The First Order

While Wang Yun was starving, the middle-aged man in the next tent, who had spent five million yuan to get Old Xu to join the team, brought over some food he had just heated up to cotton up to “him.”

But no matter what the middle-aged man said, Old Xu did not respond.

First of all, Old Xu actually couldn’t speak. Furthermore, Ren Xiaosu could not care less.

The middle-aged man kept mumbling to himself for a long time. He was just trying to make the point that he hoped they could work together and conspire for greater causes, and after that, there would be other rewards they could talk about.

But Ren Xiaosu thought to himself, ‘I don’t care for things like rewards. Who knows if you’ll even be able to get out of here alive after this!‘

However, Ren Xiaosu was secretly sizing up the middle-aged man. He was still a little puzzled. Did the other party offer Old Xu five million yuan just so “he” would travel with the group? Although the other party tried to cozy up to Old Xu after that, Ren Xiaosu felt that things were not that simple.

When the middle-aged man carried the food over, Ren Xiaosu made Old Xu to receive it before placing it to the side. After this, the middle-aged man would deliver food to Old Xu three times a day.

However, the middle-aged man did not know Old Xu was only a shadow clone that did not need to eat at all.

Therefore, when the others saw Old Xu putting aside the food the middle-aged man had given to him without even touching it, they thought to themselves it must be really difficult to deal with White Mask. He was way too unfeeling.

Only Wang Yun’s eyes gleamed when he saw the food placed next to Old Xu.

In these one and a half days, Wang Yun had gone to the place where he made the markings five or six times, but there was still no response from his troops.

His spirit had hit rock bottom. He was even wondering if something had happened to his support.

If his 200-odd subordinates were OK, they would not have left him behind here. So they must have met their demise.

Wang Yun did not view his subordinates as ants like the others in the organization. These 200-odd comrades had been fighting alongside him for many years, so they had a very close bond. Now that their fate was unknown, Wang Yun, as their commander, felt an endless sense of sorrow.

Moreover, he did not even know who had killed them.

Of course, Wang Yun did not know his group of subordinates were currently enjoying themselves at a place 40 kilometers north of the black market. They were currently obsessed with hunting for the past two days since they had nothing better to do anyway.

Wang Yun looked at the food beside Old Xu and gulped silently. It was not that he was weak-willed, but the hunger was really starting to make him feel a little flustered.

Mt. Shenchi was also a very strange place in that there was not a single living creature in the vicinity of the mountain. It was probably because of the appearance of exotic creatures like the tarantulas that had disrupted the balance of the ecosystem in Mt. Shenchi.

Such situations often happened in the past as well. For example, the Zhou Consortium used to have rich aquatic biodiversity to their south. The consortium’s Stronghold 73 was even located at the intersection of three rivers.

However, the Wang Consortium’s spies secretly released a large number of suckermouth catfish fry into the Zhou Consortium’s aquatic ecosystem and even secretly introduced water hyacinth into their waters. This caused the Zhou Consortium to suffer a continuous decrease in their water supply yearly.

Back then, because of this matter, the Zhou Consortium even criticized the Wang Consortium in their official newspaper for over half a year.

Right now, the tarantulas were also considered an invasive species in Mt. Shenchi. Furthermore, they might even have been genetically modified by the Pyro Company. Without any natural predators, they had turned Mt. Shenchi into a wasteland.

Wang Yun had realized there were no birds on Mt. Wuzhai. This was actually also due to the presence of the tarantulas in the mountains.

At the campsite during the night, the multiple campfires that were burning made the fog less heavy. At least within the campsite itself, everyone was able to see each other’s faces clearly.

Wang Yun was nestled inside his own tent and quietly looking at the food in front of Old Xu through a gap in the tent flap.

In the dead of the night, an air current was swept up from nowhere and slowly moved towards Old Xu.

However, the air current did not come into contact with Old Xu’s body. Instead, two pieces of hardtack were swept up as though they were lifted by the wind and made their way back to Wang Yun’s tent effortlessly.

Wang Yun used his power while carefully observing Old Xu at the same time. When he realized there was no reaction from him, he felt relieved.

After all, White Mask had forced him to walk upside down yesterday. If he were to be discovered stealing his food now, that would really be too embarrassing.

Wang Yun recalled that he had not been this humiliated in a long time.

However, he would have to survive first. He still had to find out the fate of his 200-odd subordinates and avenge them!

Thinking of this, Wang Yun opened the wrapping carefully and placed the hardtack into his mouth. Then he paused for a moment and wondered if the food might be poisoned.

However, Wang Yun was famished. He comforted himself by thinking how this food was not meant for him in the first place. That middle-aged man looked like he was a bootlicker, and it was obvious he was trying to curry favor with White Mask, so it wasn’t necessary to poison him, right?

However, Wang Yun felt that something was off the moment he took the first bite. He quickly spat out the hardtack. However, the neurotoxin in the hardtack had already affected him. His mouth went numb, and his mind was starting to get a little confused.

With his remaining consciousness, Wang Yun stared at the hardtack in his hand, then at Old Xu. “What the hell…”

Then his eyes closed and he slipped into darkness.

Not far away from Wang Yun’s tent, the middle-aged man who delivered the food to Old Xu was sitting inside his tent. He was holding a firearm with a thermal scope attached in his hands. The gun was loaded with anesthetic bullets that he aimed at Old Xu from across the tent.

Using the thermal scope to aim was entirely so that Old Xu would not detect his attacking intent.

With the tents separating them, no one would notice as he took aim at his target.

The middle-aged man knew full well that if a powerful supernatural being like White Mask even had a line of sight with the firing weapon, it would be impossible for them to be hit.

Faced with such a supernatural being, he had to be extremely cautious.

But the middle-aged man was caught by surprise. He could not find anyone on the thermal imaging screen!

What the hell was going on? Was the other party human? Or was his power able to interfere with the thermal imaging?

However, the middle-aged man did not have time to think too much about it. He had to take action tonight, and he had to do so without making any mistakes.

Since he had already come this far, the middle-aged man decided to just aim at Old Xu based on his intuition. The distance between the two of them was at most seven to eight meters, so he felt he would not miss!

With a swoosh, a tranquilizer dart pierced through the tent and stabbed into Old Xu’s body.

Ren Xiaosu’s eyes opened in his tent, but he did not move. He just made Old Xu slowly fall sideways onto the ground.

A moment later, the middle-aged man rushed out of his tent and ran towards Old Xu. He dragged Old Xu, who had fallen “unconscious,” on the ground and fled towards the darkness of the night outside the campsite. The strength he exhibited was clearly that of a supernatural being’s.

This commotion woke a lot of people up. Those who were responsible for keeping night watch also saw what happened, but none of them seemed to have any intention of getting involved.

They watched helplessly as the middle-aged man dragged Old Xu out of the campsite. It was as though he were running into the darkness of the wilderness.

Then the middle-aged man took out a flare gun and fired it into the sky. In an instant, everyone in the campsite understood this middle-aged man had reinforcements outside!

With that, everyone became even more unwilling to rashly head into the darkness to save Old Xu.