Chapter 23

  Li Bin and Wu Congyu, disguised as ordinary people, arrived at Yingkou. After inquiring about the Han Family Bridge, they came to this small town.

  Li Bin thought to himself: "Gu Zhe" must be a pseudonym, perhaps a code name. But since he didn't know his real name, he might as well ask, maybe someone here knew this person.

  Then Li Bin came to a tobacco stall and said, "Give me a pack of Lao Dao brand."

  The tobacco seller looked at Li Bin's neat clothes and said: "Sir, we have Camel cigarettes, do you want some?"

  Since arriving here, Li Bin hadn't smoked a good cigarette for a long time. Moreover, he wanted to ask the tobacco vendor something, so he gritted his teeth and bought a pack of expensive Camel cigarettes. After paying, he whispered in the vendor's ear: "Little brother, do you know if there is someone named Gu Zhe around here?"

  The cigarette vendor shook his head repeatedly: "I don't know, I've never had a fracture before!"

  Disappointed, Li Bin took Wu Congyu and walked around the small town several times. They even sat down at a small restaurant and ordered a large plate of dumplings. As a result, they asked nearly ten people, but no one knew about someone named "Bone Fracture".

  Just as Li Bin felt disappointed to the extreme, a young man of medium build wearing a hat and a coat suddenly came to Li Bin's side, lightly bumping into him. Before Li Bin could react, he only heard the man ask in a low voice by his ear: "Are you looking for Gu Zhe?"

  Li Bin's heart skipped a beat, he hastily whispered to the young man: "Really? Do you know where he is?" The person's hat was pulled down very low, Li Bin couldn't see what he looked like at all.

  The man said in a low voice: "Please follow me." After that, he turned his head and walked towards the outskirts of the town with big strides.

  Li Bin gave Wu Congyu a look, and the two followed behind the young man, heading straight out of town.

  They didn't know how long they had walked, probably about five or six miles, when a small forest appeared ahead. The young man rushed into the forest, and Li Bin and Wu Congyu couldn't see his shadow from outside.

  "Be careful, there's an ambush!" Seeing Li Bin wanting to go in, Wu Congyu hastily dissuaded him.

  Li Bin turned back and said, "How can you get the tiger cubs without entering the tiger's lair? And don't call me 'Chairman' outside." After finishing speaking, he broke free from Wu Congyu and walked into the forest.

  Wu Congyu saw that he couldn't stop Li Bin, and had no choice but to follow him. The two of them walked into the forest together. As soon as they entered the forest, Wu Congyu suddenly felt a movement in front of him, and he quickly pulled Li Bin back. This Wu Congyu was extremely strong, and pulling a short-statured Li Bin was naturally not a problem. Just as the two of them had retreated two steps, a figure fell from above onto their original position.

  Li Bin pulled out a Type 92 9mm pistol, and Wu Congyu also pulled out two Mauser pistols. The two men aimed their guns at the tree and Li Bin shouted loudly: "Heroes on the tree, come down! Sneaking around and plotting in secret, what kind of hero is that?"

  Before the words had fallen, more than a dozen figures jumped down from the surrounding trees. The leader, a burly man, held two Mauser pistols in his hands, their black muzzles trained on Li Bin and the others. Of the more than ten people, five were holding Thompson submachine guns, while the rest were all armed with Mauser pistols. As Li Bin took a closer look, he discovered that among those people was none other than the tobacco peddler from just now! And another one was the owner of the small restaurant from earlier!

  The leader of them shouted loudly: "Don't you put down your guns yet? Do you think the two of you with three guns can deal with us?"

  The two men had no choice but to put down their guns. They knew that if they resisted, they would be shot to pieces immediately. After putting down his gun, Wu Congyu said to Li Bin, "Brother, if you had listened to Jing Da's words back then, it would have been better. Now we've fallen into their trap!"

  Li Bin was thinking about what to do next, when the big Han walked up and picked up Li Bin and Wu Congyu's guns from the ground. When he picked up Li Bin's gun, he couldn't help but exclaim: "Good gun! It's really a good gun!" After saying that, he pulled out the magazine and took a look: "Awesome! 9mm high power! Fifteen-round magazine! What a great gun! Unfortunately, the serial number on this gun has been ground off."

  The engraving on the Type 92 pistol was deliberately ground off by Li Bin, so that no one would find out about the production year. And as rich as this big Han's experience is, he still doesn't know what kind of gun this is, after all, there was no such gun in this era.

  That tall Han walked up to Li Bin and said to him: "Are you looking for Gu Zhe?"

  Li Bin replied: "Exactly!"

  "Why did you come looking for our boss?" the big man asked.

  "We've found Old North Wind, he's the one who brought us here!" Li Bin replied.

  "What proof is there?" The big Han asked again.

  Li Bin hastily handed over the note to the big man, who looked at it and waved his hand: "Then follow me!"

  Before Li Bin could understand what was happening, four men came up and tied up Li Bin's and Wu Congyu's hands. Then they took them deep into the forest.

  After walking for about five minutes, a wooden house appeared in front of them. The four men behind pushed Li Bin and Wu Congyu inside: "Go in! Our boss is waiting inside!"

  After Li Bin was pushed in, he saw that there were only two people inside. One of them was a man who looked like he was around thirty years old, with a fair complexion, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and was about 1.8 meters tall, a handsome man. The other was a beautiful woman who looked like she was twenty-two or three years old. The big man wore a black woolen coat, looking very majestic; the woman wore a purple fox fur coat, looking stunning. Li Bin thought to himself: That man must be Gu Zhe! And that woman is probably his wife.

  Before Li Bin could speak up, a woman's voice rang out, "Who comes here? What business do you have with my brother?"

  "Hey, Hua Mei, don't be rude to our guest!" Li Bin heard "Gu Zhe" shout.

  Li Bin sneered and said: "Bone Zhe Lao Da, is this the attitude you show to your guests? You had us tied up?"

  "Bone Philosopher" sneered: "How did you people come here? Why have you found me?"

  Li Bin replied: "We are sent by Brother Pai to find Lao Bei Feng, he gave us a note and we came here!"

  "What about the note?" asked "Gu Zhe".

  Li Bin replied: "Under your hands!"

  Only then did "Gu Zhe" loudly shout: "Chen Gang! Come in!"

  The big man who just came in asked: "Excuse me, is there anything I can help you with?"

  "Bone Philosopher" said: "This guest says he has something with you, take it out."

  A big man named Chen Gang handed a note to "Gu Zhe": "Boss, it's this one. Take a look."

  "Bone Philosophy" took the note and looked at it, then said to Li Bin: "Indeed, it's an authentic letter from Old North Wind! Otherwise, you two would have been torn into pieces today!" After finishing speaking, he turned his head to Chen Gang and said: "Don't you hurry up and untie them?"

  Chen Gang received the order from "Gu Zhe" and hurriedly untied the ropes for Li Bin and his men. Afterwards, the host and guests sat down one after another, and after some small talk, "Gu Zhe" found out that Li Bin was actually a staff officer of the patriotic general Huang Xiansheng, and he couldn't help but show respect to Li Bin: "So you're under Director Huang's command! I apologize for my disrespect!"

  Then, "Gu Zhe" also reported his own name, and Li Bin understood that the original "Gu Zhe" was actually named Xiao Bo, a large military merchant from Liaodong. The woman's name was Liu Linhua, who was Xiao Bo's beloved wife. Xiao Bo had always been a business partner of Lao Bei Feng, and many of Lao Bei Feng Zhang Haitian's weapons were purchased from him. At the same time, Xiao Bo admired anti-Japanese heroes such as Huang Xiansheng, Ma Zhanshan, and Wang Tien-han. In fact, "Gu Zhe" Xiao Bo, although a military merchant, had a fiery patriotic heart. Just now, "Gu Zhe" had Li Bin and Wu Congyu bound because they still thought that these two were traitors, Japanese people sent to win them over as lobbyists.

  After learning about "Bone Philosophy", Li Bin asked: "Xiao Ge, I came this time to buy a batch of military supplies for Huang's Anti-Japanese Righteous and Brave Army. Our equipment is really too poor, I'm afraid that when the devils come, we can't resist at all. Does Xiao Ge have any weapons here?"

  "Looks like you want the good stuff, huh? We can offer you Russian-made SVT-40 rifles, but they're 7.62 caliber and ammo is scarce domestically. If you want something better, we have genuine German Mauser Gewehr 24 rifles! And as for those guns you saw on our people, there's the FN Browning Hi-Power pistol, and even more advanced Thompson M1921 submachine gun! We can provide machine guns too - we've got Type 24 water-cooled machine guns, or even more advanced Type 30 heavy machine guns! Our light machine guns are Czech-made. As for handguns, it's still Mauser pistols - we have a batch of brand new ones. We can also offer hand grenades and bullets. With enough money, there's no weapon I can't get my hands on! If you've got the cash, we can even get you artillery!"