Chapter 23: Raven Messenger

  A large container truck drove on the highway for almost an hour and a half, and Jin Hu and several others sat idly in the back of the carriage for an hour and a half until the car slowed down to a stop.

  Aidan pushed open the car door and jumped out first, Jin Hu followed him out of the carriage, looked around and found himself in a courtyard. As soon as his men got down, three or four people went up to pull down the inclined plane.

  Ivan rushed up to a man in his forties with a goatee and said, "Old Pete! Long time no see!" He then stretched out both hands and gave the old man a hug.

  "How's it going?" Pete asked, embracing Evan and pushing him back a bit to examine the cuts on his face. "Looks like you've got a little trouble!"

  "After wiping it off, one of our teammates was shot. I simply bandaged him," Evan said, pointing at Lautrenso and continued: "Next, your people will help deal with this."

  Pete said to Bernie, who was leaning on his shoulder, "Take him to that small room over there, the doctor will be here soon." Then the old man pointed to the two cars parked in the yard and said, "These are the cars I've prepared for you."

  Shin Hu looked at the back of a broken pickup truck, which was still pulling a trailer with a small window in the back. A horse's head stuck out from it. Another car was even more impressive - a Cadillac convertible with bright red seats. It was as flashy as could be.

  Evan looked at Pete: "Find us a place to rest for about ten minutes, and then we'll leave after the doctor has checked us out!"

  Pete nodded and said to a young man behind him, "Go to the room and help the wounded." Then he beckoned to Evan.

  Jin Hu and several others watched as Evan followed the old man, picked up their things and followed suit. Just as they were about to enter the door, they saw the old man turn his head and say to the people busy on the large trailer: "You guys hurry up! Don't delay too long!" After that, he led Evan and several others into the house.

  As soon as he entered the house, he walked about ten meters forward and arrived at another door. Looking at the old man pushing open the door, Jin Hu walked in and saw a long bar counter. The large glass window facing the street had already been blocked by black curtains. At this time, the stools beside the tables in the bar had all been placed on the tables, with only two lamps lit on the bar counter.

  The old man walked to the counter, picked up a tray and went behind the counter, directly grabbed a towel and started twisting open the beer tap, tilted the cup and poured in beer, filled one cup and pushed it over along the counter.

  Jin Hu, Clyde, Evan, Duncan and Kim sat on the stools at the edge of the bar, drinking beer and chatting.

  The old man fished out a box from under the bar, opened it, pulled out a cigar and put it in his mouth, then gestured to the crowd. Evan and Duncan each took one from inside, while Jinhu waved his hand and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up.

  "I didn't think you'd only have one casualty this time," the old man said, puffing on his cigar as he looked at Evan. "Last month a group of people raided another small town and brought back two corpses along with their loot."

  "Clyde said, 'If it weren't for Brian, I'd have died three times tonight!' He clinked his glass against Jinhu's beer cup: 'Thanks, bro!'"

  Jin Hu smiled and took a sip of wine, jokingly saying: "Without you, who would Deng Kun bring along to deal with the women on the bed?"

  Kim and a few others burst out laughing. Pete, who had been listening to Clyde's words, chuckled and asked: "Tell me what happened, I want to hear it too."

  Kim spoke up, Kim's words were a bit mysterious, saying that Brian had his hands crossed over his chest with two guns firing, as if he was the driver who shrunk his head and saw it from the back of his head.

  Jin Hu shook his head and said, "You're also too good at talking nonsense."

  Kim said: "How is that possible! I saw you press Clyde's head five times", and then looked at Clyde and asked: "Is that right?"

  Clyde laughed and said: "Yes! Yes!"

  Jintiger shook his head again and stopped talking. The more you talk, the more excited Kim becomes. It's better to keep quiet. He himself remembered that he had pressed Clyde's body only two or three times in total.

  Pete listened with a smile on his face and said to Jinhu: "Good kid!". He turned to Evan and said: "You've found a good teammate".

  Aidan listened and looked at Jin Hu with a smile: "He's not only good at martial arts, but also has a keen sense of danger, like a hunting dog."

  Jintiger smiled after hearing that. In the US, using dogs as a metaphor is a compliment and generally doesn't carry any derogatory meaning. If he had heard this back home, the cup in his hand would have flown at the other person's forehead.

  After chatting for about ten minutes, a person walked in and said to the old man: "The doctor has already seen him, there's no big problem, just rest and take care of himself."

  Ivan said to Pete, "Then we should go!", and stood up from the stool. Jinhu and several others naturally followed suit.

  When several people arrived at the backyard, the large trailer and the car that had brought them were already gone. Lautrenso, Berni, and Joy were already standing next to the car, even their clothes had been changed, now all three of them were dressed in cowboy attire.

  "How is it?" Evan asked Lautrenso.

  Lautrenso smiled: "Nothing serious! After taking medicine and getting an injection, I'm fine now, just need to be careful when walking."

  Evan nodded: "You guys drive the pickup, and Brian and I will take the sports car back on another road." After nodding at a few people, he beckoned to Jinhu and walked with him to the sports car. They changed clothes in front of it, and suddenly the two transformed into a pair of stylish young men.

  Got on the car and put the changed clothes in the trunk, drove to the entrance, waved goodbye to Bernie and others, and headed back on the road.

  "Pete and Robin are called crows here," Ivan explained, starting the car again to face Jinhu.

  Crow? What a name, it's not a good bird. Jin Hu heard and asked: "Why is it called this name?" It would be better to change to a magpie or an eight-brother, which are more auspicious.

  "They're actually called Raven Messengers!" Evan chuckled and continued, "They generally have a wide range of contacts in their daily lives. If they find someone suitable, they can introduce them to teams with fewer people, just like Robin introduced you here. They also collect useful information and pass it on to nearby teams like ours. When we receive the messages they send, we'll investigate and roughly understand the situation, then pass the information on to other state teams through them as well. We don't know the exact locations of the other teams; we've collaborated with other teams twice before, but everyone wore masks, so all we knew were their codenames, just like others only know us as the Starlight Riders. Most of the information is exchanged through them."

  Wow! Isn't this just an intelligence network? Following Jin Hu, he asked: "Who came up with such a brilliant idea?"

  Evan smiled and said, "You'll understand when you have the chance. Believe me, that day won't be far away." Evan drove the car, glanced at Jinhu for a moment, then turned his head back to look at the road ahead.

  Still keeping secrets? Jin Hu glanced at Evan and didn't ask any more questions, thinking to himself: Actually, whether he knew or not didn't make a big difference, as long as everything was fine now. Evan took on the task, so he didn't have to consider anything else, and when the time came, he could just exert some effort and the money would flow into his pockets. If it weren't for the fact that there were still warships to be opened up, Jin Hu might have thought that such days should never end. Now he already had assets of over $2 million, which was equivalent to 6.5 times more in soft currency.

  Although I felt a sense of "it's like this" when I first met Xu Mao, now that I think about it, this old guy Xu Mao may not be living as carefree and at ease as he seems, but is actually being manipulated by Ning Guoquan and is in a difficult situation.

  Jin Hu couldn't help but laugh at this point. Ning Guoquan, that brainless guy, had actually brought out his guerrilla skills to the fullest. When there were many people around, he couldn't be found, and he never dared to approach Xu Mao's core territory. Xu Mao would occasionally send someone over, but it was impossible for him to avoid getting shot by Ning Guoquan's "black gun". With too many people, the target became too big, and although the police were useless, they weren't just eating free meals either. It was really unexpected that Ning Guoquan had become a good citizen, immediately dialing 911, becoming an honorary narcotics detective in New York. Now Xu Mao's underlings had almost become a joke in the underworld.

  Looking at the smile on Jinhu's face, Aiven asked: "What's up?"

  Jin Hu told Evan about it, and Evan thought for a moment before saying, "Is it possible to get this good hand to join our team?"

  After hearing Ivan's words, Jin Hu was stunned for a moment. How did this Ivan also get infected with this disease? Seeing a good hand and wanting to pull it over! After thinking about it, he said to Ivan: "It's not possible, now he is thinking of killing others to avenge."

  "He wants to kill someone, we go help him kill, let him have time to consider" A sentence from Evan made Jin Hu a bit dazed. In order to give people time to consider, do you want to help others take out their enemies? Facing Evan said: "I'm afraid it's not possible! The person he wants to kill is the head of the New York gang I mentioned last time! Now both open and secret forces are concentrated together, only a strong attack can work, but the loss we fear is unbearable".

  Then I analyzed the situation with Evan, and Evan shook his head after listening: "It's indeed not easy to succeed!"

  It's not that others can't, but even regular troops would find it hard to fight in an alleyway, let alone a few people from the Jinhu side against a well-prepared gang. And Evan had also fought them before, they were good too, and only managed to take out three of them when they ambushed, in a head-on battle everyone can only rely on luck.

  Two men drove until dawn and stopped in a small town to have breakfast. Jin Hu flipped through the newspaper, yesterday's incident was on the headlines: A border town erupted into war, gangsters exchanged fire, at least twelve people were injured or killed.

  Jin Hu looked at the newspaper and sighed, looking at the IQ of American newspapers. At least twelve people were injured or killed, but they wouldn't tell you exactly how many. You can't even refute it, since they said "at least".

  The waiter who came to add coffee thought Jin Hu was lamenting the death of someone and comforted him, saying: "Sir, that place is known as America's Iraq! One or two people die every month!"

  I don't know if this person knew that one-third of the dead were killed by those dressed as young masters in front of them, would they stare their eyes out.

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