Mercenary's War

Justin has money and status, but he’s not someone who lives in comfort; everything he has, he earned through his own efforts. He’s traversed the rainforests of South America and crossed the deserts of Africa. He’s experienced life-threatening moments. Without these experiences, he wouldn’t have his current status and wouldn’t have been chosen as the successor of the Cicero Family.

But to run five or six kilometers in one go, even for Justin, who’s over forty and not very active, is almost impossible. Even for young people in their teens and twenties, not many could run that distance, except for professional athletes. The thing is, there aren’t many professional athletes around, so Justin really couldn’t do it – it was truly life-threatening for him.

However, under the warm encouragement and caring urging of Gao Yang, Justin pushed beyond his limits and managed to run the whole way down.

"Come on, come on! Just 500 meters more, you’re definitely going to make it! I’m not lying this time, we’re nearly there. I can see the road already... uh, we really are there..."

A road really appeared on the horizon ahead, and a car had just driven past. Mario saw it, and then, finding some unknown source of strength, he shouted and staggered down towards the road with all his remaining energy.

It was roughly four or five hundred meters. Without the caring urging from Gao Yang, Justin ran to the roadside in one breath and then collapsed onto the ground.

"Huff, huff, huff huff..."

Justin didn’t have the strength to talk and pointed feebly to the road behind him.

Gao Yang glanced up at the sky and then looked behind them.

The helicopter was still in the sky, with no sign of anyone behind them.

No matter what, Tarta and Vasily were in their sixties, and they had the immobile Yarebin and Hammer to look after. To expect them to keep up with Gao Yang’s pace was indeed unrealistic.

Gao Yang raised his gun, turning it back and forth, so the helicopter wouldn’t dare to recklessly fire at them.

"Car, car..."

Without lowering his head, Gao Yang awkwardly said, "Uh, Justin, sorry, we can’t stop a car. Think of it this way: if we get in a car, I can’t shoot back. If I can’t put pressure on them, they’ll be free to fire at us, and if they shoot from close range, we’d be turned into Swiss cheese. So, we either wait for Tarta and the others to support us, or we continue to run."

Justin remained motionless, and Gao Yang couldn’t help but turn to look at him, only to find Justin staring at him in disbelief.

"Sorry, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to lie to you, but I had to give you a bit of motivation. If you were hopeless, we wouldn’t have been able to run this far."

Justin rolled his eyes and frankly fainted. Impatiently, Gao Yang said, "Don’t play dead, buddy. You can’t fool me. If you were going to faint, you should’ve done it earlier. Fainting now is just an act. You should know I’m an expert; don’t make me get you back on your feet."

"Huff huff, ugh huh, roar..."

Justin opened his eyes, watched Gao Yang’s back, made a series of strange noises, and then closed his eyes again.

Justin, with his eyes closed, murmured unclearly, "No matter what, I’m not running anymore. Even if I die, I won’t run. Even if you kill me, I’m not running. You might as well just kill me."

Gao Yang helplessly said, "I’ll let you rest for a bit, five minutes, no more."

Just then, the two helicopters in the sky suddenly dove down together, coming in on either side of Gao Yang and Justin. The enemy’s intent was clear: stop them and fire at close range from both sides, ensuring they get hit.

If these were armed helicopters, there’d be nothing to say; they’d be done. But needing to position the fuselage sideways to Gao Yang to fire with civilian helicopters made this dive both the enemy’s opportunity and Gao Yang’s.

Gao Yang quickly raised his rifle and fired a shot, then immediately discarded the sniper rifle. With his left hand, he pulled down the HK417, which was slung over his shoulder, brought it to hand, and fired several quick bursts. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

As the two aircraft passed by on either side at a distance of less than fifty meters, Gao Yang exclaimed excitedly, "You’re saved! The enemies who could fire are all! Dead! By my hands!"

Justin immediately opened his eyes, exclaiming with delight, "Car, car!"

Gao Yang shouted loudly, "That’s right! We can stop a car now!"

After saying this, Gao Yang picked up the sniper rifle, gave the helicopter in the sky the finger, slung the sniper rifle over his shoulder, and held the HK417 in his hand.

This wasn’t a major road, but still a relatively busy rural road. After a short wait, while no car appeared, a large tractor came puttering towards them.

As the tractor drew near, Gao Yang immediately ran to the middle of the road, holding the gun in one hand and stretching out his left hand to indicate the tractor to stop. The tractor came to a halt just five meters away from Gao Yang.

The tractor was quite big, with only a cab and no trailer. Gao Yang fired two shots into the air and shouted, "Don’t move, stay still, or I’ll kill you!"

Justin struggled to his feet and shouted in Italian, "Don’t move, stay where you are."

Gao Yang approached the tractor, grabbed the door handle, and gestured for the old white-bearded farmer inside to get out, though he ended up saying nothing, just motioning with his hand.

Justin gasped, "Don’t get out, don’t move."

Looking at Gao Yang, Justin said loudly, "I can’t drive a tractor."

"Me neither."

"Then get up there!"

Gao Yang dragged Justin onto the white-painted tractor and then jumped up on the other side himself, grabbing the door and saying to Justin, "Make him drive faster!"

The old farmer mumbled something to Justin, who shouted, "Drive, move the tractor, go forward! As fast as you can. This isn’t a robbery, no, this is robbery! Give me your water!"

Gao Yang put away the rifle and drew his pistol. The old farmer, trembling, started the tractor. Gao Yang held on to the rearview mirror, looked up at the sky, then crawled into the cab and closed the door, afraid of falling out once they started moving.

The tractor cab wasn’t big, Three people squeezed in there, the farmer driving the tractor was stuck in the middle, shaking all over, and Gao Yang looked at the GPS in surprise, "This tractor has GPS? Fantastic."

After drinking half a bottle of the farmer’s water, Justin heaved a sigh of relief, shaking his head and said, "I don’t care what you think, I just want to say, I love this civilized product to death. I’m going to get myself a tractor, this exact model."