The model of the grenade is MK3A2. The fat guy weighed it in his hand and said he didn’t know where it had been brought in from; it might have been sold on the black market in Guangdong, and he wasn’t sure about its quality. The MK3A2 doesn’t produce much shrapnel; it is mainly used in enclosed spaces to create significant damage and shockwaves, but its power weakens at a distance. Fortunately, we don’t need to kill anyone; we just need to blow it up to see what the door is made of.

When the fat guy first said this, I felt uneasy. Who knows what might be hidden behind that door? Using a grenade to blow it up seemed like a barbaric act that brought no pleasant memories to my mind, but the fat guy seemed to relish the idea of going in hard.

In the past, I would have definitely stopped him and analyzed the pros and cons, but this time I didn’t. My emotions were too complicated, like an orphan who suddenly has a chance to find out who their parents are. In that moment, that feeling made it hard for me to think rationally. I knew that blowing it up would likely end badly, but I still held back from stopping him. In fact, I was particularly looking forward to the scene after the fat guy blew it up.

At this moment, Zhang Haixing was more rational. She waved her hand and said to the fat guy, “We’re under a mountain here. If the shockwave reaches above and brings down all the stones, we could die right in front of the door. Moreover, this grenade has too little power; if we don’t choose the right spot to detonate it, the door is solid, and all the fragments will bounce back from it.”

“Old lady, when I was doing demolitions, you were just a little brat…” the fat guy started to say, but halfway through he realized he was in the wrong. He couldn’t act superior in front of Zhang Haixing, so he swallowed his words and said, “I was young and ambitious, especially talented in demolition; I was the demolition prince, booming like a beautiful melody.”

“Stop rambling,” I snapped. “Just blow it up, don’t wait for my rationality to win over me.”

“Don’t rush. Although the old lady doesn’t like me, she’s right. This grenade really does have too little power. I need to use a lot of stones to weigh them down in front of the door, then set a long detonation line. That way, the shockwave from the explosion will be absorbed by the stones, and the impact will be directed inward.”

As the fat guy spoke, he waved me over. Clearly, he knew what he was doing. Zhang Haixing also came to help, and the fat guy took out just one grenade for the demolition. I said he was being a bit stingy, and he replied that we just wanted to see what the inside of the door looked like. If it was solid, no matter how much we tied, it would be useless; this is an individual weapon that couldn’t even penetrate a tank, let alone a door that looked as thick as an aircraft carrier’s deck.

We quickly finished preparing. The fat guy slowly threaded the line through the pin, tested it to make sure the grenade couldn’t be pulled, and then had us retreat, retreat, retreat, until we were behind a large boulder. The fat guy threw me a look and said, “Hey, want to have some fun?” as he handed me the line.

I was feeling anxious. At that moment, when the line was in my hands, I tried to control myself. But as soon as I took it, my hands started shaking, and I couldn’t grip the line properly.

After a few tries, Zhang Haixing snatched it from me and pulled it directly. Then she immediately covered her head.

“Fatty and I were a beat behind; as soon as we looked, we instinctively shrank back. Those seven or eight seconds felt like one or two minutes, and then we heard a deafening bang. In the open gap at the foot of the mountain, the sound was so immense it was beyond description, even thunder couldn’t compare to it. I could hardly tell what the sound was. Almost simultaneously, we heard an even more terrifying noise, deafening and overwhelming. After the entire bronze door shook, it was as if it had become a gigantic loudspeaker, producing a series of very strange, booming sounds that oddly resembled the simultaneous screams of countless people.

Stone fragments didn’t fall on us, but the sound came in waves and showed no signs of quieting down. Fatty’s face turned pale, and he was the first to stand up and shine his flashlight back. I had just stood up and hadn’t yet seen clearly when Fatty suddenly grabbed me and shouted, ‘Damn it, run!!'”