The Sweetness of the Seventies-Chapter 1240 - 1208: Encirclement and Interception

Wang Zhiliang gave a hand signal to his subordinates behind him. The people opposite understood the gesture.

The men in the back quietly entered the room with their wooden crossbows.

As for the treasurer, he had been handed over to Qi Ling, instructing them to keep a close watch on him to prevent him from committing suicide out of fear of punishment or escaping.

They had already obtained the route of the underground tunnels, and there were two groups of people blocking outside the tunnel entrance, so now they could boldly enter the underground chamber.

The people who were drinking were taken aback when the door to the cellar opened again, thinking it was the treasurer coming back.

Lu Jiajia felt somewhat impatient in her heart too, feeling that her uncle didn’t trust her.

However, as she looked up, just about to speak, she saw several people with wooden crossbows coming in, and shouted: "Run for it!"

They were surrounded.

The drinkers were startled and immediately ran into the tunnel, where they had previously prepared an escape route.

The workers had already fired their crossbows, hitting two people in the legs, the middle-aged man and a young man drinking, both unable to move well and were promptly subdued.

Lu Jiajia was the first to spot those men and dodged the bullets to enter the tunnel.

But at this moment, she had no time to notify the people who were digging; she immediately fired three crossbow bolts into the inside, continuous and uninterrupted, which was the predetermined signal they had agreed on: the base was surrounded, escape quickly from another exit.

The mountain cave only allowed one person to bend down and walk through, but for those accustomed to crawling through thieves’ tunnels, it was already quite spacious.

Lu Jiajia led a few people to move quickly through the tunnel, with those who followed only thinking about hurrying out of this escape route.

The eight or nine people who were digging also didn’t dare to continue and left from another entrance.

Wang Zhiliang blocked the tunnel entrance to prevent unnecessary casualties.

The other two exits were already ambushed, waiting for those people to come out before attempting to capture them, which would be better than doing so in the dark and cramped thief tunnels.

Lu Jiajia and another group of people reached the outside and, seeing no one around, quickly said: "Brothers, let’s start running towards the woods now, if we can climb over this mountain, we’ll be able to escape."

"Yes, Miss." The people consented and followed Lu Jiajia.

However, just after they’d run a few dozen steps, they were surrounded.

"Put down your crossbows, stop resisting," one of the workers said.

Those were vicious tomb raiders; how could they be so docile? They immediately opened fire with their crossbows.

One worker couldn’t dodge in time and got hit in the thigh.

Seeing that these people were stubbornly resisting, Liu Jianjun ordered: "Open fire with the crossbows."

"Rat-a-tat-tat..." Several crossbow bolts had already taken down a few men.

Lu Jiajia, seeing this and knowing they only had eight people against twenty, realized they could not escape and raised her hands: "I surrender, I surrender..."

Liu Jianjun stopped seeing this, but when Lu Jiajia saw they paused, she immediately led people to jump off the nearby cliff, shouting: "Jump down."

The cliff wasn’t actually very high, about a dozen meters, and there were trees and grass. With some luck, they would only suffer minor injuries and not die from the fall.

However, just when they thought they had escaped, Cui Heng was already waiting for them below, picking up stones and striking them on their pressure points, causing them to collapse to the ground, unable to move well.

Liu Jianjun arrived, capturing them all.

Cui Heng had already quietly left.

Liu Jianjun wanted to find the person, but couldn’t see anyone; however, he was certain someone had come to help.

Probably one of the leaders’ bodyguards.

Anyway, they had already caught the people and sent them off to the police station below; he took two men with him for a search.

Another team was also blockading another exit, capturing seven people; together with those caught before, there were a total of nineteen captured.

Two were still missing.

So, they prepared to encircle from three directions.

Cui Yong saw the people helping and was discovered. Upon seeing someone going in, he quickly stopped them, saying: "Those thief tunnels are very small, you won’t be able to utilize your skills in there, and these tomb raiders are skilled at moving in the tunnels. If you go in like this, you’ll cause casualties."

"What should we do, then?" asked a team leader. They were his subordinates, and although he wanted to achieve merit, he didn’t want his people to die.

Cui Yong smiled and said: "Actually, it’s simple. You can smoke them out. They have no food or drink inside; once the smoke gets in and they can’t stop crying and breathing, they’ll naturally come out."

"What if they brought oxygen masks, and our smoke won’t work?" the team leader said hesitantly.

"You launched a surprise attack; they didn’t know and certainly didn’t have food to take in. With that, how long do you think they can last?" Cui Yong said, "Moreover, those people might have blasting caps, so going in is pointless."

Hearing this, the team leader felt that Cui Yong made sense and said: "Thank you, elder. You are..."

"I live in the Divine Dragon Temple up on the mountain," Cui Yong said, "If you’re not at ease, I can wait here until your operation is over before going back."

"Then we’ll have to trouble you, elder." The team leader said, and then began looking for some semi-dry wood to create smoke in the tunnel.

The other two locations received the news as well. However, the exit on Wang Zhiliang’s side was near the edge of the tourist street; smoking could potentially cause panic among the surrounding shops, so they directly blocked that exit to prevent smoke from coming out there.

Having blocked that exit, there were only two left, and at each one, they produced smoke.

There were indeed two people inside; they had originally planned to wait for the others to leave and then go out, but now with the smoke and the air becoming thinner, they didn’t know what to do?

"Brother Xiao Wu, what shall we do?" Xiao Liuzi asked. They were orphans adopted by the Lu Family, used to doing menial labor and learning some skills, never expecting to get caught this time.

"Cough, cough!" Brother Xiao Wu coughed twice, "We can’t escape this time!"

"So we can only face prison," Xiao Liuzi said with a sob, "I don’t want to go to jail!"

Brother Xiao Wu whispered, "Don’t be scared, when we go out, if they interrogate us, we just say that we’ve always been orphans and only later did we realize we were trafficked by the Lu Family, so we could only do digging work, never getting a share of the real treasures, and we didn’t kill anyone or traffic relics; at most we’ll face a few years in prison."

Xiao Liuzi was startled and said: "Isn’t it bad for us to say that? After all, we were raised by the Lu Family."

"Indeed, the Lu Family raised us, but our lives there were worse than servants’. Why should we protect the Lu Family?" Brother Xiao Wu said, "By saying this, we can get a lighter sentence and get out earlier. Then, brother, once we’re free from the Lu Family, we can head south to find a decent living, which is better than digging tunnels for life. After all, we do the digging, but nothing ends up in our hands; we’re merely exerting ourselves."