Chapter 52: Chaos!

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Li Leping, the person in charge of Great River City?"

The operator asked cautiously.

"Huh? I am."

Li Leping replied, somewhat surprised; this was the first time the operator had initiated contact with him—normally he was the one who reached out to the operator.

"Hello, I, I am your liaison."

The operator greeted awkwardly, as if this were her first call with Li Leping.

"I know; I found out about it several months ago."

Li Leping said, accustomed to it; he had grown used to being ignored.

"Is that so, haha, that's right—ZS City has had a supernatural incident, and headquarters wants you to go support."

The operator gave an embarrassed laugh and hurriedly said.

"Me? Tell me the situation in ZS City."

Li Leping glanced at the alley murder case and the Great River City missing persons investigation on his desk, frowning.

"All right, according to… the situation is like this, so headquarters hopes you will set off immediately."

The operator read the information she had just received to Li Leping.

"Paper ghost, altering memories? In ZS City they have taken many hostages..."

Li Leping nodded after listening; the situation in ZS City was indeed suitable for him to resolve.

"I can set off now, but I need headquarters to arrange a special plane."

Li Leping did not refuse and agreed.

"No problem, Lieutenant General Li Jun has already gone to meet up with you."

"Okay."

Li Leping nodded.

……………………

"The statistics are in: roughly over a thousand people are heading toward the Caesar Hotel, and it's unclear how many are controlled versus coerced."

Zhang Gao looked at the faint silhouettes in the distance and said somewhat nervously.

"How are the soldiers' preparations? When will Li Leping and his team arrive?"

Chen Shoushan asked calmly.

"Headquarters said at most twenty minutes! We've placed a few armored vehicles at the front, and we've equipped everyone with non-lethal weapons like batons, tranquilizer guns, smoke grenades, and flashbangs, so we should be able to hold until support arrives."

Zhang Gao was mentally nervous, but he still had some confidence; with nearly two hundred fully armed soldiers, blocking a few hundred civilians was no problem, after all, some of the civilians were merely coerced.

After hearing Zhang Gao's words, Chen Shoushan's heart sank slightly, but outwardly he fully approved of Zhang Gao's statement, after all, morale must always be maintained.

After a few more minutes, just as Zhang Gao thought they could safely get through the twenty minutes, Chen Shoushan's expression changed slightly: "Everyone, leave the armored vehicles."

Chen Shoushan's words carried persuasive power, causing the bewildered soldiers to instinctively move away from the armored vehicles.

Boom!

The next moment, a bus rushed straight in, knocking the blocking armored vehicle aside and creating a gap.

Inside the bus, the roof was packed with dense crowds of 'people'—public security officers, housewives, students, office workers, all sorts of individuals crammed into this bus.

Their eyes were vacant, the faces stuck to their heads wobbling as if about to be blown off by the wind, and they held various weapons in their hands—stones, scissors, kitchen knives...

The scene was eerily silent; the soldiers trembled in fear, raising their blast shields, not daring to breathe as they stared at this horrific crowd.

More people poured in single file through the gap, and the scene instantly became noisy.

"Help! They're all lunatics, waa waa waa."

"Dad, dad, what's wrong with you? It's me!"

"Xiao Peng, Xiao Peng, where are you? Don't scare Mom!"

"………"

Various cries and noisy sounds filled the area around the Caesar Hotel.

In the midst of silence, the crowd began to run, raising their weapons and charging forward.

Ordinary civilians, having been taken hostage in the middle, had no choice but to go with the flow, crying as they surged toward the soldiers' line.

"Fire, use the tranquilizer guns!"

Zhang Gao shouted anxiously.

Gunfire rang out one after another, temporarily stopping them, but whether those who fell could survive and avoid being trampled was another matter.

The situation seemed to stabilize somewhat; with modern equipment, the soldiers quickly held the line.

But during the shooting, some soldiers, who had been firing fearfully a second earlier, suddenly had their faces stiffen, the skin on their faces wobbling as if about to fall off...

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"……"

Gunfire descended into chaos, with some soldiers being controlled; the only silver lining was that few were controlled, and tranquilizer bullets couldn't penetrate body armor...

"Save, save me! I'm being forced by them."

Finally, some civilians rushed up to the soldiers and shouted loudly.

Upon hearing the sound, the soldiers instinctively lowered their guard, but the next moment, the civilians who had been fearfully wailing plunged their knives into the soldiers' throats.

Gurgle gurgle.

Blood spurted from the neck...

They mingled among the civilians, or rather the coerced civilians themselves didn't realize their faces no longer belonged to them...

Such brutal close-quarters combat is rare in modern society, yet now this absurd, bloody scene has unfolded before our eyes.

"Go watch over Tong Qian; don't let her be ambushed."

Chen Shoushan took off his coat, saying to Zhang Gao.

"You, this?"

Zhang Gao instinctively nodded his head, then saw Chen Shoushan rush into the crowd.

Corrosion!

In the midst of the melee, this extraordinary ability is undoubtedly the best choice.

With the help of the barbarians, Chen Shoushan directly carried out a ruthless slaughter in the crowd; such a chaotic environment is simply the best place to preemptively digest the chaos instructor, although this chaos was not guided by me, there is no doubt that I am participating in it.

And under Chen Shoushan's constant corrosion, some of the originally hostage-held citizens suddenly erupted with bloodshot eyes.

"Damn it, it's you pointing a knife at me, right?"

"Come on! I'm going to twist your head off."

"..."

Just like that, the scene became even more chaotic.

Meanwhile, Zhang Gao was hurriedly heading toward Tong Qian's direction; Tong Qian only had one public security officer brought by Chen Shoushan beside her, which was probably not safe...

"Bureau Chief Zhang."

Suddenly, two soldiers with solemn expressions blocked Zhang Gao's path.

Zhang Gao then put on a puzzled expression and asked, "What's going on..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Gao fiercely threw a right punch that heavily struck a soldier's face.

The next moment, Zhang Gao's pupils constricted, because the soldier's face actually fell off, exposing the bloody flesh behind.

"Tong Qian, hurry..."

Before Zhang Gao could finish speaking, he was knocked out by a tranquilizer gun on the spot; subsequently, a bloody newspaper drifted from somewhere and covered his face.

(End of chapter)