Chapter 17: Burglary of the Police Station

The four men were either lying or reclining, all in a drowsy state. He figured these must be the four armed bodyguards.

The little devils were rather extravagant, actually assigning four men for night guard duty.

Li Haibo did not hesitate. After pinpointing the locations of the four men, he quietly took out four screwdrivers.

He opened his infinite space, stored the door panel, stepped inside, and exerted force with both hands alternately. In an instant, the four screwdrivers flew out one after another like arrows released from a bowstring; the technique was truly superb.

Afterward, he turned around, reinstalled the door panel, and with a few swift strides, dashed to the front of the safe.

"My goodness, this is truly massive!" Seeing it up close was even more shocking than viewing it from afar. "Forget it, I'll just take it away first."

Having secured the biggest target, Li Haibo strolled leisurely to the small warehouse, even daring to switch on the electric light.

"Good grief, it lives up to its name as a major foreign cloth firm. Even though this is just a sample warehouse, there are over a thousand bolts of various Eastern-style fabrics here. I shall accept them all without modesty."

With everything done, Li Haibo meticulously swept away the office supplies on the table as well, not even sparing the corpses of the four Japanese bodyguards or their Nambu pistols.

Stepping out of the Beihai Foreign Cloth Firm, Li Haibo glanced at the time; only thirty minutes had passed. "Since I'm already out, I might as well make a detour to the Zhabei Branch Station."

No sooner said than done. Like a phantom in the night, Li Haibo carefully avoided the patrolling devils and snuck all the way to the Zhabei Branch.

Upon arrival, he quickly activated his "clairaudience" ability to scan the area, and his heart filled with joy.

He saw that there were only two guards in the gatehouse of the Zhabei Branch, and they were fast asleep, their snoring rising and falling, audible even without using his special ability.

"Heh!" A faint smile appeared at the corner of Li Haibo's mouth as he silently pulled a leather blackjack from his infinite space.

This blackjack was something he had hand-stitched himself, modeled after the ones used by scouts to capture prisoners during the later self-defense counter-attack wars.

The blackjack was made of two thick pieces of leather wrapped around a large steel ball. Its unique feature was that it was specifically designed to strike the back of an enemy's head. A single light tap would instantly render the target unconscious—it was extremely practical.

As for whether it would leave any aftereffects, like a crooked mouth, squinty eyes, or drooling, that was beyond his concern. After all, since it was his first time using it, it was normal not to have mastered the force perfectly.

Yes, Li Haibo did not intend to kill anyone this time. After all, they were all fellow countrymen, and there might even be his own people lurking within the enemy's ranks. Unless there was 100% proof that someone was a die-hard traitor causing massive harm, he would not easily raise a hand against his own people. After all, Li Haibo didn't have a scanning eye, did he?

Under the cover of night, Li Haibo's figure approached the gatehouse like a ghost. He pushed the door gently, and it creaked open just enough to slip through.

Inside the gatehouse, two policemen were curled up in their chairs wrapped in overcoats, their breathing causing the coats to rise and fall slightly; they were already sound asleep.

Li Haibo's gaze was cold. The blackjack in his hand swung out like lightning. With two muffled "thwack" sounds, the heads of the two policemen tilted slightly, and they sank into a deep, unconscious slumber.

He quickly took the bunch of keys off the wall. With a clear target in mind, he headed straight for the archives room. As a special unit, the police branch kept backup keys for every office in the gatehouse to deal with emergencies—a fact Li Haibo knew like the back of his hand.

Entering the archives room, he agilely stole several dozen blank "good citizen certificates" and personnel files. Afterward, he pulled a pre-prepared piece of dough from his pocket and carefully pressed the keys into it to make molds, planning to craft a set later to prepare for his next infiltration.

After finishing all this, Li Haibo crouched back to the gatehouse and placed the keys back in their original spot without a sound.

Only then did he proceed leisurely toward the armory. He didn't intend to use a key to open the armory door. After all, if a few blank certificates went missing from the archives, it might not be noticed for a long time, or perhaps never at all. But the armory was different; even if a single gun went missing, it would surely be discovered by the next morning.

To divert the devils' attention, cover up the theft of the certificates, and completely rule out the suspicion that someone on the inside had used keys to commit the crime, Li Haibo slowly pulled out a large sledgehammer. He had swiped this tool from a hardware store during his previous punishment of the traitor Chen Ergou.

He arrived at the armory door, swung the heavy hammer, and chanted to the rhythm, "Eighty... eighty..."

With each dull, heavy impact, the lock on the armory door gradually deformed under the vibrations. After just a few strikes, the door burst open with a loud "clang."

Putting away the hammer, Li Haibo rushed into the armory impatiently. Nearly two hundred long and short firearms were neatly arranged inside; these were the weapons the officers had turned in after their shifts. In this branch, the armory was the place he was most familiar with. He came to collect and return guns twice a day, more often than he went to the canteen. In the past, every time he stepped inside and looked at those guns, his heart would be filled with covetousness—how wonderful it would be if these guns were given to the guerrillas!

Now that he could finally make them his own, he felt extremely gratified. Without hesitation, he opened his infinite space and swept the entire armory clean.

Looking at the empty room, he felt a sense of relief. After confirming that not even a single leather belt remained, he turned and vanished into the vast darkness. Before leaving, he didn't forget to swipe the sidearms of the two sleeping policemen as well.

Returning home, he fell asleep contentedly, without a dream all night.

The next morning, Li Haibo felt refreshed as he looked at the guns and cloth in his infinite space. Unfortunately, he couldn't find Zhou Zhengguo, and without finding him, he couldn't contact the guerrillas. He would just have to wait for them to reach out to him.

Never mind, they wouldn't spoil inside the infinite space anyway. Time to head to work.

The Zhabei Police Branch was now a scene of chaos. A crowd had gathered in front of the armory, and the arrival of the Gendarmerie made the atmosphere heavy to the extreme.

"Whoa! What's all this ruckus? What big event happened?" Li Haibo blinked, asking curiously.

The section chief of the archives stood by the gatehouse with his arms crossed, looking as if it were none of his business. "Ugh! Don't even ask, a thief broke into our branch last night!"

"Wow! Who is so bold as to steal from a police station?"

"Heaven knows! In this day and age, nothing is strange anymore." The section chief shrugged.

"So what was lost?"

"What else? Guns, of course! In this police station, only those few broken guns are worth any money."

"Nothing else lost?"

"Nothing! Those thieves knocked out our two brothers in the gatehouse, headed straight for the armory, broke it open by force, and moved every single gun inside."

"Any clues?"

"None. The brothers on duty said that before they passed out, they vaguely saw over twenty masked men!"

That was complete nonsense, but Li Haibo remained calm and said, "Goodness, that's quite a grand operation!"

"Indeed! That bunch is probably going to make a fortune!"

"What?"