Shadow Empire

Chapter 1211 Two Wounded Men and the Bounty
The gray-haired man stared intently at Lance, who had been tackled to the ground. He wasn't sure if the shot had hit him; he couldn't confirm it.

The situation was worse than he had imagined; Lance's bodyguard was far too astute.

He could have chosen not to draw his gun, but he knew that as long as he didn't, the man would keep watching him until he completely lost his chance.

An innate feeling rose in the gray-haired man's heart: the person who tackled Lance was also a soldier.

He sensed something in the other person that only soldiers possessed, and the other person must have sensed the military aura from him as well, which was why they were staring at him so intently!

so troublesome!
These rich people are such a hassle!

He tried to keep shooting at Lance, who was covered, but the gunmen who were rushing over fired at him, and the bullets whizzing past him forced him to give up the idea.

He fired a few shots at the bodyguards chasing after him in the crowd, then turned and ran without the slightest hesitation.

The task wasn't completed; there will be a next time, and the time after that.

Even if Leonardo blames him, it doesn't matter; he can just quit working for Leonardo.

They had witnessed too much life and death on the battlefield, and it was precisely because they had witnessed so much life and death that they cherished their lives so much!

They were never suicide bombers, and they wouldn't necessarily die in an assassination attempt.

He rushed down the steps, and his companion on the roadside had already opened the car door. He rammed into the car, making it shake violently.

The moment he entered the carriage, the train started moving at a very high speed and sped off along the predetermined route.

The bodyguards who had chased after the car watched it drive away but did not give chase. One of them ran to a roadside phone booth and called Erwin to tell him what had happened.

At this moment, Madol helped Lance to his feet. Lance had a gunshot wound on his arm, and Madol always shielded him from the vital spot. Under Madol's watchful gaze, the gray-haired man finally couldn't resist the risk and fired a shot.

Although the shot hit Lance, the angle was too bad, and it only hit his arm.

If he had waited a little longer... there are no ifs or maybes. If he had waited a little longer, he might not have even been able to fire the gun.

"You're injured!" Madol exclaimed, somewhat flustered.

Lance calmly removed his tie and tightened it around his shoulder to slow the bleeding. "Get to the hospital first. Get everyone moving. I need to know who they are."

The surrounding reporters had recovered from their initial panic and were taking pictures incessantly, their eyes brimming with enthusiasm like molten lava!
Madol and his men helped Lance into the car and drove towards the best hospital.

The shooting was somewhat unexpected, but Lance was somewhat prepared. Whether Mador felt he was being followed or he had now damaged the interests of many people, these factors were enough to make some people risk trying to kill him.

The thin bulletproof vest he was wearing was a sign of his caution regarding this matter.

While Lance's convoy was running red lights on its way to the hospital, Gray Hair's group also encountered some unexpected problems.

The car lurched and sped off for quite a while before the team's leader had a chance to look at the gray-haired man beside them.

The gray-haired man's expression was particularly grim. He was wearing a dark wool overcoat, and there was no sign of red stains on his clothes at the moment, but the team's strategist still asked, "Are you injured?"

The gray-haired man nodded, then lifted his shirt to reveal blood seeping from a spot slightly below his shoulder. The guy sitting next to him cursed "Fuck" several times.

As the most educated and arguably the smartest person in the team, he's now somewhat losing his ability to think!

"Is it serious?" he asked.

The gray-haired man took a deep breath and continued to pull open more of his clothes. The bullet hole was located between his shoulder and chest cavity, making it difficult to determine whether it had penetrated. The only certainty was that the bullet was still inside his body.

"We need to find a place to remove the bullet and stop your bleeding."

"But we can't go to the hospital now, we need to find a way out of the city..."

"I remember there's a town about 40 or 50 kilometers to the west. Let's go to that town!"

The gray-haired man didn't speak; he closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure if he'd been hit when he fired; his attention was completely focused on Lance. He didn't feel anything when Lance was tackled and the others started shooting at him.

When he tried to finish off the enemy, even more people rushed over, so he had to leave.

The constant jostling and bumping of the crowd made him unaware that he had been shot until he got back into the car and struggled to sit up. Only then did the intense pain make him realize that he had been shot.

This wasn't the first time he'd been shot, but it was still a terrible experience!

The car sped towards the outskirts of the city; they had to get out before the roads in Redstone City were blocked.

Many people wonder why criminals are always so stupid.
If the police or someone else blocks the highway to leave, won't they take side roads or walk through the wilderness?

Many people share this view, believing that literary works, film and television works, and even reality are all nonsense, illogical, and unrealistic.

But actually, it's difficult to leave a city without taking those highways.

Whether it's a narrow path or an open field, in almost every place, cars cannot pass, especially in the southern regions where the ground is not very flat, so cars cannot be used and people can only walk.

Hiking in the wilderness of a country like the Commonwealth is definitely not good news. The land is vast and sparsely populated, and you may have to walk dozens or even hundreds of kilometers to find a place to live.

This journey may not seem very long, but if you calculate based on a walking speed of five kilometers per hour on flat ground, it would take twenty hours to travel one hundred kilometers.

This is the extent to which they can maintain a constant speed without stopping; theoretically, it's possible, but in reality, it's not.

Because people might be carrying things with them, and the terrain is rugged and not easy to walk, it's normal for it to take three or four days to travel 100 kilometers, and supplies will also be needed.

If supplies don't keep up, it will be difficult to recover physical strength, and the time will only be longer.

Moreover, in the wild, humans face harsh environments and terrifying wild predators. Once humans are freed from the armor forged by modern civilization and fight purely with their own strength in nature, they will still become food for those predators.

Therefore, escaping the city by going to the countryside is not a smart way; the best way is to drive away quickly.

The city was becoming dangerous, so they decided to leave first, rescue Gray Hair, and then consider other things.

The shooting of Lance immediately caused a stir throughout Indenor, and even Senator Cleveland called to inquire about the situation.

Upon learning that Lance's injuries were not serious, he reprimanded the governor and then ordered him to apprehend the murderer as soon as possible.

If the governor had been elected, Senator Cleveland wouldn't have reprimanded him like that; their positions are equal, and the governor might even be more powerful than the senator.

But the current governor is just filling a vacancy. If it weren't for his good luck, and Governor Wade's bad luck, he would never have reached his current level in his life.

He accepted the reprimand from the Cleveland senator in its entirety and immediately notified the Interstate Highway Police to set up roadblocks, while police sirens blared throughout the city.

Irwin has arrived, and Lance is in the hospital retrieving the bullet.

The doctor injected an anesthetic into the muscle near his wound and then removed the bullet with tweezers.

Next, some scraps of flesh were removed to speed up the healing process, and then the wound was stitched up.

Lance had injured his left arm and couldn't exert any force for a while. They originally planned to have him stay in the hospital for two days, but he refused.

"Do you know who did it?" Erwin asked angrily, hands on his hips. He wasn't blaming Mador, but if it weren't for Mador, Lance would probably have been shot more than once.

Mador stood to the side with a gloomy face. "That man looks like... an immigrant, and he has a military air about him, just like when we first came to the Federation!"

Lance lit a cigarette. "Immigrants who have the bearing of soldiers, then they may not necessarily be immigrants."

"The Dantras are unlikely to come to the Federation until the issues between us and them are fully resolved."

"Then the remaining range is much smaller, and the possibility of Slard is higher."

"Have someone investigate the illegal immigrants who have recently come to Redstone City, especially those who might be soldiers."

He paused. "Have the roads out of the city been blocked?"

Irwin grunted in agreement. "The governor immediately ordered the Interstate Highway Police to block all roads leading out of the city. Unless they can fly or abandon their vehicles and escape, they must still be in Redstone City." Lance stood up, gripping the armrest of his chair. He draped his trench coat over his shoulders and walked outside. "Then let's find a way to find them!"

The four people who had circled back from the blocked road had no choice but to return to the city. All the roads were blocked, and they had not even considered the idea of ​​going out into the wild.

If they were to leave from the wild, there's a high probability they would remain there permanently; they would never leave on foot until the very last moment.

“I know there are still some immigrants from the islands here. We can ask them for help and let us stay in their homes for a while.”

"And we urgently need to treat him now."

The team's strategist patted the back of the driver's seat and gave an address, "Go here."

The place he was referring to is a gathering place for Sumuli people. In previous years, the Sumuli government encouraged people to leave their hometowns and go abroad to develop, work hard, and make money.

After all, an island nation has limited resources, most of which are controlled by the four major families and political clans. For ordinary people, being born in Sumuli is practically a hellish start.

Many Sumuli people who had been idle into adulthood responded to the government's call and left Sumuli Island to seek opportunities abroad.

A large portion of the people came to the Federation because the Federation was very wealthy at that time.

But the Commonwealth people were xenophobic; they forgot that they were not the true owners of this land either, and discrimination was everywhere.

Compared to other loosely organized groups, the Sumuli people are very united, which has made them realize the benefits of sticking together for mutual support, so "little Sumuli" have appeared all over the Federation.

These communities are primarily inhabited by Sumuli people who uphold certain customs from the island. Even without forming secret factions, they strive to maintain loyalty and unity among their own people.

Going to Sumuli District is a good option, as there are doctors there who can help remove the bullets.

We'll figure out how to leave here once things calm down.

Christopher's company here had done quite well before, and many people in Sumuli knew about them, so they quickly found one of his former employees and from him, they found a local doctor.

A doctor who is not young, who was said to have been a teacher before and has some veterinary skills.

After coming to the Federation with my family, I could no longer teach. Fortunately, I had some basic surgical skills, so I could be considered a doctor here who could treat common injuries.

As he practiced on more and more people, his medical skills continued to improve.

Medicine is no different from other sciences in essence; it is simply a process of continuous trial and error.

However, the cost of trial and error is relatively high in medicine, while the cost of trial and error in other sciences may be lower.

Of course, this is just a public statement. Taking the laboratory that Lance and the medical group are collaborating on in the Asia-Pacific region as an example, the cost of trial and error is ridiculously low.

In the face of absolute science and the thirst for knowledge, life is just as equal and cheap as a pebble on the roadside or the compounds in a test tube in a laboratory!

The doctor glanced at the gray-haired man being helped in, then looked at the group of people. Only after someone vouched for him did he agree to accept this seemingly difficult job.

After a brief examination of the injury, he immediately began surgery on the gray hair.

He removed the bullet from inside, then used scissors to cut away some of the shredded flesh before finally stitching it up.

"This is all I can do. I can give him two more injections of the special medicine to prevent infection and inflammation, but I can't do anything about whether it has damaged other parts of his body or whether it will cause any long-term effects!"

The group thanked the doctor and then left; they now needed to find a place to hide.

The doctor originally didn't want to take the job, as gunshot wounds require a police report to be processed in the federal government, but he didn't want to cause trouble, so he had no choice but to accept the job.

Hopefully, this job won't cause him any trouble.

Later that day, police cars were constantly speeding along the road, which made the doctor uneasy.

He only learned from the newspaper the next morning that Lance had been shot, but had survived despite his injuries!

This gave the doctor a premonition that the gunshot wound victim he had treated last night was very likely related to Lance's case.

As a less-than-reputable clinic and a less-than-reputable doctor, he also had his own channels for obtaining information.

He knew that Lance was cracking down on the entire Indenau state's liquor market, and that under his threats, gangs throughout the state that disobeyed his orders were swiftly eliminated.

He used to think this was a good thing. Lance was a good person; after all, he was an honest man who made a living with his skills. He also hoped that society could be more stable so that he wouldn't have to live in fear of those gangs causing him trouble.

Even now, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Around 8 a.m., before his veterinary clinic even opened, someone started banging on the door.

"Coming, coming..." He put down his newspaper and reading glasses, jogged to the clinic, and opened the door.

The reason this is a veterinary clinic is that at this time, veterinary clinics do not require medical qualifications, unlike clinics that treat human patients and require complete licenses and permits.

The old doctor was a practitioner; he might not be able to explain why he did something or why he used a certain medicine, but he knew how to simply treat a simple surgical patient.

If you ask him to take the certification exam, there's a very high chance he'll never get any qualifications in his life. So this is just a veterinary clinic, and we occasionally treat injuries to some neighbors.

After all, federal hospitals charge much more than he does, so people are willing to save some money.

The moment he opened the door, seven or eight young men entered. As soon as they entered the house, they rushed into the inner room. Just as the old doctor was about to stop them, another man who looked more imposing slowly walked in from outside.

He had a smile on his face, but it was a cold smile that didn't convey any warmth.

He walked up to the old doctor and asked, "Did anyone come in for gunshot wound treatment yesterday?"

The person speaking asked the question while glancing at something that looked like a notebook or something similar on the counter.

He walked over, opened the notebook, and began to read. It contained some medical records.

The old doctor looked at the other person, somewhat at a loss. He thought for a long time, then said, "No."

He said that he probably felt that saying it like that wouldn't convince others, so he emphasized, "I'm a veterinarian, I don't know how to treat people, and I wouldn't dare to do anything reckless."

"No?" The young man nodded noncommittally. "You'd better tell the truth!"

The people who had been searching the rooms came out, looking for bloodstained gauze, cotton, or even bullets, but they found nothing.

Those things were dealt with immediately, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he thought about it.

The young man nodded slightly. Everyone had left the room. He looked at the old doctor and said, "You should know what I'm talking about." He pointed to the newspaper, which was a news report about Lance being shot.

"If you can provide any clues, we will give you ten thousand yuan."

"If you can help us find that jerk, you'll get 20,000 dollars."

"If you can lead us to catch that guy, you'll get 30,000 yuan."

“But if we know that you know something but don’t tell us…”, the young man looked around, surveyed the house, and finally fixed his gaze on the old doctor. “I will send you and everything here to hell!”

As he spoke, he picked up a pen and wrote a number on the newspaper. "Call me if you find anything. I hope you don't waste your time!"

We apologize for the intrusion and wish you a pleasant day!

He held his hat up and pulled it up slightly before turning and leaving.

The old doctor's gaze settled on the numbers in the newspaper...

Thirty thousand.

The autumn will bring about a reckoning.

(End of this chapter)