107: Chapter 107 The End of the World on the Banks of the Mekong River: The Suppression of Bandits in Tachileik (Part 1)

Tachileik, a major border town separated from Thailand by only a river, was once the most prosperous den of vice in the Golden Triangle, a paradise for countless adventurers and outlaws. But at this moment, it was undergoing an unprecedented catastrophe.

The air was thick with a pungent smell of burning—the scent of rubber tires fire mixed with the stench of rotting corpses. The sky was so gloomy it seemed about to collapse, with dark clouds pressing down on the turbid waters of the Mekong River, making it hard to breathe.

For the several thousand Shan State Army soldiers remaining in the city, this was the true end of days.

They were like a pack of rats trapped in a cage—anxious, desperate, and frenzied. Their retreat was cut off; although the Mekong River was right before them, the Thai military on the opposite bank had long since set up heavy machine guns and mortars, waiting in full battle array. Anyone who dared to swim across would be a sitting duck. And from the front, that god of death named "Zhang Cheng" was leading his steel torrent, closing in step by step.

Inside the coalition headquarters, the commander Zhao Yaoshi had completely lost his mind.

His general's uniform, usually pressed crisp and clean, was now covered in wrinkles and grease stains. His eyeballs were bloodshot like a spider's web, and he clutched a gold-plated Browning pistol in his hand, his entire being in a state of hysterical excitement.

“Hold them back! Hold them back for me! I'll shoot anyone who dares to retreat!” Zhao Yaoshi roared into the walkie-talkie, spit flying all over the table.

But only news of defeat came from the front lines.

“It's useless... it's useless...” Zhao Yaoshi slammed the walkie-talkie hard onto the floor, turned his head, and stared at his adjutant with sinister eyes. “Drag the hostages out! All of them! No matter which compound they're from, as long as they're alive, drag them out!”

“Commander, you mean to...” The adjutant shuddered.

“To block the bullets! Don't you understand?!” Zhao Yaoshi grinned hideously, a smile uglier than a crying face. “Doesn't Zhang Cheng pride himself on being a righteous army? Didn't he come to save his compatriots? Fine! I'll let him save them!”

“Drive those ‘piglets’ onto the streets like cattle! Tie them to the windows! Tie them to the rooftops! Tie them in front of our barricades and machine-gun nests!”

Zhao Yaoshi rushed to the window and shouted at the gray sky outside: “I don't believe Zhang Cheng dares to fire! These are tens of thousands of lives! Tens of thousands of Dragon Country people! If he dares to blow these tens of thousands of people to death, the spit of every single person in Dragon Country will drown him! I'm betting he won't dare to move!”

The order spread through the city as quickly as a virus.

In an instant, Tachileik turned into a living hell.

The iron gates of various compounds were crudely forced open, and countless ragged, emaciated victims were driven into the streets, beaten with rifle butts and whipped with belts, crying out as they went. Some had broken legs, some were blinded, and some had been tortured into insanity, but at this moment, they had all become the final lifeline for this gang of outlaws.

“Don't kill me... I beg you...” “Mom! I want to go home! Wuwuwu...”

The cries and pleas for help echoed through the sky, converging into a massive wave of resentment that struck the soul, heart-wrenching and suffocating. The entire city had been transformed into a giant shield made of flesh and blood.

Five kilometers outside the city, at the temporary headquarters of the Eastward Expeditionary Corps.

Zhang Cheng stood before a massive electronic sand table, his face terrifyingly grim. On the high-definition screen in front of him, real-time footage from drones was playing.

Under those high-definition lenses, every detail was magnified. He saw elderly people bound with wire in front of sandbags, he saw girls with tear-streaked faces tied to windows, and he saw those coalition soldiers standing behind the hostages, grinning hideously with guns in hand.

*Crack!*

Zhang Cheng’s hand tightly gripped the edge of the command console; he actually squeezed finger indentations into the hard alloy edge, his knuckles turning deathly pale from the excessive force.

“Beasts... these beasts!”

Beside him, Li Lanzhi covered her mouth, tears streaming down uncontrollably as her body trembled violently: “Brother Cheng, what... what do we do? We can't launch a frontal assault! Once we open fire, those innocent people... so many will die! Zhao Yaoshi is forcing us to withdraw!”

A dead silence fell over the headquarters as all the staff officers and commanders lowered their heads. This was a stalemate. To attack was to massacre their own compatriots; not to attack was to let the tiger return to the mountain, and who could stomach such an outcome?

Zhang Cheng closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That breath circulated in his chest, suppressing the surging, heaven-toppling killing intent. When he opened his eyes again, his pupils had become as cold and bone-chilling as ten-thousand-year-old profound ice.