Chapter 47: Unexpected Rescue From Imperilment

Translated by: kevin1782

Edited by: Isalee

Grolev was on the edge of death. The vast desert almost had no horizons. They didn’t know where to go. There weren’t any hiding spots. Gao Yang felt that there was no way they could escape. He was in near despair.

Tribo suddenly stopped pus.h.i.+ng the cart. He sat on the sands in a huff and panted a few times. He shook his head and said, “Nope, can’t go on anymore. Didn’t eat or drink since yesterday. Can’t endure it any longer.”

Tribo was as strong as any laboring livestock, but his appet.i.te was humongous too. He belonged to the type that could eat and work very well. Even if one commanded an animal, they still had to feed it before anything else — not to mention, a living man.

Gao Yang was a man with an iron mettle. He kicked Tribo and shouted, “Git up! Now’s not the time to be giving up. Hang your stuff on that cart, I’m pus.h.i.+ng it.”

Tribo shook his head again and said, “I really can’t any longer. Even if my hands are empty. Bro Yang, I ain’t trying to demoralize, but I’m really out of my wits. Go, I beg you, when you’re gone I can still have something to think about with Grolev. At least there’s somebody to convey the death news.”

Seeing Tribo like this, Gao Yang knew he really couldn’t go on. He was despondent and doleful. He turned and raised the rifle in his hands. He aimed at one of the pursuing soldiers far away and shot once. But just before he could get his second, he felt a huge impact smash into him. What accompanied next was a pain in his left chest. It was so great that he flew as he was knocked back and then faced the sky.

Gao Yang only felt blackness before his eyes. He could only see stars floating above everywhere. The pain in his heart was excruciating. Even taking a breath was difficult. He heard Tribo’s teary cries.

“Bro Yang! Bro Yang!”

Grolev’s weak voice also chimed, “d.a.m.n it! Gao, you okay?”

After that short-timed dizziness, he realized that he’d been shot in the heart. It seemed that staying alive for seven seconds max after being shot there was true.

“I Ci Ao your ancestors, bring it on! Old man’s gonna f*ck with you.”

The only things that followed after hearing Tribo’s hoa.r.s.e scream were gunshots. Bolt-action sounds accompanied the shots and the gunshots never stopped.

Gao Yang felt strange. He was. .h.i.t in the heart so he should be dead already. Why could he still hear gunshots? He opened his eyes at the very next instant. He saw the azure sky lined with clouds.

Gao Yang automatically touched his heart area.

Feeling the hatchet, Gao Yang’s emotions changed from being puzzled to extreme joy. He sat up in a puff. He took off the hatchet from his chest velcro.

A bullet was lodged in on the side facing outwards. There was an impression at the back. Gao Yang used some strength and took off the bullet from the hatchet in one go. He then saw that there was a small crater at the center of the hatchet.

Gao Yang held onto the hatchet and was logy for a brief moment. He suddenly laughed like a lunatic and roared, “Fedor, Malik, I thank both of you for your blessing!”

Hearing Gao Yang’s laughter, Tribo who was shooting while lying on the ground spun back. With his face still stupefied he said, “I Ci Ao, what the h.e.l.l is this situation?”

Gao Yang was holding a hatchet in one hand and the bullet in the other. He shouted, “Old man’s not fated to die. This bullet was blocked by this hatchet! Haha, even the Heavens won’t receive me!”

Tribo’s face was full of tears and mucus. He was stuporous for a moment. He suddenly wiped his face with his extended sleeves and dazedly said, “How is this even possible? I Ci Ao, all this crying … I’ve wasted my tears! I should have checked on your situation first, it was really a close shave this time.”

Grolev also laughed with every little strength he had left. “You’re a really serendipitous man. Gao, you should really keep that hatchet as a precious collection, and that bullet also, that’ll be your lucky-c.u.m-protective glyph. That is your apotropaic item, man.”

Gao Yang hugged the hatchet and smooched it twice. He patted it twice and said, “I have to keep this for the rest of my life as a treasure, never gonna let it go[1].”

Tribo heartily laughed twice and turned back to his scope. He continued aiming and said, “Bro Yang, I just shot down one, ain’t sure if he’s dead.”

Gao Yang ignored Tribo. He inspected the totally deformed bullet head and suddenly said, “Nope, this isn’t a round from an AK. Not even close to 5.56mm rounds. This is a lead core bullet. Looks like a sniper rifle round to me.”

Tribo said, “I was looking through the scope and there seemed to be a guy with a scope on his gun. But the proximity’s too great, I can’t see it clearly.”

If the opponent had a sniper, or if the sniper had finally arrived, Gao Yang and his group couldn’t just run forward like n.o.body’s business like before. The sniper had also exhibited his skills by hitting Gao Yang’s chest from at least six hundred meters away in one shot. If not for the hatchet that was akin to a ‘protective glyph’, Gao Yang would still be dead even with the bulletproof vest.

Gao Yang was already a little demoralized just now, intending on giving in and up. After that ‘false alarm’ and surprise, however, both Gao Yang and Tribo’s will to live were unfurled.

Putting the deformed bullet into the pocket, Gao Yang wanted to lie down to shoot. He felt lots of pain when he tried to do that. He knew that he was injured in his heart area. Even though the bullet was blocked by the hatchet, the great impact still hit him really hard. He could have even broken two ribs.

Just like Grolev, even though the pistol rounds didn’t get through the vest, they still broke a few of Grolev’s ribs. Even though the bullet had already flown six to seven hundred meters, the impact was definitely greater than the pistol bullets shot at point-blank range.

Gao Yang endured the pain. He crawled onto the floor, righted his rifle, and then aimed with punctiliousness. It’s just that without the scope, the man six to seven hundred meters away was just a black dot. He didn’t know if his shot had hit the enemy.

Tribo loaded his gun with rounds as he spoke. “Bro Yang, how about you use this gun? Your accuracy is higher than mine.”

“No need. I got a scope in my backpack, I can install it. You help me observe the point of impact (POI). Gonna zero the ballistic trajectory. We better suppress them with both our guns.”

He very swiftly installed the scope after taking it out from his bag. He gave his binoculars to Tribo. What troubled him greatly was that there lacked a zero-able target or reference point. How the f*ck was he going to zero in if he was just going to fire into thin air?

Tribo used his binoculars and tried to find a stationary target. But after searching for a moment, he was alarmed and suddenly said, “Bro Yang, cars incoming. At least five to six of them. They’re all trucks. No, eight in total.”

Gao Yang’s heart totally froze. If eight trucks worth of people were coming in addition to the current number of enemies, the battle would be over. There’d be zero hope.

Gao Yang used his scope and found the trucks Tribo was talking about very quickly. He then found to his astonishment that those pursuing Resistance soldiers seemed to be in chaos. They fell down to the ground one by one.

When the trucks came closer, there seemed to be people firing from the trucks and the pursuers fired at those trucks. If Gao Yang still didn’t understand he’d be a blockhead. No matter who the h.e.l.l those people were, they were surely the enemy of their enemies.

Not only were there people firing from the trucks, but RPGs (rockets) were also being fired off. It’s just that those trucks didn’t stop and were rolling fast to leave. They didn’t seem like they were intending on having a great battle with the pursuers.

As Tribo looked, he suddenly pointed at the big truck and shouted, “Bro Yang, there’s a highway there. The trucks are from the government. The government logos are on them.”

Gao Yang urgently said, “You cover me. I’m gonna call for help.”

They were about a thousand and slightly over kilometers from the trucks. Gao Yang stood up and waved the gun in his hands. He was running and screaming all at the same time, hoping that the people on the trucks would notice. They were at a point where they were pretty close to Gao Yang. If he couldn’t get their attention in time, the trucks would leave.

Seeing those trucks drive past one at a time, Gao Yang’s heart burned with anxiety. However, the last truck suddenly drove into the desert off the highway and went towards Gao Yang at high speed.

Seeing that the truck was coming, flowers and other flora blossomed in Gao Yang’s heart. He shouted, “Aegis and succor are here! Haha!”

Grolev anxiously said, “Gao, we’re all freelance mercs, hired by a dude called Ked Freeman. You copy that?”

Gao Yang nodded and said, “Got it. Hare, prepare to lift old Ruski[2], let’s go.”

The truck circled around Gao Yang and the group, bringing up sands as it moved. They covered Gao Yang and the rest with the back of their car. When it stopped, four to five people suddenly stood up from the car when Gao Yang was about to carry Grolev with Tribo. They pointed their guns at Gao Yang and asked loudly, “Who are you guys?”

“Freelanced mercs hired by Ked Freeman, it’s really good to see you guys, brothers!”

Gao Yang shouted at the top of his lungs. The cover at the boot of the truck went down immediately. Four people jumped out of the truck thereafter. They helped Gao Yang lift Grolev up onto the car. It’s just that when Grolev was going up, the movement was a little too much and he loudly whimpered in pain. He couldn’t help it.

When Gao Yang and Tribo were up in the truck, a black man already seated in the truck slapped the truck twice. Thr truck began to roll.

When the car sped off, Gao Yang almost fainted from dehydration. He looked into the compartment and found that there were twenty people. Almost all of them were black. Only one of them looked Arab. At this moment some of them were observing him. Gao Yang waved at the few of them and smiled, “Brothers, I’m really grateful for that.”

The black man who had asked Gao Yang smiled and said, “Most of them don’t know English. Son, looks like your luck’s down the gutter.”

Gao Yang sighed and said, “Who would disagree? Man, we three are the only ones left.”

The black man replied, “Were you guys cooperating with Freeman? Got the money already? That man ain’t a credible one.”

Grolev weakly said, “That’s right, we had a group of twenty, didn’t get even a cent at the end. But here’s the good news, that G.o.d-d*mned Ked’s been bombed to pieces.”

That black laughed and used a language that Gao Yang hadn’t heard before to tell the rest of the people in the truck. The whole truck roared with laughter and appeared to be very happy.

That black man extended a hand and shook hands with Gao Yang and Tribo. He happily said, “It’s worth giving you guys a ride just for that piece of news. That a.s.sh*le Ked only gave us half the amount of money the last time he hired us. Hearing his demise makes us all very happy.”

Translator’s note(s):