Crimson Instinct

*Bai Li*

On the fourth floor, as I was carefully and silently walking my way, I heard footsteps rapid and urgent running around. I touched my way and felt a gap between two pillars. I ducked inside.

From my earpiece, I heard Luo Zhiqiang's voice, "Bai Li, from here, we can see movement on the fourth floor. A few people are running around. Be on guard."

"Hm. I can hear their footsteps too."

The footsteps came closer and closer to where I was, but I knew I was in a fairly good blind spot so that they couldn't see me.

The sound of their footsteps stopped. I heard them huffing and puffing and talking to each other.

"Fuck! That Rodey is crazy! He broke through the chain all by himself!"

I narrowed my eyes.

"Seriously, just how strong he is...he was already injured, yet he could fight the guards in his condition."

I heard a third voice, "I cannot believe that Rodey went against our boss! He betrayed her for that bitch."

"He even tried to take our preys out of this place. Who could have thought that the boss's right-hand man would do this one day?"

Are they talking about the same Rodey that I know? Did he try to take Chu Jie and all out? He betrayed Zhang Ning?

That was one hell of news.

From their snippet of conversation, it seemed as if he tried but failed in the escape and got caught. Zhang Ning chained him up, and something happened, and he broke free from those chains.

I heard another voice, "And damn if that Rodey wasn't enough, the other woman and that dog got free too!"

I froze.

I silently exhaled a deep breath and felt my heart settle down in ease.

Safe...Cocoa and Xin Lei are safe...

A man's voice broke my stupor. "Did you see that dog clawing the throat out of the guard? It was so grotesque…"

I smiled as I thought of Cocoa.

Wow, buddy. You did a great job there.

Then I raised my brow.

Is this hypocrisy, I sense? After sending all those victims to death in the worst possible way, NOW you feel that it was gross?

"Even that woman knows how to fight! She killed three guards all by herself. I thought she was only a doctor!"

"No, kidding. How does she know how to fight?"

I smirked.

Isn't my Xin Lei just awesome? Killing the guards is a piece of cake for her, you dumbasses.

But I understood one thing from their conversation. All of these men were the torturers. At first, I thought they were guards, but they must be inside where everyone else was.

And so these fuckers ran away because

Cocoa, Xin Lei, and Rodey were finishing off the guards, and these people didn't know how to fight, so they got scared of them, especially of Cocoa.

An animal's instinct and sense of attack are way sharper and quicker than the rest of us. 

Well, that just made things easy for me. Taking them down wouldn't take much effort.

But before that, I had to know one thing.

I heard another man's voice, "But how will we escape? The bastards who attacked our base must be on the lower floors. We cannot run down!"

"I think we should stay put here for some time. Rodey is at the back, and the IB is in our front. We can only hide in here and escape at the next chance!"

"Anybody knows where the boss went?"

"I didn't see her after all that fight started…"

"Me too…"

I see. So, she took another route to get away. It was a fruitless effort anyway because right now…

"Bai Li," came Luo Zhiqiang's voice, "The army is at their position now. Major General and Lin Zihao have surrounded the building from all sides."

I smiled.

That's why her escape was pointless.

I whispered. "Got it."

Now let's see...I heard around ten different voices and sensed another five footsteps. So, there were fifteen people here, unarmed and unguarded. There were supposed to be around 25 torturers in total, so that meant...the rest 10 were still inside.

I had to take them out before they became alert and scatter around in different directions. Right now, they were all nicely huddled in one place as chickens about to die.

One of the men said, "Let's all hide in that classroom. Quickly!"

"Good idea!"

"And the boss will surely contact us by then to escape!"

I heard them advancing right past me and sensed the second door open to my right.

I smiled.

All in one classroom? Even better. 

The strategy should have been to hide in different rooms, but it was all psychology that came into play.

It was a precarious situation for them where enemies were at all sides. In such dangerous circumstances, it was human nature to stay together in a group rather than dividing it for moral support.

I whispered in my earpiece, "Luo Zhiqiang. Can you connect my device to a voice changer machine?"

"Roger."

I heard a buzz.

"Done. You must be wanting to use Zhang Ning's voice, right?"

"Yup," I smiled.

He did what he had to from his side. I walked up to the side of the door of the classroom where they were hiding and knocked.

There was no answer. They must be startled and thinking it might be their enemies.

I adjusted my device, and as I spoke, it took the form of Zhang Ning's voice.

"It's me."

Instantly, I heard urgent whispers from inside. I heard them stepping near the door.

"Don't come out," I said.

"Boss, it's really you!" I heard one speaking.

"I knew our boss would definitely come to save us!"

"Boss, please take us out of here."

I said, "I am here to escape with you all, but I cannot take you all at once. We would be too visible."

"What should we do, boss?"

I smiled. "I will take you the way out two at a time. The rest of you stay here until I come back."