48 Hours a Day

Chapter 532 Barber’s Pole

Li Bai kept on running without looking back. Since he was familiar with the terrain, he could easily throw off the enemy’s scents. But no matter how fast he ran, he failed to get rid of the pesky owl above his head.

The latter clung to him like sticky candy. The owl practically served as a feathery Global Positioning System for his enemies. And it would not leave no matter how hard Li Bai tried to scare it off. Naturally, the bird wouldn’t get too close to him that could ensure its safety. Too bad Li Bai didn’t have any long-range weapons. All he could do right now was to flee in embarrassment. At times, he even had to run into others’ homes.

Both Li Bai and his enemies shared a common goal-none of them wanted to alert the residents living in this area. Li Bai only entered houses that their owners had still not returned from work.

The bearded man was impressed by Li Bai’s stamina. After running for a quarter of an hour, Li Bai was sweating profusely but showed no sign of slowing down. It was a pity that he was a player, or he should have tried marathons. Perhaps he would have earned himself a chance to be an Olympic champion after some training.

Arc of Light sent more than two teams of players to deal with them tonight. The other group of players wasn’t as friendly. While Li Bai was running away, he still kept an eye on the enemies that were going after him, but after running for a while, a golf club stuck out from behind the wall in front of him and hit him directly on the right leg.

Li Bai suffered a sharp pain in his calf. It seemed like the bones insides his leg was shattered. Though he was suffering from excruciating pain, he chose to endure it, gritted his teeth, and not said a word about it.

Li Bai then kept running with his other leg. The person who attacked him was in no hurry. He waved to stop his allies, who were about to pounce at Li Bai. “Run! Just keep running. Aren’t you good at running? Although we were asked to capture you alive, as long as you are still breathing, we can do whatever we want to you... really thought you could kill our people and stash away the murderer? You know you have to pay the price, right?”

While talking, the man loosened the tie on his suit and walked up menacingly to Li Bai with the golf club. Li Bai, running in front of him, tripped on something and fell to the ground. Despite that, he said nothing, continuing to crawl toward the barbershop that wasn’t too far away.

At that time, the two assault teams with the bearded man finally caught up. The bearded man frowned when he saw what happened. “Let’s not create more troubles for us. Just capture him and hand him in.”

“There’s no need to rush. Gotta have some fun after working your ass off for so long,” sneered the man in the suit. He then swung the golf club twice but found Li Bai had stopped running. He was leaning against the door of the closed barber, looking at it coldly.

For some reason, anxiety burdened the bearded man’s heart. He quickly pulled out a pistol from his waist. Before he could fully draw his weapon out, his body froze. His mind was still working, though, and he immediately realized what the problem was. The barber’s pole in front of the barbershop seemed to have been around for a long time and looked like a game item. Once the person took a look at it, they would be rendered immobile.

As long as one person got to remind the people at the back not to look at the light, they would regain their freedom. By the time they realized it, it was too late. Everybody quickly followed suit, given a rude awakening when they realized they couldn’t open their mouths.

A total of twenty-four people were frozen in place. At the same time, Rabbit and Shen Xixi walked out of the barbershop. The rabbit ran up to Li Bai. “What a mad lad you are! Are you okay?”

Although Li Bai’s calf hurt like hell, he still managed to squeeze out an ugly smile. “It’s okay. I had to let him hit me. If I stopped here abruptly, they might catch on about something fishy, and they wouldn’t have fallen into this trap.”

Shen Xixi nodded at Li Bai in return. “Hold on. I will ask the faceless man and old K to drive the car here. We will take you to the hospital first.”

“No, it’s just a fracture. I won’t die from it,” reassured Li Bai, wincing a little from the awful pain. “We finally caught so many of them, and there should be two small leaders within. The man holding the golf club and the bearded one are the leaders. Let’s use them to negotiate with Arc of Light.”

A strange voice suddenly echoed in everyone’s ears.

“I’m afraid those chips aren’t quite enough for a negotiation us.”

It was a woman who seemed to be Shen Xixi’s age. She was dressed in sportswear and appeared to be a night runner. She took off the Bluetooth earphones and put them in her pocket, seemingly oblivious to her people were frozen, not far away from her. She then looked at Shen Xixi, and a smile appeared on her face after a while.

“Very well. Just like what we analyzed, you are not the kind of person that would just wait to die.”

“You are?” asked Shen Xixi solemnly.

“You can call me Xiao Bing. Although I have always hated this nickname, all those guild bastards keep calling me Xiaobin anyway. So, it doesn’t matter to me,” the woman named Xiaobing lamented. “I am from Arc of Light’s Department of Strategic Analysis. For the past month, I have spent most of my time studying you.”

“So, last night’s attack was really premeditated?!” Li Bai exclaimed, “You’ve been preparing for this a month, right?”

Xiaobing rolled her eyes and looked at Shen Xixi, deeply bothered by the fact that her ally was asking stupid questions.

Shen Xixi ignored her dirty looks. “What have you learned about me?”

“Almost everything,” Xiaobing snapped her fingers. “I have studied your personality, horoscope, interpersonal relationships, acting style, values, outlook on life, and even the concept of mate selection. So no matter what you do, it’s no secret to me.”

“After talking so much nonsense, many of your allies still got defeated by us!” snorted Rabbit coldly. After seeing Li Bai was injured, she was furious at what they did to him.

“Wrong, little sister,” Xiaobing shook his head, “I said we have anticipated your every move. So, of course, we know that you want to take our people hostage, which is exactly why I sent them here for you to capture them.”

The bearded man did not know what the man in the suit was thinking. If he could speak now, he would have begun to curse her.

However, Shen Xixi seemed to have thought of something when she heard the words, and her face changed.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m talking about two of your allies who are in charge of taking care of our targets. However, the higher-ups need us to capture a few of your people to force you to hand in the four murderers to us. But I think that since we want to capture all of you, it is better to do it all at once. I don’t want any unexpected troubles. I have to thank you for helping us. After you capture our people, you notified your people to come to you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know where to find you.” Xiaobing smiled.