Chapter 137: The Hell of Endless Torment

After the last undercover officer finished speaking, the gunman fired another shot with a vacant expression, then tossed the weapon aside. "All right, it's over."

Everyone else on the playground was too terrified to move, and the onlookers were no better.

"Remember, there are no undercover police officers here," the gunman said, sweeping his gaze across the crowd with a heavy, warning tone. "If this news leaks out, I can't guarantee what will happen to your families and friends."

They would have liked to dispose of everyone here to ensure silence, but the resulting commotion would be too great to suppress. Everyone nodded, cowed and trembling under the threat.

Officer Xu did not know what his own expression was at that moment, but it must have looked terrible, or perhaps completely blank. But since everyone else looked equally wretched, his presence among them did not arouse the gunman's suspicion.

Usually, they would select a few people to help bury the bodies. But this time was different; the gunmen handled the burial themselves, and Officer Xu had no idea where his three colleagues were buried. Before this, Officer Xu had never seen a colleague die before his eyes while serving at home. Perhaps it was because he had been on the job for a relatively short time, or perhaps domestic public security was simply better than abroad, but this was undeniably his first time witnessing the sacrifice of a comrade.

Today it was a colleague; tomorrow it could be him. This was a realization one had to accept upon joining the force. To say he wasn't afraid would be a lie. Empathy is human nature; any person with a conscience would be shaken to see someone die before them. Officer Xu was afraid too. He feared showing a flaw, wasting his colleagues' expectations, failing his mission, and returning home only to leave his mother to mourn the death of her son in her twilight years. He lived in constant dread, his body in the world of the living, his heart in a living hell.

"Right, tomorrow, you, you, and you," a sub-leader pointed at three people, then glanced at his phone. "And Tang Sheng, which one is that?"

Hearing his alias, Officer Xu raised his hand a beat too late. "Me."

The sub-leader shot him a glance. "Fine, just the four of you. You can leave tomorrow."

One of the others who had been named asked timidly, "Where are we going?"

"Sending you back. A war is coming, and we can't afford to feed so many people. You're being sent back home," the sub-leader said with a lazy, indifferent air. "If you don't want to go, we can swap you out."

"We're willing, we're willing!" The few who had been chosen suddenly looked overjoyed.

Officer Xu remained bewildered, staring blankly at the looks of envy and jealousy from the crowd. Could the mission be considered a success if he just returned like this? No, he felt that these people would not let anyone go so easily.

There were two types of people in the telecommunications fraud factory. One type, like his fabricated identity, had been lured here by promises of high-paying work. The other type consisted of those who had run out of options due to debts back home and had fled here. Even if the latter were sent back, they had nowhere to go, whereas the former might still be longing for home.

Among those chosen by the sub-leader was one of those "deadbeats" from the second category. The man's expression was equally confused. Where could he go if he returned home? To jail to eat prison rations? And how had they selected these people? Why had they specifically asked for his name? Officer Xu sensed that something was wrong, but he could not show it.

The sub-leader left, and the others dared not chat, keeping their heads down and busy with their work. By nightfall, they were loaded into an off-road vehicle. As soon as it started moving, Officer Xu realized the direction was wrong. They were not heading toward the border.

The car drove all night, and by the time the sky began to gray with dawn, they entered an area with even tighter security. The people in the car grew quiet, their initial excitement replaced by unease. The man in the passenger seat who was responsible for escorting them made a phone call. He spoke in Burmese, which Officer Xu did not understand, but the deadbeat sitting next to him turned ashen, his eyes filled with a deathly stillness.

"It's over, it's over. We're dead."

Before Officer Xu could ask, the man muttered, "He just said our medical reports are all qualified. Do you know what that means? We're getting on a boat. Tang Sheng, you were specifically picked when you arrived, weren't you? Your blood type matched."

Officer Xu opened his mouth, and it quickly dawned on him. "The vial of blood drawn when I started?"

"That's right," the man slumped, "We're dead. All dead. There's no hope left..."

No matter what Officer Xu asked afterward, the man would only repeat those words. The vehicle brought them to a cluster of brick buildings. It was heavily guarded, with sentries every few paces, each carrying a rifle, their cold eyes scanning everyone who passed.

"All right, stay here for two days until the boat is ready to sail," the sub-leader gestured. Immediately, the armed militia pointed their rifles at them.

They stood still, none daring to move. With death staring them in the face either way, who wouldn't be afraid?

"You'd best cooperate," the sub-leader sighed. "Live one day at a time. You don't want to spend the rest of your days being tortured to death, do you?"

Facing the dark muzzles of the guns, the unarmed men were nothing but lambs for the slaughter. They were locked inside the brick buildings. Space was limited, and several were crowded into each room, yet there was no sound from any of them. It seemed they had long accepted their fate, knowing there was no room for resistance.

In the corner, Officer Xu used his fingernails to scratch letters into the red brick. As of today, he didn't think he would make it back; he would leave whatever clues he could.

Li Momo was being held less than 500 meters away from Officer Xu. Because of her special status, she was kept in a single cell. But what did that matter? It didn't change the fact that she had been abandoned by Bai Yingxiong. It was a failure to have lived her life only to end up like this. If she had known she would eventually be purged, she never would have gritted her teeth and stayed. Now, she hadn't accomplished what she set out to do, and she might even die carrying this disgraced identity. She hadn't shown a single flaw, yet she was discarded because of that dead man's paranoia. How had that piece of garbage not been shot by his own brothers yet?

Even though she had anticipated this day, when it finally arrived, she couldn't help but feel a sense of bitter reluctance. She had been so close—just a hair's breadth away from dragging that old man back to face a firing squad and dismantling this drug trafficking line. So many years of effort, so many sacrifices, and they were so close...

Li Momo leaned her head against her hand and sighed. That day would come, she was sure of it, she just might not be around to see it.