I Am Extraordinary Alone
Chapter 40 - 39: Terror Mountain

Chapter 40: Chapter 39: Terror Mountain

He Mountain.

As if it were some kind of taboo, it lay just in Konse Suburb, yet no one was willing to utter a single piece of information about it.

Except the dead.

Wei Tianyang had driven the stolen jeep all the way to the suburbs, then abandoned the vehicle beside a patch of weeds, punching it into oblivion.

The killing on the streets had ended just half an hour ago, and the peacekeeping forces were likely to deal with the aftermath.

Along the way, he had encountered two groups of radical soldiers standing next to a long wooden pole by the roadside, mourning the dead impaled upon it, where blood and feces had coagulated into dark, small lumps.

They were mourning themselves.

The afternoon sun was fiercely hot; in this era, spring and autumn no longer existed, leaving only winter and summer. Before the December cold wave, the temperature remained perpetually above 25 degrees Celsius.

The dozen or so soldiers, leaning on their Type 81 rifles, faced the bodies on the pole, their heads bowed in silent tears.

Wei Tianyang approached and inquired about the location of the He Mountain Prison Camp.

They said nothing, lifting their heads, revealing two white trails of tears streaking down their smoke-blackened faces, and with withered fingers, they pointed southeast.

He had wanted to take these men with him, but they had no such intention. After pointing the way, they resumed their silence.

Wei Tianyang didn’t spend any more time on them and continued toward He Mountain alone.

After about four hours’ walk, the sun had sunk halfway below the horizon, and blood-red mingled with deep blue in the sky. A small black hill appeared faintly against the night’s emerging curtain.

To call it a hill was perhaps generous; it was more like a rise in the earth, a blemish on the face, a chocolate chip embellishing a cake.

At the foot of the hill, the conservative faction’s outposts became dense, and no civilian vehicles could be seen on the road any longer. Wei Tianyang guessed that he had entered a controlled area.

The sun-facing side of the hill was draped in blood-red twilight while, in the darkness on the other side, lights twinkled faintly.

This place had been turned into a fortress. The cement road leading into the mountains had outposts every few dozen meters, with various sized cement buildings barely visible among the dense black trees and groups of armed soldiers patrolling in threes and fives.

And on the watchtowers, high-luminance spotlights were sweeping through the dark corners of the woods.

Wei Tianyang hid in the shadows, watching several military trucks loaded with soldiers exiting the mountain, passing the checkpoint at the mountain entrance, and driving toward Kongse City.

The fighting in the city must have alerted the troops here; the conservatives must be holding on tight to get away with acting up under the peacekeepers’ noses.

Wei Tianyang skipped the main road into the mountain, stealthily entering into the dark forest, following the scent all the way up the mountain.

Only when he delved deep into this low hill did he come to truly understand the weight of the words "prison camp."

He had thought that the cement buildings in the forest were barracks or outposts, but as he got closer, he discovered they were cages for torturing and mistreating prisoners.

These cement buildings varied in size, with the largest being as massive as a supermarket, while the smallest was as cramped as a roadside public restroom.

Without exception, all these structures exuded a pungent stench of blood and filth.

Wei Tianyang paused on a muddy slope in the forest, gazing down at the small white building below. The wall leaning against the slope had a small window barred with iron rods, emitting a dim yellow light, and a thick stench of blood and unsettling sounds spilled out from the window.

Through the small window, he saw a man stripped of his shirt, his wrists handcuffed and suspended in the center of the room, being tortured by two soldiers.

The man’s body was covered with large bruises, his chin smeared with blood, and he was half dead, his chest covered in vomit.

Wei Tianyang crouched down, slid down the slope, timed his move across the path, and darted into the forest on the other side.

He scaled a dense thicket and another white house appeared before him.

Peering through a small window, he saw a female soldier kneeling on the ground, her hands bound to a horizontal beam. The man standing beside her kicked her in the abdomen, causing the woman to vomit incessantly.

He turned his head and followed a winding path up the hill, avoiding the searchlights and guard posts. In the darkness, he smelled the stench of urine.

"Who’s there?!"

The soldier called out alertly.

The safety catch on the rifle was released.

Wei Tianyang’s red eyes glinted in the dark.

Suddenly, he burst forth, and with a swift motion of the Bone Knife, the soldier was split into four parts.

Approaching the summit, he caught the scent of wine and delicious food. He was certain that was where Li Fei was being held under house arrest, but alongside these aromas was the pervasive stench of decay.

It was an intensely strong stench that piqued his curiosity, prompting him to deviate slightly from the scent trail and head toward the source of the smell.

Wei Tianyang climbed a muddy slope, and as a frigid light shone from below, he lay prone on the ground, peering down into a large pit filled with the corpses of radical soldiers, three to four meters down from him.

In the distance, two large floor lamps illuminated the area, and four military trucks were parked with a group of soldiers herding a dozen or so prisoners out.

"Get out! Fast! Move! Idiots!"

Conventional soldiers cursed, pushing the prisoners off the truck. They fell heavily onto the mud, quickly getting several boots to their bodies.

Then, the soldiers pulled them by their arms to the edge of the pit and kicked and punched them mercilessly.

Some prisoners kept silent while others cried out and begged for mercy. They knelt on the ground, taking the beatings from the group of soldiers.

After the brutality, the faces of these prisoners were so badly kicked they were beyond recognition, cheeks swollen, blood smeared over their noses and chins— their faces were hardly discernible.

Then, amid the chaos of yelling and cursing, the conservative soldiers placed their Type 81 rifles against the prisoners’ foreheads and pulled the triggers.

The bodies of the prisoners fell into the pit. Those who were farther away lay in pools of blood and had to be carried by their limbs to be thrown into the mass grave.

Those who were warm and lively just moments ago turned into lifeless objects, becoming nourishment for the soil.

Wei Tianyang slipped away and followed the scent trail once more toward the direction of the wine and the sumptuous meal.

For some, war is meaningful and necessary.

Because they bear no cost.

As nightfall deepened, Wei Tianyang arrived at an open space.

In the center of this open space stood a three-story villa, only four to five hundred meters in a straight line from the mass grave.

This open space was not easy to approach: several searchlights illuminated the vicinity of the villa like daylight, and teams of soldiers patrolled around the building periodically— there might be bodyguards inside too.

Wei Tianyang squatted in the bushes, contemplating his strategy.

He still wasn’t sure of Li Fei’s stance, nor did he know what was happening inside the house.

The other side didn’t recognize him, time was limited—how could he communicate Du Yan’s and the Liberation Front’s intentions?

He was plunged into confusion.