When real estate developers design homes for the middle class, they always make sure to include a garage. The middle class sometimes pursues
When real estate developers design homes for the middle class, they always make sure to include a garage.
The middle class sometimes pursues a quality and style of living more intensely than the upper class. This is a very interesting social phenomenon, as the middle class always believes that “making themselves better will make their lives better in turn.”
They will demand that their house has a yard, some even hoping for a large tree or a swing set in their yard so their children can play outside.
They will also demand that their house has a garage, and that the garage is connected to the main building.
This way, when it rains, they don’t have to rush out of the car and let those damn raindrops fall on their hundred-dollar suits.
The garage was filled with a lot of things that weren’t usually used, all piled up here, along with some tools. This provided the Deputy Chief with some cover.
He was breathing heavily. He pulled out his pistol’s magazine and glanced at it—only four bullets left.
He had to get back to the car or back into the house. There was a shotgun in the house.
From his current hiding spot, there was about a five-meter distance to the door of the house. It sounded like it was just a blink of an eye away.
But in the blink of an eye, those men could kill him several times over.
His mind was in a mess right now. He looked up at the gunmen outside, who were hiding behind some cover and watching him with their guns raised. His adrenaline was off the charts like never before.
He took a deep breath, suddenly fired a few shots that made the gunmen outside duck their heads, and used that one or two-second window to rush into the house.
He fell heavily to the ground, and from outside came shouts of “He’s hit!”
The Deputy Chief’s face flushed slightly. He looked at his wife and son, who were standing in the living room screaming while holding the phone. A touch of despair appeared in his eyes.
They had come at such an inopportune time, or perhaps, a perfectly timed one. He had no preparation at all.
His son looked in terror at his bleeding leg. “You’ve been shot!”
The Deputy Chief nodded, but he had no time to say anything to his son. He could already hear those men approaching his house.
The tortured creak of the loose floorboard that his wife had been nagging him to fix for ages.
The squeaking sound carried a chilling quality.
He hopped to the utility closet under the stairs on the first floor and pulled out his shotgun, a classic Stuart model with a stock-fed design.
Shells could be fed one by one through a groove in the stock, providing a maximum capacity of seven plus one. He gripped the shotgun tightly, his trembling hands tearing open the box of shells and loading them in.
Dark shadows had already appeared at the door. After pushing in the last shell, he chambered a round. The shotgun’s simple yet ingenious mechanism kicked into action.
A shell was pushed into the chamber by a rod, and the hammer was cocked back in the process.
The Deputy Chief raised the shotgun and fired at the dark shadow at the door.
BANG!
His wife was so frightened she dropped the phone. His son also dropped to the floor. The shadow at the door swayed, and someone screamed in pain.
Beads of sweat covered his face. A yellowish shell was ejected from the port. A drop of sweat fell into his eye.
He blinked—a human instinct. At the same time, the sound of the back door opening came from the kitchen. The moment he turned his head, the front door was kicked open.
Attacked from both front and back. The moment he turned, he heard a gunshot from behind. He felt as if someone had pushed him. Combined with the gunshot wound in his thigh, he stumbled and fell to the ground.
Due to the instinctive reaction of falling, the shotgun in his hand fired a shot into the floor and then slipped from his grasp, landing nearby.
From the phone receiver, still dangling by the cabinet, came the voice of the police dispatcher. “Ma’am, was that a gunshot?”
But no one could answer.
The Deputy Chief’s wife knelt on the floor, holding her head, looking in terror at her husband who had collapsed on the ground. Her son was in much the same state.
The Deputy Chief felt it was getting hard to breathe. He looked down and saw no wound on his chest; the wound was on his back.
His lung must have been punctured. If he couldn’t get to a hospital right now, he was basically not going to survive.
From his current position, it was already very difficult to shoot, and the gun was not in his hands.
He struggled to turn over, leaning against the corner of the wall, panting heavily. Several young men walked in from outside, guns raised.
The Deputy Chief was somewhat surprised. He had thought he would be terrified, would feel fear, and would even beg the other party to spare him.
But now, he actually didn’t feel the slightest bit of fear. He didn’t feel… afraid or panicked, just because he was about to die.
He just raised his head and looked at the somewhat familiar young man before him. “You’re looking for me. My family is innocent. Let them go!”
His wife was so nervous she couldn’t speak, while his son looked at him with tears in his eyes, as if begging him to save him.
But now, he could do nothing but lie here, feeling life slip away from his body, bit by bit.
The young man looked down at him, a smile on his face that made him very uncomfortable. “Think carefully. What was your answer that night?”
The Deputy Chief instantly deflated, seeming to age in a moment. He lowered his head, the light in his eyes gone.
He didn’t even have time to say anything more before a bullet entered through his forehead. His whole body jerked violently and slumped to the side.
The young man shook his head and looked at the other two people in the room, who were too scared to even cry, and gave a slight nod.
The sound of gunshots instantly echoed through the room. The occasional muzzle flash cast shadows on the wall, and though it was only for a moment, it became eternal.
The gunfire in the room continued fiercely for a while, about ten seconds. Then, the young men helped a wounded unlucky bastard back to the car and quickly left the scene.
The Deputy Chief’s house finally returned to silence, as if no one had ever come, as if it had lost nothing.
The light in the Deputy Chief’s eyes faded away entirely. He seemed lost in thought, weighed down by vexation and regret.
But life is like that. For one question, you only get one chance to choose.
If those young men had failed that night, then their fate would have been the same as the Deputy Chief’s family, or even worse.
In that situation, whether a person was innocent or not was no longer important. In the end, those young lives would have just become a cold number in the newspaper.
They had pulled through. This had nothing to do with anyone else; no one had granted them a gift. They had fought for their lives and pulled through on their own.
But the Deputy Chief seemed to have lacked some luck. He didn’t pull through. That was all.
The group left quickly. Unfortunately, they left with a wounded man.
The bad news was that this unlucky bastard had been shot while breaking down the door, and the bullet had likely pierced his chest.
But the good news was, they were now going to a hospital to solve this problem.
About ten minutes later, seven or eight police cars quickly arrived. Someone in the community had called the police, having heard intense gunfire from this direction. And since it involved the residence of a police officer, the station took it very seriously and immediately dispatched a large number of people.
If it hadn’t involved a police officer, they might have had to wait at least another five minutes.
They had tried their best to hurry over, but they were still a step too late.
When they pushed open the door, the first officer to enter turned his face and said, “God.” The tragic state of the three people in the room was too much for him to look at.
“The Deputy Chief, his wife, and his child are all dead…”
They searched the entire house but found no one else. The medical examiner arrived late.
Looking at the bodies riddled with bullet holes, the medical examiner, while putting on his gloves, gave his professional judgment—suspected to be the work of the Lance Family.
The Lance Family was already well-known in the forensic circles of Golden Port. The medical examiners hated dealing with the bodies of people killed by the Lance Family because it was very troublesome.
Especially that madman Hiram. He could empty 55 bullets into one person’s body, which was a terrible challenge for a medical examiner.
He had to find every single bullet from the shredded flesh, and then try to piece the shredded flesh back together, putting them in their proper categories.
When a bullet enters the human body, it tumbles. The immense force tears apart the soft organs.
Various tissue fluids, bodily fluids, and liquids secreted by internal organs mix with blood in the chest and abdominal cavities. The pungent smell is so bad it can make you throw up yesterday’s dinner.
These few bodies also fit the Lance Family’s style. They had been pumped full of bullets even after they were dead. It was very distinctive.
The murder of a Deputy Chief in his home was definitely a provocation to the Federation police, a blatant slap in the face.
Hunter learned of this immediately, as the Deputy Chief was also his deputy, the deputy chief of the police department.
But after the initial rage, he found that there was nothing he could do.
He slammed his fist on the table, frightening the officers outside the door into silence.
“Bring back all the witnesses!”
About ten minutes later, they brought back a bunch of witnesses. Hunter personally supervised the questioning of these witnesses. He even took out some photos, but the witnesses did not provide the results he wanted.
Yes, Lance did not participate in this retaliation. That was to be expected.
He was a “Boss” now, not a minor character. A whole bunch of people were waiting to die for him.
At this crucial and tense moment, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go and personally kill the Deputy Chief’s family.
Hunter slumped back in his chair, dejected. Even though everyone knew that Lance had ordered this, they had no evidence.
Lance was no longer a minor character who could be easily framed.
To truly arrest Lance and send him to prison, they needed actual, effective evidence.
Hunter looked at the old photos on his desk, his own police badge gleaming in the sunlight.
He had never felt so dissatisfied with it before.
It had made him who he was, and it had also become his shackles.
(End of Chapter)
[Translator’s Note]
Check my another translation project at patreon.com/caleredhair: Title: Bloodstained Soldier. On Yuanling Planet, due to a food and oil crisis, the various nations that had not experienced large-scale war for a hundred years suddenly erupted into conflict. Tens of billions of civilians were swept into the war. As an Earthling, Hu Hao transmigrated for the second time. He originally intended to travel the world, but war broke out instead.