Chapter 189 The gratitude tokens that disappeared
Yang Xiaojin seized two grenades from one of the Qing Consortium’s soldiers with lightning speed. The Qing Consortium soldier unconsciously tried to avoid her attempt since protecting one’s weapons was the instinct of every solder. But in the end, all he felt was a numb sensation in his hand, the grenades gone.
Yang Xiaojin resolutely and decisively pulled out the safety pins and threw the grenades into the sewer. With a thunderous boom, the stone bricks on the streets flew up with the explosion.
The Experimentals confined in the tight space of the sewers couldn’t withstand the destructive power of two grenades going off at once. They were blown away and dropped to the ground with blood oozing from all orifices.
But even so, everyone discovered that several of the Experimentals were actually unaffected by the blast. Ren Xiaosu said in a cold voice, “Blow them up again!”
Yang Xiaojin seized another two grenades and threw them down into the sewer. It was only at this time that the remaining Experimentals that were still mobile started retreating and letting go of Ren Xiaosu’s shadow clone!
Ren Xiaosu laid on the ground with his head throbbing. He was finding out for the first time just how powerful grenades were.
The feeling was like 10,000 knives cutting into his flesh. The shrapnel from the explosion was even more powerful than he imagined.
However, he had the bravery to let Yang Xiaojin throw the grenades in because he knew he could bear with the pain from the blasts, and his shadow clone would not be affected by it.
But after this was over, Luo Lan would owe him a great big favor!
When the shadow clone crawled out of the sewers, Luo Lan teared up and held its hand. “Xu Xianchu, I’ve really got to thank you for this.”
Ren Xiaosu thought, ‘This has nothing to do with Xu Xianchu.’ But he couldn’t explain it to them yet.
In the past, he had always made his shadow clone his scapegoat. But now that he had done something good with it, Ren Xiaosu was unused to it.
Luo Lan suddenly said, “Go on, everyone, thank him. If it weren’t for Xu Xianchu, five of our men would have died in the sewers.”
“Thank you, Xu Xianchu!” Seeing this big group of people thanking his shadow clone in unison, Ren Xiaosu did not receive one single gratitude token!
Ren Xiaosu immediately felt his heart ache. Over a 100 gratitude tokens had slipped through his hands just like that!
As a matter of fact, he was still around 800 gratitude tokens away from unlocking the next weapon in his Side Quest #2. If Luo Lan had his men to give thanks a few more times, wouldn’t the weapon be unlocked with just a snap of a finger?
A 100 gratitude tokens were all that was needed to give him a powerful weapon like the black saber. If it weren’t for the black saber, Ren Xiaosu would have died several times over. So Ren Xiaosu was really anticipating what kind of weapon a 1,000 gratitude tokens could get him. But instead, he had lost the opportunity to gain over a 100 gratitude tokens just like that!
At this moment, Ren Xiaosu even considered admitting to all of the deeds he had committed. As long as there were gratitude tokens to be earned, to hell with being wanted!
Then Luo Lan looked at Ren Xiaosu and said, “Xu Xianchu carried and helped both of you to escape. Shouldn’t you two also thank him?”
Ren Xiaosu said, “... Thank you.”
Yang Xiaojin stifled her laughter as she also expressed her gratitude to the shadow clone. She was quite amused by this sudden turn of events, but this was not the time to tease Ren Xiaosu about it. She said, “The sound of the explosions here will be sure to attract many Experimentals. Everyone, gather up all the bombs you can from inside the courtyard!”
Yang Xiaojin then pushed open the courtyard house’s door. Everyone was stunned on the spot when they saw the entire courtyard filled with cluster bombs. Ren Xiaosu suddenly thought about how Yang Xiaojin was always sleeping in class and wondered if she had been staying up late every night just to finish making all these bombs.
Ren Xiaosu said, “There’s also bombs at my place next door.”
The 100 or so soldiers from the Qing Consortium looked at Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin in silence. Everyone was thinking about how young these two looked yet the things they did were all so violent.
Luo Lan roared, “What are you all standing there for! Hurry up and gather the bombs, then quickly find a place to plant them along our escape route. Let’s bomb the fuck out of those bloody bastards!”
They had bombs now. As for how they should be used, Yang Xiaojin didn’t need to teach them. These Qing Consortium soldiers under Luo Lan were all elite troopers, so they couldn’t be more familiar with how to use the devices.
Luo Lan had also smuggled in a lot of explosives from outside the stronghold. But during the conflict with the Li Consortium, they had used up all of them. Now that they could rearm themselves with more ammunition, everyone couldn’t look more eager.
They had all been pushed around by the Experimentals for far too long, so of course they would have to kill some of them to appease the hatred inside.
Just as expected, the explosion from the four grenades thrown into the sewers had attracted a 100 other Experimentals from the surrounding areas. While Luo Lan was escaping, he looked back at them. He was shocked to discover those Experimentals were scurrying between the uneven buildings like they were on flat ground.
Suddenly, flames shot into the air behind them as explosions rang out.
The Experimentals that happened to pass by the bombs were sent flying by the massive force of the explosion.
The Qing Consortium’s soldiers who were responsible for setting up the bombs looked at one another. They had thought that the bombs would not be powerful since they were homemade. But as it turned out, these bombs were far more powerful than they had imagined. They couldn’t help but look at Yang Xiaojin. These bombs were actually built by a girl?!
A number of Experimentals were blown to smithereens by the explosions. However, this did not frighten the other Experimentals at all. Instead, it turned them even more savage and ferocious!
More explosions boomed behind Ren Xiaosu and the others as they made their escape. But even as the bombs went off one after another, the number of Experimentals pursuing them did not seem to lessen. It was not that the Experimentals did not die from the blasts but that new Experimentals kept joining in the chase.
These Experimentals had seemingly become even more aggressive like they wanted nothing more than for this group of people to die!
Luo Lan covered his head with his hands and said through clenched teeth, “Even though we have a lot of bombs, they’re not enough to hold back the more numerous Experimentals. Even if we manage to flee from the stronghold, we won’t be able to escape their pursuit!”
When they saw the stronghold’s gate appearing in their field of vision, nobody let down their guard. The Experimentals were not simpletons with predictable behavior. Getting out of the stronghold didn’t mean they would give up on chasing them.
Even after getting past the gate, it wouldn’t necessarily mean they were saved.
But at this moment, an armored vehicle crashed through the already half blown up stronghold gate and sent debris flying everywhere. Luo Lan noticed the ginkgo leaf logo on the bulky armored vehicle. The black armored vehicles acted like a giant land beast as it barged its way forward. One by one, more and more of the Qing Consortium’s armored vehicles came roaring into the stronghold. Ren Xiaosu estimated the number and thought there could be several dozen of them in total!
Could the Qing Consortium have sent an entire army here?!
Luo Lan suddenly stopped running and stood still at the end of the street. He started laughing hysterically at the incoming wave of Experimentals and said, “Little bastards, Grandpa’s backup has arrived, hahahaha!”
This fatso who had been covering his head in fear turned cocky the moment his support arrived.
The convoy of armored vehicles whizzed past the escaping group of people and came to a stop between the Experimentals and them. Qing Zhen emerged and got out of one of the vehicles, and a vast number of the Qing Consortium’s troops followed him out.