Chapter 48 Traveling Notes

We easily divided the work up. Fatty wanted to enjoy the fun of close combat with the monkeys, so he was in charge of the vanguard. His main job was to attract the firepower to the yard, so he needed a suit of armor. We were all experienced when it came to fighting monkeys and knew that they liked to scratch people. Since biting wasn’t one of their skills—we were much bigger than them, after all—they would focus on launching all-around attacks to try and separate us.

Monkeys had quick reaction times and their speed was also very fast. If three of them surrounded one of us at the same time, it was easy to get scratched and seriously injured, especially because they would sneak up quickly and then retreat quickly.

But things would be completely different if we bought several bamboo sleeping mats for Fatty to wear. All we had to do was use some wire to make them into armor and wrap them around his body. Then, he could put some oven mitts on his hands and arm himself with a clothesline pole.

Of course, the pole would be covered in kerosene and ignited so that the monkeys couldn’t snatch it from him.

I was in charge of two jobs. The first was to make some traps, which I would set up in places around the house that had weak defenses. Monkeys were very vigilant creatures, so if they fell into a trap at one spot, they wouldn’t continue trying to break through there. I bought a lot of wire and a few small transformers to electrify some of the windows that were easy to climb through. Fatty’s friend had children and elderly at home so we didn’t want any of the monkeys to attack them. Of course, these monkeys were still protected animals and couldn’t be killed so I was planning on using the transformers to adjust the voltage.

The second job was to launch a sneak attack against the monkey king. I took some bamboo from the side of the road and used it to make a blowgun. Then, I bought some iron nails and shuttlecocks⁽¹⁾ from the supermarket. If my aim was accurate, I could take the monkey king down with just one shot.

Anyone who hunted would know that even if your opponent was a tiger, it would die quickly as long as there was enough distance to shoot through its lungs. Even a thin dart would be fatal as long as it was shot through the lungs. But my purpose was to capture the monkey king alive, so I could only use nails instead of a long fishing rod to make a modified deadly blow dart. Not only would the nails not kill the monkey, but they were easy to remove so I had to concoct some poison to coat the nails with.

It was almost too easy to find raw materials to make poison in Hainan. There were upas trees⁽²⁾ everywhere on the side of the road, and although the sap of this tree was highly toxic, it was commonly found even in cities. You could even see drunk people peeing on them in the middle of the night. They probably didn’t realize that once the sap dripped down, it would all be over for them.

I made more than thirty blow darts and then found an upas tree outside of a cemetery by the side of the road. After getting some sap, I put it into a disposable cup, hung it at my waist, and put the blow darts in to soak. That way, the poison wouldn’t dry out by the time I was ready to use them.

If this substance got on people and the rescue wasn’t done in a timely manner, death would be imminent, which meant that it would definitely work very quickly if it got on the monkeys. Therefore, I needed an antidote called Red-Backed Bamboo Grass.⁽³⁾ This kind of grass grew near the upas tree, so I pulled some out, smashed it up, and put it in a water bottle. After the monkey king was poisoned, I would make it drink this water.

Poker-Face was going to be our sniper. He found a suitable tree branch and bought some rubber bands to make a powerful slingshot. Then he bought six packs of White Rabbit Creamy Candy to act as bullets.⁽⁴⁾

This slingshot was powerful enough to leave the monkeys black and blue, but it wouldn’t kill them. Moreover, it ensured that we could effectively control their attack route from a high vantage point.

Poker-Face would be located on the roof, Fatty in the yard, and I would hide so that I could launch my sneak attack. I also bought a lot of firecrackers, so if I was attacked, I could light them and throw them out in order to scare the monkeys off.

Fatty’s friend said that he would be responsible for making us a midnight snack and delivering supplies to us.

The three of us bought the necessary items, made the equipment in the car, and then headed back to his friend’s house. Fatty’s mat armor was so strong that he probably wouldn’t be afraid even if a bear came. When Poker-Face went up to the rooftop, I saw him unwrap one of the candies to eat and then point in a certain direction—he had already noticed that the monkeys were approaching.

Fatty’s friend and I immediately went to close the windows, surrounded all the weak spots with wire, and turned on the electricity.

After finishing the last skylight, I could already hear the monkeys howling from all directions. I was wearing headphones since we were using WeChat to keep in touch with each other in real time. “What’s the situation?” I immediately asked them.

“This monkey king is in charge of a large group of monkeys. In my opinion, there are monkeys all around the area. Ah Ting, go and tell your neighbors to be prepared.”

Ah Ting was his friend’s name, and he immediately went to make the necessary phone calls. At this time, I suddenly heard a loud snap come from the opposite tree—Poker-Face had already fired the first shot, which must have been a warning. It hit the trunk of a tree so hard that the whole tree immediately shook violently. A dozen mature monkeys jumped out of the tree, rushed directly into the yard, and confronted Fatty.

<Chapter 47><Table of Contents><Chapter 49>

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TN Notes:

(1) These shuttlecocks aren’t like the ones used in badminton. They’re called a jianzi in the Chinese game (which also has the same name). They typically have four feathers fixed into a rubber sole or plastic disc.

(2) Upas tree (scientific name: Antiaris toxicaria) is a tree in the mulberry and fig family that has a wide variety of uses even though its sap is highly toxic. Fun fact: the Chinese of Hainan Island refer to the tree as the “Poison Arrow Tree” because its sap was smeared on arrowheads in ancient times by the Li people for use in hunting and warfare.

(3) This seems to be a controversial topic. Some people on Baidu say this Red-Backed Bamboo Grass doesn’t even exist, and the Chinese wiki article doesn’t have any sources cited. Also sketchy how they say this grass is an endangered species if it’s supposed to grow around the upas tree (which isn’t endangered). I also wasn’t finding anything in English saying there’s an antidote for the upas tree sap besides digibind (source here), which is made from the immunoglobulin fragments of sheep that have been inoculated with a digoxin derivative.

(4) White Rabbit Creamy Candy is a brand of milk candy that’s similar to taffy. It’s an iconic cultural brand and has been in production since 1943.