.

Ed had recalled, or indeed recalled, but not really very carefully—but he did feel as if the old gentleman had said something at that time. It was not his ears that made this impression on him, but his eyes, at that moment, when all the muzzles of his guns were directed at him, and when the flames behind them were still flickering and burning, he did see the old gentleman's mouth move twice, and open a slit that was not too small or small, revealing the tongue inside.

But it was a pity that only his eyes made this impression, and his ears did not really hear what the dear old brother was saying, for before his voice could follow his vocal cords out of his mouth, he threw his hand and pulled the trigger and fired at the perfect smile that made him feel repulsion and hairiness in his physiological instincts. In retrospect, it was a perfect and neat gesture, from the time he reached out behind his waist to the time he threw the bullet at his brother's gentle smiling face, it took less than a second in total. Ed's impression of that moment was unusually deep, because not only was he in such a good state at that time, so good that he felt like he had returned to the old days with his old friends in the stars, but also because of what happened in the next moment after that that made his throat choke and couldn't speak—the old gentleman who was physically rejected by him, the abnormal gentleman brother who didn't know why he hated, he actually dodged his shot!

Ed really rarely saw such a perfect rollover, lightning over his head and his body twisting synchronously like a twist, half-crouching and falling to the ground after a spiral in the air, one hand with five fingers open and pressing the ground, and the other arm was spread backwards and upwards like the wings of a roc, as if an acrobat had just completed a world-class difficult performance, and the curtain was closing on the show, waiting for the audience's final out-of-control cheers and applause like a furious thunder.

Ed was sure that if there really was such a group of audiences, he would have been applauding until his palms were oozing blood after seeing the wonderful performance of the old gentleman in front of him. He wasn't sure how many people in the city could survive the bullet that came out of the chamber of his pistol in that situation—the distance between the two of them, the movement of his own just now—maybe one out of ten thousand—in fact, that represented a very terrifying number, relatively speaking—and after habitually putting himself in his shoes, Ed felt that he should not be able to do it, not what the old man in front of him had just done. Even if he was thirty years old now, even if he was just about thirty-one, even if he was sure that there was at least twenty years of difference between himself and this old man, and that he was at least twenty years younger than this old fellow, he felt that he could not do it.

Marcy may not be able to do it, but not necessarily, maybe her hidden strength is stronger than she thinks. Tithes can certainly do it, can certainly do it—but unfortunately he is not a tithe. If it was really that monster here, maybe the situation would be much better, definitely a lot better. But she's not there, and neither is Marcy, just the poor, weak, uneaten, skinny Eddard here. And judging from the scene that happened in front of him just now, he was sure that he was not the opponent of the uncle in front of him.

The next two events happened at about the same time.

Ed's attack was sudden, and deadly, deadly, and not polite at all—and hey, ha, that he shot with that deadly gunnery without warning or saying a word? The average person couldn't stand it, and worst of all, they wouldn't even get a chance to tell anyone about Eddard's rudeness, about how this hapless, cursed psychotic had treated them.

But the old gentleman, of course, was not in the queue of those people, and certainly not in the queue of those people. He didn't seem to care about Eddard's mischievous behavior, and Ed was sure of it, because he saw it—again, the grim smile on the old man's lips as he looked up. That's right, it's like human skin. The mask-like smile that belonged to the demon was exactly the same as the smile on his face before he was shot, and it literally gave Ed a creepy feeling in that moment.

That's the first thing. Then the next moment when the old gentleman raised his head, the second thing happened.

The gun went off. Perhaps because of instinct, because of the stimulus of Ed's initiative to fire, the old gentleman himself may still be able to maintain grace and composure, but the "young men" around him do not have the ability to make himself indifferent. The guns they were holding in their hands screamed uncontrollably, and there was a squirting hissing in the direction of Ed and Old Duroc.

Strange to say, of all the memories at that time, Ed remembers that moment the most and remembers it the most. He had carefully analyzed why, and then he had come to the conclusion that he was "caught between two boards"—a bit of a difficult way to understand, and in the words of one of the instructors who had taught Ed, it was the kind of thing that could only be "closed and listened to by yourself", and even if others did, they would not understand.

The name of one of the boards is called Death, and the specific scene at that time is a bullet. Anyone who hasn't been shot by a few submachine guns will never understand that feeling, and in fact few people who have been shot by a few submachine guns will never live to remember what it was like to be there. If you ask Ed to say it, although the feeling is strong, it's not really new. He gave all of those feelings a common name, which was "death."

Death was the board that appeared first, and it slapped at him head-on, trying to pat all his internal organs into meat sauce, and his facial features into a thin sheet of dough, sprinkled with red and bright ketchup. Then, a second board appeared.

It is too late to say that it is fast, and life and death are only in the moment of nothingness. A split second ago, you might be alive, and then a moment later, you're dead. Ed thought he was supposed to be dead, but he survived. A pair of powerful big hands grabbed his shoulders on the left and right sides at that moment, wrenched his body and slammed into the flying body to the side.

In fact they hit nothing, nothing to hit and nothing to hit. But that action is really like hitting something, concentrating all the strength of the whole body and hitting something with your shoulders. Then, in the absence of that thing, they crashed into the air, and their bodies flew in a graceful arc like a grilled squid leaping out of the water, and then fell to the ground uncontrollably. That fall was really heavy, much heavier than the one the two of them fell before. If he wasn't wearing one of those stiff stand-up collar jackets, Ed might even feel like his clothes might be torn.

Quickly staring around, Ed noticed that they had fallen into an aisle in the factory next to them, another aisle adjacent to the one they had rushed out of. They fell right behind the corner, dodging the bullets.

If it's just a thrilling description, it's really not enough. Just like the surprise and shock that the old gentleman had brought to Ed when he escaped Ed's shooting, the distance between the two groups was so short compared to the speed of the bullet that the time to react was negligible. But of course, in this city, it is not the human guys who can take advantage of this basically negligible event to create a miracle, but all of them are experienced people whose lives are harder than cockroaches in the real sense. There are so many people with this kind of experience that it would be difficult to come across them if they were spread across the entire city of Stuttgar, an aerial metropolis. Luckily, there was such a person lying behind Ed right now.

"Duroc? You're alive! ”

"What do you think, I have to thank you!"

The old detective's thanks were called gnashing of teeth. Ed believed that if this wasn't the case for the two of them now, he should have prepared his face to have a symmetrical scarlet fingerprint with the old fellow. And unfortunately, unlike this old fellow, he doesn't have such a thick beard that can play some cover. It reminded him that maybe he should also give up the habit of not growing a beard for decades and start filling his chin with hair?

The old gentleman's loud shout interrupted Ed's thoughts. He looked up and saw that the old detective had run to the corner of the passageway, and was looking out with one eye through a small part of his forehead. I don't know why, how to look at this picture and feel happy in Ed's opinion, I can't help but step forward and kick old Duroc's sexy buttocks and kick him out. Thankfully, though, he eventually held back.

"No guns! Didn't I say that clearly enough? Or did you all not get it? No guns! No one is allowed to fire another shot! We're going to catch them alive, both of them! I need them alive! ”

“……”

"I don't think that's a good idea, Carl!" Just when the old gentleman's subordinates looked at each other and put down the muzzle of the gun in their hands one by one, the old Duroc hid behind the corner and spoke, the volume was not lower than that of the old gentleman, enough for everyone present to hear it clearly, and there was also some arrogant provocation, "You should let your little ones hold the bolt tightly, because we don't want to be caught alive by you so simply!" ”

Although it was not obvious, not so obvious that the old detective did not deliberately hide it, if you listened carefully, it was still quite obvious that Old Duroc felt a little strange when he spoke. And only Ed knows why.

He stood behind the old detective and watched him with his back to the corner, gun in one hand, bluffing and rubbing his cheek. He rubbed it so hard that his beard was about to turn into a teddy curl.