Chapter Thirty-Six

  The dragon first put aside the family he had reserved and walked towards us over the mountain road, with a very light wind blowing. He returned at least five times faster than when he left.

  We are still playing fools and dumb. And the dragon is almost chanting in harmony with us.

  "What's his business? Who has his damn business?"

  "What's up with that?" A Yi asked

  The dragon did something that would have scared us before, he hugged A Yi who never wanted to get close to him within three feet and shook her, but we are now too busy to be surprised by this.

  "Knife! Saw! Plane! Axe! Chisel! Those for making coffins!"

  "I asked him: '...Do you think we're going to rest here for a week? With food and sleep, one hour is enough, are you making a three-inch-thick coffin?'"

  The dragon is now shaking me violently, making me clearly hear the sound of my teeth chattering, "Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up!"

  We were still in a daze, while the puzzled dragon quickly thought of a way to speed things up for himself. He stretched out his arm, revealing a watch hanging from his wrist, "Hand over all your useful stuff! One piece of stuff for one watch!"

  For a bunch of bastards like us, the temptation was greater than any other impact, and for a team of such big men, there were still some tools, but no shovels or planes. Picks, axes, knives, and even saws were scattered on the ground, mixed with the hatchet of the mourning star and the kitchen knife of the snake's buttocks.

  The dragon crouched down, picking and choosing with its butt, it didn't care that such a simple tool would cost him several hundred times the price. Axes, shovels, square-headed shovels and the like were all hugged in his arms, and then he casually swept all his watches to the ground like mud.

  We stared in amazement, and no one thought to pick it up, while the stray dog carried at least four tools into the roadside woods, first grinning at us, then barking loudly at a family on the other side of the road who may or may not have been waiting for him.

  "Three inches thick! Less than half an inch and I would have been castrated!"

  We sat gloomily by the roadside, the two cans of food we had pried from Kang Ya were already open, but no one wanted to eat. In fact, Kang Ya and Bu La in our midst had disappeared, they also slipped into the woods to watch the excitement.

  A sound from the roadside woods kept pounding us, that was the sound of the dragon axe chopping tree trunks, urgent and powerful, almost synchronized with human heartbeat, occasionally accompanied by the dragon's joyful screams.

  "Down with the corrupt government!"

  Then we heard a heavy thud of something enormous falling, and another tip of the tree disappeared in the woods behind us.

  Kang Ya and Bu La Shen stumbled out of the forest where Mi Long was cutting down trees, one foot deep and one foot shallow. Lao Cu's immunity to this kind of thing is stronger than mine and A Yi's, as well as Hao Shou Yi's, but he still looks a bit dazed.

  "Is the can open? Is there a chopstick?" Kang Ya asked, but that was just a careless remark. He himself went to pick up chopsticks from the tree after he finished speaking.

  Bu Lao Zan exclaimed: "Turtle Wang Ba was probably a woodcutter when he was born, and the mountain demon... You opened two cans of heads, and he cut down four trees..."

  "Boom! Another loud noise, another tree top disappeared from our sight."

  Kang Ya counted: "Five."

  I couldn't hold it in anymore, got up and walked into the place where Kang Ya just came out, and found that Hao Shouyi was also following behind me.

  We watched the guy who was bent over in the woods, he had taken off his shirt and wrapped it around his waist, still steaming like a freshly baked bun, but apart from the steam there was nothing else that made him look like a bun. He was almost simultaneously using four tools, after a powerful strike, he hammered wedges into the cutting mouth, then used the back of the axe to knock down the bowl-mouth thick tree in the direction he wanted.

  Gullible, reckless, never thinking, driving people crazy, I commented in my heart. And he retorted with an axe: depressed, introverted, suspicious, and waiting to die like a useless thing - the most deadly thing is that the tree cutter didn't care about my muttering at all, he just worked hard not to let the tree fall on his brother when it fell... He was a mountain demon who loved his tree brothers.

  Later I no longer slandered, so I saw the ferocity of wild boars, the agility of leopards, the majesty of bears and the wisdom of primates... I wish to use my life in this way.

  I stared blankly at the dance of humans and trees, urgent yet rhythmic. The logger stepped out with a unique gait, moving in a 180-degree semicircle, his axe blade striking precisely at its target each time. He was like a butcher dissecting an ox, and as I watched him, I suddenly understood why the tattoos on his body were of flower petals and green dragons - a rough yet delicate union.

  The dragon axe chopped into the ground, and he began to hug the tree he had chopped, looking as if he was kissing the tree - don't get me wrong, he was just understanding which direction the tree would fall, then he bumped with his shoulder twice to make this direction more certain, then he hammered a wedge on the cutting mouth, then retreated two steps, picked up the axe and swung it back in a big half circle to strike the trunk.

  "When the tree falls, it's accompanied by the cheerful voice of the dragon: '~Smooth~Mountain~Fall~Hooray~!'"

  The treetop that fell down the mountain crashed just two feet in front of me, branches and leaves and dirt and grass splashing everywhere, for an instant my whole world seemed to be collapsing.

  "Hahaha! It's all over! Too late for regrets now! Haha!"

  That guy was like a monkey, jumping over from the other side of the collapsed sky and earth. For convenience, he even gave me a push - actually, I wasn't blocking his way at all. I retreated backwards and fell into a grass nest, while he ran out of the forest by himself.

  I sat dazed in the grass nest, with Dr. Hao standing beside me equally dazed.

  Hao Shouyi still stood beside me in a daze, and I sat there, staring blankly at the small patch of forest that had already been cleared by the dragon.

  At this time, Mi Long had returned with his dog legs and laborers, holding knives, shovels, pickaxes - even the mourning door star's chopping knife and the snake buttocks' vegetable knife were all requisitioned.

  The dragon commander gestured to his dog legs, "Faster, hurry up! You few cut down all the branches!" He chopped off a section of branches with two knives and deliberately left the sharp head at the junction of the branch, "This one is kept, I don't have many nails. Don't cut off all the leaves on the top, I want to look good." - "You few, over here!"

  He pointed out a few people with shovels and hoes, I had to admit that beauty has nothing to do with education, it's in everyone's heart. He pointed to the most beautiful spot in this empty space: "Dig a pit here!"

  The logging site immediately became a labor-intensive workplace. I found that Hao Shouyi, the veterinarian, had disappeared from my side, only to discover that he was also crowded with the Dou Bing and clearing branches with a small knife.

  The dragon is now again in a state of collapse, he is dismantling his pushcart to get the necessary nails. The cart collapses under the blows of his axe, the goods on it scatter all over the ground, the dragon pulls out the nails from among them, and smiles ingratiatingly at his home across the road, waving his hand.

  Lei Bao'er walked over with a sullen face, and Mi Long used candy to coax him, "Call me Daddy."

  Lei Bao'er replied: "Rabbit."

  The dragon laughed loudly, excited as if someone had called him "dad" a hundred times. Now he dared to shout at his wife, whom he had never looked straight in the eye: "I'm going to work! Do you want to see your old man at work?!"

  He didn't wait for an answer because he was in a hurry, and grabbing a handful of long nails, he darted back to his workplace.

  I was waiting in a place that wasn't really suitable, and it was on the way to get in and out, so someone pushed my butt from behind, I lowered my head and saw a fierce-looking little overlord Lei Baoer.

  "I'm going." he said.

  I stood up again in the grass nest where I had fallen, and behind Leibao was the wife of the Dragonfly - although I couldn't see what she looked like at all, but I had already secretly called her the wife of the Dragonfly in my heart. Compared to my numbness, the other hillbillys were not much better, we quietly made way for the mother and son.

  The dragon is hammering away at the coffin he's building, no carpentry framework needed, his laborers lift the cut wooden planks into place, and then he uses brute force to pound them together with the back of an axe - though it's not entirely accurate to say he's using brute force, as he carefully calculates the thickness of each plank, only you can't see him doing the calculations. The sharp protrusions on the logs after the branches are cut off serve as his wedges, and he precisely relies on these, only nailing a precious nail at the most critical stress points, hammering the coffin together seamlessly. He's busy running around, adding a few extra taps in key places, you can almost believe he could build an entire house within an hour, and still have time to taunt his laborers with precision, "Who cut this wood? Is your arm as thick as your thigh? Take off your pants and compare?"

  He wouldn't waste his breath at this moment, muttering to himself as he went to pick up the freshly cut wood. He shouldered a whole section of several meters long logs and turned around to find Little Thunder Lei staring up at him from behind.

  The dragon said: "Call dad."

  "Little brother."

  The dragon laughed loudly again, "Kang Ya, carry your grandfather up here."

  Kang Ya was stunned for a long time before he finally realized that the old man was actually Lei Bao. He sadly carried Lei Bao to the original wooden plank on Mí Lóng's shoulder. Mí Lóng held the wooden plank with one hand and Lei Bao's buttocks with the other, Lei Bao seemed very satisfied with this treatment, and surprisingly let Mí Lóng carry him all the way to the coffin.

  Then Hao Shouyi took Le Baoer down from Mi Long's shoulders - and was pulled away by Le Baoer for a few beards. Mi Long carefully placed the large piece of wood on the ground - that was to avoid hurting Le Baoer - he started to work on it, this time with a perfect fit. So Mi Long began his further decoration, one hand holding a snake-shaped knife and the other holding a mourning star-shaped chopper, walking back and forth, cutting off or chopping away any branches or knots that obstructed the view. Le Baoer also held a 38 dagger - for him it was a double-handed sword, following Mi Long to help out.

  I glanced at the wife of the dragon, standing far away from us. I still couldn't see her clearly, but I could be sure that she was staring at the man who was steaming with heat in the sunlight and dense forest. No matter what had happened before, meeting such a man should be her and Leibao's happiness.

  The dragon picked up the corpse - he had already cleaned it as best he could, not knowing what to call the old man - and gently placed it in the coffin. He carefully moved the dead man's skull so that it rested on the rolled-up blanket he had put underneath, a touching gesture because he was worried that the dead man might be uncomfortable.

  The dragon straightened up and stared at his wife's ex-husband for a couple of seconds, I don't know what he was thinking.

  "Close it." He cleared his throat, "—Cover the coffin!"

  At the same time, Long's wife also knelt down and pulled Le Bao'er to kneel down and kowtow. We didn't hear any crying sounds, we don't know what kind of person Long's wife is, but absolutely not a crybaby.

  The dragon and his laborers drove in the last four long nails, while wrapping the coffin with vines that had been laid underneath beforehand. And we saw the most beautiful coffin we had ever seen: it was entirely made of natural wood, and in this forest, it seemed to have grown out of the soil itself. If you looked closely, the dragon was actually very meticulous, leaving some branches at certain positions, so green that they were soothing to the eyes, making you feel as if it would continue growing even after being buried underground. Our nostrils didn't smell any stench of death, only the sweetness of tree sap.

  Hao Lao Tou hastily took two steps forward, placing a wreath of wildflowers on the coffin, but I think that's a bit excessive in terms of Mielong's aesthetic.

  The dragon was stunned for a moment, then knelt down and kowtowed. The first head was knocked awkwardly, the second one was much more natural, and when he knocked his third head, someone kicked his butt from behind.

  The dragon turned its head and stood behind us with a thud. We also didn't know when it had slipped in.

  "What is this for?"

  "I'm getting married." said Mi Long.

  "Where did you come from?" As someone who could spot at a glance who hadn't loaded their gun among the crowd of soldiers, he had obviously seen the mother and son earlier. This was an official-style feint, but unexpectedly, they actually pulled out the official style, which was an inauspicious omen.

  "It's born from a girl, where did you come from?" Ming Long said with a hint of provocation.

  Die die staring at us, "Who can enlighten me?"

  We all fell silent, no one came to clarify, and he quickly scanned our flickering eyes, picking out those who held dissenting opinions. "Captain Lin, you're a military officer, if I die, it's up to you to lead them. You've made mistakes before, you let Meng Fen replace you and take the blame, you don't live up to the two words 'military officer' - are you planning on doing it again?"

  I knew it was going to be bad, and Ah Yi had already spoken up, "He's a substitute for someone else's coffin, and she marries him - that's how it is."

  Then he died and looked at the confused dragon, the confused dragon said with a careless face: "Not only marrying a daughter-in-law, but also recognizing a son. The captain of the second knife missed it."

  "Tie him up." The dead man gave orders.

  We didn't go to catch the dragon, but it had naturally established its reputation over the past few days. Those cold-faced kids followed him closely, and with a whoosh, they pounced on him. The dragon knocked one of them down, took a look, and retreated a step, starting to haggle, "Alright, alright. I acknowledge both the whip and the military stick, just don't do it in front of my son. Let's go settle this."

  No one answered him, only to be tied up by someone. A group of guys who didn't know him were already fed up with his arrogance and took drastic measures to tie the dragon like a pig waiting to be slaughtered.

  The dragon is still showing off his heroism, "Go, either with a stick or a whip, find a place to tidy up."

  "Let him find his own favorite place to die."

  The dragon was stunned for a moment, and we were all shocked too. But those guys who didn't know the dragon wouldn't be surprised, they simply pushed the dragon out of the forest with an imposing manner. The dragon stumbled two steps forward, started struggling and complaining, "Get lost, you little brats! No time to mess with you - the dead haven't even been buried yet... Hey? I'm scared to death! Hey hey?!" He finally realized this was for real, "Dead dead! I've long wanted to kill you..."

  The die-hard fans couldn't tolerate such blasphemy, and one of them pressed a rifle against the back of the dragon's head, forcing it to swallow its words. The group was so fierce that they dragged the dragon away, leaving its feet off the ground. The dragon wanted to hook itself onto a tree stump to steady itself, but even that was impossible.

  "Enjoy the show! The good show of burning bridges! One act is called 'killing the donkey after grinding', and the second act is 'smashing the pot after cooking the meat'! The actor is a shameless, stinky troupe leader called Tuan Zuo! He's also known as 'should be dead but not dead', and 'dead, dead, dead'! Beating the devils is 1-2-1 turning back, deceiving your own people left and right...". Mí Lóng's mouth was covered by someone, and his curses turned into murmurs as he walked away. "Dead, dead, dead" swept a glance at the coffins on the empty ground, and followed behind him out of the forest. We old folks who got along with Mí Lóng followed nervously behind.

  In the woods, only the wife of Mi Long and Lei Bao'er were left kneeling beside the coffin. I looked back at her with some resentment - everything that had happened around her seemed to have nothing to do with her.