novelsite Chapter 90 Victor
Chapter 90 Victor
Wang Zhengyang opened the car door and disappeared into the rain. He didn't head straight for the apartment building's main entrance, but instead went around to the back alley. The trash cans there reeked of decay, the walls were covered in graffiti, and the ground was puddle with murky rainwater.
The entrance to the back alley was a rusty iron gate, ajar, the lock broken. Wang Zhengyang slipped inside, the stairs leading downwards and disappearing into the darkness.
He turned on his flashlight, but not with a strong beam, only using a faint halo to illuminate his feet. The staircase was narrow, the cement steps were cracked, and the handrail was rusty. The air was thick with the smells of mildew and urine, and a faint...slight stench of blood.
Wang Zhengyang stopped and examined the area carefully. The smell of blood was very fresh, no more than twenty-four hours old. The source was below the stairs.
He tiptoed down the basement. The basement was divided into two parts—to the left was a communal laundry room with several old washing machines and dryers, all covered in dust, clearly unused for a long time. To the right was a corridor with several rooms on either side, presumably storage rooms or extra space rented to residents.
The smell of blood was coming from the third room in the right-hand corridor.
Wang Zhengyang walked to the door. It was an ordinary wooden door, and there was no dust on the doorknob—someone had touched it recently. He didn't knock immediately, but instead pressed himself against the wall next to the door and listened carefully.
The breathing inside was faint, but there was more than one person. Three were lying down, and one was sitting. The person sitting had a well-controlled breathing rhythm, maintaining a soldier's alertness even in his injured state. Wang Zhengyang could "hear" that the person's finger was on some kind of metal object—most likely the trigger of a weapon.
He knocked gently on the door and whispered in Russian, "I am not an enemy. Natasha sent me."
There was a few seconds of silence inside. Wang Zhengyang could sense that the person sitting down adjusted their posture, pointing the gun at the door.
Then a hoarse voice came through: "Natasha... is she alright?"
"She's fine and safe now," Wang Zhengyang said. "She asked me to pass on a message: Remember what you promised her on the cruise ship in St. Petersburg when you were on her twelfth birthday?"
A suppressed gasp came from behind the door.
Wang Zhengyang continued, "She also gave me something." He took out a small silver pendant from his pocket—an Orthodox cross that Natasha had taken off her neck and given to him, with the inscription "To my beloved daughter Natasha, Father Andrei, 2005" on the back.
The door lock made a slight noise, and the door opened a crack, revealing a pair of wary eyes.
He was a middle-aged man, in his forties, with injuries on his face and his left arm hastily bandaged with torn clothing, blood seeping through. His eyes were tired, but still sharp, like a wounded but still dangerous wolf.
"Show me the cross," the man said.
Wang Zhengyang slipped the pendant through the crack in the door. The man took it and examined it carefully in the dim light, his fingers tracing the inscription on the back. His fingers lingered on the name "Andrei" for a moment, then he looked up, his wariness lessening slightly, but the gun was still pointed at Wang Zhengyang.
"Are you alone?" the man asked.
"one person."
"Prove you weren't coerced," the man said. "Now, take three steps back, raise your hands, and let me see you have no weapons to threaten me."
Wang Zhengyang did as instructed. He took three steps back, raised his hands to shoulder height, palms open. Throughout the process, his movements were steady and relaxed, without any hostility or fear—as natural as taking a walk in a park.
The door was fully open. The man—Victor—was holding a Makarov pistol with a strained arm, the muzzle pointed at Wang Zhengyang's chest. Despite his injury, his stance was impeccable, his gaze focused, and his breathing well-controlled. He was a rigorously trained professional soldier, maintaining his combat readiness even in near-death wounds.
There were three other people in the room. One of the wounded men, his abdomen bandaged, suddenly moved—he had been lying on the blanket seemingly unconscious, but now he abruptly rolled over, pulling a dagger from under him with astonishing speed. Although his movements were distorted by the pain of his wound, the explosive force he displayed in that instant still revealed extraordinary combat instincts.
Another man with a leg injury moved at the same time. He braced himself with one hand on the ground, and with the other hand, he drew a short-barreled shotgun from behind his waist, pointing the gun instantly. Although he could not stand due to the fracture, his shooting posture remained stable.
Only the man with the head injury was truly in a semi-conscious state, but he was also gripping a pistol tightly in his right hand, his finger on the trigger guard.
Wang Zhengyang didn't even move. He simply looked at the three men who, despite their severe injuries, could instantly switch into combat mode and calmly said, "Your combat skills are very high. If an ordinary person had come in, they would be dead by now."
He paused, then continued, "But you are all too badly injured. Victor, your left brachial artery is damaged, and you have lost over 800 milliliters of blood; Peter, your abdominal gunshot wound is infected, and your temperature is 39.2 degrees Celsius; Maxim, your right tibia and fibula have an open fracture, and there are already signs of early gangrene; Sergei, you have a traumatic brain injury with a concussion. If you stay here, at least two of you will die within twenty-four hours."
All four of them were stunned. Not because Wang Zhengyang was accurate—they knew their own injuries—but because he could so precisely assess each person's injuries and condition in such a short time, under dim light.
As Wang Zhengyang spoke, he took out his phone from his coat pocket, turned on the screen, and pulled up a video. It was a video that Natasha had insisted on recording before they left the train.
In the video, Natasha, pale but with a determined look in her eyes, faces the camera: "Uncle Victor, if you see this, please believe the person holding the phone. He saved me twice, once at the docks and once on the train. Dad said that if he were ever gone, I should trust you and all of you. Now, I trust this person. Go with him, please."
The video is only fifteen seconds long, but that's enough.
Victor's hands began to tremble. Not from fear, but from the shock of emotions. He lowered his gun, his voice hoarse: "Where's Andrei? Where's the boss?"
"That's exactly what I wanted to ask you." Wang Zhengyang put away his phone. "Natasha said there were five of you."
"The boss went to lure the pursuers away." Victor leaned against the wall, his voice weak. "I'm Victor, this is Sergei, Maxim, and Peter. Last night we were ambushed by the Iron Hand Gang near the docks. Peter was shot twice, Maxim was slashed, and my arm is ruined... The boss said we can't all die here, so he went out alone to lure the pursuers away."
"When did this happen?"
"It was four in the morning today," Victor said. "He said he'd come back to find us if it was safe. But we haven't heard from him since..."