47: Chapter 47: Turning Despair into Hope 47: Chapter 47: Turning Despair into Hope Glolov was on the brink of death, wandering aimlessly in the vast desert with nowhere to hide, and Gao Yang felt they had no means to escape, which nearly drove him to despair.
All of a sudden, Cui Bo, who was pushing the cart, stopped, sat down on the sand with a thud, took a few breaths, and shook his head, “No, I can’t go on, I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since yesterday, I really can’t bear it.”
Cui Bo was indeed as strong as an ox, but he also had a big appetite.
A typical type who could eat well and work hard.
Moreover, even beasts of burden need to be fed, not to mention a living human being who is ultimately not an animal.
Gao Yang was not one to give up easily.
He kicked Cui Bo and shouted, “Get up, now is not the time to give up.
Hang your stuff on the cart, I’ll push it.”
Cui Bo shook his head again, “I really can’t, even empty-handed I can’t move.
Brother Yang, I’m not being negative, but we’re out of options now.
You go ahead, I beg you.
If you leave, at least Glolov and I would have a thought to cling to, and someone to inform our families of our deaths.”
Looking at Cui Bo, Gao Yang knew he really couldn’t move.
Filled with despair and sadness, he turned around, raised his rifle, aimed at the pursuers who were still trailing far behind them, and fired a shot.
But just as Gao Yang was about to fire a second shot, he felt a powerful force hit him, along with a pain in his left chest.
Gao Yang was knocked backward onto the ground.
Gao Yang only saw darkness, with stars all around, and felt excruciating pain in the region of his heart, making breathing difficult.
Then he heard Cui Bo’s cry, tinged with sobs.
“Brother Yang, Brother Yang!”
Glolov’s weak voice also rang out, “Dammit, Gao, how are you now!”
After a brief spell of dizziness, Gao Yang realized what had happened.
He had been shot, and it was in the heart.
The saying that one could live for at most seven seconds after being shot in the heart was true.
“Damn you bastards, come on, I’ll fight you to the end.”
Following Cui Bo’s desperate shouts, gunfire ensued, with the sound of bolting action accompanying it, and the shooting never ceased.
Gao Yang found it strange, he had been shot in the heart and should be dead now.
How could he still hear gunshots?
Then, Gao Yang opened his eyes and saw the blue sky and white clouds.
Without thinking, Gao Yang touched his chest and first felt an axe.
Upon touching the axe, the strangeness in Gao Yang’s heart immediately turned to overwhelming joy.
He sat up quickly and removed the axe from his chest.
On one side of the axe was a bullet lodged in place, and the other side was slightly bulged.
Gao Yang pulled hard to remove the bullet from the axe, then saw a small dent in the center of the axe.
After staring blankly at the axe for a moment, Gao Yang suddenly burst into laughter, yelling, “Fedor, Malik, I thank you!
I thank you for your blessings!”
Hearing Gao Yang’s laughter, Cui Bo, who had been shooting from the ground, turned his head in a daze, saw Gao Yang sitting up again, and said in a stunned voice, “Damn, what’s happening?”
With the axe in one hand and the bullet in the other, Gao Yang shouted, “My life was not meant to end, the bullet was stopped by the axe!
Haha, even heaven doesn’t want me!”
Rabbit, with his face covered in tears and snot, stayed dazed for a while, then suddenly wiped his face with his sleeve and said blankly, “That works too?
Damn, I cried for nothing.
If I had known, I would have checked your condition first.
That was really a close call.”
Glolov also laughed with all his strength, “You are a lucky guy, Gao.
You should keep that axe and the bullet safe.
They are your amulets, your lucky charms.”
After kissing the axe twice, Gao Yang hung it on his chest and lightly patted it, “I need to keep this axe for life, never leaving my side.”
Cui Bo laughed heartily twice and then turned his head back, continuing to peer through the scope, “Brother Yang, I just took one down.
Don’t know if he’s dead.
Gao Yang did not respond to Cui Bo and instead, examining the deformed bullet, suddenly said, “No, this is not an intermediate round used in AKs, nor a 5.56 mm bullet; it’s a lead-core bullet.
It looks like it’s for sniper rifles.”
Cui Bo replied, “I saw through the scope just now, it seemed like one of them had a scope on his gun, but it was too far to see clearly.”
If the opposition had a sniper, or a sniper had finally caught up to them, Gao Yang and his companions couldn’t simply keep running forward as they had initially planned.
Moreover, the sniper on the other side had just showcased his skills by hitting Gao Yang’s chest from a distance of at least six hundred meters.
If it weren’t for the protective amulet-like axe, Gao Yang would have been dead, even if he had been wearing a bulletproof vest.
Gao Yang had actually been contemplating giving up just moments before, but after the recent scare and the following elation, both Gao Yang and Cui Bo now had a renewed desire to survive.
After putting the deformed bullet in his pocket, Gao Yang wanted to lie down and shoot, but as soon as he moved, he felt a terrible pain in his chest.
He knew he had been injured at the location of his heart.
Although the bullet had been stopped by the axe, the enormous impact had dealt him a severe blow.
He might even have broken a couple of ribs.
Like Glolov, although the pistol bullet didn’t penetrate the bulletproof vest, it still broke several of Glolov’s ribs, and the bullet that hit Gao Yang, despite having traveled six to seven hundred meters, was definitely more powerful than a pistol bullet fired at close range.
Gao Yang endured the pain and crawled to the ground, then held his rifle and aimed carefully before beginning to shoot.
Without the help of a scope, at a distance of six to seven hundred meters, a person was just a black dot; Gao Yang had no idea whether his bullets were hitting the enemy.
As Cui Bo was loading bullets into his rifle, he said, “Brother Yang, why don’t you use this rifle instead?
You’re a better shot than me.”
“No need, I have a scope in my backpack, just need to switch it on.
You observe the impact point for me, I’ll adjust the trajectory.
It’s better for us to suppress them with two guns anyway.”
After taking out the scope from his backpack, Gao Yang quickly attached the daylight scope to his rifle, then passed the binoculars to Cui Bo.
However, the problem was, they lacked a stationary target or reference for zeroing the rifle—if they just shot bullets into the air, what was there to zero?
Cui Bo tried to find a stationary target with the binoculars but just after a quick search, he suddenly exclaimed, “Brother Yang, there are cars coming, at least five or six, all trucks, no, a total of eight trucks.”
Gao Yang’s heart sank completely.
If another eight truckloads of people arrived, there was no point in fighting; all hope was lost.
Gao Yang quickly spotted the trucks Cui Bo mentioned through the scope and was surprised to find that those opposition members who had been chasing them were suddenly thrown into disarray, with many dropping to the ground.
As the trucks grew closer, it seemed there were people shooting from them while those chasing Gao Yang and his companions returned fire.
Seeing this, if Gao Yang still didn’t understand the situation, he would be a fool—no matter who was on those trucks, they were definitely the enemies of their enemies.
Not only were there guns firing from the trucks, but there were also people launching rocket launchers.
However, the trucks didn’t stop; they drove off quickly, apparently disinclined to engage in a big battle with those chasing Gao Yang.
After taking a look, Cui Bo suddenly pointed at the large trucks and shouted, “Brother Yang, there’s a road there, the trucks are from government forces, there are government forces’ emblems on them.”
Gao Yang urgently said, “You cover me, I’ll call for help.”
Gao Yang and his group were about a kilometer away from the trucks.
Gao Yang stood up, waved his rifle in the air, and ran and shouted, hoping to attract the attention of the people on the trucks.
The trucks were now at their closest to Gao Yang, with their sides facing him.
If Gao Yang didn’t catch their attention in time, the trucks would soon be gone.
Watching the eight trucks pass by one by one, Gao Yang was frantic.
But the last truck of the eight suddenly left the road and drove into the desert, heading rapidly towards Gao Yang.
Seeing the truck approaching, Gao Yang was overjoyed and shouted loudly, “Reinforcements have arrived!
Haha!”
Glovolov urgently said, “Gao, we’re all Free mercenaries, hired by a guy named Ken Freeman, you got that?”
Gao Yang nodded and said, “Got it, Rabbit, get ready to lift the Old Russian, we’re out of here.”
The truck circled around in front of them, kicking up a cloud of dust before shielding Gao Yang and the others behind it.
Once the truck stopped, Gao Yang was about to lift Glolov up with Cui Bo’s help when suddenly four or five men stood up from the back of the truck, their guns trained on them.
Then one of them shouted, “Who the hell are you?”
“Free mercenaries, hired by Ken Freeman, brothers, we’re so happy to see you.”
After Gao Yang called out, the tailgate of the truck immediately dropped, and four men jumped out to help lift Glolov up.
But Glolov couldn’t help crying out in pain when he was placed onto the truck due to the rough handling.
Once Gao Yang and Cui Bo were on the truck, a black man slammed his hand twice hard against the truck’s cargo area, and immediately the truck started up again.
As the truck began to move, Gao Yang almost passed out from relief.
He looked around the cargo area and saw that there were about twenty people inside, almost all of them black, with only one looking Arab.
At this moment, all of these people were watching him.
Gao Yang waved at them and said with a smile, “Brothers, thank you so much.”
The black man who had first spoken to Gao Yang smiled and said, “Most of them don’t speak English, buddy.
Looks like you’ve had some bad luck.”
Gao Yang sighed and replied, “You can say that again, only the three of us are left, right?”
The black man said, “You guys were with Ken Freeman this time?
Did you get your money?
That guy is not to be trusted.”
Faintly, Glolovov said, “Right, there were twelve of us, and we didn’t get a dime.
But there’s good news, the damned Ken got blown up.”
The black man laughed heartily, then said a few words in a language Gao Yang didn’t understand to the other people in the truck, and the whole truck erupted into laughter, clearly amused.
Then the black man extended his hand, shaking hands with both Gao Yang and Cui Bo before happily saying, “Just for the good news you brought, it was worth giving you guys a lift.
That bastard Ken hired us last time but only paid half the money.
We’re all happy to hear of his death.”