Chapter Sixteen: Morning Alert

  Looking at the two of them, who were shocked out of their wits and covered in cold sweat, I felt for the first time that these two seemingly high-and-mighty individuals were also just ordinary people in some aspects. Although they were far beyond my reach, it wasn't impossible to approach them. Ignoring the two of them, who were constantly calculating in their minds, I suddenly felt an urge to laugh from the bottom of my heart. Perhaps since crossing over into this world, this was the first time I truly understood myself and clearly knew who I was and what I was doing.

  After hearing Hassan's words, the two quickly calmed down their inner turmoil. Jiao Ge once again became calm and composed, quietly adjusting his sleeves before picking up the thread-bound book that was on the table. He sat back down on the sofa, flipping through it lightly, looking like he didn't have a care in the world.

  Xu Gong and Ha San thought that Jiao Ge was indeed determined, so they were no longer so flustered. Ping Shu saw the situation and hastily arranged for the two to rest in a nearby room, saying that with the chairman present, there would be no problem, and also asked me to leave the room and return to my quarters to rest.

  I stood up and followed Xu He and Hassan to the adjacent suite, feeling a bit suffocated as I looked at these two guys who truly regarded the biggest crisis in front of them as nothing. "It's really stupid luck, no wonder they can only be engineers and translators."

  I couldn't help but suspect them in my heart, because I saw Jiao Ge flipping through the book with a look of utmost concentration, but in reality, he was not calm at all. The book he opened again was not the same page as before with the leaf inserted. Jiao Ge was right across from me, and I could see clearly that he wasn't reading the book at all; he was just using it to disguise his anxious mood. Otherwise, he wouldn't have driven us out.

  At this moment, the two of them are definitely looking for a countermeasure. Thinking about it, just let them go to great lengths. At most, I am now just a dependent on the Focal family, playing whatever role the host family asks me to play. As the saying goes, "Don't try to be the master of everything, or you'll exhaust yourself to no avail." Just do your own job well and let the strong winds blow by.

  I returned to my room and stopped caring about anything else, it was already 11:30 local time. I had been through a lot of physical exertion and had just experienced something that shocked me to the core. At this point, I didn't have any desire to stay up late anymore. I simply took off my jacket and threw myself onto the bed, covering myself with the blanket and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. It's strange to say, but even though I had only slept for less than 4 hours on the plane, I really did fall asleep instantly. According to Hassan, who was in the same room, my snoring was so loud it could be compared to the sound of Israeli fighter jets' cannon fire.

  So I spent my first night abroad in the roar of the plane, and slept exceptionally sweetly, not to mention that I had just reversed the six-hour time difference.

  The next morning, I was woken up by the piercing sound of air raid sirens at a little after six. Still not understanding what had happened, I, still wearing my eye mask and rubbing my eyes, hadn't even figured out where I was when Hassan pulled me off the bed with one hand, and instinctively grabbed onto his hands that were grasping the back of my clothes, and with an over-the-shoulder throw, easily slammed this 184cm tall, muscularly developed, nearly 80kg Palestinian young man against the wall.

  "Ow, I'm dying! You're too ruthless, no wonder you can be the chairman's bodyguard. Are you still asleep? Wake up, air raid alert!"

  At that time, I heard the familiar Northeastern accent and took off my eye mask. I saw that the decorative paintings on the wall on the other side of the window had been knocked to the ground by Hassan, who was now squatting on the ground, covering his lower back with a pained expression. It wasn't until then that I somewhat understood my situation. With an apologetic look on my face, I stared at Hassan, momentarily unsure of what to say. But after hearing him speak solemnly, I suddenly remembered Israel's air raid on Shaga City and immediately followed Hassan towards the door.

  Before I even reached the door, I looked at Hassan with a puzzled expression in the living room. He knew that I was wondering about Xu Gong's whereabouts and hurriedly explained to me in his Northeastern dialect, which he had learned from some father during his studies in Beijing: "Recently, air raid warnings have been happening from time to time, not necessarily at any specific time. The Hamas government wants the people to always be on alert because Israeli attacks can happen at any time, so every air raid warning must be treated as real."

  The two of us made our way around the sofa and toilet, and arrived at the entrance. Hassan put on his coat before continuing to say: "Xu Gong is getting old, originally he was already feeling unwell, but you came in like a thunderstorm, there's no way, we had to go out for a walk early. We have to hurry down to the air-raid shelter, that place should be able to withstand the bombing."

  Before I could ask more questions, I followed Hassan out of the room and coincidentally bumped into Ping Shu escorting Jiao Ge coming out of the adjacent suite. Since we met, there was no time for idle chatter, so the four of us simply followed Hassan down the stairs. Fortunately, this hotel wasn't very high, and our floor was only on the third floor. This hotel had a unique feature: except for the first and second floors being public facilities, the better rooms were actually lower. The four of us quickly descended to the bottom of the staircase on the first floor, where there was a small blue wooden door that was previously closed but now open.

  Hassan plunged into the dark space behind the door without hesitation, and at this point, we couldn't afford to hesitate either. I glanced at Ping Shu and Jiao Ge, gritted my teeth, and followed him through the small doorway that could only be passed through by crouching slightly. After passing through the small doorway, it was not a straight downward staircase as imagined, but a flat passageway leading down to the stairs. Only after turning left did I realize that the space inside was much larger than expected, and the staircase of this passage seemed to be almost identical to the one upstairs.

  Still the same as the hotel above, only three people can walk side by side, at the end of the staircase corner, a torch that had not been lit was inserted into the torch holder next to the bright electric lamp. I couldn't help but secretly admire this design, it's really true that practice makes perfect. I stood under the white woven lantern on the landing, turned my head and looked up at the dark staircase, and indeed saw Ping Shu protecting Jiao Ge also searching for light down the stairs.

  At this time, just as Ping Shu and the others also saw me standing under the lamp waiting for them, Hassan's shout came from the end of the stairs turning left again: "Come down quickly, Chairman, General Manager Ping, Guo Naiwen, hurry down, I see my classmate, maybe he can help us find Xu Gong..."

  As we listened to this, we were also a little confused for a moment. How did we encounter that squad leader named Mahmoud? Is there something fishy going on here? At this time, the three of us exchanged a look, and having no other choice, we continued down the stairs, all the way to the bottom.

  The end of the stairs continued to turn left, and it was no longer a continuous downward staircase, but a bright entrance. From this entrance, down two levels, there is a long tunnel with a diameter of about four meters, which is crowded with local people. Some armed soldiers wearing masks are maintaining order. Looking far away, this tunnel is illuminated by two electric light belts, and the wall of the cave occasionally opens some entrances like the one that came in from behind, and even further away, you can vaguely see that the tunnel has larger branch entrances leading to unknown places.

  Looking into the distance, I saw that excited Hassan was pulling a similarly tall and burly man with a backpack, who was much fatter than Hassan. The man had black hair, black eyes, and a thick beard, looking not very kind, and was waving at us in the same way as Hassan.