David knew that as time passed, the Warp storms that once shrouded the seventy-five thousand light-year territory of the Empire would one day descend upon this world.
By his own estimation, that day was not far off. If he could lure the Trisolarans into the Warp, he would have the means to deal with their fleet. However, there was a problem: the Trisolarans were extremely cautious. Without absolute certainty, they would not easily enter the Warp.
Hearing David's response, Wei Cheng gripped the steel pipe in his hand once more.
"But the Leader never forbade punishing humans."
Pan Han's voice came from ahead, carrying a hint of resentment. "It's still unclear which side the Leader even stands on."
"At least it's not the Adventists' side," Shen Yufei retorted bluntly.
"Enough! Shen Yufei! You—"
Pan Han angrily drew his sidearm. Seeing the dark bore of the gun, Wei Cheng's body tensed instantly. He could feel his heart thumping. As a scholar who had lived long in an era of peace, the mere scent of gun oil and gunpowder made his fingers tremble.
But before Wei Cheng could react, Pan Han's voice cut off abruptly. Under the moonlight, Wei Cheng squinted and saw that Shen Yufei was now holding a pistol of her own.
Damn! These people are desperate criminals! Wei Cheng cursed in his head. Where did they get all these weapons?
In contrast to the tensed Wei Cheng, David remained calm. The fact that the ETO had guns wasn't news. Forget simple desperate criminals; even Middle Eastern crusaders or the armed forces of small nations in South America and Africa were nothing compared to the ETO. This was in a country with strict gun control; in Western countries or on the high seas, the ETO later produced small nuclear bombs.
If the Earth Defense Force hadn't been equally unscrupulous, using nanomaterial weapons for a sneak attack, who knows what kind of bizarre, era-transcending weapons the Adventists could have pulled off the Judgment Day.
David calmly patted Wei Cheng's shoulder. "It's okay, relax."
Hearing David's voice, Wei Cheng felt a wave of relief and a flicker of hope. Is it because their guns are fake? he asked internally.
"No, the guns are real, and so are the bullets," David answered flatly. He watched Pan Han, who stood frozen as Shen Yufei pointed her weapon at him.
David closed his eyes, and an invisible wave of psionic energy swept through the forest and the temple. Since his meeting with Shi Qiang, David had sensed that Pan Han wasn't the only stalker. Two ETO agents had been tailing him and Shi Qiang since they parted ways.
David didn't recall this specific conversation between Pan Han and Shen Yufei occurring in the original story. Clearly, his presence had caused these two to cross paths early, triggering a premature explosion of their conflict.
"But you don't need to worry," David added, easing Wei Cheng's mind.
True. Even if I'm exposed, Shen Yufei shouldn't kill me, Wei Cheng thought, wiping sweat from his lip. He carefully recalled every detail of his first meeting with her. She still needs me to solve mathematical problems.
"No, that's not what I meant." David raised an eyebrow. He found that intellectuals occasionally had certain annoying habits, like a tendency to over-analyze and let their thoughts wander.
David didn't bother to explain. At that moment, Shen Yufei gestured with her gun for Pan Han to drop his weapon.
"Our Lord is in a crisis," Shen Yufei said. She lowered her aim slightly, watching as Pan Han kicked his handgun toward her feet. Her expression was calm. The moonlight hit her face—which bore only a thin layer of clear cream—revealing a startling, tranquil beauty.
She spoke as if stating a simple fact. "Aside from the vanguard, a vast population remains in a crisis where they could be engulfed by their sun at any moment."
Shen Yufei picked up Pan Han's gun and used the hem of her clothes to wipe the mud from it. "If you truly believed in the Lord, how could you remain indifferent to this and pursue a different kind of destruction—the destruction of us, of humanity itself?"
"A woman's narrow view." Pan Han saw a figure in the woods. Anger flashed across his face, but it was mostly a mask for his excitement. "If paradise were too comfortable, how could the Lord ever resolve to descend to the mortal realm and deliver the Apocalypse to humanity?"
"Do you realize what you are saying?" Shen Yufei's expression changed for the first time, this time to anger.
"Of course I do." Pan Han looked at her with a winner's smugness that made her skin crawl. "The one who truly fails to understand the situation is you."
A sudden sense of dread rose in Shen Yufei's heart. Before she could think further, a crisp rat-tat-tat erupted from the woods behind her. Pan Han lunged into the dark thicket beside him.
With her tactical training, Shen Yufei identified the sound. It was a German-made MKB42 automatic carbine from the mid-to-late Second World War. The sound came from the high-temperature combustion of propellant pushing a bullet through a cooling shroud that hadn't been manufactured to strict tolerances.
Even though this "art piece" had been disassembled and smuggled into the country more than half a century after it was made, and many of its parts were aged and required manual polishing to function, it was still lethal. While its sibling, the famous MP43, saw much higher production, the MKB42—which ceased production in '42 after fewer than twenty thousand units—still had a fearsome reputation from the brutal house-to-house fighting of the SS 5th Panzer Division "Wiking" at Stalingrad.
Now, real combat proved that a half-century-old weapon still possessed terrifying killing power.
A hail of bullets tore toward Shen Yufei. Miraculously—she could only attribute it to the Buddha's protection—she escaped with only light scratches from branches as she dove into the bushes.
"It should be over now."
Pan Han's voice rang out near her ear. Shen Yufei looked up to see that Pan Han had pulled out yet another handgun. The black bore was aimed directly at her. She knew she was cornered. She could see the cruel glint of victory in his eyes.
Shen Yufei didn't argue. She stared into the barrel. A simple pull of the trigger would end her life. "The Leader will avenge me," she said.
"But Leader Evans will protect me."
Pan Han squeezed the trigger. He was certain that in the next second, he would take the life of this Redemptionist.
However, just as he prepared to put a bullet through her head, a sudden change occurred.