“My good sir, I can't leave. My vehicle is broken, and there's no one around. My phone is dead too. Could I borrow your phone? Also, I'm quite thirsty. May I come inside for a drink of water?”
Without giving the man a chance to refuse, Ning Beichen walked into the house. The man hurriedly followed, a fierce expression on his face.
Ning Beichen glanced around the house, but he didn't see Liu Yixin. He guessed she wasn't being held there.
However, Ning Beichen was certain that the person who had just emerged from the house was part of the ambush party.
If Liu Yixin had indeed been captured by them, she must be held nearby.
The man who followed him into the house completely mistook Ning Beichen for an ordinary person. He grabbed Ning Beichen by the neck from behind, intending to kill him.
But the moment his hand touched Ning Beichen's neck, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Before he could comprehend what was happening, he was sent flying forward. When he landed, he was already dead.
Outside, the ambushing men were completely unaware of what had transpired inside, nor did they know their comrade had met his end.
There was only one person inside, likely used as a decoy. Liu Yixin was not there either.
Ning Beichen observed the situation outside through a crack in the window, memorizing the positions of the ambushing men. He then stripped the dead man's clothes, put them on, and made slight adjustments to resemble him as much as possible.
However, his height was a disadvantage. The deceased man was only about 1.65 meters tall, while Ning Beichen was over 1.8 meters. But Ning Beichen wasn't aiming for perfect disguise; he only needed to buy time.
After making his preparations, Ning Beichen cracked his neck, then tensed his muscles. A series of cracking sounds emanated from his body. Though he was originally over 1.8 meters tall, he now appeared about ten centimeters shorter.
Even so, he was still significantly taller than the deceased man. However, when Ning Beichen slightly hunched his back, from a distance, it was difficult to discern a major difference.
Once ready, Ning Beichen opened the door and walked out, raising his hand in an 'okay' gesture to the ambushing party in the distance.
The men outside immediately relaxed. Some were even laughing and chatting.
Ning Beichen walked towards them, hunched over. Before he reached them, one of them spoke to him in a thick accent, "Hey, what are you doing here? Your job was to wait inside the house."
Although Ning Beichen had roughly disguised himself as the man, he dared not speak, as no disguise could alter his voice. So, he resorted to making a series of hand gestures, the meaning of which he himself didn't fully understand.
"What's wrong? Is there a problem?"
The other man was utterly bewildered by his gestures, unsure of what they meant.
"You can't understand?"
"It's normal that you can't understand. It would be truly bizarre if you could."
Taking advantage of the gestures, Ning Beichen moved a few steps closer, quickly reaching the man.
"Hmm, that's not right. Why is your back so hunched?"
The man noticed Ning Beichen's hunched posture and that he seemed to have put on weight, and immediately questioned him.
But Ning Beichen moved like a startled rabbit. He pressed both hands on the man's head and then flung it. With a crack, the man's head was twisted backwards.
The other men, hearing the commotion or snapping back to their senses, had no time to react. They saw Ning Beichen charging into them like a tiger amongst sheep. These ambushing killers didn't even get a chance to fire their weapons before Ning Beichen snapped their necks.
Having been killers and bounty hunters their entire lives, they likely died in such a frustrating manner for the first time. Usually, they were the ones dealing with their targets; this time, they themselves had become the targets.
Soon, a pile of corpses lay on the ground, each with eyes wide open in disbelief. Ning Beichen, no longer needing to disguise himself, resumed his original appearance.
He then coerced the information about Liu Yixin's whereabouts from one of the bounty hunters. Liu Yixin was being held in a nearby civilian residence, about a kilometer away, guarded by two men.
Knowing Liu Yixin's location and that she was safe, Ning Beichen was no longer in a hurry. He took out the components of his composite bow and began assembling it, ignoring the weapons scattered on the ground.
He nocked an arrow.
A white streak flew into the distance, and shortly thereafter, a scream was heard.
More than three hundred meters away, an arrow had pierced the head of a killer hiding on a ridge with a sniper rifle.
*Swoosh, swoosh.*
Ning Beichen shot two more arrows, and two more killers were dispatched.
However, there was still one killer aiming at him from the eleven o'clock direction, but the distance was too great for Ning Beichen's arrows to reach him.
To hit him, Ning Beichen would have to leave the cover of the bamboo forest.
But Ning Beichen didn't hesitate or wait. This minor difficulty was not an issue for him.
He nocked an arrow onto the bowstring and charged out like a leopard.
*Bang!*
A bullet whizzed past his cheek. Ning Beichen didn't even flinch.
*Bang! Bang!*
Two more bullets flew towards Ning Beichen.
Ning Beichen's speed did not decrease. At the moment the bullets arrived, he saw him lean his body to the side, sliding on the ground as if to dodge the bullets. Then, his waist sprang back like it was equipped with a spring, and he instantly recoiled. He then moved to the left, evading the bullet from the right, and released the bowstring.
*Whoosh.*
The sniper who had been targeting him, who had been mockingly calling Ning Beichen a savage for using a bow and arrow in this day and age, found his windpipe pierced by an arrow in the next moment.
He muttered something, and then his eyes closed, returning to Satan's embrace.
Perhaps his final words were a confession, or a self-mockery of his ignorance, or disbelief that he would die by an arrow.
But he wasn't the first to confess, nor would he be the last. Those who had once disbelieved and mocked Ning Beichen as a savage were now buried with half-meter tall grass growing on their graves.
Ning Beichen slung his bow and arrows over his back, clapped his hands, and then leisurely jogged towards the location where Liu Yixin was being held...