Chapter 193
Chapter 193
A voice soon came over the loudspeakers.
“The locations of the top ten players have now been revealed! Check your watches!”
Zhang Bei looked down at his watch, and a red dot immediately appeared on the display.
Huh?
He studied the red dot’s location for a moment.
“Does it only display players who’ve eliminated someone?”
Qingqing nodded, cradling the sniper rifle in her arms. “Then you should be the only one showing up.”
Zhang Bei turned his gaze toward the nearby jungle. “Find a position. Get ready for a fight!”
A barely perceptible gleam of danger flashed in Qingqing’s eyes.
“Where should I go?”
“Find some high ground. I’ll draw them in from below.”
“Okay!”
Zhang Bei plunged into the jungle first. Qingqing immediately ducked behind cover, pulled a walkie-talkie from her backpack, and spoke into it.
“I’m ready over here. The prey has taken the bait!”
“We’re on our way. We’ll be there soon!”
“Ding Ye, where are you guys?”
“We’re a little far away, but we’re heading over too!”
A full five minutes passed, yet Zhang Bei didn’t see a single person.
Where was everyone?
They should have arrived by now.
But soon, the massive hunting operation orchestrated by Qingqing and involving scores of tourists officially began.
Hidden behind a rock, Qingqing swapped in a blue magazine.
“Bang!”
A deep report rang out behind Zhang Bei. He hurriedly ducked, narrowly avoiding the shot.
The round struck a tree, erupting into a cloud of blue smoke.
A cold glint flashed through Zhang Bei’s eyes. “Qingqing!”
“Why don’t you look behind you?”
Qingqing grinned broadly, showing no intention of fleeing as she held the sniper rifle.
Zhang Bei turned around with a grim expression.
People!
There were people everywhere!
Every last one of them was charging toward him with a gun in hand, as if they had no fear of death.
In an instant, Zhang Bei made the correct choice: run!
He wasn’t afraid of fighting. In fact, he was completely confident he could take every one of them down.
The problem was that they were all using colored rounds!
He fled deeper into the forest, not forgetting to snatch Qingqing’s sniper rifle and backpack along the way.
The jungle terrain was complicated. After putting some distance between himself and his pursuers, Zhang Bei leaned against a tree to rest.
He stared at the sniper rifle in his hands and began considering his options.
One thing was certain: this game of Live-Action Counter-Strike had turned into another routine hunt where a mob of aggrieved tourists chased after their handsome boss.
If he didn’t want to end up with a face painted like a Peking opera performer, his only option was to pick them off one by one.
After all, once a player was eliminated, their gun lost power and could no longer fire.
Suddenly, a voice came from the backpack behind him.
“Boss, be good and accept your punishment. You can’t escape!”
Zhang Bei pulled out the walkie-talkie. “Qingqing! You again!”
“Hahaha! Surround him!”
Qingqing’s unrestrained laughter came through the walkie-talkie.
Heads bobbed in and out of sight ahead of him. The pursuing force had clearly caught up.
Zhang Bei took a deep breath and switched the sniper rifle back to elimination rounds.
“Bang!”
A deep report rang out, and a plume of white smoke instantly rose from one of the figures in his sights.
After eliminating one person, Zhang Bei continued fleeing deeper into the jungle.
The next ten minutes became an all-out pursuit.
The number of people on Qingqing’s side dwindled one after another.
Despite having so many people, they still couldn’t so much as touch Zhang Bei’s shadow.
Qingqing looked at the more than eighty people who had regrouped, her expression stormy.
Zhang Bei had averaged one elimination a minute, taking out more than ten people in total.
“Groups of five! We can’t spread out!”
“All right! We’ll close in on him together!”
The group quickly split into teams and resumed following the little red dots on their watches.
Meanwhile, Zhang Bei, the target of their pursuit, slid down from a tree.
At the sight of the heads bobbing not far away, a smile spread across his face.
Go on, keep chasing me!
“Rat-a-tat-tat!”
A burst of red smoke billowed up around his feet.
Zhang Bei’s face darkened, and he took off running again.
Qingqing marched up to the tree with her troops in tow, looking for all the world like some tribal chief.
She looked at the tree swathed in green netting overhead, then checked the information on her watch.
“Get him!”
The crowd charged toward the tree en masse.
“Boom!”
Clouds of smoke erupted amid the crowd. One person after another froze in place, white smoke pouring from their bodies.
Qingqing stared at the watch that had fallen to the ground and gritted her teeth.
A grenade!
Zhang Bei had set up this little trap before they could catch up to him.
And the grenade had come from Qingqing’s backpack!
Everyone had originally been issued two grenades, but Qingqing had hidden away the two meant for Zhang Bei as part of her own plan.
In other words, Zhang Bei still had three grenades on him!
“Seriously, did the boss fight in World War II or something?”
“That was dirty as hell!”
“Qingqing, can I take command from here?”
The speaker was a muscular man in his thirties.
“You know how to command?”
The man nodded. “I’m a navy veteran.”
“That’s great!”
Qingqing’s face lit up with delight. She didn’t care who did it, as long as someone took the boss down today!
The man faced the assembled crowd, his voice ringing loud and clear.
“Teams of five! Keep one and a half meters between each person and three meters between teams. Sweep the entire area!”
Still rattled by the trap, everyone reorganized into teams. This time, they advanced with extreme caution.
Qingqing followed behind the Commanding Officer, a trace of embarrassment crossing her face as she watched the orderly formation.
If she hadn’t been giving orders so recklessly, wouldn’t they still have a lot more people left?
“What is this, a band of Japanese collaborators sweeping through a village?”
Zhang Bei’s mocking voice came through the radio.
Qingqing’s face instantly turned livid.
“Just wait until I catch you!”
“Oh, I only just noticed. So you’re playing interpreter for the invaders now?”
The Commanding Officer beside her studied the terrain.
There weren’t many places nearby from which Zhang Bei could observe the two of them. Even fewer offered a view of most of the group.
“South! Everyone, sprint at full speed!”
The moment he gave the order, the taunting voice on the radio vanished.
Qingqing immediately grew smug.
“Come on, keep talking! Why are you running?”
Zhang Bei truly didn’t have time to talk anymore.
There might only be half of them left, but Qingqing was no longer the one leading them!
Before, the hundred pursuers had been little more than a flock of sheep, with most of them acting independently.
Now, however, they moved in a disciplined formation. One careless move and they would definitely surround him!
Time ticked by. Zhang Bei leaned against a tree, panting heavily.
After an entire afternoon of fighting, his results had been pitiful aside from the fifty people he’d eliminated at the very beginning.
Ever since the man had taken command, Zhang Bei had only managed to eliminate ten more people, and it was nearly dark.
To catch him, the group had pushed themselves to their limits.
In just over three hours, they had run two full circuits around the entire hill!
And this wasn’t some paved road. The mountain trails were rough, and they often had to make detours.
If Zhang Bei hadn’t been in such good shape, they would have caught him long ago.
Taking advantage of the brief lull, Zhang Bei ducked onto a narrow trail and slipped deeper into the woods.