Chapter 522: A Hopeless Woman
Jiang Zhiming and Kong Yunhong didn’t know what had happened. They couldn’t spot any threats, just the occasional cry of a raven.
The sound must have been quite a distance away and would have been barely audible. Even Xiao Luo had only inadvertently heard it as they drove by only moments ago. After a while, Xiao Luo finally determined its position and distance when the sound carried on another gust of wind. He opened his eyes, turned his head to the northwest, picked up his sniper rifle, and stepped out of the car without a word.
Jiang Zhiming didn’t say a word but used his hands to direct the Special Operations team members to follow in battle formation and stay vigilant.
…
…
About five hundred meters to the northwest of where Xiao Luo and the others were, five slovenly-dressed local thugs surrounded a woman.
She was an attractive and well-limbed woman with a trim waist and slender legs that were very eye-catching. She wore a tank top and mini-shorts and had wavy blonde hair as well as graceful features. Although her face was not especially attractive, in a war zone, she was like a delicious meal.
Next to her, an obese man laid in a pool of blood. He looked like he had been stabbed more than a dozen times as blood flowed copiously from his body, soaking the ground around him. His glazed eyes, gaping mouth, and the twisted look on his face was evidence that he had died a horrific and painful death.
“I… I am a journalist of Hua nation, if you… you guys dare to lay a finger on me, the troops from my country w-will… will come and tear this place part…”
The woman spoke to them in fluent English, but she was so terrified that she trembled, and her voice shook. Seeing her companion, the cameraman, brutally murdered by these thugs, she was almost on the verge of breaking down.
But her a.s.sailants could not understand a word she said, and they didn’t need to understand either. Their eyes glinted with nothing but l.u.s.t. They were talking in a language that the woman couldn’t understand and touching her all over.
“What are you doing… Don’t touch me!”
The woman’s body could not stop trembling in fear and despair, like a deer surrounded by five drooling beasts. She was overcome by the vile and pungent bodily odors of these thugs. It was the stench of filth as if they had not changed their clothes or bathed for a couple of months. She could even see the dried yellowish crusts that had formed around the corners of their eyes.
They were so filthy, they were stank!
She wasn’t like a teenage girl just out of society. How could she not know precisely what these thugs intended to do to her?
The woman struggled as she fought back and screamed hysterically. One of them was enraged by her resistance that he brutally pushed her to the ground. Suddenly, the woman became aware that her right foot was being pulled by a large, rough hand, and the next thing she knew, she was dragged across the ground. Obscene laughter filled her ears as the other thugs crowded around her, and she felt a burn on her back from being violently dragged across the graveled ground.
“Let go of me, you bast*rd! Let go of me…!”
She was screaming at the top of her voice, but there was nothing she could do. She felt like a pig being led to the slaughterhouse by a rowdy crowd of butchers. She was unable to fight them off and break free. She knew what was to come, but what could she do? Tears flowed from her eyes, and she suddenly realized how far away from the civilized world she was.
Her head was in a spin, her hair was disheveled, and all she could hear was their evil laughter…
“No… Stop it… No, please…”
Someone slapped her across her face, and it sent her into a daze. Her face throbbed, leaving a trace of blood at the corner of her mouth. It broke down any resistance she had to offer as she just laid on the ground sobbing desperately. Tears streamed from her cheeks, and her makeup was smudged.
The five thugs gulped excitedly at the sight of the scantily clad woman on the floor.
They were so engrossed that they did not even realize they had been surrounded. One of the men got on top of her.
Suddenly, a cold, black muzzle was pressed against the back of his head, and the realization of what was happening instantly washed away any lecherous thoughts he had. The thug raised his head and found a group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms standing around him. He then noticed that his companions were also held at gunpoint and had lifted their hands above their heads, looking at him in horror.
“Gulp!”
The rebel thug gulped again and immediately broke into a cold sweat. A chill s.h.i.+ver ran down his spine.
The thug, who was atop the woman, stared wide-eyed in shock and slowly raised his hands up.
“How fu*king dare you bully the women from our Nation, are you tired of living?”
Kong Hongyun was so enraged that he slammed the b.u.t.tstock of his rifle into the head of this thug.
Filled with rage, he used a large amount of force, and when the b.u.t.tstock hit the thug’s head, blood spurted out, and the man was thrown off the woman’s body, collapsing in a heap on the dusty ground.
Jiang Zhiming quickly took off his camouflage uniform and covered the woman lying on the ground, helping her sit up. “It’s over, you’re safe!” he said, a.s.suring her.
Hearing a familiar language, the woman opened her teary eyes in surprise. When she saw that there were markings of the Hua nation on their camouflage smocks, she cried tears of joy and threw herself into Jiang Zhiming’s arms, weeping uncontrollably. She was still in shock and was lost for words, just crying her eye out. What she had just experienced was like a terrifying nightmare that would haunt her forever.
Xiao Luo was the first to detect what had happened here, yet the last one to turn up. He thought that Jiang Zhiming and his squad were more than capable of dealing with the five thugs who had taken advantage of the war to commit this horrendous act. But when he got closer to her, he found that this woman looked quite familiar. “Are you… Tang Wantian?” he asked.
The woman was still in tears, nuzzled Jiang Zhiming’s arms, and when she gazed at him, she was shocked. “Xiao Luo?” she cried.
They stared at each other briefly in stunned silence. Xiao Luo never thought that he would come across Tang Wantian in Libya. He remembered the last time they met was at a cla.s.s reunion in Jiangcheng last year. At that time, he recalled her telling him that she was a journalist.