Mentioning her mother made Tongtong's eyes redden. "Auntie！ Tong Jiaqiang called me. He wants me to go and live with him."
"Don't go." The smile that had just appeared on Bei Yinyao's face vanished. "That ungrateful bastard still has the nerve to call you? He abandoned you and your mother when you were not even a year old. Have you forgotten?" Bei Yinyao's face was as cold as if it had been frosted over.
Tongtong said with tears streaming down her face： "Auntie！ I won't go."
Yang Luo overheard their conversation and thought of himself, thought of Little Yang Village, thought of that man. Because Tongtong's experience was very similar to his, except that he was luckier than her—his mother was now living happily, ever so happily...
It wasn't until the two women got into the car and Tongtong turned her head to glance at him that Yang Luo snapped out of it. That bastard stared reluctantly as the car disappeared from sight, then picked up his shabby bag to find a taxi. But after wandering around for ages, no one was willing to pick him up. With no other choice, he hopped onto a random bus and decided to go wherever it took him. |
Half an hour later, Yang Luo got off the bus. Looking up, he scanned his surroundings—he had no idea where this was. Just then, his stomach let out a loud growl. He muttered： "Damn it！ Let me fill my stomach first. Then I'll find a place to crash for the night and look for a job."
Yang Luo found a small eatery and ordered a bowl of hand-pulled noodles. As he ate, he complained loudly: "Damn it！ The food back home is way better. Those foreign things are complete garbage. Their people are garbage, their countries are garbage, and the food they eat is even more garbage." The other customers in the diner stared at him like he was some kind of freak, but this guy didn't even blush—he just kept loudly wolfing down his meal.
"Bang！"
A dull sound came from outside. No one knew what had happened. Yang Luo's expression suddenly turned very serious. If anyone who knew him had seen this, they would have found it very strange—this international thug could actually be serious too.
"Bam!" Another muffled sound rang out. Yang Luo put down his chopsticks, pulled a crumpled ten-yuan note from his pocket, tossed it on the table, and walked out.
Others might not know what that muffled sound was, but he did—it was gunfire, specifically the sound of an AK in burst mode. The shots came from the bank across the street.
Gotta say, the police in this international metropolis worked pretty fast. Within less than three minutes of the gunshots, over a dozen patrol cars had already arrived.
More than thirty cops quickly sealed the scene. Yang Luo, carrying his worn-out bag, walked over and stood outside the cordon. By then, a crowd had already packed in behind him. Far from scaring them, the gunshots only made them push forward excitedly, jostling for a better view. It was a perfect example of the Chinese people's inherent love of gawking—and besides, this kind of thing was something you'd only ever see in movies or on TV, so how could they not go crazy?
A fat officer with a first-grade police supervisor badge on his shoulder grabbed a megaphone and shouted, "Listen up, inside! You're surrounded. Put down your guns and come out to surrender. Holding out to the end is no way out. You know our policy—as long as you don't hurt the hostages, we'll give you lenient treatment..."
The fat guy kept shouting, spittle flying, for a good long while. Seeming to get thirsty, he reached into the car, grabbed a bottle of mineral water, took a sip, then raised the megaphone and kept yelling again.
But this time, before he could get a few words out, a gunshot rang from inside. The megaphone in his hand flew off with a crack, scaring him so bad he ducked his head and hid behind the car.
"Damn it！ Has the sniper shown up yet？" The fat guy wiped the sweat off his forehead—hard to tell if it was cold sweat from fear or just plain heat.