"Special Commissioner Chen..."
Lu Chao snapped back to reality and looked ahead. The warlord commander leading the convoy seemed to have stopped. He looked back at them with a teasing smile, as if mocking their nervousness.
"Keep going," Lu Chao instructed, ordering the convoy to continue forward.
Only then did the group muster their courage and continue following the warlord's vehicles.
"HOO HOO HOO!"
Along the way, the warlord soldiers in the pickup trucks aimed their guns at the sky, letting out bizarre, howling cheers.
The residents living in the stone buildings lining the streets were mostly dressed in ragged, heavily patched clothes. Their skin was a sickly yellowish-brown, and their hair was greasy and matted—bearing the unmistakable marks of grueling physical labor and prolonged exposure to the elements.
Most of them wore numb, vacant expressions upon seeing the convoy. Only a handful pointed with curious faces.
