Chapter Thirty-Nine

  "How did you know?" Dragon asked with wide eyes.

  I said: "Later you will know when you settle accounts with Yanluo Wang - one two..."

  The dragon interrupted me again. "Hey hey!" he stared at us innocently, "I'm talking about whoever, I'm thirsty."

  We looked at each other in dismay, and finally someone took down the kettle, then we all looked at each other again, and the kettle was passed into my hands.

  "I was thinking that once he's quenched his thirst, we'll have to treat him to a full Manchu banquet." I said, still holding back my anger as I poured water for the dragon, but that guy took a big gulp and then sprayed it all over my face - he started wailing, thud, one of them knelt down and started wailing, just like a bear with a ferocious expression suddenly coming up to you asking for candy.

  "Older brothers, my unrighteous older brothers, younger brothers, brothers with a conscience that's been driven away by dogs, can you really bear to watch me die? Won't anyone help me plead for mercy?"

  I was stunned, we were all stunned, and then someone suddenly shouted loudly: "You've already asked for it!"

  The dragon cried: "Ask for it again!"

  "What other evil things haven't you done? What nonsense haven't you spoken? You're a disaster wherever you are, the army that had you is better off disbanding! Why keep you around after saying you'd die?" I asked him.

  "I'm a good person! Whatever he says, I'll listen. You go tell him that he's the Jade Emperor Taishang Laojun, and even if he farts, I'll suck it up... No! Don't say that, it can get me killed! You say he's a great guy, and I'm telling you, really, he's not from Northeast China but he's a good person. I'd be willing to work with him. Tell him who else can use a machine gun like me? Is it not you? Look at how I use my machine gun, tsk tsk." Mie Long starts to praise himself.

  I learned from his tone, "Tsk tsk."

  I gave that guy another good punch.

  Hao Shouyi said: "Forget it, just go tell him."

  "I won't go. Let the officials go, let Ah Yi go."

  "Aiya also knows his own strength. 'If I really wanted to kill the dragon, I'd go myself.' With that mouth of yours, you can still block two or three moves."

  I have a reason for not going - "My legs hurt!"

  Kang Ya hastily said: "I'll carry you."

  "...... You just stay here with the gun, I'll go myself! —— None of you are anything!" I dragged my legs down the mountain, Kang Yao still muddled and handed the gun to Hao Shouyi behind me. Thanks to Bai Miliang, all my sadness and anger turned into laughter.

  Dead, dead, standing among the trees, smelling the fragrance of the trees felled by the dragon, looking at that coffin, he had been looking for a long time, sometimes stroking the annual rings of the broken tree, and sometimes his fingers swept over the leaves left on the coffin by the dragon.

  That is indeed the most beautiful coffin in the world, it even makes you forget about death and only remember life. A person who has escaped death many times must be aware of this, and then think that this is a betrothal gift made by the dragon for his future.

  The wife of the dragon still knelt beside the coffin, carefully guarding the Chinese rule that younger generations must guard the spirit before the elderly are buried. While doing this, she quietly combed herself with dewy leaves. Le Bao'er picked more branches for his mother, but this didn't stop him from glaring hatefully at the fully armed giant in front of him.

  He was accompanied by a loyal follower, and he said to the young man: "Go find some people. Help us bury the coffin."

  That little guy turned around and left at a fighting speed. He came back to life, turned his head, and bowed to the coffin - this was also the greatest respect he could show to a dead person who had never been in conflict with him - then he turned around and intended to leave, intending to express the resentment that Míng Lóng and I brought to him.

  "Women, you've ruined a man who could have killed over a hundred Japanese soldiers, now he's been sent to a military court that exists in name only."

  The dragon's wife said: "I've seen too much slaughter."

  Then he stopped dead, turned around and looked at me, "You don't have to watch this. You can come with us, cross the Nujiang River and go wherever you think is suitable. We still have to do what you find annoying here - wait until I kill my best machine gunner."

  "I've seen too many people like you," said Mrs. Mie Long.

  He died, he died. Looking at the woman's back, but the other party didn't plan to let him see her back. She was still kneeling on the ground, but with a very elegant demeanor, she turned around and for the first time let people see her true face, because she had cleaned herself up. She didn't like being seen in her distress and dishevelment.

  I and Kang Ya entered the forest, then we were stunned by the sudden appearance of Mí Lóng's wife, whose appearance even Mí Lóng himself had never seen before.

  "My husband was a man from my hometown, where there's a legend about a child called 'Ghost Infant'. This child is born with a mark on his body that says he will bring disaster to others. He doesn't know what he wants in life, but he must achieve greatness no matter what. He's extremely intelligent and cunning, taking everything he can get his hands on - not just money or power, but victory itself. However, he doesn't even understand what victory means, so he just takes everything. Heaven has cursed him, making him an evil spirit sent to collect souls from the mortal world. Nothing can make him happy, and in the end, he'll only be satisfied with taking others' lives. My husband was such a person, and he became incredibly wealthy. Last week, someone burned all his money and took his life. And you're just like him."

  Die, die, always with a bitter smile, looking at the bark, looking at us, looking at his palm lines. "I know what I have to do - drive out the Japanese invaders from this land. Indeed, I won't know what victory looks like, because it will come after I'm dead."

  "You're ready to die, so we should also be willing to die for your ideals. Chairman, you and your kind are the strong ones who resent heaven for not having pillars and earth for not having rings, only thinking of yourselves as geniuses. You and my husband seem like elites from Japan, able to sacrifice themselves in the first few decades to help their Chinese brothers, and then die in the next few decades to maintain their power to bully the weak. You are like poisonous spiders that devour each other after mating, using your ideals to trample on others, and then using others as fertilizer for your ideals. You are the tyrant trees in the forest, where even shrubs can't grow."

  I couldn't help but watch in stunned silence as he turned bright red and stuttered in front of a woman, wanting to leave but knowing that would be an even more unacceptable failure for him. I almost didn't know whether to sympathize with or mock his misfortune.

  Kang Ya could speak because Sheng was numb, "Team leader, Mi Long said..."

  He waved his hand impatiently and motioned for Kang Ya to shut up, now even Kang Ya realized the unprecedented annoyance.

  "Please tell him... is he called Mí Lóng?" She continued calmly, without a change in expression, amidst our nods. "These days I've been watching my loved ones die, and I still have to raise Lei Bao'er, I don't dare to go see him anymore. But please pass on the message, originally I wanted to die after burying my father-in-law, but now I won't, I need to live up to... this dowry."

  We stared at her in shock.

  If we say that the freshest flowers are inserted into a big pile of cow dung, then Mílóng is undoubtedly the biggest pile among us... I'm just worried about Mílóng, he and such a woman are too mismatched.

  Die die die! In a fit of rage, he suddenly waved his hand violently and shouted, "Tell whoever to get lost? Let go let go!"

  We stared at him in silence, Xiao Zhong pulled over a group of people to continue the funeral that was interrupted halfway, and the subordinates who stood respectfully in front of him didn't even glance at him. He waved his hand and said, "Didn't you hear? The dead are buried! The living are let go!"

  Then he buried the dead man and walked towards the coffin, while I and Kang Ya still followed behind him.

  He walked out of the forest and stood by the road, staring blankly at his subordinates who were exhausted and disheveled, though they still maintained some semblance of formation. His gaze was somewhat like he was looking at corpses, and his subordinates, being looked at in such a way, could only look back at him in confusion.

  I patted Kang Ya on the back, and he whispered to me. Then Kang Ya ran to the top of the peak to announce the pardon of the lost dragon. I wanted to follow him, but I turned my head to look at that guy's shattered expression - it was indeed shattered. When a person piles up their broken confidence, faith, emotions on their face, it looks like they'll collapse with just one touch, like sand that will crumble as soon as you touch it.

  I stopped. I and many other coolies looked at that guy, he stared at us with a vacant gaze, took a step back and almost fell over, used his hand to feel the ditch behind him, slowly sat down, then leaned his body and head to one side. Those eyes could only remind you of a dying man, gazed blankly for a while at the heavens that would soon rise up, then closed them.

  As soon as the eyes closed, the strength supporting the neck seemed to disappear, and it slumped down along the ditch, and then remained in that position - probably the same posture when people who were not blown to pieces by cannon fire died.

  We stared at him, some bewildered, some took a timid step forward, and others retreated in fear. We stared.

  He fell asleep on the spot and closed his eyes just as we were about to set off. In fact, we should have set off for Xing Tian Du fifteen minutes ago."

  I took a tentative step forward, and thus became the person closest to him. He seemed not to be breathing, his chest barely rising or falling, as I gazed at a muddy, smoke-blackened, and spiritless body.

  It suddenly dawned on me that he was dead. We suddenly remembered that we had never seen him sleep, from Burma to here he had been like a mad jumping monkey all the time. We gradually withdrew all the props that supported him and let the entire South Heaven Gate weigh on his head, we successfully killed him - he died of exhaustion."

  "Team leader?... Are you dead?" I called out softly.

  There was complete silence, and then I lightly touched his body which had become cold due to either loss of body heat or the mountain wind. Then, at a loss, I looked around at the people surrounding me who were unfamiliar to me.

  The cannonading has begun again in the far-off mountains, we had escaped from that sound for several days, but it has now caught up with us once more, causing us to whisper to each other in terror.

  "Captain!" I shook him, watching as the body rolled down from the trench he was leaning against, still lifeless.

  "The Japanese army is coming!" I shouted loudly.

  I can now be certain of one thing: he's either dead or at least fainted, and is only using his last bit of energy to pretend to be asleep. He still hasn't made a sound.

  Behind me, there was a murmur of whispers and footsteps. I turned my head to see that some people who were whispering among themselves had already started to move down the mountain, and a small group of soldiers passed by in front of us. They didn't belong to our unit or form a formation, but they led some of our people to follow them.

  "White-eyed wolf! He didn't abandon you, you abandoned him!" I shouted at those people.

  That was useless, I turned around and slapped him in the face, "This is called escaping punishment by death! Will you pretend to be a god again another day? Get up! Bastard!"

  The little dead loyalists of the dead people came out from the woods, with Mí Lóng's wife and Léi Bǎo'er following behind. The dead loyalists were of no help, their blind worship had almost made them lose their judgment, they could only stand by in a daze, listening to the distant cannon fire and even felt like leaving. Léi Bǎo'er squeezed into the crowd, took a look and thought it was something that wouldn't interest him, then squeezed out of the crowd and ran away quickly.

  He ran towards the uphill path on the mountain road, I don't know what he was running towards.

  I squeezed out of the crowd and walked to the other side of the mountain road, looking at the vast mountains and clouds. I turned back to look at the group of people who were helpless, more and more people were walking in a more scattered way.

  This disorganized formation walked back from Myanmar to Yunnan, and finally dispersed at the South Tianmen. I suddenly didn't want to walk anymore. The formation that we had desperately maintained was actually our legs; without them, we would have to crawl home on our bellies. I really wanted to tell him, "You are the Jade Emperor, the Supreme Old Lord, you can do anything, just say something and I'll listen, as long as you don't make me watch us collapse without a fight."

  I want to cry but can't, I want to laugh but it's even harder than crying. I feel so weak that I'm about to be blown away by the mountain wind. I see Lei Baoer appearing on the mountain slope, which is only natural because he's riding on the shoulders of a mysterious dragon. Then I hear horses braying, donkeys braying, dogs barking, tigers roaring, wolves howling and pigs oinking, all coming out at once, which is also only natural because they're all coming from the mouth of the mysterious dragon.

  I stared at Mi Long, he was like a hero who had single-handedly driven away all the Japanese devils, surrounded by guys like Bu La Dou Bing and Ya Zi, riding on his special giant horse, turning in circles, making sharp turns, learning to jump like a frog, now Lei Bao's laughter was everything to him.

  "Call Daddy!"

  Le Bao'er replied: "Dog."

  The dragon smiled as happily as all dads do, and reunited with his wife. He didn't pay much attention to the crowd around him. As he and his family walked down the mountain path in big strides, he still remembered to wave at me and say "Hurry up! The devils are firing cannons!"

  I still looked at him with my original expression, that guy was so thick-skinned - or rather he was happy to the point of not paying attention to these things, and after walking past me, a stone landed heavily on his back. The guy turned around amidst strange cries.

  "Who hit me?"

  I showed him a larger rock in my hand, one that would undoubtedly crack his skull and spill blood if I didn't care about hurting Lebao.

  Hao shouted at me: "What's wrong with you?"

  I looked at the circle of people, then glanced at the confused dragon. Hao Shouyi, with his professional sensitivity, plunged into the circle and a few seconds later, his shouting voice came out.

  "Scatter! All of you scatter! Are you trying to suffocate him by surrounding him like this?"

  The crowd dispersed, and the dragon stopped staring at me. Looking at that lifeless body, "What? Dead?"

  I raised my arm ready to throw.

  "Hey, hey! Don't faint on me, I know you're dizzy from being blown away by me."

  One side was busy helping the dead up and leaning against his arm, while shouting: "Dizzy!"

  We watched as Veterinary Hao rushed to treat, pinching the person's middle and earlobe. Kang Ya held clothes on one side to fan the cool breeze, but was slapped away by Old Man Hao. Then Old Man Hao started rummaging through his cloth bundle, pulling out several golden needles that he had stashed away at some unknown time and began acupuncture.

  Watching Hao Shouyi's futile efforts, Kang Ya's clothes had been used to wipe away tears and snot.

  We've lost him. Every time the vet sweats like this, we lose another one. We collectively destroy strength, confidence and faith.

  The dragon from the top of his head hugged down Leibao, hugging Leibao close to Dila Dila, looking like he wanted to feed Leibao as a huge pill to Dila Dila.

  Bu Lao shouted: "Mi Long, what are you doing?"