"Huh? Could it really be the people from Lucia's village?" Lan Xue reached out, her face filled with shock as she looked down into the hole, unable to understand what the purpose of this tunnel was, she continued, "It looks like an underground bunker, with many branches connected to this main tunnel, but we can use this to our advantage to escape."
"Oh? What's your plan?" Luo Zheng asked in surprise.
"All the way here, our tracks couldn't have been exposed, we must have been under Arctic Bear's surveillance, and the pursuers will catch up to us soon. If we disguise ourselves as them and disperse the patrol team outside, and guide these people to escape, the more people there are, the less likely it is for satellites to identify us, and we can take the opportunity to run away in the chaos," Lan Xue analyzed.
Upon hearing this, Luo Zheng's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly, "Great idea, the pursuers will be here soon, we must act fast. Quick, let's get to the surface first."
Everyone turned around and walked back along the tunnel for a while until they saw an exit up ahead, with steps leading up. They rushed out of the tunnel and lay prone near the entrance, peering out with wide eyes. Soon, they found that most of the dense tents nearby seed to be empty, with only a few occupied.
"Huh? Could it be that the workers are no longer allowed to stay in the tents after the tunnel was created?" Ghost Hand said in surprise.
"That seems reasonable, from what we can see, there aren't many ard patrols, the entrance to the tunnel is just ahead, let's go take a look," Luo Zheng said in a low voice.
Bent over, everyone approached the tunnel entrance and found about a dozen people sleeping by the fires, probably guarding the entrance. They each took out hand crossbows from their backpacks and pounced like hungry wolves, silently taking down all the dozen guards. Luo Zheng rushed to the tunnel entrance and looked down—the walls were as smooth as mirrors, impossible to climb. The only way up from below was a rope, and with just a dozen people guarding, the nearly a hundred workers below had no chance of escaping.
"Strip them and put on their clothes," Lan Xue whispered.
Everyone started to move, taking off their combat suits and stuffing them into their backpacks, they found bodies of similar build and stripped them to disguise themselves as locals, and collected all the weapons. Luo Zheng also changed clothes and whispered, "Ghost Hand, co with to lower the ropes, everyone else spread out and keep watch."
"Yes," everyone responded softly and set to work.
Luo Zheng and Ghost Hand picked up the ropes from the ground and threw them down. One end of the ropes was tied to a simple wooden windlass, and the other end to baskets that could be raised or lowered by turning the windlass to pull up earth. There were five of these windlasses, and Luo Zheng and Ghost Hand quickly lowered them down.
The people below were probably exhausted and slept deeply; they didn't notice the ropes being lowered. Luo Zheng waited a short while and, seeing no reaction from below, had a sudden inspiration and said to Ghost Hand, "Quick, throw the bodies down."
"What a good idea," Ghost Hand exclaid with delight. Throwing the bodies of the ard militants would let those below guess what happened. Seeing the ropes, their survival instincts would surely kick in without needing an explanation—they'd know it was a chance to escape.
Luo Zheng and Ghost Hand pulled the crossbow arrows out of the bodies and tossed them down onto the people below. Soon soone woke up startled and, seeing corpse after corpse being thrown down, everyone began to panic and awakened those beside them. After no more bodies were thrown, these people stepped forward to check and quickly recognized the bodies. Looking at the five ropes that had been dropped, their will to survive surged.
Shortly after, a brave individual grabbed a rope and started climbing up. More people hesitated, watching the sudden events unfold, not daring to act rashly. Seeing the first person almost reach the tunnel entrance, they tensed up, anxiously watching. When they saw soone at the entrance helping to pull people up, the tension increased as they wondered what would happen to the climber.
Luo Zheng pulled the person up and said softly in an international common language, "Can you understand ?"
The person looked at Luo Zheng in panic but, seeing he ant no harm, cald down a little and babbled sothing. Realizing Luo Zheng could not understand, he then shouted a few words down the tunnel with an urgent expression. It wasn't long before Luo Zheng saw the people below get excited, and they began to grab the ropes and climb up eagerly.
"Trouble, the enemy has discovered sothing's off and they're on their way," Lan Xue's voice sounded in the earpiece.
Luo Zheng passed a gun to the first person who climbed up—since this person had the courage to co up first, he had considerable guts. Seeing the weapon and looking where Luo Zheng was pointing, at the approaching people, he understood imdiately and took the gun without hesitation. He pulled the bolt and ran forward angrily, throwing himself to the ground and skillfully operating the rifle.
"This is interesting," Luo Zheng said with laugh, impressed that the man could handle the weapon so well and was willing to fight. The harsh conditions of survival had also forged these people's skills. Seeing that he didn't shoot right away but instead looked back at him, Luo Zheng gave a gesture to keep calm.
"More people are coming," Lan Xue's voice ca again through the earpiece.
Luo Zheng turned and saw another group of ard militants approaching—about a dozen or so. Perhaps because they hadn't ascertained what exactly was happening, they didn't open fire right away but charged furiously. They were just over a hundred ters away. Without hesitation, Luo Zheng gave the order to attack: "Hold them back to buy ti for everyone to retreat."
"Understood," everyone replied in unison and opened fire.
Luo Zheng noticed the first man who had climbed up was now firing too, and seed to know what he was doing. He smiled and, seeing another person climb up from the bottom, quickly grabbed his hand, pulling him over and pointed to weapons on the ground. Then he pointed to the first climber, the newcor quickly picked up a weapon and joined the fight.
Shortly after, more people climbed up, while the militants' attack was fierce. After handing out all the weapons, Luo Zheng dashed into the fray, leaving the task of assisting those below to others.
Under the moonlight, Luo Zheng fought as he ran, the SVD sniper rifle he'd captured firing precisely. Each bullet was like a harrowing summon to death, taking down the leading ard militants. When the ten rounds were spent, Luo Zheng pounced to the ground and rolled twice rapidly before drawing his pistol to continue firing, taking down the shrieking militants one by one.
There were about fifty militants in total. After Luo Zheng and the others let loose a round of precise shots, half of them fell. The remaining half, seeing things had turned bad, quickly took cover, firing wildly and no longer daring to charge. After emptying a magazine, Luo Zheng swiftly reloaded and looked back to see more people erging from the tunnel. They dispersed and found places to take cover.
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