Chapter 1314

7:00 AM.

Yuhu Residential Complex.

Zhong Hailong took breakfast from the delivery guy, tossed it onto the dining table, and shouted for his two accomplices to get up and eat.

The two of them groaned as they climbed out of bed, rubbed their eyes to glance at their hostage, and sat down at the table.

The youngest, Wu Wei, opened the breakfast bag and said, "Why don't we just kill the hostage? It'd be safer to go out of town and deal with them there."

Hearing this, the teenager, who was tied up and stuffed into a snakeskin bag on the floor, struggled desperately.

"How are we supposed to get the gold if we go out of town? If we kill the hostage, what do we do if the stench gets out?" Zhang Xindong, the ringleader and a veteran of prison life, grabbed a fried dough stick and devoured it ravenously.

Wu Wei downed a bowl of soy milk in one breath, then ate a fried dough stick, saying, "Then let's take Bitcoin and put the body in lime."

"Bitcoin? I don't understand that stuff. Do you?" Zhang Xindong looked relaxed and unhurried; aside from his fierce appearance and unbrushed teeth, he looked just like someone discussing business details in an office.

Wu Wei wanted to say he understood, but after hesitating for a few seconds, he couldn't bring himself to say it.

He was only 30 years old this year; he could understand a little bit about Bitcoin, but when it came to using it—especially for safely converting it into cash—Wu Wei wasn't very sure.

If it were just a small amount of money, it wouldn't matter, but 10 million was a different story; he wasn't willing to take even the slightest risk.

Likewise, the other two definitely wouldn't want to take the risk either. They didn't understand Bitcoin, and it was impossible for them to let Wu Wei operate the account; what if he ran off with everything?

"Forget it, let's stick with gold." Melting gold was too easy. No matter what markings it had, you just shoved it into a high-temperature crucible, melted it down, and poured it out. If you were worried about the composition, you just mixed in a little of another metal. You could find the whole process on videos online; it wasn't any trouble at all.

If you didn't even want to spend a few hundred yuan, you could just use a hammer or something to smash it repeatedly, folding it over as you smashed, and you could still smash a gold brick until it was unrecognizable.

Whether it was Wu Wei, Zhang Xindong, or the others, they didn't even need to watch the videos; they had mastered this simple technique long ago. What constrained them wasn't the technical difficulty, but where to get the gold.

Zhong Hailong stepped in to smooth things over, saying, "Killing isn't worth it. Kidnapping only gets you ten years now; you just endure it and you're out. I spent seven years in last time, and with fighting and stuff, I didn't get a single day off my sentence, but I still made it through. Killing is trouble. The three of us are a gang; gang kidnapping and murder is likely to get us the death penalty. I've studied it."

"Won't it be fine if we just run?" Wu Wei tried to argue again.

"We can't run," said the veteran Zhang Xindong. "The best case is that his dad doesn't report it, we take the gold, fly far away, and change our names. The next best is that his dad reports it, we drive out to the grasslands, run for a few years, and the whole thing blows over. If we kill him, Yin Feisong will fight us to the death. With the surveillance and stuff nowadays, it's easy to get caught."

"Screw him!"

"Peace brings wealth." As the kidnapper, Zhang Xindong pacified the young man and kicked the teenager in the bag to stop him from squirming.

"Should we make the call?" Zhong Hailong brought over a computer and opened the software. They had all learned this in prison. The three of them had invested a combined 20 years of their lives in there; everyone had new insights into life and had made life-changing decisions before being released.

The idea of earning 50 kilograms of gold through kidnapping had been the pillar that supported them through their last two years in prison.

Zhang Xindong dipped his fried dough stick into the soy milk, getting it all over his hands, and mumbled, "No rush."

"Still no rush? It's been a whole day. Don't let the police find us," Zhong Hailong said anxiously.

"This is like 'taming the hawk.' You only succeed when the timing is right. If the timing isn't right, what's the point of calling?" Zhang Xindong had his own ideas. He looked at the sky and said, "Eat and drink your fill first. Yin Feisong probably didn't sleep much last night. Let's wait another two hours, then call and make all our demands at once."

"Fine." Zhong Hailong decided to listen to Zhang Xindong. He had only been to prison twice, while Zhang Xindong had been three times, and it was said he had done kidnapping cases before; he was the one with real experience.

Zhang Xindong tore open another bag of pickled vegetables and devoured them with his fried dough stick. In prison, this was the one thing he missed the most; he hadn't gotten tired of it even after eating it for two years since his release.

After eating three fried dough sticks and finishing a bag of pickles in one breath, Zhang Xindong arranged, "Hailong, test the car again in a bit. Stolen cars aren't like your own; if something goes wrong, we're all screwed. Like last time, you did a good job discovering the tire problem early. Otherwise, if we'd had a blowout on the road, it would've been a joke to end up in prison for that."

"That's right." Zhong Hailong was slightly proud. He had learned car repair in prison and felt it would be useful after getting out. But in today's society, taxis and ride-hailing services didn't want people with criminal records, repair shops didn't want to hire them, and driving for private individuals was even more impossible. It was only useful when kidnapping.

Zhang Xindong: "Third brother, don't be anxious. You're young and understand the technology. When we make the call in a bit, watch the time and the route. If the situation looks wrong, cut it off. If the countdown starts, remind me. When we make the call, we'll all listen to you."

"Don't worry." Wu Wei straightened his back. "Even if the King of Heaven himself came, he wouldn't be able to find us here."

"Good! That's the spirit I want." Zhang Xindong clapped his hands. "When the time comes to deliver the gold, I'll go and lie in ambush by the road ahead of time. If any car other than the one carrying the gold follows, the deal is off, and Third Brother will start cutting off ears."

Zhang Xindong: "If everything goes smoothly, Hailong will go to pick up the car. Once he gets it, he'll call me, and I'll take Third Brother with me to the border crossing. Third Brother, once Hailong starts, you start the fire here and bring the hostage over..."

This time, he explained it in more detail than the three of them had planned earlier, especially the border route, which Zhang Xindong had planned and prepared alone. Zhong Hailong and Wu Wei were both counting on this to escape, and they nodded repeatedly as they listened to Zhang Xindong.

7:00 AM.

Yuhu Residential Complex.

Criminal police officers dressed in urban management uniforms began to disperse the breakfast stalls around the complex.

The security guards were ordered to open the main gate, and then a motorcade decorated with red ribbons drove into the complex like a wedding procession, driving straight to the bottom of a building, though no one got out of the cars for the time being.

Inside the car, Liu Zhuangshi, the captain of the Anwan City Criminal Police Detachment, began his pre-battle mobilization: "After confirmation by Team Leader Jiang Yuan, we believe the main culprit of the gold kidnapping case is currently in Room 202 on the second floor of Building 17 ahead. This is a four-bedroom, two-living-room apartment. There are two rooms and a bathroom facing the main street, none of which have security bars, so they could jump directly onto the main street... This part will be handled by the Second Detachment..."

Jiang Yuan, in the same car, gently pulled out a 9mm Beretta pistol. He hadn't brought a gun to Anwan City, but when he saw this one in the Anwan City Bureau's gun cabinet when it was time to mobilize, he immediately applied for it.

After confirming the identity of one of the kidnappers, Zhong Hailong, the image investigation team only took a few hours to lock onto his past locations using software. Then, through relaying surveillance footage, Jiang Yuan found Zhong Hailong's hideout by dawn.

By this time, the key to the problem had become the key bullet. Attempting to rescue the hostage through methods like shouting was not in line with the local criminal police's style of doing things—and since it wasn't in line with the local criminal police's style, it wasn't in line with the local kidnappers' style either.

Only when the bullet appeared in the key position could the key to the problem be solved.

Even for Jiang Yuan, his greatest value now was his LV3 pistol shooting skill.

Of course, Mu Zhiyang and the others had different opinions, but under Jiang Yuan's insistence, the few of them could only press bullets into their magazines and insert ceramic plates into their bulletproof vests.

The public space in the high-rise apartment building was too narrow, and shields would affect the line of fire. Moreover, the police's operation this time wasn't just a simple encirclement; more importantly, it was to save lives. Therefore, an offensive—a rapid offensive—was the only choice.

Of course, the real output wasn't these criminal police officers filling the cars, but the six snipers and their observers in the other three vehicles.

The six snipers were distributed in six directions around Building 17, hoping to kill all three kidnappers simultaneously using infrared imaging and other methods, with two snipers assigned to each perpetrator.

This was, of course, not easy, especially with the existence of concrete exterior walls. The probability of a simultaneous kill wasn't high, and when that time came, the only ones who could play a role would be the police who stormed in.

"30 seconds countdown, get out of the cars simultaneously." Liu Zhuangshi watched the time.

Yuhu Residential Complex was quite a distance from the center of Anwan City, belonging to the location closest to Anwan in the neighboring county. Therefore, the housing prices were cheap, attracting a group of migrant workers and local herdsmen.

Because of this, the personnel inside Yuhu Residential Complex were complex and numerous; Liu Zhuangshi couldn't, and didn't have the ability to, clear out such a large complex.

He also didn't know if the suspects had noticed the downstairs area; he didn't have the meticulous energy to distinguish that.

Liu Zhuangshi just stared intently at the stopwatch, and the moment the stopwatch hit zero, he issued the order everyone had been waiting for for so long: "Go!"