48 Hours a Day Chapter 1017 - Fourth Person

Chapter 1017: Fourth Person

On the eighth floor of the Four Continents Hotel.
Zhang Heng had already taken off his slightly bulky firefighting suit and temporarily placed it at a corner. After dealing with his last opponent, he looked for battle traces left on each floor. And they finally led him here.
The bullet holes in the wall and the broken door showed that a fierce battle happened here not long ago. But now that the battle was over, the corridor had gone all quiet again.
If anyone else was in Zhang Heng’s shoes, their hearts must have sunk by now. It could mean that 0 had killed the last special operations team member, and the latter must have gotten the memory encoder ahead of him.
After that, 0 didn’t rush to the twelfth floor to meet No.7 and No.5, which meant that he might have decided to abandon his two team members and left the hotel. Considering that Zhang Heng was a step behind 0, it was almost impossible for him to get past the federal police’s blockade and prevent 0 from boarding the shuttle to the fifth floor. Such difficulty was enough to make anyone despair.
However, Zhang Heng himself did not seem affected. His expression hardly changed, and he had no intention to put his guard down. On the contrary, he was now more cautious than before, having to assume that 0 was on the same floor as him.
The next moment, Zhang Heng’s ears moved, and a bullet whizzed out from behind the conference room’s half-open door. It was as though a rattlesnake hiding among the rocks had suddenly attacked its prey. However, it looked like Zhang Heng was anticipating his appearance. Zhang Heng managed to dodge the bullet one step ahead of time. He then dashed toward the door in front of a room and used the protruding wall as his cover. As for the place where he stood earlier, there was now a bullet hole on the wall.
0 snorted, and his voice came from the conference room. He sounded anxious.
“How did you know I’m still here?”
“I killed almost all the members of your squad. Of course, I have to assume that their captain will avenge them,” Zhang Heng said.
“You’re lying. You know the package is not here, right?”
0 did not believe a single word Zhang Heng told him. The reason was simple. Zhang Heng did not look like he was in a rush from the very beginning. Whether it was the battle at the higher floor or the time of his arrival at the eighth floor, they were longer than 0 estimated. And Zhang Heng acted slow and steady. He definitely did not look like he was racing against time.
0 then tried to think like Zhang Heng again. If he were Zhang Heng, he would try to go down to the eighth floor to grab the package while the two special operations team were fighting with No.2, No.5, and No. 7. The fact that Zhang Heng was on took 0 by surprise.
“What’s going on? Did you not find the package? That’s a real shame,” Zhang Heng said as he fired two shots at the conference room. One of the shots hit the door panel, and another shot flew into the door’s crack. Unfortunately, it failed to hit the target.
“How did you know that the package is not with the special operations team?” After a while, 0 spoke again.
This was also the thing that puzzled 0. There were four special operations team members who fled into the Four Continents Hotel. And now, all four of them were dead. However, the package was still nowhere to be found. Among them, the man in Room 936 did not want to live anymore. And he wanted to bring a few enemies down with him before he died. That said, the package was definitely not with him. And the two special operations team on the twelfth floor were prepared to sacrifice themselves as well. They wanted to buy more time for their last ally. After staying in the sea of flames for so long, their fates were sealed. From this point of view, the last special operation team member should be carrying the package. However, after 0 killed him, it turned out the package wasn’t on him.
Nothing made sense to him thus far. Could it be the special operations team had gone crazy and placed the package with the man who was about to commit suicide in Room 936?
Something suddenly struck 0. “The guy who died in Room 936… Is he from the special operations team?”
After that, 0 tried to recall the situation in the room at that time. The explosion was indeed caused by the detonation of the exoskeleton’s power core. And they found the body in the ruins too. Unfortunately, the person was standing at the center of the explosion. Hence, his face was completely unrecognizable. They could only identify the person as a female. Under such a circumstance, everyone would assume the deceased to be a special operations team member.
As he racked his brains, 0 suddenly realized that the exoskeleton could be taken off from the user. So, if there were another person in the room when the explosion happened, everything would make perfect sense.
In other words, the number of the special operations team who died in the battle was not four but three. The last member was still alive. The package was definitely with that person.
Zhang Heng did not answer 0’s question. As he talked, he fired another two bullets at him.
0 had gotten the answer that he wanted.
There was nothing 0 could do about it. Zhang Heng had gone to the ninth floor before him. Thus, 0 realized that Zhang Heng must have found something other than the oil stains on the wall.
However, it was too late to think about such a thing now. 0 had to focus on the battle between him and Zhang Heng. He had to get rid of Zhang Heng first before going after the last special operations member and retrieving the package.
However, 0 also knew how difficult it could be. No one in the entire New Shanghai 0297 knew how strong Zhang Heng was other than him. As the latter said, he almost killed the entire emergency response team by himself. Such a tragedy had never happened in the history of the emergency response team.
Now that 0 had lost all his team members, the battle plan he came up with was scrapped. This final battle had become a heads-up match between him and Zhang Heng.
However, 0 did not lose confidence. As the captain of the emergency response team, he was the strongest among all the team members. By strongest, it did not just refer to his overall strength but also his combat abilities.
As team trump card, 0 naturally had to act like one. The next moment, he raised the gun in his hand again and fired at Zhang Heng. Neither side spoke to each other anymore; only the constant bangs and pops of the guns were audible.