I was startled and immediately rushed over to see what was happening. Just as I reached the fat guy, he kicked me, causing me to stumble and fall to the ground. Almost simultaneously, another bullet whizzed past my back and hit a candlestick on the other side. The candlestick was struck, sending sparks flying everywhere, and I thought it would catch fire, but the oil quickly extinguished it. It seemed that the floor here had aged over the years, and the thick patina made it quite safe.

I had some flames sticking to me, and I was patting them out when the fat guy shouted at me, “At your age, you should be more alert! Why are you running at a time like this? You should just drop to the ground!”

“What about you? I thought you were shot in the head,” I said, seeing blood all over his face. “I was worried about you!”

“Worried my ass! If I die, you won’t have to bury me. I’ve got plenty of people to see me off,” the fat guy replied, covering his temple with one hand. I thought to myself that it probably wasn’t a serious head wound; otherwise, he wouldn’t be speaking so fluently.

“Do you know what my background is? It’s not that easy to take me out. If it weren’t so damn cold here, I wouldn’t have dodged that bullet,” he said. “Back in school, I was famously known as the ‘big meat bun that couldn’t be hit.'”

I looked at his temple, and it really was just a scrape. I thought to myself that the other side must be quite incompetent; they couldn’t even hit such a big target as the fat guy. He continued, “For people like us who navigate the underworld, we constantly make spiral head movements in places where snipers might be lurking. It’s called taking precautions.”

The fat guy does tend to shake his head when he talks, and I thought about it for a moment, realizing he was probably just rambling; it was likely just his second-rate habit. Just as I was about to retort, another gunshot rang out, and I didn’t even know where it hit, but wood chips flew everywhere. Both the fat guy and I instinctively shrank our necks.

“Who the hell is it?” I said. “Didn’t those Germans let us go? Are they really letting us go just to have two moving targets?”

“If those Germans wanted to kill us, it would be too easy for them; it can’t be them. If it were the Zhang family, a family with such good skills, they wouldn’t use sniping as a method. The role of a sniper is generally to defeat a larger force with fewer numbers. If there were more than six of them, they would just come in and shoot; we wouldn’t stand a chance.” The fat guy covered the grazed area with his clothing and looked around, clearly trying to find a way to resolve the situation. “So the person sniping at us is probably very few in number, maybe even just one person, waiting for us to be isolated and trying to kill us.”

“Not any of us?” I was surprised, wondering just how many forces were gathered in this temple. As soon as I finished speaking, there were two consecutive gunshots. Bullets flew in through the window, aimed right at my position, but they were too high and flew over my head.

“Yes, there’s another party involved,” the fat guy said. “Actually, there are some things I haven’t told you yet, but there’s no time now; we’ll discuss it later. You see, he can already determine where we are.”

“Why?”

“Experience tells me he must have scouted this room beforehand.” The fat man looked around, “There are only a few places to hide in this room. He must have marked all the spots we could hide in and then chose to ambush from the spot with the smallest blind spot. Right now, he’s betting on where you’re hiding and testing you with bullets.”

Just as he finished speaking, another bullet struck my position. This time, the angle was tricky, coming in at a downward diagonal through the window and hitting the floor behind me. The shock left me numb all over, and I quickly crawled to the side.

The fat man also showed a strange expression. “But this guy is betting a bit too accurately.”

“Maybe he saw me darting toward your direction just now,” I said, “so he thinks I should be around here.”

“Impossible. It’s easy to crawl around here; anyone would choose the most concealed spot to hide.” The fat man looked thoughtful. “Strange. If he could see us, we would have been hit already, so he must still be guessing. But why is he guessing so accurately?”

The fat man carefully pulled out a wooden frame and said to me, “Never mind that. Let’s trick him into wasting his bullets first. Then, when he reloads, we can slip out through the back window. Once we’re in the mountains, it will be easier.” He took off his clothes and quickly used the pole to prop them up. Just as they peeked over the window ledge, three bullets hit, causing the clothes to fall immediately.

I looked at the fat man, who clicked his tongue and said, “What kind of sniper rifle is this? The rate of fire is so high.” In that brief moment, I heard some strange sounds and immediately gestured for the fat man to be quiet.

The fat man understood that my gesture had significance, so he remained silent. I focused on the sound I had just heard and suddenly caught a very faint rustling noise coming from the yard outside.

I pointed to my ear and then to the outside. The fat man rolled his eyes and listened. After a while, he suddenly displayed an expression of anger. He used lip reading to signal me to move close to the door, then counted with his fingers, making a 1, 2, 3 gesture, indicating that I should kick the door open after he counted.

The tacit understanding formed by years of friendship between the fat man and me was fully displayed here. Without any doubt or hesitation, I crawled over, turned around, and pressed my foot against the door. The fat man picked up the fallen lamp, weighed it for a moment, then suddenly crouched down and made a 1 gesture towards me. I nodded and took a deep breath. He made the 2 gesture, and just as he was about to show the 3, he suddenly stood up.

Almost simultaneously, I kicked the wooden door open with all my strength, while the fat man suddenly crouched down. In an instant, two bullets shot in, grazing the fat man’s hair. He rolled with the momentum, throwing the lamp out of his hand, and then dashed out. I heard several muffled gunshots coming from the yard.

When I turned around, I saw the fat man grappling with someone, and the gun had already been loosened from that person’s grip by the fat man’s bite. I rushed over, picked up the lamp, and joined the fray, quickly trapping the person’s neck and smashing the lamp down onto their head.

The man was quite strong, but with the way the fat guy and I fought, neither of us could handle it. I smashed his head several times, and he fell silent. When we turned him over, we found out he was a lama. The fat guy picked up a gun that had fallen nearby, and it turned out to be a handgun with a silencer.

“Damn it, this bastard was using a handgun in the yard, pretending to be a sniper,” the fat guy said as he fiddled with the gun and tucked it into his lower back.

I said, “Why were you so reckless? You just rushed out like that. You’re not Xiao Ge; if you missed that lamp, you could have been in serious trouble.”

“I guessed it was a handgun from the sound, and since it was so quiet, it definitely had a silencer. Plus, the angles of the shots were all slanted. If it was in the yard, it must have been very close to the door, so I took a gamble. Sure enough, this guy was only ten meters outside our door. In such cold weather, it would be surprising if he hit anything with a handgun.”

I crouched down to look at the man’s face and recognized him as the lama from the temple. I had seen him a couple of times in the cafeteria, but it seemed I had hit him too hard, as blood was now flowing from his nose.

“Naive, it’s been a while since we last met. Now your hands are as dirty as Fat Ye’s,” the fat guy glanced around to ensure no one was watching or planning another ambush, and said, “Let’s drag him into the room. This guy seems to have a special identity, and I don’t know why he tried to ambush us. It seems like everyone in this temple has issues; we need to be extra cautious.”

I thought for a moment and replied, “If that’s the case, I definitely can’t stay in my room. Come with me; I’ll take you to a safer place.”