Chapter 51: Mad Monkey

Inside a dilapidated small motel, three men were crammed into the cramped space. Da Cong held rubbing alcohol, Da Ming held tweezers, and another man had his blood-stained trousers removed, lying face down on the bed in a very unseemly posture.

"Boss, does it hurt? How about you have a drink to numb the pain!"

"Such a minor injury, how could I... Ouch!" Kong Dasheng originally intended to grit his teeth and endure it, but because of his awkward position, he shifted slightly and let out a miserable scream. It hurt, it hurt so badly!

He had been struck from behind. His upper body was completely unscathed, but from the buttocks down, there were at least a dozen bloody holes in his legs.

"Bear with it. If we don't pull out the steel pellets and disinfect the wounds, you'll die!" Da Cong said as he poured the rubbing alcohol right over them.

"Whoa...!" Kong Dasheng's voice pitched up in agony, his body writhing before he went completely limp and passed out cold.

Pouring rubbing alcohol onto wounds could disinfect them, but it was excruciatingly painful! The sensation was comparable to rubbing salt straight into raw cuts, causing Kong Dasheng to faint instantly.

Da Ming looked at Da Cong in utter bewilderment. "I gave you the alcohol to sterilize the tweezers. Why did you pour it directly onto the boss's body?"

Da Cong looked back, completely uncomprehending. "To disinfect the boss's wounds, of course! Otherwise, if they get infected, won't it cost the boss his life?"

"You use iodophor for wound disinfection! That stuff sterilizes while being gentle on the tissues. Doctors always use iodophor. Why on earth did you use rubbing alcohol?!"

Faced with Da Ming's rebuke, Da Cong panicked visibly, yet stubbornly refused to yield. "Can you blame me? You didn't tell me! I'm no medical expert, I only know alcohol is for disinfecting. Didn't you hand it to me for the boss's wound?"

Da Cong's eyes darted around. "Besides! The boss is finally unconscious. If we don't take this chance to dig out the steel pellets, do you want to wait until he wakes up just to have him scream himself unconscious all over again?"

Da Ming was left speechless by the retort and could only squat down to begin extracting the steel pellets from the wounds. Fortunately, because the shooter had been far away and the rectangular shotgun barrel lacked strong airtightness, the pellets hadn't penetrated too deeply.

Pellet after pellet was pulled out. Watching the process, Da Cong thought it looked simple and couldn't help asking, "Why don't we just use a magnet? Suck all these steel pellets right out?"

"When steel pellets penetrate the body, each follows its own ballistic trajectory. If you use a magnet, you'd be dealing with multiple pellets simultaneously, and you can't guarantee that every single one would be drawn back out along its original path."

"If two pellets are close to each other, it would cause secondary injury to the wound. That's why using a magnet isn't recommended."

Da Cong rubbed his head. "So you mean it won't work?" Seeing Da Ming nod, Da Cong muttered under his breath, "If it won't work, just say it won't work. Why ramble on so much? Just trying to sound like some big intellectual, huh?"

Da Ming felt a surge of stifled rage building up in his chest, suffocating him. If he weren't afraid of losing a physical fight to Da Cong, he would have attacked him long ago!

Opportunities to leap to the top overnight are rare, especially since Pheasant and Ho-nam were youths poisoned by Triad gangster movies. Their minds were relatively simple; they believed that backing the right person meant winning for a lifetime, which made them extraordinarily invested in this chance.

Young people possess boundless energy and fear no setbacks. Once they have a target, they will give it everything they have.

Pheasant and his men had already circled the street seven or eight times without finding any useful clues. Ho-nam was much smarter; he realized he should search by tracking motorcycles, but the results were meager.

So Ho-nam rendezvoused with Pheasant, planning to try their luck at some cheap motels that didn't register guest identification cards.

Tianhai, already undercurrent-ridden, was now surging with turbulence. The newly established Nanling Gang had been wiped out in an instant; Kong Ersheng had been blown up, Qian Hao had died after being shot, and word was that Kong Dasheng had also taken bullets. Capturing him would not only claim a ten-thousand-yuan bounty but also completely annihilate the Nanling Gang.

In the police force, this was called performing a meritorious deed; in the underworld, it was called slaying a general. Moreover, people always loved to push a crumbling wall, so overnight, Kong Dasheng became the center of everyone's attention.

In the criminal investigation team's conference room, Xiao Ziguang sat beside Luan Jin'an while Zhou Liang reviewed the case: "That Suzuki RG500 is extremely conspicuous. However, I've already asked the comrades in the traffic police division, and they have no recollection of it."

"Then could we speculate that this motorcycle wasn't ridden directly into Tianhai, but rather brought in inside a cargo truck..."

Attending such a meeting for the first time, Chen Sheng ventured a different opinion: "Could this vehicle have arrived in Tianhai long ago?"

"This is a very famous bike with an enormous reputation. It's like a firefly in the dark; whoever owns it can't help riding it out to show off. Whoever sees it will spread the word to others."

After explaining, Xiao Ziguang looked toward Luan Jin'an. "Have the official requests for assistance been dispatched to the surrounding counties and cities?"

"They've already been faxed out, with a particular focus on Xiling County. I believe we'll get feedback before long." Luan Jin'an wasn't speaking without basis; he had heard previously that Kong Dasheng loved motorcycles and reportedly owned a replica of Andy Lau's bike from A Moment of Romance back in Nanling County.

The case analysis continued: "Based on the crime scene investigation, we found that the suspect was shot. Judging by the firearms left behind, it was a homemade scattergun. From this, we can deduce that the suspect has at least ten bullet wounds on his body."

Different types of bullets cause different injuries, resulting in varying volumes of blood loss. Take Kong Dasheng as an example: he was blasted in the back and rolled on the ground, leaving different bleeding points from various wounds.

"Furthermore, according to Xiao Ziguang's description and the penetrating power of the firearm, if the suspect took three shots and was still jumping around, we cannot rule out the possibility that he was wearing body armor on his upper torso."

"For now, we assume the suspect is Kong Dasheng. Dozens of steel pellets have been driven into his legs. Unless he's hiding inside a van box, he must be hiding somewhere within Tianhai City..."

After finishing, Zhou Liang noticed that everyone's morale seemed rather low, especially Chen Sheng's. "Brother Liang, you've said so much, but it's all circular talk. I feel like you said a whole lot of nothing."

"How is that saying nothing?!" Xiao Ziguang stood up, walked over to the case analysis blackboard, and wrote a few words in chalk: *cargo truck*, *injured*.

Xiao Ziguang drew a circle around these two terms. "We'll use the old method: find the person through the vehicle. Since the suspect is injured, he can't have run far. Taking the crime scene as our center, we will begin a grid-style sweep."

Luan Jin'an frowned. "Making such a massive commotion—aren't we afraid of startling the prey?"

"What we want to do is startle the prey. As long as we can put pressure on Kong Dasheng, with his fearless personality, he will inevitably jump out, and that will be our opportunity to arrest him."

With no other alternatives, this could indeed be considered a relatively sound plan.

Just then, a telephone rang. Zhou Liang picked up the receiver, listened, and said, "Captain Luan, our peers in Nanling County have cross-referenced the photographs. Through detailed features, they've confirmed that this Suzuki RG500 is indeed Kong Dasheng's vehicle."

Luan Jin'an finally made his decision. "Alright, let's follow Xiao Ziguang's plan. Taking a ten-kilometer radius from the crime scene, we'll conduct a grid-style search. Pay special attention to hospitals, clinics, auto repair shops, and small motels..."

With consensus reached, they requested reinforcements from the bureau, and a massive, sweeping search operation officially commenced.

Inside the small motel, Kong Dasheng finally drifted back to consciousness. He soon realized that his lower half was wrapped tightly in bandages, and periodic waves of nerve pain caused his expression to contort repeatedly.

"Got a cigarette? Give me one!" Kong Dasheng nudged Da Cong beside him, took the cigarette handed to him, took a drag, and asked casually, "Where are we?"

"In a small motel in Tianhai. We'll wait until dark before heading out!" Da Cong said, his face brimming with self-satisfaction, as if begging for praise.

"Idiot! An absolute idiot!" Upon hearing they were in a motel, Kong Dasheng's expression shifted drastically. "With the massive uproar we've caused, the police will track us down soon. Hurry up and leave, get out of Tianhai immediately."

Da Ming ran in from outside: "Boss, there are cops everywhere outside, searching house by house..."

"Where's my gun?! Where is my gun?! Since they've hunted us down, we'll fight them to the death!" A bloodthirsty madness flashed across Kong Dasheng's face, his eyes glowing red—truly resembling a crazed monkey.

Just as the three men in the room began to panic, plunging into a state of hysteria, two heads outside the window were observing them with extreme caution.

Pheasant lowered his voice: "This is a rare opportunity. Do we hit them or not?"

Ho-nam didn't speak. Instead, he pulled two thick, arm-sized black firecrackers out of his backpack. Wrapped around the outside of these firecrackers were three paper packets containing chili powder, pepper powder, and quicklime. If these were to detonate inside a confined space, the consequences would be...