Chapter 21: Heavenly Dignity

  It is often said that a dark and windy night is the best time to commit murder or arson. But in this Egyptian sky, the moon has already set early, leaving only a starry sky shining brightly over the land, illuminating the busy people on the Egyptian border. A convoy of large trucks stopped at the entrance of the tunnel, where four men unloaded grain onto mules and horses. The trucks kept coming, one after another, continuously loading grain into the Gaza Strip. On the other side of the separation wall, Wang Jianming watched as the long caravan of goods was unloaded on the main road ten miles away, then loaded onto small and large trucks by groups of soldiers, which were then driven off to their designated addresses according to prior arrangements.

  "Old Ha, have you ever seen such bright stars in China? This would be a great place if there wasn't war!"

  "Brother, you should ask me about the time I spent studying in Beijing and looking at the stars over the years. It's more realistic to ask that way. One winter vacation, I went with classmates to her hometown in Qinghai countryside. The stars there were not worse than here. Equally vast, equally starry, beautiful! Standing on a small hill, feeling the gentle breeze, beautiful!"

  I sat on the back of a small donkey that had already carried two loads, its sweat-drenched fur glistening in the sun. I continued on my way to Egypt, urging the workers to speed up. Hassan followed closely behind me with an expressionless face. Perhaps I never thought that one day I would be riding on a donkey in a foreign land, walking under the same starry sky as a young foreigner, chatting idly and enjoying the breeze.

  "I feel like you're beautiful because of the people around you? Looking at your face, I can tell that the beauty isn't in the scenery!" As he watched him walking on the ground, he couldn't help but feel a sense of amusement in his heart, and amidst this tense smuggling operation, he felt a strange sense of relaxation.

  "Brother, can't you stop joking around? In such a tense situation, you're still making light of it. You really have a big heart. If we can't complete the crossing before dawn, things will be tough. Although Egypt is also our Arab brother country, it's not good to be too blatant."

  After hearing his words, I not only felt a sense of absurdity. This great country of Egypt is actually afraid of that small Israel, just because the other side's unjust attack and blockade on brotherly countries can intimidate them into not daring to support their own brotherly countries.

  "Egypt is really a mess of a country, not even as good as my hometown. At least they can offer some support." As soon as I said this, I regretted it, after all, speaking like this isn't very good, what if there's something to avoid, it would be bad, and also hurt the relationship between me and Lao Ha.

  Unexpectedly, my words directly made Old Ha fall silent. He neither chatted with me nor mentioned his beautiful Qinghai night sky again. This was a side of him I had never seen before. I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret, realizing that I had indeed said something wrong and shouldn't have spouted such nonsense.

  With this feeling in mind, we stood facing each other without a word until half an hour later when the last ten donkeys passed through the tunnel and entered the Gaza Strip. I then found Hassan to apologize to him.

  Just as I had just communicated with him about the difficulties here, I was suddenly patted on the shoulder from behind, and then I heard a very annoying voice from behind: "Gua Guo, you've transported all these food and supplies, where are we going to live?"

  I just realized that this amazing guy didn't leave, and somehow followed me into the Gaza Strip. He's also covered in dust, his suit which looked very neat is now very shabby, making me wonder if he went to dig a ditch or carried goods from Egypt to the Gaza Strip on his back. If he hadn't treated himself like a donkey, how could he be so shabby?

  "Really, where do you live?" I asked him directly without beating around the bush. "What's wrong with you! You were doing fine as chairman and then suddenly became CEO. Fine, even if Jiao Ge promoted me to take over this company that doesn't know what it's doing, but you're not taking care of your own company, what are you following me for? Can't you speak properly? If not, just speak English, Old Ha translate."

  The simple teasing of Wang couldn't defeat the enthusiasm of this guy, and Streit Wang continued to follow behind the two, really answering questions in English. Wang's English wasn't great, but he could tell that Streit's English was much better than his Chinese. Pretending to understand, he nodded along, then secretly gave Hassan a look, who was delighted. He whispered to him: "He said all the transactions with Hamas were handled by this company, Tian Du Hui Kuan Services, and Jiao Dong's company had nothing to do with it. Jiao Dong's company only took care of other unrelated things."

  Hassan looked at the smiling face of the little girl, then looked at me and whispered: "Brother, we've both become leaders now. I haven't had a chance to tell you yet, but I was also informed by Mahmoud that I have been appointed as the Minister of Foreign Trade of Hamas, and Mahmoud is my deputy. We're in this together!"

  Before we could say anything else, the caravan arrived at the side of the highway. This kilometer was a small road that opened to the east after 14 highways and would reach Tal Sudan, then cross Rafah directly to the farthest place, because even with only these two hundred vehicles' worth of supplies, they had to be distributed evenly throughout the Gaza Strip. On the embankment of the highway, there was an earthen slope, where the donkey carts unloaded their cargo, and local Hamas members arranged for the porters to disperse. I got off the donkey and stood aside watching as the goods were loaded onto the trucks. After the last truck was fully loaded with gasoline and food, it drove away.

  On the highway that was about to break dawn, only three of us were left. It wasn't until then that I realized we were a chairman, a CEO, and a Hamas foreign trade minister, just like idiots, thrown on the side of the road. Along this broken road, you have to walk nearly 30 miles to reach the nearest settlement, and if you want to see people, you'll probably need to add another 3 miles. If we had to rely on our two legs to walk, it wouldn't be a good thing at all!

  Just as I and Old Ha were looking gloomy, two bright car lights lit up at the end of the road in the distance. It seemed to have been waiting there first, about a kilometer away from us. However, the car didn't seem to be coming towards us. Maybe it saw that we weren't moving through the dim light and flashed its headlights three times, indicating for us to go over.

  No matter who this person is, such behavior is nothing short of humiliating. At this time, a string of motorcycle sounds came from the dirt road behind us, as if it was coming from one of the tunnels we had already sealed off. Turning back, in no more than a moment, I saw a dozen riders riding Harleys with oil barrels on both sides stopped beside us.

  "Melon pot, I'm also calling you a pot, what's the point of coming now? The heavens' dignity cannot be violated!" Shui Cui still had a smile on her face as she took the helmet from the knight's hand and put it on, picked up the RPG-7 hanging on the car, got on the back seat of the knight's motorcycle, patted the knight's helmet, and the motorcycle sped off towards the Jeep that was flashing its headlights again about a kilometer away due to impatience.