Chapter 33 Almost Dead

Startled, I immediately got up to see what was going on, but when I rushed to Fatty’s side, he kicked me. I staggered and fell to the ground at the same time another bullet almost hit me in the back. It ended up hitting the candlestick on the other side instead.

When it was hit, the candlestick sparked and overturned on the ground. I thought it would immediately start a fire, but the wick went out in an instant. It seemed that after so many years, the thick floor here was really safe.

Some sparks landed on my body and I started flailing as Fatty scolded me, “You’re not smart even at this age. Where were you trying to run to just now? You should immediately get down.”

“How are you? I thought you’d been shot in the head.” I saw blood all over his face. “I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry. I don’t need you to bury me even if I’m dead. I have many good friends to send me off.” As Fatty said this, he covered his temple with one hand. I told myself that his head shouldn’t be split open; otherwise, he wouldn’t be speaking so smoothly.

“What’s my background? It’s not so easy to snipe me. If it weren’t too fucking cold here, I would have been able to dodge,” Fatty said. “Back when I was in school, I was a famous ‘Chinese pork roll that couldn’t be hit’.”

When I looked at his temple and saw that it really was just a scratch, I couldn’t help thinking that the other party’s skills were really poor. They couldn’t even hit Fatty directly in the head.

Fatty continued talking, “In places that are prone to sniping, those of us who are mixed up in this circle always keep our heads moving. This is called preparing for a rainy day.”

It was true that Fatty normally did shake his head when he was talking, but after thinking it over for a moment, I figured he must be talking nonsense. This must just be a habit of his when he’s messing around.

I was just about to refute him when another shot suddenly came in. I didn’t know where it hit, but sawdust scattered everywhere and Fatty and I both ducked down.

“Fuck, is this sniper blind? We’re being shot at from all sides. Is he not afraid of exposing his position?”

“No, look. The candle was extinguished. The window paper here is too thick so he can only shoot based on the shadows on the window. Since we fell down, he can’t figure out where we are. If something moves, he has to shoot.”

“Doesn’t that mean we’re safe now?”

“We can’t lay prone like this forever. Listening to the shot just now, the sniper is very far away from us. It’s too cold here and if his fingers are stiff, he’ll miss. But those who can shoot so far away from us definitely aren’t rookies so we can’t casually take risks. First, lie down and let him freeze for a while.”

“Who the fuck is it?” I asked. “Didn’t those Germans let us go? Were we allowed to go because we’re two moving targets?”

“It’s too easy for those Germans to kill us, so it’s not them. If it were the Zhang family…all of them are skilled and won’t resort to sniping. The role of snipers is generally to beat more with less. We have two people here. If there were more than five snipers over there, they wouldn’t need to snipe at us and could just come in and fight. It’s not like we’re strong opponents anyways.” Fatty used his clothes to cover the place where the bullet had grazed him and looked around, apparently looking for something to help with our situation. “So I’m afraid the number of people attacking us is very small or it might just be one person. They watched us standing here alone and tried to kill us.”

“It’s someone we don’t know?” I was surprised and wondered how many forces had gathered in this temple. As soon as I asked, there were two more consecutive shots. The bullet went through the window and came in the right direction, but it was at the wrong height and flew over my head.

“Yes, there’s another party,” Fatty said. “I actually haven’t told you about some things, but I don’t have time now. We’ll discuss it all later. See, he can already judge where we are.”

“How?”

“Experience. He must have surveyed this room beforehand.” Fatty looked around.” There are only a few places to hide in this room. He must have surveyed it in advance and marked all the places we could hide. When he left, he chose to ambush and shoot at us in the spots with the least dead corners. He’s now betting that you’re hiding there and testing it out with bullets.”

Another bullet came at me just then, and this time, the angle was very tricky. The shot came from the window in a downward oblique line, landing on the floor behind me. My whole body felt numb as the floor shook, and I quickly crawled to the side.

Fatty also showed a strange expression. “But the gamble is too accurate.”

“Maybe he saw me pouncing on you just now so he thinks I should be in this area,” I theorized.

“Impossible. It’s very convenient to crawl around here and everyone will choose the most concealed place to hide.” Fatty showed a thoughtful expression, “But if he could see us, we would’ve been shot, so he’s still guessing.”

On the other side of my room, there was a shelf made of wooden rods, which I used to dry my clothes in the room. I had stayed here for many days after all, and my underwear was washed directly in a basin and hung in the warm room, waiting a few hours to dry.

Fatty turned his head, carefully drew one of the rods, and said to me, “Forget it, we’ll trick him out of his bullets first. Then we’ll go out the back window and get to the mountains while he reloads.”

Fatty took off his outer layer of clothing—a Tibetan robe— and picked it up with the rod.

As soon as it was exposed in the windowsill, there were three bullets and the Tibetan robe was immediately knocked down.

I looked at Fatty who gave a tut and said, “What kind of sniper rifle is this? Its firing rate is so high.”

I immediately heard some strange sounds, so I quickly made a gesture at Fatty to shut up.

Fatty knew that my expression must mean something so he stopped talking. I listened for any more noises and suddenly heard a slight rustling sound in the courtyard outside.

I pointed to Fatty’s ear and then pointed outside. He rolled his eyes and went to listen, but after a while, he suddenly showed an angry expression.

He mouthed instructions to me, telling me to stick to the side of the door, made a “1, 2, 3” gesture with his fingers, and then lifted his foot, meaning that I should kick the door open after he counted to three.

The tacit understanding formed by my friendship with Fatty after so many years came into full play here. I had no doubts or hesitations as I immediately crawled to the door, turned around, and pressed my foot against it. Fatty picked up the candlestick that had been knocked to the ground and weighed it before suddenly crouching down and making a “1” to me. I nodded and took a deep breath as he made a “2” gesture. At the moment when the “3” gesture came, he suddenly stood up.

I immediately kicked the wooden door open with a hard kick and Fatty squatted down.

In an instant, two bullets were fired towards the place his head had just been. He rolled, threw the candlestick in his hand outside, and then rushed out after it. I heard several muffled gunshots over there, but they were actually coming from the courtyard.

Turning over, I saw Fatty wrestling with a man who had been forced to release the hold on his gun after Fatty bit his hand. I hurried over, picked up the candlestick on the ground, and joined in the battle. One hand grabbed the man’s neck while the other held the candlestick, which I used to knock him on the head.

The man was quite strong, but our coordinated fighting style was too much for anyone to handle. I knocked the man on the head several times until he stopped moving and then Fatty and I turned him over. We found that the man was a lama. Fatty picked up the gun that was tossed to the side, and I saw that it was a pistol with a silencer.

“Damn it, this bastard was in the courtyard using a pistol to imitate a sniper rifle.” Fatty fiddled with the gun and then put it in the waistband at his lower back, effectively confiscating it.

“Why did you rush out so recklessly?” I asked him. “You’re not Little Brother. If this candlestick failed, you would have died.”

“When I heard the noise, I thought he was using a pistol. The sound was so muffled that there had to be a silencer. Moreover, the shooting angles were oblique just now. If he was in the courtyard, he must be very close to the door, so I made a bet. Sure enough, this guy was just a few meters away from our door. But it’s strange to shoot with a pistol when it’s so cold out.”

I didn’t see it just now and asked, “Why was he so close?”

“He was listening to us talking and judging where we were,” Fatty said. “I was just wondering how he knew which direction you were in, but it turned out he was listening outside and almost stole the chicken.”

I crouched down to look at this person’s face and found that it was a lama from the temple. I had seen him twice, both times in the dining hall. But it seemed that I had hit him too hard because his nose was bleeding.

“Mr. Naïve, I haven’t seen you for so many days and now your hands are as black as this fat master’s.” Fatty teased me as he looked around to make sure that no one was still waiting to ambush us. Then he said, “First, drag him into the room. This man seems to be special but I don’t know why he was plotting against us. Everyone in this temple seems to have problems with us. We need to be more careful.”

I thought for a moment and then said to him, “If that’s the case, then my room definitely isn’t the place to stay. Follow me, I’ll take you to a safer place.”

<Chapter 32><Table of Contents><Chapter 34>

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Updated 12/18/2021