Chapter 13 – Doubts
Novel Title: 龙血 (Dragon Blood)
Author：水千丞 (Shui Qian Cheng)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 单鸣 (Shan Ming -MC), 沈长泽 (Shen Changze -ML)
*Please read at Novels Space.space, the original site of translation. TQ*
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They arrived at the agreed trading location and waited for two days. No one showed up so the mercenary regiment began to rush back to the China-Myanmar border, gearing up to knock a large sum of money from the client.
Because the next few days were no longer rainy, the road traffic conditions improved a lot. They drove for two days in shifts and found the village where their client was staying.
This area seems to be a place supported by drug cultivation and trading. There is no law, no government, and no universal values and morals understood by normal people here. There are only rules made by the powerful drug lords. The people have to work according to his arrangements here.
The previous mission was to cover the transaction between the client and the Americans. But the transaction location was not at this place. So except for Ayer, they were all visiting the client’s lair for the first time.
As the car drove into the village, Ayer immediately sensed that something was wrong. It wasn’t just him who felt the same. When the car drove in, all of them could notice the abnormality in this village. Where did all the villagers go?
All kinds of simple daily necessities are scattered everywhere in the village. It was as if people had left in a hurry and had no time to take them away. It seems that so many local people who came and went before disappeared out of thin air. This situation is too weird.
Ayer radioed everyone to tell them to slow down as he feared that there could be a trap.
In the end, the convoy simply stopped in the middle of the village that was suddenly deserted. In this situation, no one dared to enter rashly.
Ayer ordered everyone to retreat and wait outside the village until it was dark. Only then would he wait for an opportunity to act.
They withdrew several miles away and pitched tents in a valley.
At around 3 a.m. in the middle of the night, Ayer found Shan Ming and asked him to sneak into the village to have a look. If he encountered danger, he should turn around immediately. If he couldn’t get away, he should set off a signal flare and they would go to rescue him immediately.
Shan Ming is courageous and curious. He has long been interested to know what was going on with what he saw during the day. So he quickly took his equipment and walked to the village on foot.
When he reached the edge of the village, he began to move forward hiding by the walls. He cautiously moved along the way in that position. But after walking for a long time, he felt more and more like a fool. There was really no one in this village.
He sneaked into a house and found that there were freshly cut and uncooked cabbage on their stove. The things in this house were turned over in a mess and various items fell all over the floor. He could guess the situation. The people here didn’t have enough time to take away valuable things at all and left the house in a mess.
Shan Ming’s doubts even more about what caused this. Could it be that their client had been attacked earlier and all the people in the village ran away?
This problem can only be known when he goes inside and finds the client.
There was no other major discovery so Shan Ming pushed open the door and walked out. But as soon as he went out, he bumped into a person head-on. Shan Ming kicked the person and stepped on the man’s chest. He pushed the gun to his forehead.
The man yelled for help but deliberately lowered his voice. Judging from his expression, he was begging for mercy.
Shan Ming took a closer look. This person is a local. Maybe he ran away during the day and wanted to go back home to get valuable things at night when there was no one around.
Shan Ming tried to ask him what happened in English. But the man acted like he didn’t understand at all. He just kept begging for mercy, almost crying.
Shan Ming saw that there was nothing to ask, so he let go of him. The man ran away rolling and crawling, while he continued to walk into the village. Following the route Ayer told him, Shan Ming went straight to the end of the village. But the village was not small, so he couldn’t find the place after searching for a long time. That is until his sensitive nose smelled the scent of blood.
He was right. As he followed the scent of blood, he found the place in less than ten minutes.
In the past, this place should have been an orderly and well-guarded drug plantation area. But now, it is an aftermath of a bloody battlefield.
The entire village was full of dead people. The smell of blood was so strong that it made him feel sick. There was no one around. It looked eerie and terrifying under the quiet moonlight.
Shan Ming tensed his nerves as he clenched his gun. He slowly moved towards the largest house on the right.
Along the way, there was really no living person found at all. They were ‘cleaned up’. Except for the dead locals, no corpse of the attacker was found at a glance.
Shan Ming turned over one corpse after another with his feet, trying to find some clues from them. The AK guns that Asians love to use are scattered around the scene but they all seem to belong to these Burmese people.
After searching for a long time, a bullet casing half hidden in the soil caught his attention. Shan Ming picked up the shell and wiped off the soil on it. It was a shell of a Type 95 assault rifle and the 5.8 calibre was uniquely used in China. He continued to search and found some residues of plastic 10 explosives made in China one after another. The attackers used the standard configuration of Chinese special forces. Combined with the fact that this is the border between China and Myanmar, it can be preliminarily judged that the attackers came from China.
Are these people government troops? Why raid a Burmese drug lord? If they are involved in border crimes, the issues involved are very complicated. At least cooperation with the Myanmar government is a must. How could they just rush into the lair and drive everyone to death?
A lot of question marks popped up in Shan Ming’s mind. But he couldn’t find any answers.
He decided to come back later to study the scene carefully. For now, he must go to the drug lord’s house to see if he was still there or was even alive.
He entered the villa and saw that there were dead bodies all over the place. On the sofa in the living room on the first floor, he found a luxuriously dressed man lying on the ground. He was wearing silk pyjamas. Shan Ming had met his client during the last mission so even if he was lying on his stomach and he couldn’t see his face, he could conclude that he had found the client.
Shan Ming grabbed the pyjamas and lifted the dead man up. He threw him on the sofa.
Sure enough, it was the drug lord. Although his face was ruined, judging from the bloody marks on his body, he had been tortured before his death. The methods were cruel and were done by a professional.
Shan Ming checked his mortal wound, he died from being pierced through the heart by a sharp object. He then closely observed the wound on his face from the corner of the mouth to the ear and found that the wound was very thin. The incision was flat and smooth. He pressed it with his hand. No bones were affected. It must have been cut out by a very thin blade since only the meat was cut and the bone was unbroken. It was most likely done by a scalpel.
Shan Ming frowned. Even if it wasn’t a scalpel, how could someone carry such a thin knife on the battlefield? It is not enough for self-defence. What to use it for?
He couldn’t be a flying knife user. Shan Ming couldn’t help but smile when he thought of Chinese martial arts movies where people were flying all over the sky.
It is unknown as to why this drug lord was attacked by gangsters and tortured for information, and was finally stabbed through the heart with a knife. What did the special forces want to know from him to use such an unappealing method of torture on such a person?
It can be concluded that this is definitely a covert affair. Even if it is related to the Chinese government, it must be carried out in secret. However, with this kind of murder method, Shan Ming is more inclined to feel that these people have deeper secrets.
He put down the man’s body and turned around to leave. When he turned into the kitchen, he suddenly heard faint breathing.
Shan Ming’s ears immediately perked up. He clenched his gun tightly, followed the sound to the balcony of the kitchen and found a bodyguard of the drug lord outside the balcony.
He had dealt with this man before. This man spoke English better than his master and often acted as an interpreter.
Shan Ming quickly squatted down. The man was wounded by a gunshot. He was dying and fell into a semi-comatose state. But he is still breathing.
Shan Ming shook him lightly, “Hey, you are still alive. Get up and don’t die just yet.”
He yelled continuously for the man. The man finally opened his eyes and looked at him in a daze.
“Do you recognize me?”
The man shook his head but then nodded again and looked at him confusedly.
Shan Ming hurriedly asked: “What happened here? Are those people Chinese special forces? What is their purpose in coming here?”
The man panted as he said intermittently, “Child.”
“What?” Shan Ming put his ear close to him, “What did you say?”
“A child. They’re… here… for a child.”
“A child?” Shan Ming searched through his mind and ruled out all kinds of words with similar pronunciation. He combined it with the contextual grammar and finally came to the conclusion that he heard correctly. This person said that those people ran here to massacre the whole place in order to find a child.
“What kind of child? Do you know who they are?”
“A … Chinese … boy … They’re looking … for him. They insist … to find him here …”
Alarm bells rang in Shan Ming’s mind.
A little Chinese boy. In this area, he only knows one. And that is the son he picked up for nothing.
“What information did they leave behind? Tell me, are those people Chinese?”
The man grabbed his arm, “I don’t know… Kill me… I can’t live anymore… please kill me…”
Looking at his dying state, Shan Ming knew that he must be in great pain. He couldn’t ask any more questions. Shan Ming stood up, drew out the sabre and slit his neck cleanly.
He stood there for a long time in a daze. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
If those people are really looking for Shen Changze…
He doesn’t know anything about Shen Changze’s background, but there are definitely not many people who can afford a helicopter and be allowed to fly over China. If he wanted to check it out, it may not be difficult. He just needed to look up the information about any recent plane crash and maybe the information will come out.
However, it would be very unusual for those special forces to take down the largest local drug lords in Myanmar just to find a child whose chance of death in a plane crash is almost 100%.
To find someone locally, shouldn’t you seek cooperation?
The only thing Shan Ming could think of was that those people didn’t want the news to leak out so they silenced it.
How much value does a mere child have that it took an army of the Chinese government to cross the border and go to other countries to kill the local powerful drug lords just to find him?
Who is this child for them?
Shan Ming was full of doubts. He stood there for about ten minutes before he realised that he should use a signal flare to call Ayer and the others over to sweep the scene. They should make up for their loss this time.
It’s just that before that, he must check around to make sure that no one else is alive.
He doesn’t care about Shen Changze’s identity. He doesn’t give a shit who his real parents are. He is now Shan Ming’s son. But he can’t let Ayer and the others know this for the time being.
He wanted to go back and investigate secretly. If Shen Changze’s identity is really special, he will think about the next step later.
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*Translator’s Note: Let me tell you, this man with the scalpel will be our second couple Uke. Our second couple Seme is Ayer. -K
Next update: 2023.–.–
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