Mercenaries, I Will Be King

Old Demon wanted to leave, and Song Heping was a bit surprised.

But then he thought about it and felt it made sense.

Old Demon was from Beijing, and even if he lost the entire sum of over a hundred thousand, he wouldn't be under pressure; he could always make a fresh start back in China.

But that wasn't the case for himself.

This time coming to Illiguo, he had staked everything he had.

As the saying goes, there's no turning back once the bow is drawn—either return home in glory or die in a foreign land.

"Then you should hook me up," Song Heping said.

Song Heping couldn't force Old Demon to stay and risk his life, especially since the deaths of Ah Guan and Tan Fatty were right before their eyes, chilling to the bone.

This place had opportunities to make money, but it was also easy to lose one's life.

Old Demon knew Song Heping's temperament well.

His brother was very bold.

While others are not resigned until they reach the Yellow River, Song Heping wouldn't give up even when he got there—if the river blocked his way, he'd just swim across.

That was why he approached him for partnership in the first place.

He was a pretty good guy; it was just that his luck was a little off.

Just as their business was about to take off, an accident crushed their dreams of fortune into smithereens.

"Sure," Old Demon said, nodding his head vigorously several times.

"I'll do my best to help you."

Perhaps out of a sense of guilt, after dinner, Old Demon took the initiative to propose that he bring Song Heping along to meet his cousin Donald.

The Green Zone covered an area of about ten square kilometers in total, divided into the administrative district, embassy district, military district, and several other regions.

Old Demon's cousin Donald lived within the military district.

As dusk fell, the lights within the Green Zone came on one after another.

The air force of Illiguo had been wiped out by the US Army even before their ground troops had entered. Now, the only threat to the Green Zone was from rockets and mortars. There was no aerial threat, so there was no need for blackout restrictions within the Green Zone.

When passing by the embassy district, Song Heping heard melodic music coming from the direction of Republic Palace. Although Illiguo was currently at war, the Green Zone was like a haven of peace, especially the luxurious Republic Palace that Sadam had left behind, with a huge swimming pool in front of it, bustling by day and lively by night.

The people active around Republic Palace included diplomats, senior military officers, high-ranking members of the Illigo Interim Government, PMCs at the managerial level, and those reporters.

There's a saying: "To each their own path."

The big shots have their way of having fun, and the lower-ranking military officers and PMC personnel have their own pleasures as well.

They find their pleasure in the bars of the Green Zone.

Indeed, there are quite a few bars in the Green Zone.

Everything here is capitalized.

If you have money, there are goods and services; as long as you can produce the green bills, you can buy whatever you want.

The bar the two were heading to used to be a parking shed, contracted out to a PMC company. They cleared out the inside, made a few alterations, and it became a simple bar.

This bar had a rather nice name—Forbidden Land.

The Forbidden Land Bar opened to the outside at night; off-duty lower-ranking officers and PMCs with no tasks on hand would come here to seek entertainment and relax.

Everyone in the war zone was under immense psychological stress. With ongoing attacks across Illiguo and death like a crow lingering overhead, no one knew if they would make it back alive when they went out on missions the next day.

The parties in the palace swimming pool area talked about intelligence, diplomacy, and reconstruction policies, full of schemes and hypocrisy, while the Forbidden Land Bar was quite different, somewhat like the lawless frontier towns of the old mining days. The people who mingled here often talked about how many they had killed that day or about brushing past death yet again; it was common for someone to treat the whole bar, either because they had come into a windfall, or because they were lucky enough to make it back alive.

Two American-made M1114 Humvees were parked at the entrance of the bar, and two fully armed soldiers stood guard at the entrance, their gaze sharp as hawks.

As they approached the entrance, the soldiers stopped them.

"We're here to see Donald. He's my cousin, and he asked us to come here," Old Demon explained, quickly taking out his pass.

The soldiers took the pass and examined it over and over again, shifting their gaze between the document and Old Demon and Song Heping with a thoroughness exceeding even a police ID check.

After the check, the soldier used a walkie-talkie to call someone inside to find Donald for verification and only after making sure there were no issues did they let us through.

Just as I got my pass back and was about to enter, there was suddenly a commotion from the bar, followed by two burly men carrying someone out from inside who had a bruised and swollen face and seemed to have passed out from shock.

"What happened?"

Song Heping was very surprised.

Could it be that the soldiers inside had drunk too much and started fighting?

Old Demon wasn't surprised at all and said in a low voice, "Don't make a fuss, it's normal. Come on, let's go in."

The two of us walked in one after the other.

The Forbidden Land Bar was not very large, seeming to be a few hundred square meters in size, with a simple bar on the right side and a fitness area with various equipment on the left. In the middle, there was actually a boxing ring.

A group of soldiers clad in short sleeves, regular uniforms, camouflage, and various other styles were gathered around the ring, each of them holding a bottle of beer, having the time of their lives.

Two fighters were brawling on the ring, the sound of flesh hitting flesh crackling through the air, one of them getting beaten badly, his face covered in blood.

Many in the crowd were so excited they stood on their seats shouting and cheering, the air filled with the scent of tobacco, alcohol, and male hormones.

Song Heping looked around, seeing those faces faintly veiled in smoke, the fear aroused by brutality, the excitement stirred by blood, all intermingling with the hoarse voices shouting, the intense scene stimulating some primal human nature, stirring the sediment of a lust for killing that had settled in our blood over thousands of years.

This—this was the Green Zone.

Outside where bullets and bombs flew, the people in the Green Zone lived in a drunken stupor. High-ranking commanders and various diplomats, merchants, journalists, and so-called intelligence personnel who shuttle back and forth would be holding glasses of wine beside the pool in front of Republic Palace, pretending they were at a party every day.

"Cousin!"

Old Demon saw his cousin from Country M, Donald, sitting at the corner table and immediately plastered a huge smile on his face.

But Donald seemed less than thrilled, glancing at his cousin before turning his head back to continue watching the match in the ring.

This wasn't the first time Song Heping had encountered Old Demon's cousin Donald.

The guy had always had this attitude, always exhibiting a sense of inexplicable superiority when facing Old Demon.

At that moment, Donald, watching the boxer being beaten to a bloody pulp on the stage, cursed excitedly, "Damn it, Andy! Isn't he supposed to be some tough guy? Why does he go limp the moment he's on the ring?!"

After speaking, he glared unhappily at the large African American sergeant beside him, as if seeking agreement.

The sergeant spread his hands and said, "He claimed he was a gang member in Mexico and had fought in underground fights; how was I supposed to know that he couldn't take a punch?"

Only then did Song Heping notice that most of the people at the table in front of him were "acquaintances" he had previously encountered.

The large African American was the guy who had mistaken him for a militant in the morning and nearly suffocated him while pinning him down.

And sitting beside the large African American was Thomas, with whom he had once had a life-or-death encounter.

Compared to the large African American, Thomas seemed quite polite, nodding at Song Heping and smiling as a way of saying hello.

Sitting next to Thomas was a bald man, about forty years old, with a Slavic face, sitting silently in his chair, hand half-covering his mouth, his expressionless face deep in thought, resembling the Thinker statue in the Rodin Museum in Paris.

The bald man noticed Song Heping, raised his head slightly to look at him, his gaze profound and sharp, like a lion hiding in the bushes watching its prey.

The fight on the stage was drawing to a close, as the brawny white-skinned boxer landed a heavy blow to Andy's head, and even though Andy had his hands protecting his head, the brute's punch was so powerful that it knocked him out cold, and he fell heavily onto the ring.

Even several meters away, Song Heping felt pain for the knocked-out boxer.

The victorious white-skinned boxer lifted his fists, victoriously beginning to circle the ring shouting in triumph, adopting the pose of a winner.

The soldiers around the ring started screaming and whistling again.

A short-haired blonde woman climbed onto the ring and gave the victorious white-skinned boxer a victor's kiss through the ropes.

The blonde was dressed unlike the US Army personnel. Her long legs were wrapped in khaki-colored tactical pants, and her upper body was tightly clothed in a T-shirt, making her ample chest appear very full, almost bursting out.

Alcohol, women, blood.

All the elements to stimulate male hormones were present.

Everyone was more ecstatic.

Amidst the cheers, Donald slammed a stack of US dollars he had been holding onto the table and said to the bald man, "I lost!"

Only then did he remember to invite Old Demon to sit down, gesturing to the empty chair beside him.

"Cousin, have a seat."