Chapter 26 Confronting the Zhang Family

After I fell down, I used all of my strength to roll while also trying to relieve the pain on my forehead and nose. But after rolling around a few times, I suddenly found that these two parts didn’t feel anything at all. Instead, my butt was the one that hurt after falling down so painfully.

I dropped my hands and looked at the girl suspiciously. She looked at me like I was a piece of trash and said, “As for you, it’s just enough to scare you. This man must be real, Uncle Two.”

“Not necessarily. It’s tradition for Old Dog Wu’s family to dress up as pigs to eat the tiger. They can make a good relationship with everyone one by one, but in fact, no one can guess what’s in their hearts,” Zhang Longban said.

After listening to what they said, I felt a little embarrassed about lying on the ground in such an ugly manner, so I stood up and said, “I’m really Wu Xie. I don’t know what kind of virtues my ancestors had, but I’m really a good-for-nothing. I wonder why Master Zhang Longban set me up to come here?”

Zhang Longban looked surprised when he heard this, which made me feel a lot more at ease. It seemed that these people weren’t like Poker-face, who showed no emotion at all. It appeared the Zhang family wasn’t entirely full of elm heads. (1)

“How do you know my name?” He asked.

My gloomy heart finally felt invigorated. In order to make up for being tricked by that bitch just now, I decided to pretend to know everything, so I said, “I know a lot of things. Don’t think I don’t know about your activities here.”

Zhang Longban was no longer surprised, but the head lama off to the side spoke up at this time, “What are you all doing?”

Zhang Longban gave the others a look, and they dragged me and the guy on the ground out of the head lama’s room. Before the door closed, I looked back and saw Zhang Longban moving to sit opposite the head lama, as if he was ready to start explaining.

I was dragged to the area of the lama temple where this group had been active, and in the process, we were both handcuffed.

What’s going to happen next? I wondered. Based on what that girl had said, they really doubted our authenticity. Now that we were both caught, how would they test us? They didn’t want a blood sample, did they?

I wondered if my father was already tied up in their room.

Or maybe it would come to a quiz. Maybe they interviewed many of my friends in advance, collected many questions, and then set up a quiz challenge in the room. Maybe the first question was: What gift did your mother give you when you were five years old?

Fuck, how could I remember what my mother gave me when I was five years old?!

My heart was weak and my imagination was running wild, but I wasn’t afraid. I still had a feeling that these people wouldn’t hurt me, although it was true that I would probably suffer a little.

They dragged the two of us into the dining hall where they ate and then closed all the doors and windows. I saw Zhang Longban coming over, and all the Hong Kong people eventually gathered around.

The two of us were tied upside down to some chairs, which was when the other guy finally recovered.

He groaned a few times and opened his eyes and cursed, but the sharp pain immediately made him frown again. He looked at me, “You idiot, look at what you’ve done!”

“It’s none of my business. First, I’m happy that you’re so unlucky. Second, they set up a trap for the two of us. I entered the trap by myself and you entered the trap by yourself. What qualifications do you have to say that about me?”

“If you weren’t here, would I have fallen into the fucking trap?”

“Why the fuck were you pretending to be me? If you didn’t, these things wouldn’t have happened.”

“Who fucking pretended to be you? I’d rather pretend to be your—ah!”

In the middle of his rant, the sound of something splitting the air swept by, and he and the chair fell to the ground.

When I turned to look, Miss Zhang had my slingshot in hand and was walking over with a vicious look on her face. “Are you done?” She asked. “One more sound and I’ll hit you somewhere else.”

“Why did you only hit me and not him?” The man on the ground complained.

“You two look alike, who can tell the difference?”

“You’re fucking biased!”

I secretly laughed. Miss Zhang looked at me and smiled, then walked up to me and patted me on the face. “Don’t say your senior didn’t protect you. If I smoke your cigarette, I’ll return the favor. But if you want to argue any more, I’ll certainly share the wealth.”

“Don’t get too close to them,” a man behind me said. “Neither of these boys should be taken lightly.”

Zhang Longban came over, looking like someone of high importance since several people stopped talking and stepped back. He brought a chair over and sat down in front of us before saying, “I’ve seen both of your faces. One of you must be wearing a mask, but the mask has been worn for more than twenty years so the face and mask have completely blended together. Your facial bones must have undergone surgery to better adapt to the mask. Moreover, you must’ve had bone fracture surgery on both legs in order to adjust your height.

“But in order to eliminate all traces of the operation, the imposter completed the operation long before the implementation of the plan. I believe this must have occurred around twenty years ago. In other words, the operation was performed twenty years ago. At present, we don’t have any professional equipment with us and can’t find any traces of the operation by touch. So, in theory, if we don’t test your DNA and get it professionally verified, you’re basically the same person.

“We have very important news to tell Mr. Wu Xie. But when we started looking, we found that two Wu Xies were active. One of them disappeared after arriving in Motuo, and the other had been appearing all over the country. We came to Motuo to look for the missing Wu Xie and decided to take Motuo as our stronghold and lead the other one here. Once both appeared, we hoped to find the real Wu Xie after comparing the two.”

“How could anyone have known what I would look like twenty years ago?” I asked.

“You were already in your teens at that time, so they could guess what you would look like in the near future,” Zhang Longban said. “Well, I only need fifteen minutes to tell you apart, but you’ll suffer some hardships. I can clearly tell you that we’ll definitely get rid of the fake one, so you must try your best to prove yourself.”

“Wait a minute.” The guy next to me spoke up. “What are you relying on to distinguish true from false? You know nothing.”

“Many people have told us that Wu Xie is a very weak person. But we believe that many things can be hidden for a long time so I won’t be able to determine anything by your strength and wisdom alone. We’ve known for a long time that Wu Sanxing of the Wu family could appear in two places thousands of kilometers apart at the same time. How do I really know what’s going on with you two?”

“You think too much,” I said. “The weak and stupid bit is true, and I am a fool, but why would you need to set up a trap?”

“Because I can’t rely on this to determine who is real and who is fake. That’s why I need to put you two together,” Zhang Longban said. “You’ll understand my method after listening. Don’t be afraid. If you’re the real one, it’ll be fine.” Then he winked.

Miss Zhang over on the side immediately took some square things out of her bag and put them in front of us. When I looked at these things, I almost peed my pants right on the spot.

<Chapter 25><Table of Contents><Chapter 27>

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TN Notes:

(1) Chinese metaphor for being stubborn

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Updated 12/12/2021