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Chapter 365: Chapter 363: Fireworks Fill the Sky

The shrill alarm cut through the sky, echoing throughout the shipyard like the howling specter of a frenzied ghost.

Originally meant to signal air raids, the alarm was now used to alert all the bandit gangs to capture the fleeing “goods.”

The whole shipyard burst into activity; the world was filled with the rustling sound of the rain, the pounding of footsteps back and forth, the clacking of loading ammunition—all overwhelming Maasai’s head to the point of explosion. He grabbed his sleeve, looked at the second hand of his watch, and each tick tormented and judged him.

It had to be now, of all times.

If only he had one more night, Maasai wouldn’t be so vexed. How much time did he have left?

Half an hour?

Or only ten minutes?

Wiping the spray from his face, Maasai screamed at the top of his lungs, “Hurry, hurry, grab them all back! Not one less, if we’re short one, I’ll use you to substitute!”

“Wait, here, there seem to be traces here! A lot of people have gone through!”

“The shrubs are all trampled, they’ve fled that way! Who was guarding here? Who?”

“The culvert, they must’ve gone into the sewers!”

A flash of lightning streaked across the night sky, followed by thunder so loud it was deafening.

…

Standing alone at the bow of the ship, Sisko heard the alarm and lifted his hood; the rain swiftly streamed down his face.

“Has something really happened?” he murmured.

The situation was not beyond his expectations. If the fire had been an accident, then the alarm had just confirmed an answer: the real drama was only just beginning.

…

“Quick, quick, move faster, hold hands, don’t fall down! Don’t be scared, they haven’t caught up; just a little faster, and we’ll be out, once we’re out, we’ll be safe.”

In the narrow passage, Bi Fang urged everyone to evacuate quickly upon hearing the alarm, but despite the distance, the sharp piercing sound still reached everyone’s ears.

Many screamed in panic and pain but quickly recovered with Bi Fang’s urging, trembling but continuing to escape.

A total of fifty-three people held hands in a long line, weaving through the wet, mossy path.

If anyone slipped and fell towards the ditch, the two people beside them would pull them back in time to prevent accidents.

“Why are we going this way? It’s too narrow, isn’t it? If we retrace our steps, we could move a lot faster.”

Matthew followed Bi Fang closely, reeking from head to toe, afraid that he would slip and fall back into the stinking gutter, from whence the stench on him had just come.

“Our tracks from fleeing can’t actually be covered up. If they take some time, those people will surely catch up. By then, we will be very passive. They will definitely follow our footprints. Once they get here, the bandit gangs’ numerical advantage will be gone, as they, too, will have to stick to the walls to move forward, with only a few at the front able to act. But if they follow the direction we came from, their pursuit will be very swift, and we will have to face a large number of people!”

From the warehouse to the small waterway, everyone had used the shrubs to conceal their trails well, and before discovery, it served as the best cover. But once the search started on a large scale, traces on the mud, soaked by the rain, would easily reveal their whereabouts, and those muddied and numerous footprints couldn’t be hidden.

A downside of concrete is that once stained with colored slurry, it is difficult to clean without the aid of a high-pressure water jet, inevitably leaving a trace.

The muddy traces ended at the manhole cover; anyone with a bit of brains could figure out what that meant.

Bi Fang never considered himself the smartest, but even within the worthless bandit gangs, there were definitely smart ones. Right now, he had no doubt that someone was already on their tail.

Later, in the narrow passage, both sides would be constricted, but compared to the bandit gangs whose real fighting power rested solely on Bi Fang, such terrain clearly imposed more restrictions, and numerical advantage would be useless.

“In other countries, the probability of a fugitive being recaptured within 72 hours after breaking out of jail is less than five percent, because after 72 hours, the range of movement for the escapee is too vast,”

“making it extremely difficult to conduct the search and thus lowering the odds of finding them. A very specific analysis of the mode of transportation used by the escapee, the radius of their activity, and the range of the search personnel is required.”

“Although we’re not fugitives, the situation we’re in is not much different. Therefore, the earlier it is, the easier we are to be caught. We must be very careful. The longer we hold out, the less likely they are to find us. Conversely, because it’s so easy to be caught in the early stages, we must be on our guard. That’s why I chose to take the linear conduit. Once we get to the front and reemerge from the shipyard, the chances they’ll catch us drop a lot.”

[Master Fang is awesome! Crush them!]

[It’s all in the details]

[Wori, damn exciting, full of traps everywhere!]

In the pitch-black waterway, shafts of light from several flashlights scattered around, making the atmosphere the viewers felt both tense and thrilling, as if they were in a large-scale battle royal.

Bi Fang led the group around a corner, continuing to move forward.

According to the imagery in his memory, they only needed to walk another five hundred meters to reach the exterior of the shipyard. By then, when they got out, they could truly be free as birds in the sky.

“Everyone, hurry up. Only five hundred meters left. In five hundred meters, we can escape! When we get out, don’t scatter. Follow me closely; that’s your only chance to be completely safe. If you run by yourselves, you might still get caught. Tomorrow morning, a boat will come to pick us up, and we will be completely safe!”

On hearing that a boat would come to pick them up the next morning, the spirits of the more than fifty people on site perked up, and despite being chronically malnourished, they still found strength surging within them.

Even the old man felt that his chronic leg arthritis had greatly improved.

But just as everyone thought they were about to be safe, a series of hurried and chaotic footsteps came from the passage behind them.

Matthew’s heart skipped a beat, but just as he was about to stick his head out to look, Bi Fang pulled him back.

“Don’t stick your head out!”

After pulling Matthew back, Bi Fang leaned against the wall with a handgun in his hand, pondering a solution.

With a splash, a sound of someone falling into water suddenly echoed.

Shouts and curses reverberated through the entire passage.

“Damn it, pull him up fast!”

“Quick, quick, pull him up, go!”

After several arguments, two more splashes followed.

Soon afterward, the sounds grew closer, but then they became much quieter.

The audience and the people present all breathed a sigh of relief, and Bi Fang also felt at ease.

The route had been carefully planned by Bi Fang beforehand. He had everyone hold hands, partly to avoid falling into the water and slowing down, and partly because this route contained many side passages. Without this measure, it would have been easy for people to get dispersed.

A dozen minutes later, those walking against the wall finally saw the vertical shaft.

Matthew immediately climbed the metal ladder and called for others to follow.

After Bi Fang was the last one out, the heavy iron cover closed again.

The sewer was plunged back into darkness.

But just as Bi Fang stood up, in the direction of the shipyard not far away, a column of fire burst into the sky.

The flames, which had been on the verge of dying out, blazed fiercely once more.