Chapter 126: A Cold Sweat of Fright

The foreigners had taken epidemic prevention very seriously; even the underground interrogation rooms of the police station were spotlessly clean. Although not immaculate, they were far cleaner than the homes of many bachelors.

The underground interrogation rooms also served as temporary holding cells. A pitch-black corridor ran between rows of cells on either side. At present, however, not a single prisoner remained. Before handing the police station over to the Japanese, the Municipal Council had removed every prisoner.

After descending dozens of steps and turning left, Li Wensheng entered the pitch-black passageway. He immediately slowed his pace, his expression growing solemn.

If the corridor had been filled with people, he would have breathed a sigh of relief. But the absence of a single person could only mean that the Japanese had prepared something else down here.

After walking a few more steps, Li Wensheng suddenly stopped.

He had sensed no abnormality, yet something felt wrong.

After pondering for several seconds, his eyes lit up. He had realized what was wrong.

It was too dark.

Underground cells would normally have their lights left on all day and all night.

Li Wensheng put away the pistol in his left hand and took a flashlight from his system storage.

Flashlights of this era were highly unreliable. As soon as he switched it on, the beam began flickering.

Li Wensheng tapped the flashlight with his gun, and the light immediately steadied.

He shone it at the floor. A few inches in front of his feet, an extremely fine wire hung suspended several inches above the ground.

Following the wire to the left, he saw several grenades fastened to the iron bars of a cell.

He shone the light to the right. There, too, several grenades had been tied to the bars.

When he aimed the flashlight ahead, Li Wensheng nearly broke into a cold sweat.

Under the beam, countless thin wires hung suspended in the air.

Frowning, Li Wensheng studied the dense web of wires.

They were not all suspended at the same height. Some were level with an ordinary adult’s thighs, others with the waist, and still others with the neck. It was practically a laser grid from a science-fiction film of the twenty-first century.

He examined the bars of the cells on both sides with the flashlight, and his frown deepened.

“They’re packed so tightly together that if one explodes, the rest will go off as well. With this many grenades detonating at once, they could probably bring down the entire underground prison.

“The Japanese inside intend to die together with Marlon rather than let me take him away.”

After only a moment’s thought, a vicious glint flashed through Li Wensheng’s eyes.

“Then you can all die in there.”

He turned and retreated. Reaching the bend near the entrance, he put away the flashlight and took out a grenade from his system storage.

He pulled the pin and threw it down the passage. Then he immediately darted to the other side of the corner, pressed himself against the wall, and covered his ears.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Li Wensheng had underestimated the grenades’ power. As soon as the explosions began, he felt the wall against his back shudder violently. He had no choice but to hurry up the stairs.

Outside the police station, the thunderous explosions left the intelligence agents stunned.

“Cannon fire? No, that’s the sound of grenades!”

“They must have been prepared by the Japanese. The Lone Wolf didn’t take anything in with him, so there’s no way he could have brought so many grenades.”

“The Japanese are insane. Cannons and all those grenades—they’re treating the Lone Wolf like an entire army.”

“The Lone Wolf prepared cannons too. Otherwise, he couldn’t have gotten inside.”

“That’s still insane. Just to deal with one man, the Japanese prepared all this equipment.”

“If your country’s president were killed by an assassin, you’d go just as crazy when you finally caught him.”

“Do you think the Japanese and the Lone Wolf might have died together?”

“Impossible. If he could die that easily, Hirohito would never have fallen into his hands.”

“He’s only human. He can die too. With that many grenades exploding at once, he must be dead.”

“Impossible…”

“Stop arguing. He’s coming out.”

Everyone hurriedly turned toward the police station’s main entrance. The doors did not open, but through the gap they could clearly see Li Wensheng, covered in dust, striding out from beside the cannon.

The explosions below were still continuing. The entire police station shook violently.

Li Wensheng slapped the dust from his clothes. Before he could finish, he suddenly raised his pistol and moved toward the room ahead on the left.

The room he had previously reached by shooting through the floor from the second story to the first was now ahead of him on the right.

To the left lay the other side of the staircase.

Li Wensheng quickly reached the first room on the left of the stairs. He leaned forward, pressing his ear against the wall. Apart from the explosions and the sound of tables and chairs shaking and toppling over, he heard nothing.

He immediately moved to the second room and pressed his ear against the wall beside the door.

By then, the explosions had stopped. Li Wensheng clearly heard voices coming from inside.

They were so faint that he could not make out the words, like murmuring in a dream, but there was unquestionably someone speaking.

“They even resorted to psychological warfare. It seems the Japanese have a psychological expert among them. But no matter how carefully they planned, they never imagined that I have system storage and could take out a flashlight.”

There were voices inside the room, which meant Marlon was almost certainly in there. In an instant, Li Wensheng understood.

The cannon and the underground interrogation room were a trap.

It was human nature to keep something precious close at hand. Anyone who saw a cannon positioned at the entrance to an underground passage would naturally conclude that Marlon was being held in the underground interrogation rooms.

The pitch-black underground corridor had been packed with grenades. The moment anyone crossed it, they would be blown to pieces.

In his momentary anger, Li Wensheng had fallen for the trick as well. Seeing the cannon, he had assumed that Marlon was in the underground interrogation rooms.

If he had not noticed that something was wrong with the lighting and taken out his flashlight to investigate, he might truly have been blown to death down there.

After confirming that someone was inside, Li Wensheng did not rush to attack. He stepped back several paces, turned sideways against the wall, and aimed his gun at the doorway.

The explosions had stopped. The people inside would certainly come out to check whether he was dead.

After waiting a few seconds, he heard footsteps. Then came the click of the door opening, and a middle-aged man stepped out.

The man was highly alert. The instant he emerged, he turned toward Li Wensheng. When he saw him, his pupils suddenly widened, and his face filled with shock.

Bang!

Before the man could retreat, a bullet tore into his forehead.

The moment he pulled the trigger, Li Wensheng lunged forward, seized the collapsing corpse as a shield, and opened fire on the people inside the room.

The room was spacious—a records room once lined with shelves. Before abandoning the police station, however, its personnel had removed all the records. Only the empty shelves remained, many of them knocked over by the explosions.

Inside, Li Wensheng saw five men.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

Using the corpse as cover, he dispatched all five men with ease.

Then, still holding the corpse in one hand and keeping it raised in front of him, Li Wensheng advanced farther into the room.

The moment he crossed the threshold, his heart jolted. He hurriedly swung the corpse to his left.