang Judicial Commissioner's Office. By order of the Judicial Commissioner, I am specially here to bring a major criminal for interrogation. Open the door at once."

In the jailer's subconscious, any Official Runner who could swagger up and knock on the door at this time point must, first of all, have passed the guard inspection at the main gate of the Prefectural Yamen, so his identity was beyond question.

With this subconscious assumption, coupled with the posturing, official robe, and other latent factors the other party inadvertently displayed, the jailer let down his guard.

In the end, the illiterate jailer gave the document and waist token a cursory glance, and under Zhou Yi's impatient urging, opened the side door of the prison.

What the mole-faced jailer did not know was that, in places he could not see, on both sides outside the door, two team members had already readied their hand crossbows... According to the contingency plan, if Zhou Yi's bluff failed to open the door, they would immediately shoot the jailer dead and use tools to break open the side door by force.

After the door opened, the five unfamiliar Official Runners silently stormed in.

Just as the last man gently closed the door and dropped the door bar, the mole-faced jailer had already stopped breathing... Zhou Yi had personally strangled him to death behind the door using his arm.

Although Zhou Yi's hand-to-hand combat score in training class was only 60 points, that was by the standards between Special Agents... Against ordinary people, Zhou Yi was at least Silver Rank.

There was no helping it. Tonight, anyone who saw the faces of the Action Team Members had to be eliminated. Otherwise, Zhou Yi and the others would be working while sitting on a landmine from now on.

With the first step of knocking the door open accomplished, the subsequent operations went much more smoothly.

According to regulations, there were originally only four people on night duty at the prefectural prison. One watched the main gate, two were on duty inside the second-entrance main prison, and the last one was inside the death row.

In the office behind the main gate, the key to the second-entrance gate was originally hanging there. After dealing with the mole-faced jailer, Zhou Yi and his group left one man to watch the main gate, then lit a lantern, carried the corpse, and swaggered through the second-entrance gate.

The two duty jailers were sound asleep in the office at that moment; how could they have expected that death gods had already come knocking? As a result, these two were silently smothered to death in their beds.

On the wall of the second-entrance duty room, hanging squarely, was the key to the death row door.

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Years of sleeping rough and fleeing like wild beasts during their roving bandit life had long honed certain people's acute senses. So despite the unceasing sound of rain, Tian Da, who had matters weighing on his mind, still heard the fragmented noises from outside at the first moment.

Snapping his eyes open in the dim prison cell, Tian Da slowly sat up while listening intently.

And from across the way came rustling sounds — Tian San had also awakened.

Just then, the cell door was violently thrown open. Rainwater, damp air, and the light of several bright lanterns rushed into the death row all at once, catching Tian Da and the other man off guard.

Immediately after, the iron grating behind the door was also opened by someone.

Immediately after, the gate behind the door was also opened by someone.

Tian Da, long prepared, leapt up at once. Staring blankly at the newcomer in an official robe, he did not know how to answer... He had originally thought at least one Shaanxi brother would be among those who came, but Tian Da could not find a single familiar face among the arrivals.

"Hahaha, your brother here is late — you two have suffered!"

Zhou Yi, who had strode swiftly in, stepped forward and began using a key to unlock the shackles on Tian Da. "Brother Tian, my surname is Zhou. This prison break today was also entrusted to me by another. At present we are in a dangerous place; ask nothing else. The urgent matter is for you two to first follow me out of this perilous ground."

Although questions remained in their hearts, Tian Da and the other man had long rehearsed this very scene in their minds, and were fully prepared. Seeing Zhou Yi speak thus, Tian Da said not another word. After replying, "Friend Zhou, you have toiled," he let the newcomer do as he would.

The next moment, two sets of gear identical to what Zhou Yi and his men wore were handed over.

Tian Da, instantly grasping the intent, began changing his clothes on the spot. At the same time, people outside kept carrying in the corpses of the jailers.

Seeing the four familiar jailers turned into dead dogs, Tian Da laughed heartily even as he changed. "These damned birds got what they deserved. Friend Zhou has shouldered the risk — Tian Da gives his thanks."

Meanwhile, the meticulous Tian San at the side bent down and felt each jailer's neck one by one. Only after confirming they were truly dead did the misgivings in Tian San's heart completely vanish at that moment: four dead jailers was a monumental matter, a cost far exceeding the little secrets they carried. It was impossible that someone had come to set up a scheme to deceive them.

Zhou Yi, who had taken in everything, said nothing at all. Smiling, he merely drew his waist knife and stabbed the jailers twice more, then tore off strips of cloth and, dipping them in blood, left a line of rebellious verse on the wall of Tian Da's cell: "For the heroes' boundless resolve, we dare change the Great Ming for a new sky."

At the end, Zhou Yi wrote the signature: Mizhi's Tian Jianxiu was here for a visit.

Very soon, all the retreat preparations were complete. Having received their instructions, Tian Da and the other man put on their bamboo hats, lowered their heads, kept silent, and followed behind Zhou Yi and his men, exiting the Prefectural Prison without any hindrance.

Five people when they came, and still five people when they left... Two team members had stayed behind in the Prefectural Prison gatehouse.

Leaving men behind was a necessity.

The city gates of Hanyang City, like those of most cities in this era, opened around six in the morning.

And the time Tian Da and the others left the Prefectural Yamen was not yet three in the deep of night.

Furthermore, the people who came to the prison to take over the morning shift usually arrived around half past six.

If the whole group left the Prefectural Prison in one rush at this moment, should any sudden situation arise — for instance, the replacements arriving early for work — then the Prefectural Yamen, upon learning of the prison break, would be fully capable of notifying the closure of the city gates before six and launching a citywide manhunt.

By that time, it would be extremely dangerous.

Therefore, the two team members left on garrison duty absolutely had to impersonate jailers inside the prison and hold out at least until half past five before they could retreat...