We agreed on the twelve zodiac animals, but you've transformed into the Monkey King?

On the outskirts of the French Concession, in a dimly lit, rainy alley.

Wen Xiao walked alone in the cold winter rain. Her rough white linen mourning clothes were soaked through by the rain and clung heavily to her body.

He stopped under the eaves of a shoe repair shop that was closing. In the upper right corner of his retina, a pale blue system panel quietly appeared: [Current Balance: 31 Sumeru Points.]

Without any hesitation, Wen Xiao scrolled through the flashy skills on the shop interface and issued the command directly:

"Exchange for Firearms Proficiency."

[Deduct 20 Sumeru Points.]

[Currently loading: Mastery of Firearms Tactics (1920s Setting).]

In an instant, a vast and complex body of muscle memory flooded his brain like a tidal wave.

He used to hold guns instinctively with his hands, but suddenly he felt a strange sense of calm. He could even clearly feel the center of gravity, recoil, and wear of the rifling of each gun.

……

One o'clock in the morning. The French Concession Police Station branch building.

Outside, a torrential winter rain was falling. Inside the director's office on the second floor, however, it was warm, with smokeless charcoal burning. A vinyl record on the gramophone was spinning, playing a languid French jazz piece.

Pierre, dressed in a crisp French police chief's uniform, sat in a large leather chair. He swirled a half-glass of Bordeaux wine in his hand, watching the obsequious Inspector Annan gesture on a map, planning to raid Hongmen's restaurants on Avenue Joffre the next morning.

Killing a worker foreman was like crushing an ant. He even found the Chinese man, protected by a woman, somewhat ridiculous when facing the Maxim machine gun that afternoon.

The clock on the wall emitted a dull, metallic sound.

"Ding. Ding." It was exactly one o'clock.

The magnificent crystal chandelier overhead suddenly emitted a piercing hiss, flickered twice, and then abruptly went out. The lights in the entire building were cut off in the same second. The stylus of the phonograph scraped a dull thud against the lifeless vinyl record before coming to a complete stop.

"A power outage?" Pierre frowned and put down his glass. Before he could even ask Inspector Annan to go check—

"boom--!!!"

A terrifying, spine-chilling explosion suddenly erupted downstairs!

Five Mills grenades with their pins pulled shattered the iron-clad gate. The bulletproof door, weighing several hundred pounds, was ripped off by the blast and smashed through the granite reception desk in the lobby. A biting, cold wind, carrying the smell of gunpowder, rushed up the stairwell.

"Enemy attack!"

In the lobby on the first floor, seven or eight Annamese police officers on night duty frantically picked up their Lebel rifles and pulled the bolts towards the smoke-filled entrance.

"Bang bang bang!"

A hail of bullets tore through the rain.

A bolt of lightning ripped through the night sky, its pale white light illuminating the dark lobby on the first floor.

Amidst the smoke of battle, there is a "ghost".

Wen Xiao didn't even take off the coarse linen hood on his head. The white mourning clothes he was wearing were covered in yellow mud so thick that their original color was no longer visible.

His thigh muscles tensed suddenly, and the granite floor tiles beneath his feet cracked with a spiderweb-like pattern. Using the violent recoil, he darted sideways and slid behind the thick load-bearing pillars of the hall.

"Whoosh—" Several bullets flew past his scalp, leaving dazzling sparks on the pillar.

Wen Xiao leaned against the stone pillar, and his right hand suddenly emerged from under his white mourning clothes, instantly leveling a long Winchester M1897 pump-action shotgun.

This is a meat grinder in close combat, but for Wen Xiao at this moment, every time it is loaded, it is an extreme torture to his left shoulder.

He suddenly sprang out from behind the pillar, his left hand enduring the excruciating pain of his torn wound, and with a frenzied, almost self-destructive rage, he frantically pulled the pump barrel backward!

"Bang! Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang!"

"Rapid Fire" without a disconnector!

The penetrating wound in his left shoulder instantly ruptured, gushing blood that stained his white mourning clothes crimson. But Wen Xiao's monstrous strength in his right arm and the terrifying stability of his core force firmly suppressed the recoil of the weapon.

The buckshot, a 12-gauge shell, sprayed out in a fan shape in the cramped room. The three policemen who rushed towards them didn't even have time to scream before their chests exploded, and blood, flesh, and internal organs covered the walls.

Five shots from his spear missed, but Wen Xiao didn't linger. He casually hurled the empty gun at the face of a policeman who was trying to flank him, and then, like a ghost, rushed towards the stairs leading to the second floor.

At the top of the stairs, three French police officers fired their guns from above. As Wen Xiao ran, he reached behind his back with his right hand and pulled out a German Mauser C96 (box cannon) loaded with ten rounds.

Facing the hail of bullets raining down from above, Wen Xiao slammed his right leg into the solid wood stair railing. "Crack!" The thick railing snapped in two with his terrifying strength.

His body performed an inhuman tactical contortion in mid-air, narrowly avoiding two deadly rifle bullets, while his right hand unleashed a barrage of fire from his Mauser pistol!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Three shots were fired mid-air. The muzzle flashes danced in the darkness, and a burst of blood erupted precisely between the eyebrows of three French policemen, their bodies tumbling down the stairs.

Wen Xiao landed with a swift, fluid tactical roll, kneeling behind cover in the second-floor corridor. His white mourning clothes were stained with the enemy's brains and blood.

Just then, deep in the second-floor corridor, a light machine gun mounted behind a sandbag roared wildly!

"Da da da da—!"

The dense hail of bullets instantly suppressed Wen Xiao's bunker, with wood chips and plaster flying everywhere.

Wen Xiao's breathing was somewhat rapid, and blood from his left shoulder dripped down his arm onto the carpet. He coldly calculated the machine gun's firing arc, took a Mills grenade from his waist with his right hand, and used his teeth to bite off the pin with his other hand.

There is only a gap of less than two seconds when the machine gun is changing its ammunition belt.

Wen Xiao's calf muscles bulged, and he shot out from behind the cover like a cannonball!

Instead of straightening up, he slid and slid along the blood-soaked floor tiles. In his panic, the machine gunner lowered his gun, bullets grazing Wen Xiao's shoulder and scalp.

While gliding, Wen Xiao didn't peek out; instead, relying on his precise tactical intuition, he slammed the grenade against the wall. Using the trajectory of the bounce, he accurately tossed it behind the sandbag.

"Boom!" The machine gun went silent, and severed limbs flew into the air accompanied by screams.

……

Inside the director's office on the second floor.

The gunfight outside lasted only two or three minutes, but the extremely efficient killing rhythm, like death knocking on the door, the screams of flesh and bone being torn apart, and the increasingly close footsteps had completely shattered Pierre's psychological defenses.

His face was deathly pale. He scrambled to his desk, grabbed the black crank-operated telephone, and frantically shook it, screaming hysterically into the receiver, "Connect me to the Xujiahui barracks! Quickly! Connect me to the garrison! Hurry!!!"

He pressed the receiver tightly to his ear, his body drenched in cold sweat; it was his last straw. However, there was no operator's voice on the receiver, not even the most basic background noise of a busy signal.

There was only absolute stillness, like a tomb.