Chapter 8 Road Accident

  The car drove along the Shenda Expressway all the way to Dalian, and I also asked my uncle where he was going. My uncle and He Uncle just laughed and said it was Zhejiang.

  Even if you tell me the specific place name, I probably won't know it anyway. Come to think of it, even though they don't know that I've been reborn, and still think I'm that high school student who never went anywhere, the 2014 version of me before my rebirth also hadn't gone to many places. As for Zhejiang, I was completely clueless about it too.

  After continuing for more than two hours, I found that there was a traffic jam in front of me. The car slowed down and stopped. I woke up from the recess under the back seat, rubbed my eyes, wiped my hand black, sat up and looked around, and asked my aunt in confusion: "Aunt, why did we stop? Have we arrived?"

  My uncle heard the sound of me getting up, turned his head to look at me, saw that I had wiped a full face of sweat, and suddenly burst out laughing. The laughter sounded so bright and clear, making me feel a sense of comfort and warmth.

  "It's normal, maybe something happened ahead, possibly road repairs and diversions, or perhaps an accident, or the toll station was temporarily closed, who knows? On highways, sometimes a jam can last for a long time."

  He Shu's characteristic voice sounded from the driver's seat, still so steady. He didn't wait for my uncle to answer my question amidst his laughter and started explaining on behalf of my uncle instead.

  "Just wait and see."

  I watched those cars constantly overtaking on the emergency lane and thought to myself that it might really get congested for a while.

  "Where have you gone, Uncle Huo?"

  I didn't ask my uncle who was almost laughing and panting, but instead asked Ho Shu who was also giggling in the rearview mirror with a big flower face.

  "We're almost at the cod's nest!"

  Huo Shu collected the smile on his face and handed me a pack of cigarettes, "Wipe it off, you probably won't be able to escape the net that quickly."

  I took the paper towel handed over by Uncle Huo, picked up a half-bottle of Fanta clamped between the car door handle, looked around and found no mineral water, so I opened the cap thinking that this was better than nothing, and grabbed four or five sheets of paper to prepare for blocking the bottle mouth and wiping my face with some water.

  At this time, I took over the paper and stopped the car to look at my two uncles, who suddenly burst out laughing. I looked at the Fanta in my hand, then at these two men in their 40s, and suddenly thought of something, and couldn't help but feel a wave of anger.

  He tightened the cap again, rolled down the car window, and saw that there were no cars overtaking from the emergency lane. With a flick of his wrist, he threw the half-bottle of "Fanta" far out of the highway.

  It was just this unintentional action that scared me, because I didn't use much force, but somehow the bottle of "Fanta" flew far out onto the highway.

  This is much stronger than I remembered in high school! Is it because of rebirth that the power has increased greatly? Or is it just because the power is greater than memory, so people were beaten to death.

  My mind is a mess, and only now do I realize that from the moment something happened to now, I haven't carefully considered what exactly happened. How did I end up killing Baldy Wang? I try hard to recall, but nothing comes to mind.

  In my memory, on that fateful morning in '08, I was the one who broke Guang's arms. I had no idea what had happened before crossing over to this morning.

  Just as I was full of doubts, my uncle in the passenger seat put on a jacket and said to me and Uncle Huo, "You two follow the traffic flow in the car, I'll go take a look at what's going on up ahead," and with that he got out of the car.

  "Uncle, you can't even see the front of the line, what are you going to look at?" I said, looking at the row of big cars stopped on the road, not moving, and blocking my uncle.

  "This road section is unlikely to be congested. Since it's congested, something big must have happened. I'll go down and take a look at the front, keep in touch at any time."

  My uncle took out a handheld transceiver from somewhere, pushed open the car door, jumped down and waved at me and Uncle Ho before running forward along the emergency lane.

  I kept staring at my uncle's back until his figure disappeared in the stream of cars, and suddenly I felt a sense of unease in my heart, as if something was going to happen. To shift my attention, I thought of talking to Uncle Huo, but before I could open my mouth, he stretched out his hand to stop me, pointing to the rearview mirror on the passenger seat, indicating that I take a look.

  I held onto the back of the driver's seat where He Shu was sitting, and looked into the rearview mirror on the passenger side. From the rearview mirror, I saw a string of large vehicles following behind, sandwiching our own vehicle in between.

  "Now there's really no way out," I turned my head to look at Uncle Huo, looking at him with a bewildered expression.

  "It's not what I'm asking you," said Uncle Ho, still gesturing for me to look at the rearview mirror. "Look at the green truck behind us."

  I followed Uncle Huo's reminder and looked at the rearview mirror, where four military trucks were parked in a row, but I still couldn't see anything, so I asked Uncle Huo again, "What are you looking at, uncle?"

  "Ka ka! Pu! Old Huo, old Huo!" Just as Uncle Huo was about to say something, the handheld radio hanging from his waist suddenly crackled to life, broadcasting the voice of my uncle.

  "Roger that! Received!" Old Huo heard the voice from the walkie-talkie, put down his hand which was pointing at the rearview mirror, and casually pulled out the walkie-talkie from his waistband to respond in his unique tone.

  I sat in the back row with a tilted body, feeling very surprised. These two old men are worth nearly 100 million, where did they find such two strange-shaped and loud mobile phones? Can't they use something better?

  "Ka ka! Zhi! Weng! Ka! Old Huo, turn on the semiconductor in the car and tune into the local radio station to see what's going on with the road ahead?"

  The driver in front said that we are about to arrive at Laobian District. There is a collapsed bridge ahead, and this section of the highway is closed. However, I heard that we will soon reach the entrance of Biyuquan, and all vehicles coming from the north on the highway need to divert there.

  After a series of static noises, the strange-shaped walkie-talkie crackled again with Uncle's voice.

  Huo Shu listened to his uncle's words and brought the walkie-talkie back to his mouth, continuing to answer in his signature deep voice, "Alright."

  Although he spoke slowly, his hands moved quickly. His right hand held the radio to his mouth while his left hand opened the semiconductor and dialed through the channels with a "zip zip" sound. The car's radio broadcast static noise until finally, a very elegant female voice came on.

  Because I was sitting sideways in the recess of the flip-up seat in the back row, I could hardly see which channel Uncle Huo had chosen. But what scared me was the content spoken by the intelligent female voice coming from this channel.