ecstasy

John Dou didn't even glance at the backpack that might contain the package. His partner was guarding the neighborhood, so nothing would be lost.

[The client] must have been paying attention to John Dou's speed—and she noticed that he didn't even seem to be slowing down because of the backpack: she had already rushed to the downstairs when she suddenly stopped and rushed upstairs.

A small pause instantly shortened the distance between the two: but if they ran downstairs, they would be blocked by Richard. The backpack thrown out was a cover, used to test the situation of being surrounded -

These contents are all included in the Asia-Europe Post’s on-the-job training.

【Ah. 】

He sneered in his heart: She has learned very well, but the tricks she has mastered are too mechanical and will not affect the final outcome of today.

John Dou followed [the client] up the stairs, dashing up flight after flight. The narrow residential building slowed the pursuer's speed, the huge and powerful body became an obstacle - they chased and fled like this: until the number [8] painted on the wall appeared, and there were no more stairs leading up.

The [client] rushed around the corner, and John Dou stopped: he knew that after this corner, he would be in another long, narrow corridor, surrounded by various daily necessities and narrowed into a narrow path. He was not as agile as the [client]; if he continued to chase in that terrain, he would only be left behind.

He glanced around and found what he wanted.

Even in such old residential buildings, new fire alarms are installed to ensure timely rescue in the event of a fire caused by the accumulation of tapes in the tapes.

Clap!

John Dolce clenched his right fist, raised the tip of his elbow, smashed the glass of the alarm cover, and pulled the fire alarm switch - he did not stop, but continued to stride forward and around the corner:

【There.】

He narrowed his light grey eyes like a hawk, staring at the black figure at the other end of the corridor who was not looking back but just accelerating forward with his head down.

drop drop --

Amid the humming of fire alarms, doors on both sides of the corridor opened, figures leaping out and screams echoing. It was daytime; the residents still inside were mostly family members of employees from the nearby Mong Cai City Third Tape Factory.

"what happened?!"

"Where's the fire? Which room?!"

John Dou could see the client suddenly stop in her tracks and almost fall down - a door suddenly opened in front of her, and a resident holding a big red bucket rushed out.

Wow!

A wave splashed out of the bucket and hit the railing.

By this time, the [client] had already entered John Dou's shooting range, but the obstacles in the corridor - and the noisy crowd - were too many.

John Dou continued forward, slightly quickening his pace. As he pushed the residents aside, he pulled his service pistol from the clip under his arm and unscrewed the silencer.

"Law enforcement action! Everyone, freeze! Get down! Get down!"

Even those residents who didn't pay attention to John Dou's words mostly noticed the pistol swinging in his palm.

But the commotion continued; few people squatted down as he instructed, but simply stood there in shock.

Almost everyone in the room had left: dozens of people were crowded in the corridor, packed with miscellaneous items - but the tall and thin John Dou could still see his target clearly over the thick and bald heads.

The [customer] walking in the middle of the corridor tried hard to squeeze through the gap, but was blocked by the crowd at the other end and slowed down.

【Um. 】

John Dou knew: Even this slight delay had already determined the direction of the arrest. The probability of capturing the client alive had greatly increased.

[Do you want to kill me? Or—never mind, let's just keep this distance for now.]

Perhaps it was because of the divination tape I listened to earlier, or perhaps it was because of the vague orders from above.

This recovery operation gave John Dou a vague, subtle premonition, uncertain whether it was good or bad. This was the first time in his many years of field work that he had experienced such a feeling.

-

John Dou's mind was overflowing with thoughts, but his body reacted first:

Although the crowd gathered in the corridor could delay the [client's] actions, John Dou was unable to approach the other party quickly - if this continued, it would only allow the [client] to take advantage of the situation.

[That's enough: at this distance, there's no way she can escape from me.]

He raised his pistol high and pointed the muzzle at his head:

boom!

"Everyone squat!"

There was a whistling sound as the bullet hit the ceiling, dropping paint and white ash.

“Wa ...

"Ah! Ah!"

The excitement now exceeded the residents’ threshold: the choice of fight or flight was not really two options in most cases.

Amidst screams and howls, John Dou quickened his pace. The crowd suddenly became shorter: some crouched, some collapsed, and some even crawled back home.

In this scene, the "Client," still running forward, stood out. The gunshots didn't frighten her at all, but instead cleared a path for her to continue her escape.

She squatted and stood, trying to change her position to avoid being shot; she had grabbed a brick from the public earthen stove in the corridor and held it in her hand.

The [client] did not throw the brick at John Dou as a weapon—quite the contrary, she continued to accelerate. The rooms on either side were dead ends, and there were no neighboring buildings outside the window; she had only one escape route:

Break through the window at the end of the corridor and jump out from the eighth floor: at the other end of the window, there is another lower building.

"That's it—run that way."

John Dou muttered softly, straightened his arm, and pulled his pistol back to the normal shooting position.

-

boom!

John Dou fired his second shot of the day: although there was no crowd blocking his aim, the line drawn by the bullet just passed through the target's running legs and embedded in the concrete ground.

"Tsk."

John Dou did not continue to shoot. He did not intend to shoot randomly and gamble his luck -

Even though he was a field employee of the Asia-Europe Post and was currently carrying out an emergency recovery mission for the Special Package Handling Department, he would try not to kill or injure civilians who were not related to the mission whenever he had a choice.

If that happens, there will be too many reports to write; and it will be difficult to deal with the aftermath - Richard is really annoying.

If you want to capture it alive.

There were too many civilians in the building they were in right now, making it an unsuitable hunting ground: even if they managed to subdue the [client], they would inevitably have to contend with the law enforcement officers who would arrive later.

According to his and Richard's preliminary investigation, the residential building adjacent to the target's current location - Building No. 3 of Tianhu Community next door - had only three or five people left in the entire building due to a gas explosion that occurred a few years ago.

That might be a more ideal place to capture him.

John Dou missed with one shot, but [the client]'s escape continued.

Ahead of her, the sound of gunfire and the scattered concrete debris accelerated the residents' escape—they swarmed back into their homes and slammed their doors shut.

There was undoubtedly only one course open to [the client]; storming into the apartment and fighting was no longer an option.

Although the corridor was not spacious and was mostly blocked by the shared stove, sundries piled outside and even bicycles brought up; the customer still tried to avoid possible trajectories by constantly moving his body up and down, pulling down the surrounding sundries, suddenly squatting and accelerating.

John Dou did not continue shooting; he just pointed the muzzle of the gun at the ground and hung it behind him.

Likewise, the corridor is not long:

In the intense and short span of ten seconds, [the client] had rushed to the end of the apartment corridor.

Wow!

[The client] swung the brick he was holding, shattering the glass - then put his forearm in front of his face, jumped up, and rushed out of the wooden window.

boom!

A faint sound of impact reached John Dou's ears: the target should have landed on the rooftop of a residential building in Tianhu Community.

[Hmm. Pretty quick.]

It certainly wasn't like Corey's supports who, after their induction training, grew bellies at their desks: Regardless of what the report said, it looked like [the client] was still maintaining training in office life.

John Dou muttered, pushing his way through the crowd that was still crouching near him, not daring to move, the hard heels of his leather shoes clicking. His face was still that expressionless mask; from a long stride to a sprint—

Then he followed the target closely and jumped out of the window.

-

Chapter 16 Trap

The splinters and shards of glass from the shattered window panes had cut several holes in John Dou's coat, but he didn't have time to worry about them. Just a few meters from the window was a low building. From mid-air, John Dou could see the target that had just landed on the rooftop, as well as several shattered, dry flower pots.

Compared with his previous neat and sharp movements, the [client] now limped and supported his knee with one hand: how to protect himself when landing is a skill; it is obvious that the [client] did not master it.

In a flash, new questions flashed through his mind:

【Do you want to shoot? 】

Although the client's movements were now slow, he was still falling in the air. The difficulty of stopping the lower limbs had not changed much: if he accidentally hit the client's vitals, all his previous efforts would be in vain.

In a flash, [the client] had already opened the rusty iron door of the rooftop and slipped in: the window for shooting had disappeared.

boom!

John Dou's hard leather soles finally hit the concrete floor: he rolled forward with the momentum, relieving the impact -

Then he kept half-crouching, suddenly raised his pistol, and aimed it at the iron gate that the [client] had just rushed in.

There was no sudden figure rushing out, only a ball of dried mud rolling in circles in the broken flowerpot - this was beyond John Dou's expectations. The moment he landed unsteadily should have been the perfect time for the [Client] to launch a counterattack:

Even the tear gas smoke bombs were handmade, so it was impossible that they didn't prepare sharp weapons; a sharp blade was enough to narrow the gap in the two people's body size and fighting skills.

If it were John Dou himself, he might have pretended to be injured and attacked the enemy just as they landed; this might have a higher chance of success than simply running away:

From the quick and swift exchanges before, the [client] should have been able to tell that John Dou wanted to capture the target alive.

[Well, no surprises for me—it's probably a sprain. I don't know if it's as serious as it looks.]

He stood up and brushed off the dust around him; there was no light behind the iron gate, like a deep cave entrance.

Act first, think later: Colleagues who have dealt with John Dou all think he is an intuitive man. In fact, this is not the case - at least when he is on a mission, he never acts rashly.

John Dou coughed violently several times and spat the phlegm aside:

Wrestling training since his youth has kept him in excellent physical condition. Even though cigarettes are like mineral water to him, his size and muscle mass far surpass [Client]'s, yet his lung capacity is comparable to [Client's].

-

John Dou walked down the steps from the rooftop with his gun raised and walked into the corridor:

There were no light bulbs in the corridor. In the darkness, there was only a little light coming from the corner at the end of the corridor, reflecting on the iron window panes on the corridor.

[Client] moved slowly but steadily; her right hand clenched into a fist, bracing against the wall as she moved, the sole of her right foot dragging a long trail across the hallway floor.

She should have chosen to find a hidden spot and hide there - regardless of whether the sprain was as serious as it looked, [the client] could not rely on speed to distance herself from John Dou.

"Aren't you going to keep running?"

The [client] didn't even turn her head. She just dragged her injured leg forward, ignoring John Dou's questions; her fist scraped the wall.

John Dou lowered his gun slightly and quickened his pace:

I don’t know if it was an illusion, but [the client] seemed to have clenched his fist a little too tightly, and his entire right arm was as stiff as a rock.

click-

John Dou stepped on something with a crisp sound: it was a piece of brown-gray coarse pottery from the broken and scattered flower pots on the roof.

He didn't look down. Because at this distance, he finally noticed a long, pale, blue wooden board, stuck between the window panes, tightly stretched into an inverted arc; a thin line extended from one end, running along the wall straight to the [Client's] fist -

At the same time as hearing this sound, [Client] loosened his clenched fist:

sieve!

The azure rope left a shadow—a thin wire, flying out from her hand.

The long wooden board straightened in an instant.

-

call!

Before John Dou's eyes, a pale, moldy rectangle suddenly appeared. One end was stuck in the corner of the iron window pane, and the other end was dotted with cold light. It whistled through the air and hit him in the face.

Snapped!

John Dou caught the edge of the swung board and held it in his palm; he could now see that the end of the board was attached to a thin wire, which was clamped and fixed by the blade of the dagger driven into it.

This must be a bamboo pressboard, which is why it is so elastic and does not break: the corridor is full of these discarded decoration materials.