Daomu Biji: Restart

None of us spoke as we rested there, but after a while, Fatty eventually asked, "Where's the little bee?"

I wiped the sweat off of my face and found that the ink on Fatty's face was soaked with sweat and had smeared into a big mess that made it look like his face was painted. I figured I was probably in the same situation, so I took out my pen and tried to write the words again. But when I did, I found that the oil-based pen couldn’t write on my greasy face.

"Is it possible that we’re too greasy, so it doesn't want to mess with us?" I asked Fatty.

"I don't think so. I think it’s more likely that our specs are high, so they’ll want to dispatch their queen bee," Fatty responded.

Rationally speaking, I didn’t think it was possible.

"Maybe bringing that bronze piece with us is keeping this strange situation in check?” Fatty continued. “I think this whole thing is just a massive hallucination. And in the hallucination, I came to this dragon vein and endured many experiences."

We were in a very tense situation right now, so emotionally speaking, I figured that it was possible. But in many stories, this kind of thing was usually

the embodiment of some ancient power’s consciousness. I forgot which movie I saw it in, though.

This kind of power would make people hang themselves, so it was probably extremely evil.

As we were talking, Poker-Face suddenly made a “pi" sound and directed our attention to the place he was looking at. When we turned to look, we saw that a row of flashlight beams had appeared above us.

"It's here!" Fatty said. "The little bee is here." As he spoke, he grabbed his gun. "Fat daddy is here to collect some honey."

I held his gun down and carefully looked up.

I was amazingly familiar with Xiao Hua and the others, so just by looking at the arrangement of those flashlights, I could tell right away that this should be his team.

“Xie Yuhua!” I yelled while waving my flashlight in the air. "It's me!"

But as soon as my voice fell, a bullet came flying down from above and scraped the side of my neck. I immediately shrank my neck back as Poker-Face pulled on my safety rope and lifted me up. "Turn off the flashlight and move!" He whispered.

We immediately turned off our flashlights, let go of the rock wall, and let ourselves swing down. Each of our safety buckles pulled taut and ground us to an abrupt halt just as the firepower from above let fly and a dense cluster of bullets rained down on our previous position.

When we looked up, we found that all of the flashlights had been turned off. "Mr. Naïve, do you see their tacit understanding?!" Fatty said.

"I told you that something would happen!" I said to him before shouting above, "Xie Yuhua, don't you want the third installment?!”

There were some things that only he and I would know. The firepower from above immediately stopped and I heard Xiao Hua’s voice say, "Why are you pretending to be Wu Xie? We’ve already joined up with Wu Xie."

I was stunned for a moment, and then I heard a strange, hoarse voice⁽¹⁾ with an accent shout from above, "I'm Little Master Three. I already joined up with them a long time ago, so save it! You’re just a mountain spirit that transformed into a monster."

Stunned yet again, all I could think was, where the fuck did you get this hoarse voice from? Why are you pretending to be me?

Poker-Face and I looked at each other, and then I said, "Xie Yuhua, what the fuck? Did you forget what your childhood friend looks like?"

"Then turn on your flashlight and let me have a look," Xiao Hua said.

I looked at Poker-Face again and saw that he was already making a gesture which meant that we should follow him up and launch a sneak attack. We’d have to take the initiative first; otherwise, I was afraid that we’d be stuck in a stalemate for a long time and it would be easy for the other party to come down and attack us.

The other party could divide themselves up, but we could only act together because of the bronze piece, so we began to climb up slowly.

Xiao Hua, seeing that we didn't say anything, continued talking, "Don't play any more tricks; it doesn't work on us anymore. Our team won't be parasitized again."

We climbed up quickly, but since it was almost pitch black here, we could only find the drop point and position of the safety anchors according to Poker-Face's quiet prompts.

But as we closed the distance and I began to hear the breathing sounds of their team, I realized that there were many people.

****

TN Notes:

(1) I used hoarse, but the direct translation is “drake throat”. It’s a derogatory description of a low-pitched, husky voice that sounds like a quacking duck.