Chapter 87: Yu Xians Underhanded Tactics
It was not that Zhong Wuliang had never thought of running back to the stone chamber. The problem was that the way back had already collapsed. He only had a tiny amount of space left to dodge around.
Moreover, after the tunnel collapsed, digging through it had become extremely difficult. Whenever he smashed apart some rock and dirt, more rock and dirt would fall from above. Thus, digging was extremely inefficient.
Due to this, even though Zhong Wuliang possessed astonishing strength and was experiencing a massive surge of adrenaline under the threat of death, his speed at digging remained agonizingly slow. Moreover, he had not dug very far when an enormous boulder came crashing down on him. It was the final straw that broke his back.
Glancing back at the ever-growing cluster of explosives, Zhong Wuliang was finally consumed by terror. He placed the heavy purple-gold hammers in his hands on the ground, knelt, raised his hands, and shouted in every direction, "I surrender! I'll give myself up!"
Nevertheless, the explosives continued appearing out of thin air. The pressure on Zhong Wuliang grew heavier and heavier. His eyes were completely bloodshot as he watched the explosives pile up into a small mountain.
He roared, "I've already surrendered! What else do you want? What good does wiping me out do for you?"
As the explosives continued to fall, Zhong Wuliang kept kneeling and sobbed and pleaded. "Brother, Sir, I really surrender! If you still don't believe me, I'll break my arms and legs. Surely you'll believe me then, right?"
High in the sky outside the cave, Yu Xian had no idea that Zhong Wuliang had already surrendered. For safety's sake, he planned to drop a full five hundred explosives and blast Zhong Wuliang sky-high.
This was his first time dealing with a body-tempering martial artist. He had no experience fighting one at all. That was why he felt he should be a little conservative and avoid taking unnecessary risks.
Once he had dropped enough explosives, he pulled the safety pin on the final one and casually tossed it into a spatial bubble. The next moment, the entire mountain below him shook. The area where the underground cave was located erupted like a volcano, sending rock, soil, and dust shooting into the sky. As expected, in a sealed space, the power of the explosives increased tremendously.
Yu Xian looked down at the ground, just in time to see an arm fly out and land on a rock, blood seeping from it. Suddenly, a black shadow leaped out of the crater at high speed and fled into the distance.
Yu Xian's eyes widened. He was genuinely shocked. "He's still not dead?"
The main reason Zhong Wuliang was still alive was that, in his despair, he had curled himself up. He had used a large number of rocks as cover in front of him, then placed his heavy purple-gold hammers in front of himself as a shield.
Even so, he had underestimated the explosives' power. The arm with which he had held the heavy purple-gold hammers had been blown off, and his other arm was fractured as well.
At this moment, Zhong Wuliang had only one thought. Run! I have to run, now!
It was not that he had never considered hiding in the crater and ambushing Yu Xian. He just had no confidence in succeeding. Yu Xian was a spatial ability user. The moment Zhong Wuliang made a move, Yu Xian would probably teleport away. And that crater blasted open by the explosives was far too suitable for a second round of bombing.
After weighing the pros and cons, Zhong Wuliang had decided to flee. If he truly could not escape, then he would find suitable terrain and fight the enemy to the death.
However, as he ran, he gradually sensed that something was wrong. He stopped and turned to look at a large tree beside him. Lowering his head, he saw the blood dripping from his severed arm stuck to the trunk.
I passed this tree just a moment ago. How have I ended up right back here again?
An explosive landed at Zhong Wuliang's feet. He lowered his head and looked at it, and a smile uglier than a grimace gradually appeared on his face.
His pursuer was clearly a physically fragile spatial ability user and would absolutely never believe a single word Zhong Wuliang said. Even if Zhong Wuliang broke his arms and legs, the other party would still suspect him of using his injuries as a ploy to lure him closer, only to suddenly reveal a trump card and counterattack.
Under this kind of suspicion, the other party would approach only after killing him. Zhong Wuliang realized that from the very beginning, he had already been sentenced to death.
***
Yu Xian kept more than five thousand explosives in his spatial ring at all times. A few days ago, the branch office had even specially applied to headquarters for more explosives. Once the next batch of supplies arrived at the branch office, by conservative estimates, he would be able to receive over ten thousand more explosives.
Amid one explosion after another, he finally managed to blow Zhong Wuliang to death. From the very beginning, Zhong Wuliang never posed any threat to Yu Xian. His rank was clearly higher than Yu Xian's, and all his attributes were stronger as well, yet he still died to Yu Xian in an utterly miserable fashion, without even a chance to fight back.
Nevertheless, Yu Xian continued dropping explosives. Only after confirming that Zhong Wuliang was thoroughly dead did he feel at ease.
He then appeared beside Zhong Wuliang's corpse. At this point, Zhong Wuliang's arms and legs were broken and bent at odd angles, his torso blasted out of shape, and there was barely a patch of intact skin left on his face.
Yu Xian took out his phone and snapped a series of photos of Zhong Wuliang. Then, silver threads extended from his fingers and removed the two rings from Zhong Wuliang's fingers.
After confirming that Zhong Wuliang had no other valuables, he controlled his spatial bubble and flew back to the crater left by the explosion, picking up the two heavy purple-gold hammers Zhong Wuliang had dropped.
The hammers were extremely heavy. Each one probably weighed as much as a ton. They were forged from purple gold refined from gold and other precious materials. Possessing an innate sentience, both hammers could repair themselves. So, there was no need to worry about them being damaged, no matter how they were smashed around.
Yu Xian put away his spoils. He opened the wanted section of the Qilin app, found Zhong Wuliang's wanted page, and uploaded the photos. A moment later, Zhong Wuliang's wanted photo was marked with a red "Executed" label.
Yu Xian checked and saw that his merit points had increased by 50,000. At the same time, with a ding, the bank card he had registered for receiving his salary showed that two million yuan had been deposited in it. Although this amount of money was not much to him, seeing that string of zeroes still inevitably put him in a good mood.
After that, he continued on his way while taking out Zhong Wuliang's two spatial rings. Previously, he had sold Scott's spatial ring directly to headquarters. This time, he planned to keep one of Zhong Wuliang's two rings as a backup.
He held the first ring in his hand. After confirming that no traps were hidden inside it, he put it on and checked what was stored within. The first thing Yu Xian saw was a large pile of processed meat. Meat! What a huge amount of meat!
Beside the meat were two knives used for cutting it. The meat was probably Zhong Wuliang's food supply. It was clear that in his desperation to dodge the Huaxia government's dragnet, he had kept an incredibly low profile. He probably did not even dare leave the cave unless necessary.
It was not much different from being in prison. However, when Yu Xian thought of all the people Zhong Wuliang had killed, he felt that the man had deserved it. Huaxia did not blindly suppress supernatural beings. Otherwise, it would only alienate all supernatural beings and make them disloyal.
As long as a supernatural being was in the right, they could defend their rights and interests. Otherwise, supernatural beings would be subject to endless extortion scams by ordinary humans every single day. Although the law was stricter toward supernatural beings while protecting the weak, it still had to remain fair and just in the end to convince everyone.
Ding!
Right then, a text notification chimed from Yu Xian's phone.