Surprisingly, we hadn’t driven the car for more than a few minutes before the tyre blew out!
Xia Gehuai got out of the car with a torch and drove around, kicked the tyre hard, then came back and told me, “It’s been punctured by a row of nails.”
The driver panicked, “I think it’s someone who eats mountains nearby, hurry up and get out of here.”
“Mountain eaters?” I couldn’t understand his black language.
The driver cursed, “Those who eat the mountain by the mountain, and those who eat the water by the water. It’s the road blockers, they put in rows of nails that specialise in puncturing tyres, you don’t drive this road often enough to understand! Hurry up and run, hurry up!”
It was obviously too late, as a dozen shining torches lit up on the hillside and soon a dozen men carrying knives and hoes surrounded us.
“What’s the situation?” Xia Gehuai said in astonishment.
“A cloud in the northwest Xuantian!”
“A crow has fallen into a flock of phoenixes!”
“A body full of heroes!”
“Full of what? Full of what? The table is full of heroes. The table is full of heroes, which is the king and which is the minister?”
A few of the dozen big men came out and read to us, which I understood, meaning that we should come out with someone who could speak with some weight and wanted to talk to us.
The driver was already frightened out of his wits, cowering in the back seat and screaming frantically, causing my eardrums and those of Xia Gehuai to hurt.
“They’re gonna kill people!!! These mountain eaters won’t spare our lives even after they’ve eaten all the money we have on us!!! Dead for sure!!!”
Xia Gehuai and I looked at each other, I had heard of mountain bandits, but I never thought we would actually meet them in this day and age.
Seeing that neither of us would get out of the car, the man outside became angry and came at the hood of our taxi with a machete.
“Shame on you, get down and hand over all your money!!!”
“Yes, get down!!!”
A dozen big men shouted in unison, their shouts echoing in the empty mountain forest with great force.
Our car couldn’t be driven, but the headlights could still be turned on, and I turned on the headlights, then smiled and said to Xia Gehuai, “How do you think it’s such a coincidence that we’ve met two gangs that brought themselves to our door in one day.”
“That’s right, I have to pretend twice a day today, I’m a bit embarra*sed, let’s go.” Xia Gehuai said.
We both opened the door left and right and got out, standing in front of the headlights, which illuminated the dozen or so big men a bit.
They looked like farmers from the nearby mountains, farming during the day and robbing the roads at night.
The driver of the black car had travelled this road several times and knew it well enough to know which roads were safe and which were not.
But I didn’t know the road, I was driving according to the navigation, and I got caught up in the road at once.
“Damn it, take out the money! Or I’ll chop you up and throw you in the mountains!”
“And take off all your clothes too! Everything of value stays!”
“What are you waiting for, and take the money, are you going to force our hand?”
I looked at them and laughed, “What if I don’t want to take the money?”
One of the robbers, a yellow-haired man, who looked the youngest, pointed a watermelon knife at me: “You don’t want to take the money? Look how you’re dragging yourself. Brothers, don’t talk nonsense with them, let’s go together, just kill them and take the money.”
They came at me with their knives raised, and Xia Gehuai and I uncovered the clothes on our Light 50s and aimed our light sniper rifles at the toes of the man at the front.
BANG–!
A shot rang out and the man’s shoe was pierced by the raised tarmac debris, exposing two toes.
The shouting and shouting died down, everyone dared not say a word and forgot to put down their knives, just as if they had been struck by a stance.
Anyone with a brain would know what to do between a watermelon knife and a sniper rifle.
After a short silence, everyone dropped their knives, some turned and tried to slip away, but I nearly broke their heels with a point-blank shot.
Everyone who had been so arrogant a moment ago was now crying and kneeling on the ground, with their hands raised behind their heads, a completely different look from earlier.
Xia Gehuai spat and went over with his gun, pointing it at everyone’s head as he said, “Now it’s my turn to ask you, which is the king and which is the subject? Who is leading the charge?!”
“We won’t tell!” Someone shouted firmly.
But as soon as his words were out of his mouth, the rest of them pointed their fingers at him. The man’s face was black as carbon, angry and red, glaring angrily at his gang of brothers, but the others acted as if they couldn’t see his eyes.
The young yellow-haired man from earlier came over on his knees and fawned over me, “Brother, we are all accomplices, Uncle Tiezhu is the main culprit, and it was he who thought up this robbery.”
The one who had been “accused by a thousand husbands” just now was Uncle Tiezhu, as Huang Hao called him, and at that moment Tiezhu’s eyes could not wait to strangle Huang Hao.
I said, “Stop and rob, are you tired of living? I have just called the police and they will be here soon. The police will be here soon. Although you guys are accomplices, I guess it will be hard enough to get a sentence. If you give an explanation now, you can turn yourselves in, and you might get a lighter sentence.”
Xia Gehuai said, “That’s right, our policy is to be lenient when you confess.”
The mountainous areas of Tong City are poor and rich, and I reckon there are more than one gang of bandits in the vicinity, so arresting just this one gang might not be of much use.
If this gang could climb out of the other mountain bandits in order to reduce their sentences, Xia Gehuai and I, now armed with two light snipers, could go and do the people a favour.
With his face full of humiliation, Tie Zhu looked like he would not cooperate with us and turned his head away.
“No, nothing else!”
I laughed in exasperation, “Don’t put on a heroic face if you’re a mountain bandit. You don’t say anything, do you? Then whoever says so will be given credit for a reduced sentence when the time comes.”
“I say I say! I have a situation to explain!”
“I’m the one who has something to say! Let me speak!”
“Shut up, I’ll talk!”
Not only were people anxious to say something, but they almost fought with each other.
Tiezhu almost died of anger at the situation, he looked like a “righteous man”, but he had the same kind of people under him.
“Don’t be in a hurry, let’s talk together, you all get credit.” Xia Gehuai said.
“We have just arrested a few people. These people are quite rich, and we captured them back at the fortress with the intention of blackmailing their families.”
My brow furrowed for a moment, not expecting this guy to be so honest.
“Where is your fortress?” I asked.
“Can I reduce my sentence if I tell you? I really want to make merit, I regret it, I don’t want to be a mountain bandit ……,” the young yellow-haired man said, and actually wailed out.
Tiezhu was so angry that he was going to vomit blood and die, probably knowing that no matter what he said no one would listen anymore, he shouted two times helplessly that he could not expose the fortress, then closed his eyes casually and stopped talking.
