Beads of sweat slid down Clapton’s forehead. The shock and nervousness in his voice was hard to disguise. “What are you planning to do?”
“I am helping you recognize the situation, Inspector,” Feng Bujue answered in his slow and steady voice. “Based on what I know, Gotham City is currently very lacking in law enforcement members. A high number of injuries for your people is a consequence that you are unable to bear. At this moment, we are fully prepared, so it is no longer possible for your people to sneak into the building without being notified by our people. Therefore, if you insist on using brute force to deal with this situation, there will be serious consequences.
“Other than that, I have to give an extra explanation. The safety vault at this bank is imported from another country. The design itself is quite interesting. Once the electricity is cut off, the internal ventilation system will be cut down alongside as well. At the same time, the electric lock of the door will randomly roll a series of number at the moment of the electricity being cut. If that happens, the password that we set will be deemed obsolete. Only the European manufacturer that is connected to the vault will be able to obtain a recognition program through a unique decoding system to decrypt the new set of random numbers before the safety vault can be opened again.
“Unfortunately, I am afraid the people inside won’t be able to wait that long. The moment you cut off the electricity, even if you restore the electricity as soon as possible, the air is going to take some time to reenter the vault. The air ventilation is designed that way. I give them at least two minutes before the hostages inside suffer from lack of oxygen. Five minutes later, the lack of oxygen will cause irreparable brain damage, and ten minutes later, I would suggest you start to draft up an explanation for the people’s families and the media for the reason behind their death. Of course, you can pray for a certain kind of miracle to happen, a miracle like… your people or a certain superhero is so powerful that he is able to force his way into this bank and apprehend all of us without cutting off the electricity while we are on full alert.
“Personally, I believe that something like that will never occur, but even if that does happen, I have to inform you with the deepest regret that the situation will not change. The life or death of the hostages is still within our grasp. In the next thirty minutes… I’m sorry, let me correct myself, in the next twenty-five minutes, forcing the vault door open with brute force is impossible. Without the password that is only known to us, your people can only look on helplessly as the hostages kept inside the vault die a painful death from asphyxiation.”
“Fine, fine!” Clapton turned his head around to yell at the people next to him, “Have the tactical team stop immediately and wait for further orders! They are not to do anything without further orders!”
He sighed greatly and then turned back to the phone. “Alright, you heard me, right? Are you satisfied now?”
“Yes, I was able to hear you perfectly,” Feng Bujue said with a smile. “That is a brilliant decision that you have made, Inspector Clapton. Then… please give me another call in ten minutes. I will tell you about our request then. Thank you.”
With that, he hung up and ended the call.
…
The lobby of the bank was still very bright. Even though the row of glass doors had been shuttered up, the lights in the ceiling of the lobby were kept on in the morning and daylight, so there was not much influence or change.
Feng Bujue stood next to the counter. After he finished the conversation with Clapton, he put the phone down. The criminal with the machine gun kept the weapon aimed at Feng Bujue. Naturally, he would not place his trust so easily in this stranger that seemed to appear from nowhere.
If Feng Bujue had given off some kind of signal during the conversation with the police, he would have been shot dead on the spot. The two other criminals kept their distance. They stood on opposite sides of the lobby and held their guns while they paid close attention to the group of hostages that were gathered in the middle of the lobby.
“You see, I was right, wasn’t I? With some fooling around and threatening words, we will be able to stop them for breaching the bank.” Feng Bujue shrugged and commented like he was just talking about the weather.
“Fine, you have bought ten minutes of safety, so what? You still have not told me how we are supposed to escape from this place,” the criminal with the machine gun said. By now, his tone had relaxed and softened a lot. He was no longer talking to Feng Bujue in that provocative and aggressive tone.
“During the situation where the two parties are caught in a hostage situation, the most important thing that the kidnapper’s side needs to do is work out how many hostages they have,” Feng Bujue replied. Before waiting for the man to respond, he continued to say, “Based on my observation, the three of you have not done that yet. But luckily for you, I have already made the calculation on your behalf. Other than the three of you and myself, there are twenty-nine people here.”
He reached out and used his palm to make a small sign. “Do you mind moving the barrel of the gun away from my face?”
The criminal stared into Feng Bujue’s eyes for several seconds. There appeared to be aggression and dominance that was spoken in the gaze. But in the end, the man still slowly moved the barrel of the gun. Feng Bujue walked slowly to the bank manager, a balding middle-aged man wearing spectacles. He used his finger to poke the man on his back. “Are you the manager here?”
“Ye… yes.” The manager was shaking when he answered that question. Several seconds earlier, he had been lying on the ground with his hands placed behind his head, and he did not even dare to breathe. When he heard Feng Bujue’s footsteps approaching, he had started to get nervous. When Feng Bujue’s finger touched him, he had practically been jolted by the scare.
“There is no need to be worried, my friend.” Feng Bujue patted the man on his shoulder. “I just want to ask you, where is the plastic lock that is used to bind the money bags kept?”
“Oh… they…” The manager thought about the answer before answering, “They are kept inside the storage room… you… you need to go through the door behind the counter, and you will find plenty of them sitting inside the room…”
“Give me the key and the key card,” Feng Bujue said again. The balding manager was stunned for two seconds before he did what he was told. When Brother Jue was telling stories and feeding lies to the Inspector Clapton on the phone, he had been busily observing everyone in the lobby. He had deduced a lot of information based on the many different kind of details that he could capture from these people. Therefore, he knew the middle-aged man was the bank manager, and the key card and the key that were required to enter the employee’s area were both inside the manager’s pocket.
“What are you planning to do?” the criminal with the money bag asked.
“Of course, I am trying to get a better handle of the situation. Do you mind if I trouble you to go and get those things for me?” he asked as he tossed the key card and the key to the criminal with the money bag.
“Since when did you become the one who can order me arou…” The criminal with the money bag grumbled with annoyance.
The criminal with the machine gun cut him off. “Shush, just follow his instruction. Even if we made him go and get the stuff, you’d have to follow him, wouldn’t you?”
Since the boss had spoken, the criminal with the money bag had nothing else he could do about this. He turned to glare at Feng Bujue. He took the key and then leaped over the counter and headed toward the storage room. After the criminal left, the criminal with the machine gun spoke again. This time, it was only two words. “Now what?”
Feng Bujue showed a smile on his face, and suddenly, a golden glow appeared in his hand. A shining poker card flew at the criminal who was standing just a few meters from him. At this distance, the accuracy of the Death Poker would not have any mistake. With a shining flash, it slit open its target’s throat. Even at the moment of his death, he did not understand how this man before him who appeared harmless and defenseless could have a lethal weapon in his hand without grabbing anything from his pocket nor did he throw something out from his hands.
“You!” The criminal with the handgun saw this, and his reaction was not slow. He raised his gun and started to shoot.
Bing bing bing…
The gun shot in quick succession. Feng Bujue did not even attempt to avoid them. He stood where he was. He did not even activate the Shield effect of Death Poker. All he did was raise his arms to shield his face. The actual development was not so different from what Feng Bujue thought. The criminal’s accuracy with the gun could not have been worse. Panicked, even if he unloaded the whole magazine of bullets, only two of the bullets hit the target. The two bullets were slowed to a halt when they came into contact with the shield from the Echo Armor. Even though the bullets left a wound on both Feng Bujue’s stomach and calf, the wounds were not serious, and he only lost twenty-four percent of his Life Points.
Feng Bujue counted the number of gunshots in his mind silently. After the criminal had finished the whole magazine, Feng Bujue put down his arms calmly and then took out Mad Moxxi’s Bad Touch from his inventory. He ignored the criminal who had already used all his bullets and aimed the gun instead at the door where the criminal with the money bag had gone earlier. He paid close attention to the footsteps of the person who was running back. Once the person showed himself from behind the door, Feng Bujue pulled on the trigger.
“What is happening over…” The sentence was cut off by the rattling of the gun. Once the criminal with the money bag stepped out from behind the door, he was greeted with a full face of bullets, and he died on the spot.
“Put down your gun.” Even though Feng Bujue had killed two people, his face was as calm as ever. What he said was obviously meant for the last remaining criminal.
“In your dreams, you b*stard!” the criminal roared back. By then, he had gone to hide behind the wall on the western side of the lobby. There was a space there that was cordoned off for the ATM machine. The ATM machines were encased in the wall. From the front, it looked like a telephone booth, and the space was only one meter wide. It was surrounded on three sides by bulletproof walls that had patterns on them. The glass door could be locked from the inside.
The criminal started to reload the gun. He had no idea where Feng Bujue pulled his weapon from, and thus, he had no idea what the weapon that had killed his boss was. He only knew that this man who had killed two of his partners without even batting an eye would not care about the life or death of the hostages. Therefore, the gun that he had on him was his last chip. If he dropped the gun, would that not make him a lamb being sent to the slaughterhouse?
“I will count to ten. If you do not come out to surrender, there will be no more chances for you,” Feng Bujue yelled at him. The criminal’s hands kept shaking, and that influenced the efficiency of him reloading the gun. He was afraid that the man would choose to suddenly charge at him. Since Feng Bujue had told him that he was going to count to ten, it made him feel much better, believing that he had managed to buy some time.
“One, two, three, four, five…” Feng Bujue counted second by second, and he made sure that the time was matched perfectly. When he counted to seven and it was the seventh second, he had done the following, He had put the machine gun away, taken out the Bottomless Grenade Box from his inventory, picked a Mark II Grenade (Generated) from the grenade box, put away the Endless Grenade Box, pulled out the safety pin, swung his arm around, and lobbed the grenade right into the cubicle about six to seven meters away that did not have a roof…
“Eight…” When Feng Bujue counted that number, the grenade had already left his hand.
The criminal finally finished reloading his gun then. He gasped many times for air and then he mumbled to himself as if to gather strength, “Calm down, you can do this. That guy is already injured. As long as you rush out now and then move as fast as you can…”
Dong, dong, tututu…
This was the sound of the grenade being tossed into the cubicle from above, landing on the ground, and bouncing twice. The criminal with the gun looked at that grenade, whose safety pin had been removed, drop next to him. His brain short circuited for about one second, and then he said the last word that would ever pass from his mouth. The meaning of many words and situation were summed up in these four letters.
“F*ck.”
…
Bang!
A loud explosion. Even through the shuttered door, the sound of the explosion was hard to disguise.
“What’s going on inside? First, there was the gunshot, and now something’s exploded. Is this a terror attack?” Clapton could not sit idle and wait anymore. There were still four minutes left to the promised time to call, but he picked up the phone and made a sign at the people inside the surveillance vehicle.
Ring ring.
“The hostages are fine,” Feng Bujue said directly. “But the time has not yet arrived. Inspector, I hate people with a bad sense of time. For that, you will need to wait for another ten minutes, starting from now.”
He did not give the other party the chance to even say anything. “If you call before the designated time again, however many minutes you are earlier than the designated time is how many hostages that I will kill.”
He dropped the warning and then hung up the call without waiting for the other party to respond.
…
Inside the bank lobby, the hostages still had not got up from the ground. This was because after Feng Bujue killed the three criminals, he had reached over to grab the machine gun from the dead body and continued the hostage situation.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Feng Bujue said as he dragged his limping leg to come to the space behind the counter. He also confiscated the gun that was on the body of the criminal with the money bag. “From now on, everything will be following my orders. If you follow my instructions, no one will get hurt. If everything is successfully in a few hours, you will be sitting at your dinner table, enjoying a good meal with your family. If you are lucky, the married gentlemen, you might get lucky tonight, something that must have evaded you for months already.”
His tone was like he was talking and joking with a bunch of his old friends. There was no trace of warning or threat in his voice at all.
“However, if there is anyone who refuses to cooperate with me or even tries to stand in my way…” He grabbed a chair with rollers from behind the counter and pushed it the front. He planted himself on it and held the gun in his arms while continuing. “I will fire the bullets at everything that is alive before me until the bullets run out.”
He paused for a few seconds for the meaning to sink and to use the time to scan the expressions of the hostages.
“I hope what I am saying is being understood.”
The hostages did not expect that after the death of the three idiot criminals, there would be a crazy anti-human man who would take their place. No one dared look up to match his gaze, and no one dared say anything in response to what he said. Some of the hostages had already started praying with tears in their eyes.
“Okay, now, the lady over there with the semi-white jacket. Yes, you over there,” Feng Bujue said. “Can you please raise your head?”
It was a blonde woman about thirty. She had normal body proportion and looks. The make-up on her face had already run from the tears, and there was some vomit stuck on the front of her shirt. When she heard Feng Bujue, she lifted her head up to look at Feng Bujue. In a voice that was shaking in fear, she said, “Please… Please do not hurt me…”
“Don’t worry, miss, I do not intend to harm anyone,” Feng Bujue said. “I have noticed that there is a brown handbag to your left on the ground. I believe that is yours, correct?”
The woman turned to look at the bag in question. With quivering lips, she answered, “Yes… yes, it is mine… You can take anything you want from it… Just… please don’t hurt me.”
“Miss, I have a question for you. Did you bring your makeup bag with you today?”
“Huh?” When she heard the question, she could not help but be confused. But she was afraid that she might anger Feng Bujue if she took too long to answer, so she quickly replied, “Yes… I did bring it today.”
“Then, do you have tweezers that one normally uses to fix one’s eyebrows in your makeup bag?”
“Yes… I do.”
“Then, I need you to go over there now and open the handbag. Then I need you to find your makeup bag, retrieve the tweezers from inside it, and then hand them to me.” Feng Bujue paused before adding, “Please do not worry. There is no one here to rush you. I do not wish for you to mess up your stuff because you are too nervous.”
The woman soon found the tweezers, and with shaking hands, she handed them to Feng Bujue. Feng Bujue accepted the item and then said with a smile, “Thank you, please go back and remain on the ground. Do let me see your hands on the back of your head.”
When she went back on the ground, Feng Bujue turned his head around again to look for the balding manager. “Mr. Manager, can you please come over here as well?”
The bank manager looked left and right; no one else dared meet his eyes. It looked like he was on this alone. He had no choice but to stand up and walk over to Feng Bujue.
“I need you to retrieve thirty money bags and sixty plastic locks for me. Can you do that?” Feng Bujue ordered and then pointed at the dead body of the criminal with the money bag.
“The key and the key card are on that man’s body. I do not think he will mind you taking them from him.” He extended his palm to the dead body and then tilted his head. “Please.”
The body of the criminal with the money bag was collapsed behind the counter against the door. It did not take long for the bank manager to reach him. The bank manager gathered his courage and then searched for the key and key card from the person whose body had been shot into a beehive before walking toward the storage room.
“Oh, by the way…” Feng Bujue raised his voice to remind the man, “Please do not let me wait for too long, or else… I am sure you understand.”
“Yes… yes, sir.” The bank manager then quickly jogged away to grab the stuff.
“Hey, the gentleman over there with the suit, yes, you. Do you mind lending me your lighter? Thank you,” Feng Bujue told another hostage. Just from the fingernails of his right hand, he was able to tell that the man was a regular smoker. Actually, through close observation, he had already managed to get many layers of information about these twenty-nine people like their profession, marriage status, usual habits and hobbies, and so on…
Feng Bujue placed the gun where he could easily grab it. Then he used the lighter to warm up the tweezers. He used them to peel open the wound on his body to pull out the bullet. Without even a grimace on his face, he managed to pull out the bullet along with some flesh from his own body…
The hostages who silently raised their heads to look at him were shocked beyond belief. They had no idea that the sensation of pain was weakened for the players, and they all gasped internally.
This is such a crazy man…
Feng Bujue soon managed to pull the two bullets out from his body. He did not bandage the wounds because he turned to look at the game menu, and the bleeding status was already over. He turned to glance at the Life Points; he had sixty-eight percent left. There was enough for him to use, no need to waste a potion just yet.
It was then that the bank manager returned with the money bags and plastic locks. He placed the things before Feng Bujue and asked, “Is there anything you need, sir?”
Feng Bujue used his eyes to signal at the other hostages. “Use the plastic locks to tie their hands and legs behind them, and then cover their heads with the money bags.”
…
Another ten minutes passed. This time, after exactly ten minutes, with the technician from the police force fully prepared, Clapton took up the phone and called the number for the bank lobby. It rang four times before Feng Bujue picked it up. “This time, you are right on time, Inspector.”
“How are the hostages in the vault? Are they still alive?” Clapton asked. “What is it that you want? You are unable to escape from this place—do you understand? Listen to me… I know it was not you who killed the hostage. Brother, you are a clever person. If you can advise your partners to come out and surrender, I can plead for a lighter sentence on your behalf before the judge.”
When he said the latter half of the sentence, he purposely lowered his voice like this trade could really be made possible.
“Haha… that does sound like an alluring condition, but… between parole and freedom outside the law, I still think the latter is more alluring. In any case, I have the password of the vault. Before the hostages are rescued… or… die, you will not have killed me, right? Haha…”
He laughed happily. This lie that he had made up on the spot was quite a good talisman to protect himself.
At the same time, the shuttered bank door opened again.
As the shutters slowly pulled up, the scene that greeted the police was…