Chapter 23 Preparation for Departure

At dinner that night, Xiuxiu asked me what we were going to do, but I didn’t have any sort of plan. Pan Zi had already done everything for me, so all I had to do was make a sign and Leather Bag began preparing the equipment. I figured Pan Zi must have arranged it all beforehand.

Although I was currently Master Three, I was still far from the point where Pan Zi and Xiao Hua felt assured that I could make my own decisions.

No matter how big the risk, I had already come this far and accepted it.

Now we could only continue.

According to Fatty, Pan Zi and Xiao Hua wouldn’t encounter any problems at first. It was just a matter of whether they could get back to the tunnel. As long as they could get out, everything would be fine. But if they were trapped in the cave with the gas….

Fatty was able to get up and walk around that night. When I went to the tent to see him again, he was looking at his belly and sighing. “If we’re to be successful this time, your stomach is very important,” I said to him. “I’ll send you a pennant and write ‘World’s Number One Belly’ on it.”

“Master Three,” Fatty said, “don’t make such sarcastic remarks. With this scar on my stomach, I’ll have trouble picking up girls. They’ll see it and panic. I have to find a tattoo shop to fix it. What do you say I make it a chessboard? In the future, the girl will be able to play chess on my stomach after we do it.”

“I think it’s more poetic if you just paint it black and then make a few diamonds and say something about the night sky,” I said.

“Good idea Master Three, you’re so cultured. I’ve read less so I’m at a disadvantage.” When Fatty said this, he looked out of the tent. “None of you told that girl about me, did you?”

“I didn’t say you were going back down, but she’s very happy to know that you’re back. But even if you tell her, she won’t know what we’re doing. Don’t flatter yourself. You’re only a few years younger than me. There’s a limit to an old cow eating young grass.”

We heard Yun Cai moving around outside. Fatty touched the stubble on his face and secretly looked out. “I dig up other people’s ancestor’s graves, but you say I don’t have the balls to pick up young girls? Let me tell you, I’m really ready for true love this time around. No one can stop it and no one can make her happier than I can.”

“What happiness can you give her?” I laughed, “The fact that you won’t have to go to the market if you want lard in the future?” (1)

“I have arms,” Fatty said.

I was extremely depressed when I heard him say this since it brought up all sorts of thoughts about myself. He didn’t seem to recognize me at all. But I couldn’t expose my identity because I was uncertain about the whole situation and didn’t know whether exposing myself would bring any unexpected changes.

I quit bantering with him and asked, “Have you recovered?”

“Didn’t I sleep for more than ten days?” Fatty asked. “A night’s sleep would’ve been fine. I’m a talented person in my prime. Like you, I’ve suffered a lot so it’s nothing to feel tired. And you can’t do it without me, so if you want to persuade me to stay, you’d better save it. I’d die of anxiety if I stayed here. You know my temper.”

I nodded and he continued, “There’s nothing to fear, but that building is so fucking weird. Don’t be worried about taking things slow since we can’t rush in. We’ll need to bring as much as we can since we packed light last time and suffered a loss.”

He had already said that, but I nodded anyway. He pointed to Qiu Dekao’s camp on the other side of the lake and then told me to come closer. I leaned over and he whispered to me, “Master Three, call that Leather Bag boy over here. We have to get some guns from the foreigners. I need his help.”

“I don’t think we should deal with them,” I said. “These kinds of people are outlaws.”

“They can’t be more ferocious than us.” Fatty sighed, “This must be what that Xiao Hua kid said. Master Three, don’t listen to him. He’s an opera singer, so of course he doesn’t like to fight and kill. Your traditional family has skills and courage, but I don’t. I’m telling you, it’s alright if you don’t have a gun; if you did, I’d have to get another one even if I sold my ass. It’s insurance.”

I knew that many of Fatty’s ideas were basically right, so I asked him, “What are you going to do?”

Fatty put on his clothes, wiped his face, and said, “Don’t worry about it. Just call the man over and let me command him.”

When I saw Fatty again, he was already wiping his gun. Leather Bag was counting bullets with a bloody nose and swollen face, choking as he counted. Shit. I wondered what on earth he did, but I didn’t dare ask more. I figured Leather Bag had been fooled by Fatty’s offensive tactics.

I couldn’t name the gun I got, but Fatty said it was an Uzi, which was a miniature submachine gun he nicknamed “Doraemon” (2).

I weighed it and found that it was very heavy. I had seen this gun before. It was the one Schwarzenegger’s wife used in “True Lies.” 

“Why is it called Doraemon?” I asked him.

“Because when it fires, the muzzle jumps violently just like Doraemon.”

When did Doraemon jump so much? I asked myself. Fatty definitely lived in a different age from us. I seemed to remember a very old Chinese puppet film called “Doraemon,” where the puppets in it really did jump all the time. But in this case, Fatty must have come up with the nickname himself.

After wiping the gun, Fatty pressed the bullets into the magazine and said, “I didn’t think they could get this stuff. The black market is really reliable. This thing is the most suitable for close combat, especially for use in a narrow space. It has great lethality, but it doesn’t hold many bullets. “

“Just the one?” I asked him. 

He immediately threw me something. I caught it and found that it was a very strange pistol that seemed to have been modified.

“Beretta. Italian gun,” Fatty said. “But they seem to have modified it so it’s much lighter. What? You can use it for self-defense if you don’t mind.”

I noticed that Fatty seemed to be smiling like he was hiding something and I couldn’t help but feel a little strange. But I was Master Three and couldn’t force him to say it directly like I would if I were Wu Xie, so I had to give up. I weighed the gun and found that it was very light. Fatty tossed me a towel and told me to wrap it up, “Pack it up and don’t let anyone see it. They’re looking for it.”

I did as he said and realized that I would have been surprised to see a gun just a few years ago. But now, I saw it as an old friend. When I packed the gun away, Fatty snapped the bolt on his Doraemon, untied it, and stuffed it into his bag while saying, “I can sleep well at night.” Then he held the bag in his hand and kissed it.

I looked into Fatty’s eyes when he said this and found that they were very serious. I felt my heart sink. His attitude of “hiding something” and that resolute look in his eyes made me feel uncomfortable.

I only hoped that the information he was hiding was as unreliable and harmless as everything else had been.

I wanted to talk to him about something else—especially the details of his experience in the tunnel—when I suddenly heard a loud bang coming from outside the tent, as if something had exploded. Fatty responded faster than I did and immediately went out. Everyone around heard it as well and looked in the direction it had come from. We heard a series of gunshots coming from the direction of Qiu Dekao’s camp. I looked at Fatty, “Did you do this?”

“Of course not. Your fat man steals guns, he doesn’t do sneak attacks.”

“Let’s go and see!” Leather Bag was very excited and had already rushed over.

I looked at the situation over there and gestured to the others to pack their things and take everything we needed into the woods. Then, I went with Fatty to check it out.

It felt like a warzone before I even got there. There was gunfire everywhere and the streaking trail of bullets in the night was just like a battlefield.

“What’s going on?” Fatty scolded, “Are we surrounded by the People’s Liberation Army?”

Leather Bag said, “Brother Wang, look. They’re not firing the bullets at each other. They’re only shooting and not returning fire. It’s all aimless.”

“It’s not aimless,” Fatty said. “I first touched a gun when I was ten years old. Do you think I can’t even see it clearly? These guns are all hitting something at close range, and whatever it is, it’s attacking them over there.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, it’s from the lake,” I said while pointing to the tree where the sniper was. Now all the bullets were being fired into the lake one by one.

Fatty pulled on the bolt of his Doraemon and leaned towards the lake. I trailed after him. Looking at it from afar, the view in front was completely dark and nothing could be seen. At that time, we suddenly heard the sounds of screams coming from our own camp behind us.

We immediately turned back and started running quickly. We saw several lynx emerge from the lake near our camp and rush towards the shore.

Fatty instantly raised his gun and sent a lynx straight back into the lake.

I rushed over and pulled a piece of firewood from the bonfire, throwing it at the place where Mute Sister and Xiuxiu had cried out.

When the lynx was forced back by the firewood, I took the chance to lean over and look at its ears. I found that it was the lynx that had attacked me when I went to find Father Pan Ma in the mountains with Poker-face and the villagers. Fatty was obviously very handy with “Doraemon” and dropped two of them at once. In this kind of battle, this gun was really a killer weapon.

Xiuxiu and Mute Sister were clutching each other, completely scared to death. I pushed them behind me while Fatty and Leather Bag gathered around to form a circle. In a flash, two or three more lynx rushed out of the water and Fatty cried out, “Triangle Defense!”

I didn’t know what it meant, but I pinned Mute Sister down and fired three shots behind me. I had already experienced this particular lynx’s agility before and missed every single shot as it dodged and almost reached me. But I wasn’t afraid this time. Although years of training hadn’t improved my marksmanship, my mind was numb and I used my hand to block it.

In a flash, the space behind me was empty and I saw Mute Sister standing in front of me. My heart was shocked and I couldn’t help thinking that there was no need for this kind of dog blood (3). Fortunately, Fatty grabbed my hand and swung it up while shouting, “Shoot!”

My bullet passed under Mute Sister’s armpit at almost the exact same moment the lynx went for her throat. It flipped back and then retreated into the woods once it landed.

I raised my hand to shoot it, but Fatty pulled the trigger and said, “Amitabha, Master Three.”

Just then, there was a loud noise in the woods and a fire blazed in the sky. I didn’t know what had exploded.

<Chapter 22> <Table of Contents><Chapter 24>

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(1) Tiffany said Wu Xie’s being mean lol. He’s saying Fatty is a pig already, so he can produce lard himself.

(2) Main character from a popular Japanese kid’s show. Think of it as the equivalent of Mickey Mouse.

(3) Cliché

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Updated 2/4/2021