"Cut the crap. Don't ask questions you shouldn't. Close the hatch!" The captain was a lean man who shouted at the top of his lungs. "Once we enter the site, don't report anything that moves. Open fire immediately!"
"Anything could happen in there. Remember, no matter what we see or hear, it's all fake!" the captain stressed. "I'll say it just once: even if you see the commander standing inside, blast the bastard!"
"Understood!"
On the outskirts, in a half-abandoned building.
In a room styled after the last century, an old man slowly opened his eyes. A simple wooden bed stood against the wall, whose peeling surface still bore patches of pale green paint.
Beside his pillow lay a silver pistol.
The cool moonlight streamed through the window, falling across Gong Zhe's haggard face. He had grown old—terribly old. His eyes were sunken, and his skin had an unnatural pallor, like a corpse that had been left lying around for ages.
He stared silently at the pistol beside his pillow. It belonged to one of the few men he could call a friend. The gun was that man's life, and he never let it out of his sight.
Now the pistol was here, which meant his friend was dead.
"Hee hee hee..." A strange laugh came from nearby. A woman dressed as a nurse sat with her back to him in the shadows, her shoulders shaking with laughter. "What, you recognize this gun, don't you?"
The laughter grew stranger, as if it came from all around him. "After all, this minister was your best friend, hee hee hee... You'd never have guessed that even as he lay dying, he was hoping you'd come save him."
"The Bone Carver, what a fearsome reputation. But now you're nothing but a washed-up