The speed at which things unfolded left us unable to react. None of us dared to move, and Zhang Haixing quietly asked the fat guy, “Was this arranged by you too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Where would I find so many bosses’ sons?”
This was a serious problem, I thought to myself. After a moment of stalemate, I saw two foreigners walk in through the door.
They were two of the Germans from earlier. I hadn’t paid them any attention before, but now that they walked in, I realized these two guys were incredibly muscular, like bulls. Both were a head taller than me, with silver-gray hair and faces lined with deep creases.
These were the faces of mountaineers.
After the two foreigners entered, they waved their hands, and instantly all the laser dots disappeared. But I knew this didn’t mean that all the snipers had retreated; it was just a signal to let us know they were watching us. Now that the laser dots were gone, they didn’t want us to know their movements. There were definitely still quite a few snipers aimed at us; good snipers use scopes and can lock onto two targets at once.
Once the Germans walked in, they kept bowing to us in the traditional Chinese fist salute. One of them spoke in very poor Chinese, saying, “Sorry, sorry, everyone sit down, everyone sit down.”
“This foreigner must have watched too many martial arts movies,” the fat guy said beside me.
“You two can leave now,” one of the foreigners said as he approached me and the fat guy.
“Huh?” I was a bit surprised, and the fat guy said, “We can leave?”
“Yes, hurry up and go,” the foreigner replied without even looking at us. “What’s happening here has nothing to do with you; it’s between me and them.”
The fat guy and I exchanged glances, and Zhang Haike said, “If you can leave, then hurry up! We can handle this ourselves.”
I found it very strange; I couldn’t make sense of the logic behind this situation. The fat guy grinned at me, implying that we shouldn’t miss out on an opportunity. He suggested we leave before the foreigner changed his mind. So, stiff as a board, the fat guy and I walked out of the room like little chicks pecking at grains and into the courtyard. I glanced at the fat guy and asked, “What should we do? Where should we go?”
“Let’s go to your room first; it’s safe here. I have some communication with these Germans,” the fat guy replied.
“Was this really your arrangement?” I asked in surprise.
The fat guy made a gesture for me to be quiet. “Don’t say anything. It’s not an arrangement; it’s my insurance measure. I think this design has too many risky elements, so I had the Germans involved beforehand. It’s not convenient to talk here; we can discuss it when we get back.”
I nodded, thinking this felt a lot like visiting a friend’s house, only to find them arguing with their spouse, leaving us in an awkward position. We had to step outside, and then I thought: What if something terrible happens inside, like a murder? Just when I was unsure of what to do, a friend traveling with me said: “Don’t worry; his wife actually loves me.”
Thinking about it, that analogy didn’t quite fit, so I decided to wait for the fat guy to explain. We made our way back to the room, closed the door, and I asked the fat guy what exactly was going on with this series of events.

The fat man said it was nothing. Before he met me, he pretended to be a clerk at a convenience store and sold me several packs of cigarettes that contained listening devices; each box of cigarettes had a listening device inside. After that, he followed me all the way, gaining insight into many of my thoughts. When I was set up, he heard every detail of the process clearly. At that time, he was near the Lama Temple, and as soon as he heard they wanted to test him, he immediately returned to the city and orchestrated this scheme.

However, before this, while he was monitoring me, he discovered that although the Zhang family was watching me, there were also people monitoring the Zhang family. This was a matter of scale; the fat man was alone, making it hard to detect him, but there were many people watching the Zhang family, and they were all foreigners, so it was easy to notice them with a little attention.

The fat man felt that if the Zhang family conducted these surveillance activities themselves, they would inevitably realize they were being watched. However, the Zhang family was overly confident and employed locals. The locals lacked this kind of experience, so they had no idea that while they were following someone, there were others watching them.

“What kind of foreigners are they?” I asked the fat man.

“Investors from Jude Co.’s overseas operations,” the fat man replied.

I shook my head. I didn’t understand this kind of thing. The fat man said, “Jude Co. is a joint-stock company. After Jude died, the company fell into chaos. I believe you must have heard about the mess they were in a few years ago. At that time, their board made two decisions: they spun off some of their quality businesses to form a new company while leaving many of Jude’s projects and materials in the parent company. Since these were all huge loss-making projects, it was a massive mess. They put this company on the capital market, hoping someone would take over and buy it at a low price; if not, they were preparing for bankruptcy.”

“As a result, miraculously, someone actually bought this mess, taking on not only the massive debts but also preserving many of the projects, among which the most esteemed were Jude’s projects in China. The buyer was a German company called ‘Quiet’ in Chinese.”

“Quiet? What does that have to do with Amway?” I thought to myself, then asked, “So how did you get in touch with them?”

“To my shame, it wasn’t me who contacted them; they came looking for me,” the fat man said. “Not long after you went up the mountain, they found me. Damn it, with a hundred thousand euros and a few machine guns at stake, I thought to myself, why not cooperate with them? Their goal was to find out the true intentions of this group of Hong Kong people, hoping I could assist them. So I treated them as a backup plan; in case my scheme went wrong, at least we would have a way out and an ally.”

“So, you’re saying these Germans had no idea of my significance, which is why they let me go?”

“Maybe, but not necessarily. Perhaps to the Germans, you weren’t important at all. For example, that group of Hong Kong people was tasked with retrieving something from the snow mountain. In this matter, you were a crucial link. But to the Germans, their goal was simply to find that place in the snow mountain, so you were completely unimportant. The Hong Kong people knew the route to that lake in the snow mountain, so the two groups could communicate directly.”

I pondered for a moment and felt there was some truth to it. However, if both sides reached an agreement, that would be fine; but if they couldn’t come to terms, wouldn’t that lead to a violent clash in the temple?

“The clam and the snipe vie, and the fisherman benefits,” the胖子 said. “I, Zhuge Feilong, believe that regardless of the outcome, it will be advantageous for us. Because in this situation, we are being foolish, and it’s rare for the other two sides to be equally foolish. We might as well let them be foolish to their heart’s content while we watch the show, so we won’t be the only ones acting foolishly afterward.”

I thought of Zhang Haixing and suddenly felt uneasy. People like Zhang Haike and Zhang Longban were very shrewd; they wouldn’t give up until they achieved their goals. Their display of courtesy towards us was merely because I was crucial to their plans. But Zhang Haixing was a genuine person. To be honest, I didn’t want someone like her to die in vain here. Perhaps it was my emotional ties to the Zhang family and my disdain for Qiu Dekao that had led me to side with the Zhang family early on.

I felt I couldn’t allow the situation to change in such a way; I still had to help where I could.

I lit a cigarette and said to the胖子, “Your idea is too negative. We revolutionaries need to be positive and proactive.”

Just as I was speaking, a muffled sound was heard, and a flash of fire shot in from outside the window like a meteor. A burst of blood erupted from the胖子’s temple, and he was knocked back three or four steps by the bullet, collapsing to the ground.