The woman’s sobs stopped abruptly. She snapped her eyes open to see Zhao Wenwu squatting in front of her, scratching his head. He was looking at her with a strange expression, as if to say, ’Is something wrong with this woman’s head?’
"You... you’re not dead?"
The woman stared at Zhao Wenwu in disbelief, then craned her neck to look behind him. The short man who had been about to shoot Zhao Wenwu was lying on the ground. A bullet hole in the center of his forehead was steadily oozing blood, and his body was twitching. He was on the verge of death.
"Hehe, I told you! San is amazing! If anyone tries to bully me, San will take care of them for me!"
"There, look! San and the others are here!"
Zhao Wenwu said with a triumphant grin, pointing to a spot not far behind him. The woman followed his finger and saw three figures carrying long guns running toward them at a quick pace.
"Second Brother, are you okay?!"
Zhao Wendong rushed forward and immediately checked on Zhao Wenwu. When he saw that Wenwu could still give a silly giggle and seemed to only have a minor shoulder injury, he got so angry he smacked him hard on the butt.
"Are you fucking stupid? Why the hell were you running around like that! You scared us to death!"
Zhao Wenjun took his rifle stock and smashed it into the tall, wailing man’s face twice, caving in several spots. Zhao Ergou, meanwhile, quickly ran to the short man. After checking his condition, he tucked the man’s pistol into his own coat, then stood behind Zhao Wendong, holding his gun at a ready angle as he scanned their surroundings vigilantly.
"Hehe, I won’t run off again. They were bullying her, I couldn’t just stand by and watch!"
Zhao Wenwu knew he’d gotten into big trouble this time, so even after getting hit, he just grinned sheepishly at Zhao Wendong. Wendong shot him an irritated glare, then looked at the woman he was pointing to. His eyes swept over her face and clothes before finally landing on the tall man, who had been attacked by San Gou and a fox before Zhao Wenjun viciously struck him twice with his rifle stock.
He couldn’t understand the gibberish the man was spouting, but he knew it was the language of the neighboring country. He picked up the pistol from the ground and inspected it. It was a Russian TT-33, the twin brother of the famous Type 54 pistol from back home.
The tall man’s face was a bloody mess, and he couldn’t see his surroundings clearly, but he was acutely aware of his predicament. He started screaming desperately.
The woman heard him identifying himself—saying he was an officer from the neighboring country and demanding Zhao Wendong guarantee his safety. Her mouth twitched, and she looked at Zhao Wendong.
"Do you want me to translate for you?"
Zhao Wendong shook his head. ’Knowing too much is never a good thing.’ He had already guessed what had happened the moment he saw them. Something the truck driver, Niu Yuesheng, had told him two days ago made him feel certain these people were connected to that incident.
But none of that had anything to do with him. ’Since my second brother got unintentionally involved, I’ll just have to clean this mess up completely.’ With that thought, Zhao Wendong pressed the muzzle of the TT-33 to the tall man’s forehead.
The tall man froze for a second, then began to struggle even more violently. The Zhao Brothers rushed forward and held him down firmly, stopping him from moving.
"Can you let me do it?"
Just as Zhao Wendong was about to pull the trigger, the woman beside him suddenly spoke. Wendong turned his head and met her determined gaze. He couldn’t help but smile. ’This woman’s got something to her!’
Zhao Wendong had been wondering how to deal with this woman after taking care of the two men. He hadn’t expected her to be so clever as to immediately offer a pledge of loyalty.
Zhao Wendong thought for a moment, then ejected the bullets from the gun, leaving only a single round before handing it to the woman. She staggered to her feet, walked over to the tall man, pressed the gun to his forehead, and decisively pulled the trigger. She blew his head open with one shot, clean and efficient, without even blinking.
Handing the gun back to Zhao Wendong, the woman said softly, "I didn’t just do that to earn your trust. I did it for revenge. They killed my entire family!"
Zhao Wendong took the pistol back, his expression unreadable.
"All I care about is whether there will be any more trouble."
The woman thought for a moment and shook her head. "There shouldn’t be. These two were the only ones who followed."
BLEGH~
Seeing the man’s head reduced to a mess of red and white, Zhao Wenjun and Zhao Ergou, who were standing nearby, could no longer hold it in. They rushed to the side and began to vomit violently. Zhao Wendong’s face also turned grim. He forced down his own discomfort, avoiding the gruesome sight of the tall man, and instead carefully examined Zhao Wenwu’s injury.
As for shooting the short man dead just now, he felt it was no different from shooting a roe deer. He, Zhao Wendong, would not hesitate to shoot anyone who threatened his family. If he had been even a split second slower, his second brother would be the one lying dead on the ground right now.
Among everyone there, it was Zhao Wenwu who acted as if nothing had happened. He chuckled and said to the woman, "It’s okay now. The bad guys are all dead!"
The woman froze for a moment, then a smile more radiant than any flower bloomed on her face.
"Yes, that’s right! The bad guys are dead. So, can you promise me you won’t tell anyone about what happened today? I don’t want people to know I was bullied!"
Zhao Wenwu covered his mouth with his hand and promised her with a determined look.
"Mmm, I won’t say anything. I won’t tell anyone!"
Zhao Wenwu didn’t know why, but this woman just made him feel at ease. Besides San and his family, she was the person he felt he could trust the most. Seeing her eyes now filled with laughter instead of despair made his heart swell with joy, and he felt incredibly happy.
"What’s your name?"
the woman suddenly asked Zhao Wenwu. He scratched his head and answered honestly.
"My name is Zhao Wenwu. What about you?"
The woman opened her mouth, but quickly swallowed the name that was about to come out. After a moment of thought, she smiled and said,
"My name is Jin Xiuying. From now on, I’ll be Jin Xiuying!"
"Mhm, Jin Xiuying... Xiuying... hehe, that sounds really nice."
"You think so? Wenwu sounds very nice too."
"Xiuying sounds better..."
Zhao Wendong was speechless. ’There are two dead bodies on the ground, Zhao Wenjun and Zhao Ergou are over there puking their guts out, and I’m standing right here. Is it really okay for you two to be flirting like no one else exists?’
’And Zhao Wenwu... Is my second brother just pretending to be simple-minded all this time?’ Seeing the way they were making eyes at each other, he felt like his second brother was way smoother than him. ’If I had half my brother’s game, I’d have already married Lin Zhiyin.’
Zhao Wenjun and Zhao Ergou finally felt a bit better after vomiting for a long time. By then, Zhao Wendong had already torn strips from the two foreign soldiers’ shirts, using the unmarked parts to crudely bandage the wounds of Zhao Wenwu and Jin Xiuying.
"San, what do we do now?"
Zhao Wenjun still didn’t quite dare to look at the ground. His gaze toward Jin Xiuying was also a little strange. ’This woman is truly ruthless, pulling off a headshot without even blinking.’ He could only turn his head to the side and ask for Zhao Wendong’s opinion.
"Third Brother, how should we handle this?"
"Dig a hole and bury them."
Hearing this, Zhao Wenjun looked worried. They had only brought one shovel, and the ground was frozen solid. It would take them ages to dig, even if they took turns. Their harvest yesterday had been small, and it looked like today would be a waste too.
"Don’t dig here. Big Brother, don’t you hear something?"
Seeing Zhao Wenjun about to start digging right there, Zhao Wendong quickly stopped him.
"A sound? What sound?"
Zhao Wenjun was puzzled. He listened intently for a long moment, and then his expression changed as he noticed something unusual.
"Is that... the sound of flowing water?"
"Mhm, yeah. Wait here, I’ll go check it out."
Zhao Wendong nodded. He had just remembered something he’d forgotten: a hot spring would be discovered in these mountains forty years from now, and it would later be developed into a small tourist attraction.
It was just that there were too many hot springs everywhere, and getting in and out of the mountains here was inconvenient, so the business never took off and the place was eventually abandoned. If it weren’t for the fact that wild ginseng had once been dug up near the spring, Zhao Wendong probably wouldn’t have remembered it at all.