Empire of Shadows

With a bang, the professor's office door was kicked open, and Wolf barged in with a serious and ugly expression.

He walked directly to the professor, who was trying to feign composure, looked at him, and said loudly, "Your family has been kidnapped by them?"

"Is it Lance and his people?"

The professor rubbed his face and put his glasses back on, which were lying on the table. "How… how did you know?"

Wolf also felt very uncomfortable. This trip to Gold Harbor City was not a "mandatory mission"; you could come or not.

After all, Sidney had completely left Fides City, and with the "post-Fides City government's" purge of the remaining political forces, he could no longer influence Fides City.

Of course, their lives weren't exactly easy either. Those local gangs that existed during Sidney's time were suppressed to varying degrees.

The new politicians supported new gangs to fight against them. If they weren't all "locals" and had some connection with the working class, they might have been imprisoned long ago.

A purely industrial city is even more afraid of strikes, because once a strike happens, it's a city-wide strike!

When Sidney notified them to come over, Wolf agreed without much consideration.

There were many reasons to support his decision.

Gold Harbor City was more prosperous, while Fides was clearly lagging behind.

Sidney was the mayor here and had the final say in everything. In Fides, they still had to fight against those newly supported gangs.

Here, no matter what they did, it could be suppressed, but in Fides, they still had to rack their brains to deal with the police.

Too many unbalanced comparisons led him to make the choice, and that's what triggered everything!

"We have to rescue them!" Wolf looked at the professor. "They're not just your family, they're our family too!"

The professor's eyes were red, and he looked as if he had lost some belief that supported him. He was very embarrassed. "Lance and his people must have set up an ambush near the valley. If we go, we'll fall into their trap."

He wasn't trying to convince Wolf; he was trying to convince himself!

He was telling himself, don't fucking go, everyone will die if you go!

This was a very rational judgment, and he was indeed considering it that way. If they went, everyone would die.

If they didn't go, they could continue to fight against the Lance family!

They moved the battlefield from the city to outside the city in order to avoid the Wolf Gang's home advantage!

Wait a few more days, wait for the mayor's backup to arrive, and everything will be settled.

All the grudges can be avenged by then, he said, he thought.

But reason, most of the time, doesn't prevail!

You tell yourself not to masturbate, that it's wrong to do so. The guilt hidden in the emptiness after each session makes you swear it's the last time.

Your reason, your thoughts, your personality, your heart, are all so firm at this moment, so firmly promising, swearing.

But what about it?

When the time is right, reason will fade, and emotion will rise. You will grab a tissue, then find a comfortable place to sit down, licking your lips and eagerly indulging again!

People are like that, and so is the professor. His reason desperately told him not to do that, and he even tried to convince himself by persuading Wolf.

But when he thought of his wife, his daughter, his family, he was extremely pained!

At the same time, at this moment, several more high-level cadres rushed in, looking at Wolf and the professor with terrified expressions.

"Our families have been kidnapped by the Lance family…"

The professor stared at them with wide eyes. He knew it was over.

This may be the saddest state of a smart person. You know it's going to be over, but you still have to go on.

Now he couldn't even convince himself by persuading Wolf. Even if he succeeded, what about those people?

As the leader of the gang, how could he tell these people?

"Anyway, everyone will die if you go, let's not go and wait two hours to see if they're serious?"

Say that?

After saying that, they would rebel and leave with their people!

Wolf looked at them in disbelief, then looked at the professor. "Lance and his people have gotten through to Fides!"

His teeth were grinding!

At this time, the professor calmed down instead. He tidied his hair to make it look less messy. "It seems we have no other choice."

Wolf sat next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me, what do we do now?"

The professor forced himself to enter a state of thinking. "He arranged the location in the valley, which means they must have arranged people on the mountain."

"We split into two groups, one group goes by the main road, and the other group bypasses the main road and goes directly up the mountain from the side."

"This time, our mission is not to defeat them, but to rescue our families and bring them back!"

The professor was indeed a smart man. From the beginning, he didn't think about fighting Lance and his people in a disadvantageous position.

"Get some vans, they can carry more people and are safer."

Listening to his instructions, Wolf immediately began to dispatch. Soon, they got seven or eight vans and some cars.

"The vans will go with us to the valley, and the others in the cars should find a high point on the mountain as soon as possible."

If there was more time, or even a more detailed map, he could make more arrangements, but now there wasn't that much time for him!

It took about an hour to get from here to the valley. Getting these vehicles had already taken twenty or thirty minutes, and they had no other time to prepare!

A group of people stood in the open space, and the professor's lips moved. He didn't know what to say, how to say it. Many of the people going to the valley this time might die, but they had a reason to go.

He should say something to boost morale, but he really couldn't say it!

In the end, he said a very short sentence—"Come back alive…"

The long convoy began to move quickly towards the valley, and Lance's people were also ready.

More than an hour later, a batch of vans entered the valley.

The valley was quiet, with only several groups of hostages tied together separately.

The professor saw his daughter, saw his wife. They and the professor's other relatives were separately surrounded into two circles.

He hadn't seen them for a while, and he had never been so eager to talk to them, to take them away from here!

But he knew that now was not the time to be anxious!

The convoy stopped, because it was all too strange. The surroundings were so quiet that there wasn't a single other sound.

The more it was like this, the more uneasy the professor felt.

As soon as he got up, Wolf pressed down on his shoulder. He couldn't break free; he was no match for Wolf. "This is my responsibility, I have to do it!"

The two looked at each other for a moment, and Wolf let go of his hand. He said solemnly, "Don't forget what you said, we have to go back alive!"

The professor nodded vigorously. He checked his pistol and jumped out of the car.

He slowly walked towards the middle of the valley, observing the surrounding movements while shouting loudly, "Lance, I'm here, where are you?"

The valley was quiet. He slowly walked forward, but the further he walked, the more uneasy he felt.

He was less than ten meters away from his family, from other people's families. He stopped, his palms were full of sweat.

"Lance, come out and talk?"

"You asked me to come, I'm here, what about you?"

He looked at the surrounding mountains and forests, as if trying to find Lance's shadow, but it was all dense vegetation, and he couldn't see anything except these and the echo.

The sun was very harsh, and drops of sweat flowed down his forehead and temples.

He didn't dare to wipe it, he was afraid that his action of raising his hand would create some kind of signal. He had to find Lance's people first.

"Are you all okay?" Seeing that no one answered him, the professor finally focused his attention on his family.

His daughter nodded with a sob. Although his ex-wife didn't speak, he could feel that both of them were worried about him.

The other relatives seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when they saw him. "Hurry up and untie our ropes!"

Some people were just crying out his name, as if venting some emotion.

He gritted his teeth and took two more steps forward, but there was still no movement.

"Do you know where they are?" he asked.

"I don't know, they blindfolded us and then left."

He tried to get closer, but found that there were no accidents. He didn't know what to do?

Someone saw that the professor had approached the crowd, but no one fired a gun. They couldn't wait to get out of the car and run towards their families. The professor suddenly turned his head to look at those people, and something seemed to flash in his eyes.

At that moment, the gunshots rang out. The fierce gunshots instantly covered all the sounds in the mountains and forests, and also interrupted the professor's thoughts!

The hostages screamed in panic, some shouted "I've been shot", and the women screamed and cried. The scene was extremely chaotic!

Wolf slapped the driver's shoulder, almost fracturing it. The driver endured the pain and slammed on the accelerator, quickly rushing between the hostages and the direction of the gunfire.

The sparks from the bullets hitting the van were a relief.

"Quick, untie their ropes!"

The professor frantically tore at the ropes. They were all tied back-to-back, their hands behind them bound together.

These weren't ordinary ropes; even with a dagger, they wouldn't be easy to cut.

The external environment made it impossible to concentrate and think. The professor didn't know why, but he had a strange feeling, as if… Lance's people were doing this on purpose, deliberately forcing them to move these people into the car faster.

He was momentarily distracted, wanting to continue thinking, but he was quickly bumped, snapping him back to reality. He stopped considering anything else and instinctively began to pull at the ropes with all his might.

The rope was torn open, and his daughter threw herself into his arms, crying and calling him "Daddy," but at this moment, there wasn't the slightest joy of saving his daughter on his face!

Because he saw it. At the moment he tore the rope open, something round and smooth fell to the ground from somewhere.

He subconsciously looked up, surrounded by his family.

Bomb!

I still owe 2 chapters from last month, please vote less, the child can't handle it.