Chapter 69: I Want You Dead, Dead, Dead!
Chen Meng couldn’t help but marvel at how loyal the chubby driver was—just like the one who had driven him and Mouse Beibei before, both brimming with a sense of justice.
However, the two of them were so close to the thugs that they’d already been targeted. It was too late to run now; after all, these people were divine-body beings, far faster than ordinary folk.
“There’s no way out,” Chen Meng muttered in a low voice. “And seeing how loyal you are, how could I possibly leave you here and run off alone?”
The driver was a little moved, but then retorted, “Since you don’t want to leave, how about I go instead? You could stay here and hold them off. I have both elders and children to provide for—it’s not easy being on my own.”
At these words, Chen Meng’s earlier sense of gratitude vanished completely.
“Catch them!” the middle-aged woman ordered just then. The two men in black instantly lunged forward. At that moment, Chen Meng grabbed the chubby driver, hauling him behind a nearby SUV. Two handguns flew out from his backpack, one in each hand, his movements as fluid as water as he ducked behind the vehicle with the driver.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He fired both guns simultaneously, twelve bullets slithering out like venomous snakes. One of the men in black, who hadn’t taken Chen Meng seriously and assumed him a mere civilian, was struck in the left eye. The eyeball exploded, and as he was about to leap atop the taxi Chen Meng and the driver had just exited, he was instead sent tumbling into a nearby flowerbed, half dead.
The other man sensed something amiss and leaped away just in time, landing atop a car and crushing its roof beneath his weight. Yet Chen Meng’s marksmanship was formidable—the bullets traced an S-shaped arc, three of them hitting the man: one in the abdomen, one in the thigh, and one grazing his arm.
Screaming, the man fell from the car and scrambled for cover behind it.
Chen Meng had no way of knowing if the man could still fight. After all, he was just an ordinary person; his only advantage now lay in the guns in his hands. Rushing forward recklessly would be tantamount to suicide.
So his first instinct wasn’t to check on the man, but to widen the distance between them.
“Go! Everybody get out of here!” Chen Meng shouted behind him. Yet some of the bystanders seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, oblivious to the danger.
“Impressive, brother!” the chubby driver said admiringly. But Chen Meng had no time for pleasantries—he grabbed the driver and sprinted away.
The middle-aged woman had recovered and was now livid, her eyes bloodshot and her teeth clenched in fury.
“She probably wants to tear me limb from limb,” Chen Meng muttered, picking up his pace. Just then, the woman charged at him, ignoring her two fallen companions.
She was terrifyingly fast, leaping twenty meters in a single bound. Even though Chen Meng was hiding behind a car, he knew she could see him clearly.
“Go!” Chen Meng’s heart trembled. He knew that if she got close, a single blow could crush his skull.
Bang!
He fired a shot at random. The woman sensed the danger and twisted midair, dodging it with the agility of a hawk.
Of course, Chen Meng hadn’t expected to hit her. She was already a second-tier divine-body being, with an acute sense for danger.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He fired three more times, the shots forming a triangle that blocked all the woman’s possible paths forward.
Boom!
Sure enough, the woman was forced back, flipping away and landing atop a car’s hood with such force that the entire vehicle flipped over.
Chen Meng seized the opportunity and made a break for it, putting another forty or fifty meters between them.
“Damn it, damn it!” the woman raged, still intent on pursuing him. Yet Chen Meng unleashed five more shots, each aimed at her vitals, keeping her at bay.
But the woman had been infuriated. Looking at the overturned car nearby, she seized it with both hands—her sleeves tearing at the strain—and hurled the entire vehicle at Chen Meng.
Muttering in alarm, Chen Meng felt as if he were in some blockbuster film, facing down the Hulk. Without thinking, he dove behind another car. The vehicle he’d been hiding behind was crushed, and the thrown car’s tire nearly grazed his head, leaving him with a chill down his spine, as if he’d narrowly escaped decapitation.
“Hurry, get out of here—she’s gone berserk!” the chubby driver shouted. He’d somehow found a pickup parked across the street and, without so much as a key, had managed to hotwire it.
Chen Meng was momentarily stunned, then dashed over and vaulted into the pickup’s bed.
The driver floored the accelerator, but the enraged woman was still not ready to let them go—she gave chase, bounding after them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Chen Meng fired several more shots, panic rising within him as he realized the pickup couldn’t outpace her.
The woman leaped thirty meters at a time, moving twice as fast as the vehicle.
Bang!
At last, one of Chen Meng’s shots struck her arm, but the bullet didn’t even penetrate—merely lodging in her muscle, blocked by her formidable physique.
Click! Click!
He was out of bullets. Fear gripped him, and sweat poured down the chubby driver’s face. In two seconds, they’d be caught, and their heads would likely be twisted off—unless she regained her senses and decided to take them hostage, in which case they might survive a bit longer.
But that seemed unlikely, for after her two companions had been taken out, the woman seemed almost possessed.
“I want you dead, dead, dead!” she roared, her shrill voice stabbing at Chen Meng’s ears.
She leaped again, this time grabbing a streetlamp pole and aiming it at Chen Meng like a javelin.
“It’s over,” Chen Meng thought, feeling as if his very soul had been locked in place. Cold sweat drenched his body. Instinctively, he wanted to jump from the vehicle, but at this speed, he’d likely be half-killed by the fall. Worse, if she hurled the pole at him while he was tumbling on the ground, he’d be a sitting duck.
So even jumping required careful timing.
“Die!” the woman screamed, hurling the streetlamp at him.
At that moment, a gunshot rang out. The woman instinctively jerked her head aside, but a bullet still pierced her left shoulder, shattering it completely.
A sniper rifle.
Chen Meng recognized the sound instantly, but had no time to dwell on it. With the lamp pole hurtling toward him, he had no choice but to jump.
He leaped from the pickup, feeling the pole graze his back so closely it seemed to tear his flesh. Had he been a fraction of a second slower, he would have bid farewell to the world.
“That kid’s got guts,” a calm voice remarked.
Suddenly, Chen Meng felt a rope coil around him. It was elastic, like a rubber band, and it swung him in an arc, then hoisted him up to the rooftop of a nearby mid-rise building.
“Ugh!” As soon as he landed, Chen Meng doubled over and vomited. The swinging motion had been even more exhilarating than a roller coaster, leaving him thoroughly shaken.
“You all right?” asked a man in a law enforcement uniform nearby, holding a sealed-series sniper rifle. “I have to say, you’re something else, jumping from a moving vehicle like that. At that speed, do you know how likely you were to die?”
Chen Meng spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t want to, but if I hadn’t jumped, I’d be dead for sure. Jumping gave me at least a sliver of hope.”
He peered down at the street, seeing the pickup he’d just ridden in impaled by the lamp pole, pinned to the ground. He had no idea what had become of the chubby driver.
“What about the woman?” Chen Meng asked grimly.
“There,” the man said coolly. “The security team from the Academy has her surrounded. She stole a very important technological file from the Academy and planned everything meticulously. She even managed to lure both the chief and deputy chief of security away—otherwise, she would never have made it out the front gate.”
“She’s not very bright, though. Why did she chase me so desperately just now? If she’d tried to escape into the nearby residential area, she might well have gotten away,” Chen Meng scoffed.
“Maybe because the guy you killed was her brother. They looked a lot alike,” the man replied with a faint smile. “By the way, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Jiang Feiyu, the law enforcer assigned to this district.”
“Chen Meng,” he replied with a smile, giving his own name in return.