“What happened?” Miao Xuedong was puzzled and didn’t know how to respond. The local young man clearly didn’t understand what we were doing here. “Nothing happened, right?”
“Then why did you lock this door? There’s nothing valuable inside,” the chubby man said.
“Hey, boss, your focus is really strange. Is there a wild beast in here or something?” Miao Xuedong walked straight into the bushes, making his way to the center of the square.
I lit a cigarette and noticed the signs warning against forest fires everywhere, feeling no guilt at all.
From the expression on the chubby man’s face, he was still tense. Miao Xuedong looked back at us, who were standing motionless at the door, with confusion.
I squatted down and said, “Chubby, if nothing’s going on, our reputation as a bunch of lunatics will definitely spread in the village.”
“Naive. I’ve been shooting guns for half my life. My eyesight might be declining, but my ability to spot things is only getting sharper. Something’s off here,” the chubby man replied, turning back. He was familiar with my buddies and called out, “Kanjian!”
Kanjian was also a soldier. Many of my team members were veterans who had scattered into this line of work, and they had gathered here because they had heard good things about me after the incident with Panzi. People like Panzi leave a lasting impact, and even in his absence, his shadow and the past still hold power.
“Chubby, you speak,” Kanjian bent down.
“The tree in the northeast corner, three inches to the side, don’t miss,” the chubby man said.
Both Xiao Hua and I watched. After all these years, when the chubby man got serious, it was worth paying attention to. Just as he finished speaking, Kanjian quickly pulled out a slingshot, drawing it back to the limit, and with a “pop,” it made a piercing sound.
This type of earthen slingshot had great power. We heard a cry of “Ouch!” as a person tumbled out from behind the tree the chubby man had mentioned, clutching their neck and falling to the ground.
Once that person emerged, there was immediately movement in the bushes and underbrush behind the large trees surrounding the square, indicating that quite a few people were hiding.
“Free fire,” the chubby man said, looking at Miao Xuedong with a mix of amusement and exasperation, as Kanjian used the slingshot to flush out the people hiding in the bushes one by one. With each sound of the rubber band snapping, we heard screams as the people trying to hide were hit in different places, jumping around in pain.
A total of seventeen people were scattered. After running out, a few still wanted to charge toward us, but as we swung our batons, they changed their minds and turned back, running into the woods at the edge of the square, quickly disappearing without a trace, leaving only Miao Xuedong behind, completely unaware of what had happened.
We approached Miao Xuedong and asked, “Who are those people?”
Miao Xuedong looked at the few people who had run far away and stammered, “I don’t know them; they’re not locals.” Then we heard someone calling from the woods, “Wu Xie, you better watch out.”
I immediately remembered who that person was.
“I cannot have enemies.” For the past few years, I have adhered to this principle because I needed to gain maximum assistance when the time came, breaking through all obstacles and mobilizing everyone involved. This could easily make people think I had discovered something extraordinary, thus raising awareness within the industry, which often leads to obstacles appearing at that moment.
I don’t have the energy to deal with these people anymore, so I have always firmly avoided making enemies, often mobilizing all my resources, which makes people feel that I am someone who seeks to achieve great things. It’s all to avoid drawing attention.
But no matter what I do, there is one person who has always regarded me as an enemy. And there is nothing I can do about him. His name is Wang Meng. When I first entered the industry, he was the only assistant in my shop. After I returned, he opened a store called “Wang Zi Gui Ju” at the original location of my shop, clearly not expecting my return.
It was like a widowed person finally forgetting the past and preparing to start a new life when their deceased partner suddenly reappears; he is very unaccustomed to my return. When Wu Xie is not around, Wang Meng has to receive care from the friends and subordinates of the “deceased” boss all over the place. With Wu Xie back, Wang Meng is no longer “Boss Wang” and seems to have to return to the counter to deal with the fallout. However, after going through so much, this kid has begun to resist for the first time.
He knows too much about me, and he realizes that this group of misfits doesn’t seem to be here to cause trouble for me. I don’t know what they want. I decide to ignore them, shake my head, and tell everyone to get their weapons ready, asking Miao Xuedong, “What should we do?”
“All of this is rotten wood underneath; if you dig, it’s layer upon layer. This forest has been buried here for so many years. My dad said he definitely can’t remember where the wood was cut from, but he remembers that when he found this arrowhead, that piece of wood was in the northeast corner of the forest.”
We went to the northeast corner and started to dig. Xiao Hua looked in the direction Wang Meng ran off to, suddenly a little dazed, and said, “What does this mountain look like to you?”
This piece was published by Nanpai San Shu on June 16, 2015.
发表回复