Working as a police officer in Mexico.

Chapter 674 Assassination!

Yangon.

The heart of the famous Golden Triangle region.

The iron-roofed warehouses at the port outside the city looked like tattered rags soaked in water during the downpour.

The rusty iron frame creaked and rattled in the wind, mingling with the fishy smell drifting from the Mekong River, turning the air into a thick, sticky mess.

A typhoon is coming.

It's three o'clock in the afternoon.

Khun Sa waded through the puddles, his black rubber boots crunching over cigarette butts and leaving two crooked streaks in the concrete. He was followed by four guards.

"Mr. Khun Sa is punctual."

A short, stout man stood up from the shadows deep in the warehouse. Nguyen Van Hung's silk shirt was soaked with dark stains from sweat, and his gold watch dazzled on his wrist.

The wooden crates beside him were piled up to the roof, and the canvas covering them was lifted by the wind, revealing dark green metal cans inside.

Khun Sa didn't speak, but walked straight to the wooden box. He tapped the box with his white-gloved fingers, the echo sounding muffled like tapping on a coffin lid.

"The Vietnamese monkeys' cooking skills are still so rough."

Khun Sa suddenly laughed, revealing his gold teeth. "If this batch of bacteria fails to pass the Thai customs inspection, you know the consequences. I won't pay you."

The flesh on Nguyen Van Hung's face twitched.

He pulled a glass tube from his pocket, the milky white liquid inside resembling a wriggling maggot in the flashlight beam: "I tested it in Chiang Mai last week, and it turned three policemen into pustules. It's two points purer than what you wanted."

"What's the price?"

“Add another 30% per ton.” Nguyen Van Hung licked his chapped lips. “The military leaders in Yangon are cracking down hard lately, so I have to bribe them enough.”

Khun Sa suddenly turned around and slapped Nguyen Van Hung across the face with his glove. The sharp sound echoed through the warehouse, startling the rats on the beams.

"Thirty percent?" Khun Sa's gold teeth gritted together. "Back in 1989, when you were starving to death in Phnom Penh, who gave you guns and opium? Now you're going to settle military expenses with me?"

Ruan Wenxiong covered his face and didn't dare to look up.

He saw Khun Sa's guards turn their guns toward him, the glint of the gun barrels shattering into bright spots in the puddles.

"Twenty percent." Khun Sa's boots stomped on Nguyen Van Hung's shoes. "Plus twenty boxes of American grenades. And where are the men I asked for?"

The rain suddenly intensified.

Ruan Wenxiong's Adam's apple bobbed as he dragged an iron cage out from behind the wooden box. Inside, a girl in a school uniform was curled up, her mouth taped shut, tears mixed with blood streaming down her face.

"This is the youngest daughter of the Yangon Police Chief."

"His dad is ungrateful; he dared to touch my goods!"

Khun Sa stared at the girl in the cage with a fierce look on his face. Under the girl's terrified gaze, he grabbed her neck and slapped her twice.

The girl's sobs were muffled by the tape in her throat, turning into soft, fragmented whimpers.

“Fish are hungriest during typhoons.” Khun Sa ripped off his gloves, revealing an old scar on his palm. “Letting her go down to be an appetizer for the crocodiles in the Mekong River is the consequence of messing with my goods.”

Two thugs in camouflage pants immediately stepped forward and wrapped coarse linen around the girl's slender wrists and ankles three times, making her skin turn white. The girl struggled desperately, tearing her school uniform skirt and exposing her knees, which bruised purple on the concrete ground.

"Go!" The leader dragged the iron cage out of the warehouse by pulling the rope, making a screeching sound as it scraped against the ground. Another henchman kicked the cage wall, yelling, "Stop crying! When you get down there, even the King of Hell won't bother listening to your wailing!"

They had just dragged the iron cage under the awning at the warehouse entrance when a blinding flash of lightning suddenly ripped through the clouds—

boom!
The muffled gunshots rang out in the rain. The leader's head was smashed like a watermelon, and red and white splattered onto the bars of the iron cage. The girl's screams were sealed shut with tape, leaving only her eyes wide open, almost bulging out of their sockets.

The henchman behind him froze for half a second. Just as he was about to grab the pistol from his waist, a second bullet pierced his chest, exploding a bloody hole in his back.

"There's an ambush!" Upon hearing the gunshot, Khun Sa grabbed Nguyen Van Hung by the back of his collar and dragged him behind a pile of wooden crates.

The four guards instantly spread out in a fan shape, and the safety catches on their AK-47s were pulled at the same time, the metallic clanging sound particularly clear in the downpour.

Suddenly, seven or eight dark figures emerged from behind the containers outside the warehouse gate. Automatic rifles spat fire, and bullets swept over like locusts, leaving the walls of the tin warehouse riddled with holes, with rust and cement fragments falling down in a flurry.

"There's movement on the left! There's something happening on the left!"

Just as one of the guards shouted, a bullet pierced his throat through a broken window on the side of the warehouse. Blood gushed out from between his fingers, forming a small puddle on the ground.

These assassins are indeed desperate criminals.

When Reinhard Tristan Eugen came to power, he was incredibly ruthless. He recruited all sorts of people to Hydra. As long as you had a skill, you could do whatever you wanted. There were always outstanding people, and the pay was very generous, including ample pensions. Under such circumstances, there were plenty of people willing to risk their lives for him.

If I gave you a million dollars to kill someone, would you do it?

While drawing fire from the front, five other dark figures climbed up the drainage pipes on the side of the warehouse. Stepping on the rusty iron frames, they leaped down from the beams like cheetahs, rolling to dissipate the force upon landing, and their submachine guns immediately spat fire.

"Fuck you!"

Khun Sa leaned out from behind the wooden crate and fired three shots with his pistol. The bullets hit one of the assassins in the shoulder, but the man seemed not to feel it and swept a burst of bullets in his hand. Khun Sa quickly pulled his head back, and the bullets grazed his ears and hit the metal can behind him, making a piercing clang.

Nguyen Van Hung was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground, his gold watch trembling like a leaf on his wrist. "Mr. Khun Sa! Are you government troops? Let's surrender!"

"Surrender?" Khun Sa kicked him in the face.

"Look at the box at your feet! You think they'll let you get out of here alive?"

A Hydra assassin, carrying a shotgun, rushed to the center of the warehouse. The flames from the barrel illuminated the skull tattoo on his face. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Khun Sa's guards struck him on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. He groaned and fell to the ground, the shotgun sliding to the edge of the iron cage. The girl's eyes were fixed on the gun, her pupils flickering in the firelight.

A chaotic battle erupted in every corner of the warehouse.

The bullet pierced the canvas, revealing the dark green metal cans inside. Some cans were hit by stray bullets, and milky white liquid seeped out from the bullet holes, spreading on the ground. The air was immediately filled with the smell of rotting almonds.

"Back off!" a guard roared as he retreated, only to have his throat slit by an assassin rushing from the side with a military dagger. Blood sprayed onto the metal can, mixing with the milky white liquid and making a sizzling sound.

Khun Sa grabbed an iron crowbar and slammed it down on the knee of an oncoming assassin. With a cracking sound, the assassin fell to his knees.

"Ahhhh!!!!"

Khun Sa seized the rifle from his hand and slammed the butt into his temple, splattering his brains onto the wooden crate next to him like a lump of rotten tofu.

"Run to the dock!" Khun Sa grabbed the terrified Nguyen Van Hung. "Go around the cargo ship from behind!"

In the torrential rain, the crane boom at the dock resembled a giant steel skeleton, and several dark figures were sliding down the steel cables of the boom, the muzzles of AK-47s gleaming coldly in the rain.

Khun Sa suddenly caught a glimpse of the girl by the iron cage. She was using her bound feet to hook the shotgun, her heel scraping against the trigger twice.

"Khun Sa is a menace!" He fired a vicious shot, hitting the girl three times in quick succession. A sniper on top of a container in the distance opened fire again, bullets grazing Khun Sa's scalp and striking the metal beams of the warehouse, sparks landing on his shoulder.

"Boss! To the left!"

As those in front fell, those behind immediately stepped over the corpses and continued their charge, shouting incomprehensible languages. Some, with a bullet in their face, were still using their last breath to pull the trigger.

Khun Sa dragged Nguyen Van Hung deeper into the warehouse, their backs slamming against wooden crates piled up to the roof. The crates wobbled and crashed down, scattering dark green metal cans all over the floor.

"Run!"

The last guard roared and pulled the trigger. The crisp sound of the AK-47's empty magazine being pulled back, along with the sound of his upper body, blasted apart by a shotgun, crashed heavily to the ground.

Khun Sa dragged the limp Nguyen Van Hung toward the back door of the warehouse. His white gloves were already soaked in blood, and the knife scar on his palm throbbed as his adrenaline surged.

"Support! Where is my support?!"

Khun Sa roared into the walkie-talkie in his collar, and a hoarse voice suddenly burst through the static: "Big Brother! Berth Three at the dock! We're coming!"

Suddenly, a hole was torn in the tin roof of the warehouse, and a Russian-made helicopter equipped with a heavy machine gun hung in the rain, the wind stirred up by the rotor blades turning the canvas into a tattered flag.

Hydra's assassins actually had air support? The moment Khun Sa's pupils contracted sharply, the flames of the heavy machine gun were already piercing the pile of wooden crates like red-hot wires.

"It's a government army helicopter!"

Nguyen Van Hung suddenly screamed, pointing to the distant horizon where three Mi-8 fighter jets painted with the Burmese military insignia were breaking through the clouds, their rocket pods gleaming coldly in the lightning. The scream hadn't been an illusion; the sound of tracks rolling in the air from the direction of the port was growing closer, the roar of armored vehicle engines barely drowned out by the typhoon.

"Both sides want me dead!"

Khun Sa kicked open the back door of the warehouse, and the salty, fishy river wind, mixed with rainwater, filled his lungs.

The searchlights on the dock swept across the rain, and his men filled the deck of the cargo ship at berth number three. The muzzles of AK-47s formed a crossfire network, exchanging fire with the Hydra assassins who rushed out from behind the containers.

The sudden mortar explosion sent the searchlight flying into a shower of sparks.

The vanguard of the Myanmar government army arrived, and the roar of 105mm howitzers came from two kilometers away. Shells landed in the warehouse area and exploded into towering flames, while metal fragments rained down on the dock.

"Boss, over here!" The cargo ship's gangway was lowered, and two henchmen shouted at the top of the gangway, holding up bulletproof shields. Khun Sa pushed Nguyen Van Hung in front as a human shield. Just as he stepped onto the first step of the gangway, a muzzle flash suddenly appeared on the top of the container diagonally behind him.

"boom!"

The whistling of bullets piercing the rain was more ear-piercing than a typhoon. Khun Sa felt as if his left leg had been hit hard by a red-hot iron rod, and excruciating pain instantly spread throughout his body.

He screamed and released Nguyen Van Hung, falling off the ladder and crashing heavily into the floodwaters at the dock.

"Grab him!" The Hydra assassins behind the container rushed over like madmen, the leader with shrapnel stuck in his face and blood flowing into his eyes without wiping it away.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ruan Wenxiong climbed up the suspended ladder. His obese body got stuck on the steps, and he was dragged by the henchmen above, howling like a pig being slaughtered.

Khun Sa dragged his broken leg through the floodwaters. The river waves crashed against the dock piles, and the splashing water mixed with the blood from his leg spread across the surface. He saw his men on the cargo ship raise their rifles, but they were pinned down by the government army's heavy machine guns and couldn't lift their heads.

"Quick!" A burly man in a black vest jumped off the cargo ship and splashed into the water. It was A-Wu, Khun Sa's most capable bodyguard.

He grabbed Khun Sa's arm and used his other hand to shoot the head of the pursuing assassin with a pistol. "The ship is about to depart!"

The waves on the Mekong River were growing larger and larger. The cargo ship had begun to untie its moorings, and its engines were roaring deafeningly. Awu half-dragged, half-pulled Khun Sa toward the stern of the ship. Suddenly, his foot slipped. The body of his henchman, whose head had just been blown off, was floating in the water. Awu's boot stepped on the brain matter, and both of them lost their balance at the same time.

"Damn it!" Khun Sa only managed to utter one word before being swept into the river by a wave.

The icy river water instantly filled his mouth and nose, and the wound on his leg felt like it was being pierced by countless needles at the same time. The excruciating pain almost made him faint.

The whirlpool created by the typhoon dragged him toward the center of the river. Khun Sa struggled desperately, but then he saw Ah Wu jump in after him.

The bodyguard's large hand gripped his collar like an iron clamp, and he swam against the waves toward the stern of the cargo ship.

"Hold on tight! Boss!" Awu roared and pushed him toward the side of the ship. Kunsha gripped the rusted anchor chain tightly, feeling as if his arm was about to be torn off. The cargo ship's accelerating current formed an undercurrent around him, and the blood on his leg stretched into a long red line in the water, like an invisible snake.

When he was finally pulled onto the deck, he had already lost consciousness.

The final scene shows A-Wu using a tourniquet to tighten his thigh.

The news of Khun Sa's attack in Yangon spread like the rising tide of the Mekong River, flooding every bend and poppy field in the Golden Triangle overnight.

Those forces entrenched in the jungles and the shadows of cities have all bared their fangs or tails in this wave of turmoil.

Late at night, at the headquarters of the United Wa State Army, Bao Youxiang slammed his enamel mug heavily onto the map, spilling tea that blurred into black circles on the mark of "Eastern Shan State Special Region." The cigar between his fingers had burned to the end, the scorch marks standing out starkly against his military green trousers.

"Typhoon Khun Sa?" He suddenly ripped off the prayer beads around his neck, scattering the sandalwood beads on the ground. "He still has the strains of those Vietnamese monkeys. Now that the warehouse's blown up, how much rotten flesh will float down the Mekong River?"

The telegram the communications soldier had just finished translating trembled on the table. It bore the insignia of "Hydra" and "Government Helicopter" written in Wa script. Suddenly, Bao Youxiang grabbed the satellite phone and dialed Chiang Rai's number: "Tell Nokham to have his men guard the Mekong River crossing. If they see any floating corpses covered in green slime, burn them with gasoline!"

A fawning laugh came from the other end of the phone, but Bao Youxiang abruptly hung up. He stared at the photo of Khun Sa in his youth on the wall—the tall, thin man carrying a rifle in the poppy fields, now fallen into the mire of Yangon Harbor.

"Notify all battalions," he suddenly ordered his adjutant, "to move our stockpiles hidden in the Salween River into caves. Who knows if the next target will be a Wa State warehouse."

Mae Salong Village, Chiang Mai.

Luo Xinghan's son, Luo Weilin, was counting gold bars in front of the Buddhist shrine when he heard the news. His hand trembled, and the gold bars rolled under the offering table.

He hurriedly reached for it, but his finger was cut by the edge of the gold bar, and drops of blood fell onto the sandalwood table, just like the blood his father splattered when he executed traitors in the Mekong River.

"Khun Sa's people said he fell into the river?"

He picked at the bits of meat stuck between his teeth with a silver hairpin, his voice filled with unbelievable excitement, "When he surrendered to the Burmese government in 1996, my dad said that old man was as tough as a crocodile."

Luo Weilin suddenly grabbed his pistol, the crisp sound of a bullet being chambered startling the pigeons under the eaves: "Tell the opium caravan to postpone its departure by three days. Tell them that if Khun Sa is really dead, the rules of the Golden Triangle will have to be rewritten!!"

Meanwhile, Zhang Quan in Thailand received a phone call while he was... enjoying services.

The other party told him over the phone that Khun Sa had been wounded, but was not dead!
"What! Okay, I understand."

After he hung up the phone, his expression changed, and he kicked the woman off the bed, yelling, "Get out! Get off me!"

"Pay up, even if there's no service, you still have to pay," the two prostitutes said, holding out their hands.

Zhang Quan laughed in anger, "Get out!!"

"You fucking want to work for free?"

One of them, also enraged, went up and started beating him. Another one joined in, and the two of them punched and kicked Zhang Quan. It was quite a spectacle.

……

(End of this chapter)