Dual wielding volcanoes, killing through the west

“Is that so?” Mike’s tone was very calm. “As far as I know, this gang is history.”

Xiaomei seemed to realize something, turned her head and glanced at Mike.

“Haha, you’re obviously an outsider, you don’t know the inside story well enough, Mr. Stevenson.” The young sheriff spoke in a high-pitched tone, seemingly enjoying the feeling of sharing inside information in front of outsiders. “The Jack Gang has disbanded, but not all of its members have left. According to our sheriff, there are still two members who are at large.”

“One of them is…”

----

"Miss Marston?"

The clinking of keys came first, followed by Mark's surprised voice, "Is that you? What happened to your face?"

“During the chase, there was an accident; I was scratched by a wolf.” Xiaomei’s tone was calm, at least on the surface, she had accepted the fact. “And this bastard had his arm bitten off by a wolf. We did everything we could to save him, just so he wouldn’t die from massive bleeding. I’m going to bring him to town so he can face justice and the law!”

“That’s remarkable, Miss Marston, truly remarkable. I admire your courage and will.” Mark nodded slightly to her, then greeted the two young sheriffs, “Come and meet me, this is Barry Marston’s daughter, Messaria Marston.”

"Barry's daughter?!"

Young people are inexperienced and can't keep secrets. As soon as they heard Xiaomei's father's name, they exchanged a glance and their expressions changed.

Although it was only for a brief moment, Xiaomei was certain that it wasn't admiration or respect, but rather panic.

Soon, they made nostalgic expressions and said things like, "He was an excellent mounted policeman."

However, the seeds of doubt had already been sown and lingered in her mind.

That strange premonition grew stronger and stronger, like... all the conditions for solving a problem were met, but you were just one step away from the finish line, yet you just couldn't get close to it.

……

“Let me see.” Mark bent down, examined Giselle who had lost all will to live, nodded, and said in a deep voice, “It’s him, no doubt about it. I’d recognize this face even if it were ashes. The Lord’s judgment never lets any sinner go unpunished.”

His gaze suddenly shifted to Mike, staring at him with a slightly questioning look. "You're the bounty hunter who caught him, Mr. Stevenson?"

"Where should I put him?" Mike didn't answer the question, remaining calm and composed.

"Out of curiosity, may I ask how you caught him? No offense, but I mean, this guy is no joke. So far, many excellent colleagues have died at his hands, and they were all very good sheriffs."

Mark's tone was somewhat uncertain. "So, when I heard from my young men that a man in his fifties single-handedly captured this dangerous individual, it seemed a bit far-fetched. I'm particularly curious, Mr. Stevenson, do you have any secret weapons or advanced capture experience that you could share with the police?"

"..."

silence.

Often, you don't need to say much; silence and eye contact are enough to express your emotions.

“Okay, I understand that you have your own trade secrets.”

Mark waved his hand, indicating that he wouldn't ask any more questions. "However, I believe there's one thing you already know. For some complicated reasons, we didn't issue a bounty for him, so you can't get any reward from me."

“No need.” Mike bent down, as if to lift him up again. “Where should I put him? In the cell?”

“…No need, old man.” Mark smiled, though he rarely smiled. His sudden grin was so unsettling that it made you feel like a puppet in human skin laughing. “Don’t waste your energy, leave it to me.”

The moment he turned to the side, Mike instinctively sensed something was wrong and immediately took two steps back to protect Mei behind him.

----

"boom---!!"

Gunfire erupted.

Mark suddenly drew his sidearm and blew Giselle's head off with a single shot.

It literally "exploded," like a watermelon being crushed by an elephant's foot, bursting open from the inside, with red, white, and bone fragments flying everywhere, covering the walls of the police station.

He... at this moment should be "it", most of its head was gone, and it fell to the ground with a thud.

Blood seeped into the floor; a part of Giselle remained here forever.

"What the hell's wrong with you?!" Mike swore, his eyes wide, and roared, "Firing here, and with hollow-point bullets no less? What if shrapnel hits us?!"

“Indeed, these bullets are too dangerous. You can’t touch them lightly. Once you do, you’ll get addicted and won’t be able to stop.” Mark turned the gun handle around and expertly put it back into the holster. “According to the rules, sheriffs’ sidearms cannot use these kinds of bullets. Please keep this a secret for me.”

“This scum doesn’t deserve trial and peace. Hanging? That’s too lenient for him. He killed this poor lady’s father.”

Mark whistled, and two young sheriffs, quick-witted as ever, stepped forward to carry Giselle's body away.

“Alright, Miss Marston, cheer up.” Mark patted May on the shoulder, revealing a kind and gentle smile. “You have avenged your father with your own hands.”

Chapter 53: This world is a fucking joke (Bounty 4)

From Xiaomei's perspective, time seemed to flow backward slightly, and her eyes recorded this scene of carnage, yet she felt no fear.

It was as if the person standing there wasn't her, but someone else, while she was looking down on the whole thing from a completely detached perspective, from a higher vantage point.

Hollow-point bullet.

Unlike ordinary bullets, it is an expanding bullet. Upon impact with the human body, its excellent expansion properties prevent it from penetrating the target directly; instead, it explodes inside the target's body. The lead core of the bullet is crushed by the copper casing at the rear of the bullet, causing high-speed fragmentation and dispersion. At the same time, because the bullet itself is also spinning, the lead will scatter in all directions, thus blasting a large hole in the human body.

For some reason, after falling to the ground, Giselle suddenly transformed into the father she had seen in the morgue—dressed neatly, holding flowers, but with nothing on his neck.

"Hollow-point bullet... hollow-point bullet..."

"boom----!!"

The sound of gunfire, like a thunderclap, brought her back to that night when she had barely managed to escape the claws and teeth of a gray wolf. Half her face was scratched, and blood smeared her eyes, yet she still had to crawl over little by little to turn the gray wolf's corpse over.

At the time, she didn't understand why she was doing this, or what the point was. Only now did she realize that what she called intuition was actually the result of her brain's rapid thinking—she wanted to investigate the bullet holes!

Faced with this gray wolf that could cost him his life, he will definitely fight back with his most powerful weapon!

However, the bullet holes on the back of the gray wolf were from ordinary revolvers, and there was no special blast wound.

She examined Giselle's revolver; judging from the reloading marks on the cylinder, it had been used for at least two or three years. This was the revolver her father had used as his sidearm when he died.

At this point, a discrepancy emerged between perception and reality.

Because if it were this revolver that shot him in the head, his head should still be intact, with only a bullet hole in his forehead, instead of delivering a body with half of its head smashed.

"Hollow-point bullet... hollow-point bullet..."

The voice echoed in her mind, like her father's voice, or perhaps like Mike's; the sound was drawn out, deep and thunderous, striking her heart.

Who was the first to inform me of my father's death?

……

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Marston, I’m so sorry.” On a rainy night, Mark knocked on their door, took off his hat, and looked grief-stricken. “Your husband is…”

……

It's him.

He was the one who kept the matter quiet for seven months after the funeral and memorial service, and who did not issue an arrest warrant.

Xiao Mei was almost certain that if she hadn't been incredibly lucky to have managed to get two legendary figures like Red Center and Mike to help, she would never have been able to catch Gisele in her entire life. The local sheriff and police in Windblown Sands had absolutely no intention of arresting him!

And now, after he brought the person he had captured to the police station, this man couldn't wait to shoot him in the head. It was almost like...

As if afraid he would say something.

"Hollow-point bullet... hollow-point bullet..."

The police station ceiling seemed to rise higher and higher in her eyes, like a strange vortex that threw her into a raging storm.

She took a deep breath, gripped the corner of the desk, and tried her best to calm herself down.

"These bullets are unlike any I've ever seen before. It seems like no one else around here is using them." Xiaomei softened her tone and asked casually, "Mr. Duran, is this illegal?"

"Strictly speaking, it's not illegal, but the situation is different in each state."

Mark took a handkerchief from his pocket and elegantly wiped away the bloodstains clinging to his body. He answered instinctively, "A year ago, the state government made some demands on the police department, saying that the 'accidental injury rate' of this type of bullet was too high. But I prefer to give these criminals a gruesome death to serve as a warning to others..."

----

As he was talking, he suddenly realized something, stopped what he was doing, turned around abruptly, and looked at Xiaomei with an incredulous expression.

What met my eyes was a pair of unwavering, bright blue eyes.

……

"It was you." Xiaomei's voice was unwavering, filled with grief beyond measure, as if her heart had died. "It was you. You killed my father. Only you are still using those hollow-point bullets that explode inside the body."

“Listen, Miss Marston, this is a very serious accusation.” Mark narrowed his eyes, his right hand gesturing as if to calm her down. “I don’t know what you think you know, but it’s not what you think. The person who killed your father…”

“Giselle? He deserved to die, but he wasn’t the one who killed my father.” Mei’s tone was very certain. “He never used hollow-point bullets. I checked his gun; it always used regular revolvers. If he had used hollow-point bullets, he probably wouldn’t have had his arm bitten off.”

She didn't want to hear Mark's explanation anymore. The gunshot just now was like the last missing piece of the puzzle, finally explaining the point she hadn't been able to figure out all along.

"But why? Why would you kill a law-abiding mounted policeman? There shouldn't be any direct conflict of interest between you and him."

"unless……"

“My father has discovered something shady, hasn’t he? He’s been investigating the Thunder Gang, and perhaps he’s found out their connection to the Chaidel Group from some clue.”

Mark's expression changed several times, the fake smile completely disappearing from his face, leaving only a blank, expressionless mask.

In his eyes, Xiaomei was no longer the daughter of his deceased colleague, but a troublesome person who needed to be eliminated.

"Why is it that the Thunder Gang always gets the news about those freight trains and bank carriages first? They must have an inside man at the top. As the investigation gets closer to the truth, all the clues point to Ryan Childer. You beneficiaries of the Childer Group, fearing exposure, killed him. You blew my father's head off with a hollow-point bullet."

"You were worried that Giselle would reveal anything detrimental to you, so we delivered him, and you killed him the very next minute, then pretended to be indignant, saying you wanted to avenge my father... Hahaha..."

At this point, Xiaomei no longer had much fear of death itself; she just found it funny.

A man of honesty and integrity, who upheld the principles of a bailiff his entire life, ultimately died at the hands of his own men. I imagine that even in his final moments, his father was filled with confusion, wondering why he had died.

"If we hadn't been in such a hurry to execute him, and had instead followed proper procedures to hang Giselle, I might never have connected you to anything like this... Mr. Duran, ha! Ha ha ha ha... but you couldn't even wait a day or two!"

Blood seeped from under the bandages, and the wound, which had not yet fully healed, was torn open by Xiaomei's continuous laughter.

----

“Your father mentioned to me that his daughter is too intelligent, that God has endowed her with unparalleled insight. While he is happy for you, he is unsure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It has truly opened my eyes, Miss Mesalia.”

Mark pulled out a chair, sat down slowly, and even lit a cigarette for himself.

"I heard that a group of people caused a huge disturbance in the Grey Wolf Mountains, even killing Tuku Zolael and wiping out the entire Thunder Fury Gang. You must be the ones?"

Chapter 54: See You in Hell (Bounty 5)

"??!"

In the small hut next to the stable, Zhang Renfeng suddenly looked solemn, raised his head, and fell into a long silence like a statue.

"What's wrong?" Alana had witnessed his prowess, especially his powerful hearing that allowed him to identify people through walls, and immediately became alert. "Has something happened?"

“Gunshots? There shouldn’t have been any gunshots. We were just going in to hand someone over.” Zhang Renfeng muttered to himself, his expression shifting several times. After a moment’s thought, he made a decision immediately. “The plan has changed. Alana, take everything! Water, tobacco, and this box…”

He took out the wooden box that he had been keeping under the bed and instructed, "This contains all my belongings. Remember to tie it up with rope and put it on the saddle."

"Has something happened to Mr. Mike?" Alana asked anxiously as she took the box.

"I don't know, it might be nothing at all, just a false alarm, but... it's always good to be prepared."

Zhang Renfeng began checking the ammunition of the two Volcano pistols. "You take the horse and go to the crossroads to prepare for the rendezvous. I'll go to the police station to check the situation. If they manage to escape, you lead them out of the city from the north. Don't worry about anything else, just run towards Tinglan Grassland. When it gets dark, find a secluded and safe place to set up camp."

"how about you?!"

"Don't worry about it, I'll catch up with you sooner or later." Noticing that the gun barrels had been overused these past few days, Zhang Renfeng started applying gun oil to his two old buddies, saying, "Do you know where Tinglan Grassland is? Don't go the wrong way."

With his Volcano Pistol tucked into its holster, his hat on, and his trophy from Scarface Village slung over his shoulder—a finely crafted elephant-hunting rifle—Zhang Renfeng exuded an aura of power, showing no signs of having traveled for days.

"Yes, I almost forgot about it..."

Before leaving, Zhang Renfeng suddenly stopped, turned back, opened the wooden box in Alana's hand, and rummaged through it. A series of clanging sounds rang out. Alana curiously looked down and saw him pull out a pair of the most bizarre-looking objects from a pile of oddly shaped weapons—like knives, claws, crescent moons, and hooks. If Zhang Renfeng hadn't held them in his hands and demonstrated them, she wouldn't have been sure they were weapons.

"Long time no see, old buddies..."

He blew away the dust, and a few inches of cold light flashed from beneath the crescent-shaped blade.

With the Mandarin Duck Axe hanging from his belt, Zhang Renfeng was satisfied. He slowly walked out and into the somewhat chilly twilight.

----

“Answer her question, you bastard.”

The standoff continues inside the police station.

Realizing the situation was out of control, Mike didn't hesitate any longer. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at the man's face. "You admit you did it?"

"What difference does it make whether you admit it or not? It's been a long time since then, and all the people and things that could be corroborated are now impossible to verify. Once you leave this door, there won't be another person who will believe your story."