"Observe?" Shi Lei's voice cracked with shock. "Feng, did your brain get fried during cultivation?! That's a goddamn execution ground! It's a trap set by Buck himself, just waiting for us to walk into it!"
He paced anxiously around the small shelter. "The entire scrap iron square will be crawling with the Iron Fist Gang's elite tomorrow! There might even be informants from the civilian district's security patrol! The two of us going there is no different from jumping into a meat grinder!"
"I know it's a trap."
Ling Feng's voice was exceptionally calm. He opened his eyes, the cold killing intent in them now replaced by a deeper tranquility, like a starry sky.
He looked at his anxious friend and said slowly, "Shi Lei, tell me, why is Buck doing this?"
"Is that even a question?! To make an example of someone and force us out!"
"Correct." Ling Feng nodded. "He doesn't want to kill Auntie Wang. He wants to kill the flicker of fire in the hearts of everyone in the Rust Belt, the flame of defiance that has just been lit. He wants to use the blood of Auntie Wang and her children to tell everyone that if you resist the Iron Fist Gang, not only will you die, but all the innocent people around you will die because of you."
Ling Feng stood up, walked over to Shi Lei, and looked at him with a burning intensity.
"If we stand by and watch Auntie Wang's family die in front of us today because we're afraid of a trap, then from now on, no one in the Rust Belt will ever dare to look up to us again. We won't be heroes who broke the rules; we'll be cowards who brought disaster. Everyone will fear us, hate us, and then... to protect themselves, they will report us to the Iron Fist Gang."
"At that point, we will truly be in a hopeless situation."
Shi Lei stopped pacing.
His heavy breathing was clearly audible in the silent shelter.
He understood. He completely understood what Ling Feng meant.
This was an open conspiracy.
If they went, it was a near-certain death.
If they didn't go, it was a guaranteed death.
Buck hadn't left them any choice at all.
"...Damn it." Shi Lei's fists were clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. "Then I'll play this game with him to the very end!"
The fear in his eyes was replaced by a ruthless determination, the kind that comes from burning all your bridges.
"What's... our move?"
A faint smile of approval finally appeared on Ling Feng's face.
"This time, we're not doing infiltration, and we're not doing sabotage."
He spread out the map of the Rust Belt again, his gaze falling on the area marked "Scrap Iron Square."
His spiritual energy, like an invisible eye from high above, began to meticulously scan every inch of the square.
"Buck will place snipers on the four abandoned high-rises around the square. At least a hundred of the Iron Fist Gang's elite enforcers will be mixed into the crowd. And around the execution stage will be his most trusted personal guards."
As Ling Feng spoke, he accurately marked one dangerous red dot after another on the map.
"This is an inescapable dragnet!" Shi Lei's scalp tingled as he looked at it.
"Every net has a hole." Ling Feng's fingertip tapped on a small mountain on the east side of the square, a pile made of discarded spaceship engines.
"This spot is a blind spot for all the sniper positions. Furthermore, its internal structure is extremely unstable from years of neglect. It's like... a carefully stacked pile of building blocks."
He then pointed to an abandoned main sewage pipe running beneath the square.
"This line will allow us to appear anywhere in the square without alerting anyone."
A bold, almost insane rescue plan began to slowly take shape in their minds.
...
The next day, at noon.
The atmosphere in the scrap iron square was suffocatingly tense.
Thousands of Rust Belt residents, driven by the menacing members of the Iron Fist Gang, were forced to gather around the square, forming a silent human wall.
Their faces were etched with fear and numbness.
In the center of the square, on a high platform hastily built from rusty iron plates, three grease-soaked crosses stood menacingly.
Auntie Wang and her two thin children were tied to the crosses with coarse ropes. The woman had already passed out, and the two children were so terrified they didn't even have the strength to cry, only whimpering softly in despair.
A man with a scar on his face and a mechanical prosthetic for one eye, carrying a machete that was still dripping blood, walked onto the platform.
He was another one of the Iron Fist Gang's deputies, second only to Brute Bull in status—"Butcher" Hake.
"Silence!"
Hake forcefully struck the iron platform with his machete, producing a piercing clang.
His cold, mechanical eye scanned every fearful face below.
"All of you, look closely! This is the fate of those who conspire with those two sewer rats and betray the Iron Fist Gang!"
His voice, like the shriek of a vulture, echoed across the square.
"I know those two rats are hiding among you right now! I'll give you one chance! Step forward yourselves! Or, point them out! Otherwise, I will, in front of all of you, flay these two little brats, piece by piece, alive!"
A suppressed, pained stir went through the crowd.
No one dared to speak, and certainly, no one dared to step forward.
A cruel smile appeared on Hake's face. This was exactly the effect he wanted.
He raised his machete, aiming it at the slightly older boy.
"It seems you won't learn your lesson until you see the coffin. Then let's start with this little brat—"
He never finished his sentence.
Because at that very moment, on the east side of the square, the "mountain" of discarded spaceship engines, dozens of meters high, suddenly let out a gut-wrenching, metallic groan!
RUMBLE—!!!
Before the horrified eyes of everyone present, the "mountain," like a pile of building blocks pushed over by an invisible giant hand, collapsed with a deafening roar!
Countless tons of steel scrap, carrying world-ending momentum, came crashing down towards the area where the Iron Fist Gang's defenses were densest and where their snipers were positioned!