Chapter Thirty-Three: Ant Fortress

  Half an hour later, the Golden Flower stopped half a mile away from the nameless small island.

  The island is surrounded by a zone of numerous reefs, and for safety reasons, it's not good for ships to get close.

  Soon, a rubber dinghy was lowered from the Jin Hua ship and landed steadily on the sea. The five of us discussed and decided that I, Gui Ye Jia, and Xu Lai would take the rubber dinghy to explore the island.

  That's why the three of us went, the reason is simple, Lao Tai Jian is blind, but his martial arts skills are the highest, so it's safest to let him stay on the Golden Flower Wheel. Nie Kun and Xu Lai are two rascals with bad intentions, they can't be left together in case they cause any trouble, so someone has to go to the island. As for Gu Ye Jia, this kid is a freak, professionally dealing with tough guys, the best choice for fighting.

  And as for me, I was purely on the ship feeling anxious and wanted to get out and move around. I didn't think of landing on the island as being particularly dangerous. After all, where there's a lighthouse, there are people taking care of it, and with people living there, it would be easy to handle. The Jinhua Ferry had not yet left Chinese waters, so the people stationed on this island were likely to be Chinese. In my experience, these people should be government-employed coastal militia or retired soldiers who have been stationed on isolated islands for years, guiding passing ships and rotating every few years - navigation technology was far less developed back then. Of course, I also thought about the possibility of a small Nationalist Party military unit being stationed there, but thinking about it now, it's unrealistic - this island is too small, with no value in terms of military deployment. Unless it's very close to the mainland and has a special geographical location that makes supply convenient, the Nationalist Party wouldn't have had the spare troops or financial resources to do something as useless as that. Of course, my way of thinking now seems outdated - the international situation decades later is completely different, almost to the point where every inch of land must be fought for - but at the time, my judgment was based on evidence.

  All three of us had experience rowing a boat, and soon we were in sync, heaving ho, heaving ho, advancing with the wind and waves. Before long, I was exhausted. The three great hardships of life - rowing, ironwork, and grinding tofu - did not deceive me.

  "This nameless small island is isolated overseas, and if the people on it want to contact the outside world, except for regular cruise ships, there is only one way." I suddenly said.

  "Radio!" Xu Lai immediately understood what I meant and hastily said: "It's very likely that this unnamed small island has a radio station that maintains communication with the outside world."

  "Not bad, that's a high possibility. However, the radio isn't the most important thing, what's most important is figuring out our current coordinates. After all, we don't want to bring the rescue ship over so early." I said this because apart from me, none of them were willing to have any dealings with the Nationalist government.

  Xu Lai nodded repeatedly.

  "There are less than fourteen hours left until Cai Lingyu's predicted explosion time." Gui Yexia glanced at the time and said in a low voice, "We'd better make it quick and end this as soon as possible. Let's hurry back to the Golden Flower Wheel and have a final showdown with Cai Lingyu. At worst, we can transfer all the passengers who are locked up onto the island, and her trump card will lose its meaning."

  Oniichan makes a lot of sense. But there's one more thing he didn't mention, what if we encounter some unknown trouble on the island and can't make it back to the Kinwa Maru in time, then Shiro will be responsible for releasing Tsukino, and I insisted that we can't risk the lives of hundreds of people on the ship.

  Half a sea mile looks not far, but when you really row, you know that distance is deceiving. Just like when people see the mountain in front of them and walk forward, it may take three days and three nights to reach the foot of the mountain.

  From a distance, the island looks like a double camel hump, one slightly larger than the other, with a low valley in between. The lighthouse is located near the cliff of the larger peak close to the valley, and to be honest, the location of the lighthouse is not eye-catching, strictly speaking, it's a defect.

  "Hmm, these two, don't they look like...? The left one is underdeveloped, a whole cup size smaller. If it doesn't have a name yet, I'll name this small island Big and Little Breast Island from now on. The right one will be Big Breast, the left one will be Second Breast, hahaha..." Xu Lai said with an itch in his heart, indeed seeing what he thought of.

  "You're going to die from not having a girlfriend!" Gu Ye shouted at him, and Xulai chuckled: "Wait till I've saved up enough for my funeral expenses, then I'll go to Southeast Asia to open a brothel. I heard that industry is very developed there."

  "Aren't you afraid of meeting a short, thin, dark and ugly native woman?" I said.

  "You think you understand, I can go to Japan and the West to import, as long as I have money, what woman can't be gotten. Didn't Du Yuesheng still abduct Meng Xiaodong from Mei Lanfang?" Xu Lai's eyes gleamed with excitement, wishing he could stuff a silver dollar into each of them.

  I thought about it and it seems that Dai Li had a romantic relationship with the movie star Hu Die before he died. It's not that I'm slandering Dai Li, but his unattractive appearance managed to win over Hu Die, who was already married at the time. If you say it wasn't because of Dai Li's power and wealth, I wouldn't believe it. Even if there was true love, in our special era, women more than ever hoped to find a man who could provide them with a sense of security, sometimes this thought surpassed the feelings between men and women.

  A minute later, Xu Lai and I were paddling too hard, our arms almost breaking. The ghostly figure didn't slow down at all, with a disdainful look in his eyes, the two of us watched as he docked the kayak on the shore.

  We arrived at the beach on the right side of the small island's big peak. The sand was very white and fine, and it felt extremely comfortable to step on. We tied the kayak to a rock.

  Three people walked into the woods with mutual vigilance. The island was not big, but the trees were extremely lush.

  We had walked about thirty steps when we suddenly saw many small piles of stones piled up in front of us.

  These small heaps are a little higher than I am, about half a head shorter, and two of me wide. Under the shade of the dense forest, they appear black and very conspicuous.

  We curiously walked over to take a closer look, and were suddenly shocked to find that these stone piles were much more numerous than we had imagined, with the vast majority hidden behind trees. The base of most of the stone piles was covered in thick moss, indicating that they had been piled up for some years.

  "What's weird is what are these stone piles used for?" I wondered.

  Xu Lai pushed aside a movable stone and exclaimed: "It's hollow inside!"

  Oni-ya took a flashlight and shone it into the pile of stones. The moment the light came on, our expressions immediately became tense.

  A rusty rifle appeared in the pile of stones!

  "Little Japan's Type 38 Arisaka!" We immediately recognized the identity of this rifle.

  "How could something from Little Japan appear here?" My eyebrows furrowed tightly, and I naturally thought of a possibility: "Could it be... that there are Japanese people on this island!" Although the Type 38 rifle was the most important weapon of the Japanese invading army in China, the Communist Army had also captured quite a few. However, I automatically ruled out the Communist Army - they didn't even have a regular navy yet, how could they possibly land on the island?

  As soon as this idea was spoken, the three of us were shocked. I saw that their faces turned serious, and at the same time, the appearance of Sanba Daga completely shattered all my previous speculations about the small island.

  It seems this small island is far from being as simple as I thought.

  Oniwasha took out the Type 38 rifle, wiping off the dust on its surface. However, the gun body was severely rusted, and steel easily corroded in this humid island environment. The rifle still had a full load of bullets inside, and after trying the bolt action, it could still be used.

  Oniichan carefully examined the pile of stones again, his eyebrows moved slightly as he touched the top stone and said in a low voice: "I see, I know what this thing is."

  "What?" I hastily asked back.

  "Come on, stop pretending!" Xu Laihuzi hastily said.

  The corner of Oni's mouth curved, as if recalling something, and he said with a smile: "When I landed on Sulphur Island with the Pacific Fleet, the battle was already over. There were many stone piles like this on the island, called anthills, which is a unique tactic created by the Japanese. It can only hold one person inside, hidden in the dense forest, forming a network of fire, specifically to counter the US military's large-scale landing operations. At that time, countless American sailors died under this tactic."

  "So that means these stone piles are also likely to be the work of Japanese people, which means this island was once a secret base for Japanese people!" I quickly inferred along with Kiyotsugu's words.

  "That's right, but not quite. Ghost Leg pointed to the opening of the stone pile and said strangely: "There is a strange phenomenon here. Have you found that if these are ant forts, their firepower openings should face the beach outside the island, but they all face the center of the dense forest, or rather, the center of the island."

  After being told by Gui Ye, I hurriedly checked other stone piles, more than ten in a row, and none of them were exceptions. The fire-opening mouth was indeed facing the center of the island, which made me secretly surprised.

  "It seems that the Japanese built so many anthills, not to aim at people coming from outside, but more like... "Oni no Yaiba stroked his chin, uncertainly saying: 'Not letting what's inside come out.'"

  "This doesn't matter, it's possible that the Japanese have gone mad. I'm only concerned about whether there are still any remaining Japanese on this island?" Xu Lai looked around nervously, his spirit highly tense as he surveyed the surroundings, the relaxed mood from three minutes ago was gone without a trace.

  "The rifles were all casually discarded, and probably these devils have retreated back to the Japanese mainland." I could only guess, but it was clear that morale was low, and no one dared to guarantee that there weren't one or two remnants who refused to admit defeat and continued to resist.

  The three of us held the submachine guns and hand grenades given by Oni-otoko, and we were naturally fearless on the plains, but in this unfamiliar dense island, a single shot could take our lives.

  "It's a good thing I wore back the bulletproof vest." I thought to myself, several hours ago we thoroughly searched the Jinhua ship and didn't find any timed bombs, but this treasure of a bulletproof vest was actually found by me next to a dead sailor's body, and Nie Kun and I almost got into a fight over it.

  We three never thought that just a few minutes after landing on the island, we would encounter this unexpected event, but we still decided to go into the lighthouse to see what's going on. If we were to slink back to the boat like cowards, Nie Kun would ask us and we'd have to say we were scared off by a pile of broken stones - he'd laugh his teeth off.

  Next, the three of us formed a circle, highly vigilant with our weapons at hand. Guī Yè Jiǎo took the lead, while I and Xú Lài covered both sides and the rear, deciding to bypass the anthills that were visible everywhere as we slowly advanced in the direction of the lighthouse.

  Just as we were leaving the last anthill, a boulder on it fell off, and I, whose nerves had already been stretched to the limit, immediately pointed my gun at it, only to see the face of a strange creature with a thick black beard emerging from inside the anthill.

  "Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp......"

  "A monkey?" I was startled, no, it didn't look like a monkey, but rather an unknown kind of ape-like creature.

  Beep beep beep...

  Xu Lai didn't say a word and directly fired a string of bullets over there.