141: Chapter 141 Ledgers and Vipers

"System, equip [Old Detective's Obsession]."

Chen Mo muttered inwardly.

That cold, stinging sensation washed over him again, but this time, instead of a chaotic rush of memories, it brought a strange sense of clarity.

It was like a person with severe myopia suddenly putting on glasses; the entire world looked different to him.

The previously chaotic, rubble-strewn ground was now filled with information in his eyes.

Beneath the rock on the left was a hair-thin tripwire connected to two anti-personnel mines; the direction the withered grass on the right had been flattened was wrong—clearly, someone had just been lying there; and beneath the soft sand ahead, old-fashioned bear traps were buried.

This was more than just an enhancement of vision; it was an intuition honed through countless brushes with death.

"Don't move."

Chen Mo suddenly reached out to stop Nightingale, who was about to inch forward.

Nightingale paused, looking at Chen Mo in confusion.

Chen Mo pointed to a spot less than five centimeters in front of her toes.

In the green field of view of the night-vision goggles, a razor-thin fishing line stretched across at a height of ten centimeters.

Both ends of the line were connected to two grenades taped together, their pins already half-pulled. A single touch would send them both flying.

"These guys might be stupid, but they certainly don't skimp when it comes to killing."

Chen Mo pulled the Damascus steel hunting knife from his boot and carefully cut the fishing line.

A layer of cold sweat broke out on Nightingale's back, and she nodded.

The two bypassed the trap and, using the shadows of the rocks, crept silently toward the center of the depression like a pair of geckos.

By this time, the sound of the electric drill had stopped.

"Boss, the hole is too deep; we can't get the explosives in."

A lackey, covered in dirt and grime, ran over and shouted at the bald man called Hammer.

"If we force an explosion, we might collapse the entire entrance, and then whatever's in there will be buried."

"Trash!"

Hammer slapped the lackey across the face, his spit flying everywhere.

"Mr. Rogers said we must get that thing tonight! If we don't, we'll all end up at the bottom of the ocean!"

He paced around anxiously twice, then suddenly pointed to a dead Joshua tree nearby. "What the hell is that? How is it growing in a crack in the rock?"

Chen Mo, lying behind a giant boulder thirty meters away, narrowed his eyes.

That was the thirteenth tree.

In Albert's memories, Ross had said, "I'll wait for you under the thirteenth tree."

But this wasn't just a landmark.

With the blessing of [Old Detective's Obsession], Chen Mo saw a rock with a slightly darker color at the roots of the dead tree.

The surface of that rock was smooth, clearly touched often.

"Nightingale, ten o'clock position, the guy with the detonator." Chen Mo lowered his voice. "Wait for my command."

"Copy that." Nightingale's gun muzzle locked steadily onto the target.

Chen Mo picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground and tested its weight.

"Do it!"

Bang!

Nightingale pulled the trigger.

The low, muffled report of the M110 echoed through the canyon.

The lackey holding the detonator had his head explode like a watermelon, splashing red and white matter all over Hammer, who was standing nearby.

"Enemy attack! Take cover!"

Hammer reacted extremely quickly, rolling on the ground to hide behind a large rock.

The lackeys instantly fell into chaos, raising their AKs and firing wildly at the dark rocks surrounding them.

Bullets struck the rocks, sending sparks flying.

In that very moment of chaos, Chen Mo violently threw the rock in his hand.

The rock whistled through the air and struck the smooth rock at the base of the dead tree with precision.

Click.

A dull mechanical sound rang out.

The stone wall that hadn't budged despite all the explosions suddenly recessed inward, revealing a one-meter-square dark hole.

"It's open! The door's open!" a lackey shouted in surprise, subconsciously wanting to rush in.

But just as he took a step, the ground beneath his feet suddenly split open.

That was a natural fissure Chen Mo had spotted long ago, covered by loose soil.

"Ah—"

The scream faded rapidly as he fell, and only after a few seconds did a dull thud follow.

This stunned everyone.

"Who is it! Come out!" Hammer roared from behind the rock. "Daring to oppose the Rogers family—do you not want to live anymore?"

Answering him was a grenade that rolled to his feet.

"I want to live, but you might not."

Chen Mo's cold voice rang out.

Boom!

The blast wave flipped over two unlucky guys standing nearby.

Taking advantage of the smoke and dust, Chen Mo charged out like a cheetah.

The hunting knife in his hand traced a silver arc, slicing the throat of the nearest gunman.

Immediately after, he snatched the rifle from the opponent's hand and fired a short burst at an enemy trying to pop their head out on the other side.

Rat-tat-tat!

Three bullets, three headshots.

This was the terrifying combat intuition brought by [Old Detective's Obsession]; every shot, every movement had been honed through thousands of battles, with no wasted motion.

Nightingale provided precise fire suppression from afar; whenever someone dared to poke their head out, it immediately invited a lethal bullet.

In less than two minutes, Chen Mo was the only one left standing in the depression.

Hammer lay in a pool of blood, his thigh blown off, staring at Chen Mo with venomous eyes.

"You... you're the one from the casino that night..."

Pfft!

Chen Mo didn't give him the chance to talk nonsense; he raised his gun and ended his suffering with a single shot.

"Now it's quiet."

Chen Mo stepped over the corpses covering the ground and walked to the newly opened hole.

There was no treasure inside, only a rusty safe.

An old-fashioned mechanical combination lock, with a long-rusted copper padlock hanging on it.

Chen Mo didn't have a key, but he had a gun.

Bang! Bang!

Two shots broke the copper lock, and Chen Mo pulled the safe door open with force.

A smell of old, moldy paper rushed out.

Inside lay a thick black notebook. The cover was slightly damp and warped, but the gold-stamped letters were still visible: R.

Ross's ledger.

This wasn't just a ledger; it was a nuclear bomb capable of blowing half of Las Vegas to the sky.

Chen Mo took out the ledger and casually flipped through two pages.

Densely packed numbers and names.

Mayors, council members, judges, police chiefs... of course, the one who appeared most frequently was Carl Rogers.

"Brilliant."

Chen Mo closed the ledger and tucked it into the inner pocket of his tactical vest. "This thing is worth even more than I imagined."

"Boss, we have to go." Nightingale jumped down from the rocks. "The gunfire just now will definitely attract more people."

"I'm afraid it's already too late."

Chen Mo looked up at the edge of the cliff above the depression.

The originally pitch-black night sky suddenly lit up with over a dozen blinding beams of light.

They were high-powered vehicle-mounted searchlights, shining down from all directions, illuminating the entire depression like high noon and leaving Chen Mo and Nightingale with nowhere to hide.

Hum—

A crackle of electricity sounded as someone turned on a loudspeaker.

"Mr. Chen, good evening."

It was an old but vigorous voice, carrying the arrogance typical of someone in a high position. "I am Carl Rogers. I must say, your skills surprise me. It seems those few incompetent subordinates of mine were indeed no match for you."

Chen Mo shielded his eyes from the blinding glare and curled his lips in a mocking smirk.

"Mr. Rogers, coming all the way out to the wilderness in the middle of the night—aren't you afraid of catching a cold or throwing out your back?"

"Leave the item behind."

Rogers's voice turned cold. "I can leave your body intact. If not... this Red Rock Valley is quite large; no one will care if a couple more corpses are buried here."

At the edge of the cliff, countless dark gun muzzles poked out, dense and packed, like the fangs of death.

"Boss?" Nightingale backed against Chen Mo. Although she held her sniper rifle, she knew that in this situation, fighting head-on would only lead to death.

But Chen Mo smiled.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and, under the aim of hundreds of guns, lit it unhurriedly.

"Intact body?"

Chen Mo took a deep drag of the cigarette and exhaled the smoke toward the blinding lights.

"Rogers, have you forgotten what I do for a living?"

He patted the hard ledger on his chest.

"I am the Corpse Collector. Generally speaking, it's only my job to collect others' corpses; no one has ever been able to collect mine."

"Fire!" Rogers lost his patience.

Rat-tat-tat-tat—

Gunfire poured down like a torrential rain.