It's late at night.

Chapter 29: The Hunt

A beam of bright light pierced through the darkness and shone on the group.

"Boss, he's over there!"

Sounds came from the stone steps below the mountain. Turning around, I saw a throng of heads moving among the shadows of the trees below.

Recalling the voice coming from the recording pen, the group felt a chill run down their spines.

At this point, it was too late to run.

This pavilion is located at the end of the mountain trail, with a cliff behind it and pursuers in front of it, leaving no way to escape.

A group of burly men wearing raincoats and carrying sticks rushed up and blocked the mountain path.

The man in the lead was supporting his thigh, panting heavily.

"Wow, you can really run! Run another one and see."

"Dude, is there some misunderstanding? Bringing so many guys in the middle of the night is kind of scary."

Lu Qifa chuckled awkwardly, seemingly trying to ease the tension.

"Who told you guys? The boss said each of you stuntmen gets 500,000. Blame yourselves for your bad luck, don't come looking for me."

Their legs were a little sore from climbing all the way up the mountain, so they took a breather while they were making their tough talk.

"Murder is a crime!"

Chen Qi was still pretending, but her terrified eyes only excited the others more.

"Oh, so you have a sister who knows the law. Let's be clean and just send one of our brothers to turn himself in, you idiot."

While they were talking, they had rested enough. The leading man waved his hand and gave an order.

"Get to it! Drive them towards the cliff edge, try to let them roll down on their own."

Once they recovered, the henchmen swarmed forward, raising their sticks to smash them over the head.

Xia Yao knew things were going badly. Although she had studied Sanda (Chinese kickboxing) for a while, she was only a novice.

He might have a chance against one, but if it's a group, he'll beat them so badly they won't even recognize their own parents.

But then he suddenly remembered that he still had a prop he had stolen from the ghost in his pocket.

As the stick came crashing down, Xia Yao dodged it with a quick movement. He pulled out a stun gun from his pocket, pressed it against the man's waist, and simultaneously activated the switch.

A series of crackling sounds and screams mingled together, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

Lu Qifa, who was bloated and looked like a good-for-nothing, and Chen Qi, who was weak and helpless, were treated as the easiest targets.

Unexpectedly, Lu Qifa actually had some martial arts skills. He snatched the stick from his opponent in one round and knocked down two people in a few moves.

Chen Qi was even more extreme. She was short and slender, but extremely agile, and her punches were incredibly powerful.

This starkly contrasted with his earlier fearful and helpless demeanor, leaving his opponents dumbfounded.

Zhou Ze'an took off his glasses, rolled up his sleeves, and his refined and gentle demeanor disappeared, revealing that his fighting prowess was by no means weak.

What a joke! They're just afraid of ghosts, how could they be bullied by you humans?

However, a whooshing sound reversed the course of the battle.

"Whoosh!"

A crossbow bolt was fired, heading straight for Zhou Ze'an's face.

Although he noticed it in time and dodged the fatal blow, the crossbow bolt still pierced his shoulder.

The intense pain spread, distracting him, and he took the blow head-on.

The man in the lead was already loading a second crossbow bolt.

"Whoosh!"

This time, the crossbow bolt was aimed at Xia Yao.

Xia Yao couldn't dodge in time, and a hole was pierced through her calf.

He winced in pain and staggered to the ground.

Fresh blood dripped onto the hardened cement floor, blooming in tiny spots.

The stick fell densely with the raindrops, and the pain made his brain twitch.

Lu Qifa and Chen Qi tried to rush over and grab the crossbow bolts, but it was already too late.

When the arrow was fired again, Chen Qi immediately pulled one of his henchmen to block it.

But just as she rushed in front of the man to grab the crossbow bolt, a rechargeable nail gun was suspended above her head.

Lu Qifa was surrounded and attacked, and gradually lost ground, eventually being pinned to the ground.

Before long, all four of them had fallen to the ground, simply because the opposing side had more people and more vicious weapons.

"Holy crap!"

"I thought you were something special. Get up and try being arrogant again."

The leader held a nail gun over their heads and arrogantly spat on them.

"You four, get up one by one and jump off from here. That way you'll suffer less."

The man pointed threateningly at the cliff outside the pavilion, showing no reverence for life whatsoever.

The rain outside was getting heavier and heavier, the wind was rustling the leaves, and it also brought a faint, sour scent of grass and trees.

tangerine!

With a thought, Xia Yao forced herself to lift her head despite the pain.

The hardened cement, which was originally hard, suddenly turned into soft and moist soil.

The air was filled with the scent of earth and oranges.

In the darkness, the pavilion that had sheltered them from the wind and rain disappeared, leaving everyone to be drenched by the torrential downpour.

One of the underlings looked around and panicked. He wiped the water off his face, his voice trembling.

"Boss, something's not right! Could it be...?"

"Shut up!"

The man in the lead was clearly panicked, but he was still trying to appear calm.

"Come on, quickly throw them all down there, clean things up and then we'll go back."

He had already made his plans. After cleaning up the scene, he would give one of his underlings a million dollars to turn himself in and take the blame.

They said they had a grudge against them, and shot them with crossbows as a joke. They were so scared that they rolled down the cliff to escape.

"Oh."

However, at this moment, Xia Yao let out an untimely sneer.

Because he saw a hunched figure appear in the rain on the mountain path.

He wore old blue work clothes, muddy boots, and had a head dented from being hit by a stone.

"What the hell do you mean? You dare to laugh?" Just as the man was about to hit Xia Yao in anger, his henchman behind him let out a terrified scream.

"Boss! A ghost! A ghost is coming!"

The man turned his head, and the bright light of the searchlight shone brightly on his bloodied and mangled face.

The rotting wounds were horrifying, and it seemed that maggots were still wriggling inside the flesh.

Those underlings' legs went weak, and their whole bodies trembled uncontrollably.

"What's there to be afraid of? He should be the one afraid of us! I can kill him once, and I can kill him twice!"

Whether it was out of sheer terror or a forced composure, the man roared and shot a crossbow bolt at the old man's head.

"Whoosh!"

This petty boss is quite capable of being the leader; for one thing, his crossbow bolts are pretty accurate.

The arrow pierced the old man's forehead, and dark brown, putrid liquid flowed from the wound, but the old man was unaffected and continued walking towards them.

"What are you looking at! Hit him! We're popular enough, ghosts can't get close!"

At the command, some idiot actually grabbed a stick and rushed forward.

The stick came down, the old man's head just tilted slightly, and then he grabbed the idiot by the neck.

"Boss! Help me!"

At this moment, the idiot turned around, but the boss was nowhere to be seen. The boss had run away while he was charging!