Chapter Ninety-One: Fierce and Menacing

He leaned out and swept the street with a glance, counting seven agents in all, pinning Wu Quanjiang and the others in the narrow passage. Two more stood motionless in a corner by the roadside; whether dead or merely unconscious, it was impossible to tell.

He wasted no more time. With a single bound he shot forward, closing the distance at astonishing speed. At roughly thirty meters, he raised his hand and fired.

The bullet pierced an agent clean through the back of the head. Blood mixed with brain matter burst forward from the wound, and the man collapsed dead.

His marksmanship was not only exact, but blisteringly fast. Without the slightest pause, he fired three shots in succession, each one punching cleanly through the back of an agent's skull.

By the time the agents realized an enemy had appeared behind them, three of their number were already dead.

Zheng Mingshan was fortunate not to be among them. He rolled sideways behind a stone pillar by the street and shouted a warning at the top of his lungs, "Watch out! Everyone, watch out! Enemy behind us!"

The others reacted quickly as well, turning and firing back.

After killing three men in a row, Ning Zhiheng did not hesitate for an instant. He darted beneath the awning at the entrance of a shop, shifted his position in a flash, and moved to the agents' right flank.

There was an agent hiding behind a wall, only half his face exposed to Ning Zhiheng's line of sight. Without pause or hesitation, Ning Zhiheng raised his gun and fired once, the shot striking dead center in that exposed face. The man instantly pitched to the ground.

Zheng Mingshan was stunned by what he saw. In just a few seconds, the situation had been completely reversed. The suddenly appearing gunman possessed a terrifyingly sharp marksmanship, every shot deadly true. In the blink of an eye, only two of his men remained beside him.

Since when had the underground communists become so ferocious? He had dealt with the underground network in Nanjing for years, but when had such a frightening operative ever appeared?

He shouted encouragement to his last two subordinates, "Hold on! Reinforcements will be here any moment! Increase your fire and pin him down!"

The two men were also shaken by Ning Zhiheng's ruthless shooting and no longer dared give him a chance to fire. The three of them shot together, hammering the pillar where Ning Zhiheng was taking cover until splinters flew.

The sudden turn of events left the four men who had been hiding in the alley utterly astonished.

They could not see Ning Zhiheng's rapid killing of the four agents, but from the gunfire they could roughly infer what was happening.

Someone had attacked the Party Affairs Investigation Bureau agents from behind. No more bullets were coming from that direction, which meant the enemy must already have suffered losses, and all attention was now focused to the front.

"Good thing you had another move ready. Otherwise, if we'd been trapped here, we would have been sitting ducks," Wu Quanjiang said with a quiet sigh of relief to Ding Yuan.

"What other move? There were only three of us. Everything was too rushed; there was no time at all to gather anyone else. The people over there aren't ours," Ding Yuan replied, equally bewildered. He had only brought two comrades with him, and both were right there beside him. What backup could there possibly be?

"Not ours? Then whose?" Wu Quanjiang was equally stunned by the answer. Who in Nanjing could possibly have come to rescue him at a moment like this?

"Old Wu, don't think about it now. Your safety is what matters most. Time is tight. Since the enemy has already been drawn away, let's break out toward the end of the street. If we can reach Zhang's Grocery, there may still be a chance to get away!" Ding Yuan no longer dwelled on the matter. Their mission had been to rescue Wu Quanjiang, and now that an opening had appeared, they had to seize it.

"All right. Break through!" Wu Quanjiang was also a seasoned operative. He no longer hesitated, and the four of them charged out together.

Sure enough, though gunfire thundered all around them, no more bullets came from the direction where the agents had been hiding. It seemed the agents were too busy saving themselves to care about anything else. The four men rushed hard toward the street corner.

By then Ning Zhiheng had just been pinned behind the pillar by Zheng Mingshan and the others. After a moment, unwilling to tangle with the enemy there and wait for reinforcements to arrive, he knew things would become troublesome.

He looked up and saw a roof eave overhead. With a sudden leap he sprang up, grabbed the eave, and swung himself onto the roof in one fluid motion, quick and supple as an ape.

He flashed across the rooftop in several quick movements, and before Zheng Mingshan and the others could react, he had reached a position off to their rear flank. At that point Zheng Mingshan and the other two were completely exposed to Ning Zhiheng's gun.

He raised his hand and fired twice. Again, both shots struck the head, and both agents died on the spot.

Only Zheng Mingshan remained. He had never imagined that the gunman he had just been pinning behind the pillar would suddenly appear like a ghost at his rear flank. In the next instant, the two shots rang out, and he found himself utterly alone.

"Don't kill me, I..." Zheng Mingshan was already completely terror-stricken by this fiend. Fully exposed in the enemy's sights, the fear of death made him abandon resistance and beg for mercy.

Bang.

Ning Zhiheng did not even listen to his babbling. His hand did not pause for a moment. The third shot sent Zheng Mingshan's brains bursting out, killing him on the spot.

Thus, from the moment Ning Zhiheng appeared and launched his attack, in the span of barely two minutes, with every shot finding flesh and every bullet on target, he had fired a total of seven rounds and efficiently wiped out all seven operatives of the Party Affairs Investigation Bureau.

Just as he was about to pursue Wu Quanjiang and the others, he heard gunfire erupt from the street corner ahead.

Looking up, he saw Wu Quanjiang and the four of them hurrying back in his direction. What had happened?

Trailing behind them were several more agents. It turned out that just as Wu Quanjiang and the others were about to break through the street corner, another squad arranged by Zheng Mingshan had arrived and forced them back.

Seeing that they could not break out, and with an injured man among them, they knew they could not run fast enough. They had no choice but to retreat in haste.

Their only hope now rested on the rescuer who had suddenly appeared. If the agents on this side could be dealt with on the spot, a path might be opened and they could break out in this direction.

They had no idea that the rescuer was Ning Zhiheng alone, but as they wished, the agents from this direction were indeed being dispatched by Ning Zhiheng swiftly and decisively.

Seeing their predicament, Ning Zhiheng simply leaped onto the roof and ran toward them head-on.

His body was in excellent condition, his sense of balance superb; even on the uneven rooftops he flew like the wind.

In the blink of an eye he reached the upper flank of Wu Quanjiang and the others. Deliberately altering his voice, he barked in a hoarse tone, "The enemies in front have been dealt with. Don't stop, keep running! I'll cover you!"

Ning Zhiheng's movement across the rooftops was extremely fast, like a wraith. Wu Quanjiang and the others did not even notice him approach. Only when he spoke did they discover a figure had flashed overhead.

Hearing his words, all four of them were heartened. It matched their own judgment: the rescuer had indeed taken care of the enemies in front. But why was no one else showing up? Could it be that there was only one man?

The two sides passed each other in opposite directions. Wu Quanjiang and the others supported Ding Yuan as they ran for their lives, while Ning Zhiheng went straight toward the pursuing agents on the far side.

There were six agents charging toward him. At first they had not pressed too closely, after all Wu Quanjiang and the others were also putting up fierce resistance, and they did not want to rush recklessly.

They knew Zheng Mingshan's squad was lying in ambush on this street. All they had to do was force the four men into the street and attack from front and rear. There was no way those people could escape.

But they never imagined Ning Zhiheng would appear, resulting in the annihilation of Zheng Mingshan's entire squad.

Ning Zhiheng came at them from the rooftops. They failed to notice him at all. Taking the initiative, he suddenly raised his gun and fired. With two sharp cracks, two more agents were struck in the head and fell dead.

Just as Ning Zhiheng was about to fire again, a familiar and chilling warning suddenly surged through his mind.

It was the peculiar supernatural sense bestowed by the bodhi tree in his mind, a sense that only appeared when his life was in danger. Relying on this ability, Ning Zhiheng had repeatedly escaped death.

This time was no different. His body reacted at once.

He twisted sharply to the side, and a bullet whisked past his ear. The shrill, piercing cry of the round through the air left his left ear temporarily deaf.

Too dangerous. The difference was only a hair's breadth, and Ning Zhiheng had just brushed past death.

"There's someone on the roof! Take cover!" one of the agents shouted a warning to his comrades. He had been the first to react and had just fired at Ning Zhiheng.

His marksmanship was excellent, but what he had believed to be a sure hit had been evaded by Ning Zhiheng like a ghost. This shocked him immensely.

Seeing the bodies of his two comrades, their heads blown into a bloody ruin, he knew this enemy was a skilled shot with swift hands and feet, a truly formidable opponent. He immediately dared not act rashly, and ordered his men to seek cover separately to avoid needless casualties.