Chapter Nineteenth: In Charge of Transactions

  The atmosphere in the room was awkward, and I felt embarrassed when he spoke. After all, I had come to Shaga with a tourist mentality, just wanting to have fun, and hadn't thought about understanding the local mining situation at all. It wasn't until I was chatting with Jiao Ge on the plane out of boredom that I heard something about it, but I never thought I'd become the main character here. Now being asked by Hassan, my face turned red and my neck thickened.

  Hassan knew he was right, and with a dejected look on his face, he covered his face with both hands, feeling suffocated. Seeing him like this, I couldn't say anything, so I just looked at him silently. I reached out to take the clay pot filled with water and poured some into my cup. Just as I was about to drink from it, Hassan's next action caught my attention.

  He then used the small hat to rub his flushed face, staring at me with dull eyes, holding the hat tightly against his chest, making it impossible for me to swallow my saliva, so I had to wait for him to say something.

  "Brother, don't look at my bearded face, I think you're older than me, so I'll call you brother. Brother, are you a silly fool invited by the monkey? You won't tell me that you actually don't know what you're doing here either, will you?"

  I couldn't help but nod my head, and as soon as I did, Hassan immediately shouted "I'm going" and threw the small hat that he had been tightly grasping in his hand out. He turned around to look at the hat, then slapped his forehead and said to me: "We're really in a bad situation, do you know what's on that shopping list?"

  I shook my head again, feeling that letting him vent like this might yield some useful information, so I continued to provoke him, wondering what else he would say. But unexpectedly, he became more interested in my identity and changed the subject to ask about me.

  "Brother, your real name isn't Guo Naiwen, is it? Guo Naiwen is a Burmese name. Locals don't have surnames, only names. 'Guo' means young man, and most local Chinese are surnamed Chen or Lin. But I've never heard of many Chinese taking on the local naming customs. Besides, you don't look like a native Burmese either. You know, brother, this is just like if a Chinese person went to the Arab world and gave themselves the name Arafat - it's ridiculous, too fake."

  After listening to Hassan's words, he knew that if he couldn't convince the other party, his future would be in trouble. The situation here was not clear to him, and Xu Gong and his group, although they were compatriots, had a limited role to play. His current task relied more on Hassan, the Tsinghua exchange student in front of him.

  It seems that I have to make some explanation, but it's not necessary to explain everything. Just need to tell him a little bit about myself. Looking at the guy who was smiling and waiting for my answer, I took a deep breath and simply explained my identity.

  "Hassan, brother, you're a smart guy, so I won't lie to you. I'm not actually from Myanmar. You can call me Huage. Originally, I was an old subordinate of Jiao Ge's father. Because I killed someone on the mainland and committed a capital offense, I escaped from prison and couldn't stay in the country anymore, so I left. But my life is given by others, so I will definitely do things with all my heart."

  Seeing Hassan's expression of understanding, I continued: "No matter what Hassan brother was like in the past, now these two giants are using us as a bridge to complete their transaction. We must work together to get things done, otherwise, something will happen that is beyond our control."

  Hassan listened to my words, knowing that I could only explain it this way, and didn't force the issue anymore. He borrowed my donkey's slope and showed a look of sharing joys and sorrows together, saying: "Yeah, you're right, how did I, an ordinary translator, get involved in such a big thing? From now on, Ge Xiao, I'll rely on you to lead me."

  I saw him speaking like that, and I hurriedly pretended to be very moved, grasping his hands with both of mine, and said passionately and responsibly: "It's only right, the things here are not something that you and I, two small characters, can control, but at least we must work together in harmony, complete our tasks well, and live a good life. Brother, you have to rely on me too, brother doesn't understand their language, everything inside has to rely on you to communicate!"

  The two of us chatted nonsense together, which also brought us closer on the surface and made each other less guarded. Sure enough, this Tsinghua University high-achiever, a top elite from Islamic University of Gaza, immediately pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, and compared them side by side to silently write down the list we saw that morning, leaving me stunned for a moment.

  But when I saw this list with the Arabic on the left corresponding to a column of Chinese on the right, I really jumped. All I could see was that apart from the first dozen or so items being civilian goods, everything else was RPG-7s, AK47s, explosives formulas, bullet production lines for modifying military firearms, gun production lines and other military equipment, even including small quantities of US military special forces standard issue equipment orders, which left me shocked and frightened.

  "Does China have these things?" I couldn't help but worry about Jiao Ge, thinking that transporting such things to and from the mainland would be almost impossible.

  "Brother, with the chairman's huge investments in the Middle East and America, this stuff is even easier to transport into Sacramento than the food on this order. These things are easily available in Israel, you can even buy planes there, but transporting them into Sacramento is the only difficulty. Even grain is harder to transport than these weapons."

  Listening to Hassan's words, I broke out in a cold sweat and felt the narrowness of my own vision. I didn't even think that Jiao Ge could get such a large uranium mine project from Israel, and even unite with Hamas to kick Israel out, monopolizing the mining of this uranium, making it impossible for Israel to do anything about it. His business must be huge!

  These things that I didn't even dare to think about, aren't they just not a problem for others? Haasan saw me being scared by his words and chuckled softly, patted my shoulder and said: "Brother, these matters are not something we can think about, now we just need to complete the business entrusted by the chairman, thinking about other things is unnecessary. How about you and I go see the people in charge at the construction site?"

  After listening to him, I think I shouldn't have much contact with the people on the construction site. So, I took the opportunity to say to Hassan: "Brother, I think since Jiao Ge said that Xu Gong is in charge of things on the construction site, we should not interfere and just focus on doing a good job with the transaction."

  Without waiting for him to speak, I continued: "Besides, I think we'll be relying on Mahmoud for food from now on. Do you know where he lives? Let's go visit your childhood friend and quickly integrate into our respective positions and identities."