Volume 29: Armed With Weapons

On the night of July 16th, a van full of cargo was driving on the highway in the suburbs. Two people in the car were holding cigarette butts and staring nervously at the road illuminated by the lights. Occasionally, they said one or two words to break the silence.

"Have the people over at the pier arrived yet? You should call them!"

"Ah, how many times have we called? Don't worry, there won’t be any problems. Just get ready to count the money when the goods are delivered!”

"I'm still a little worried."

"What are you worrying about? We’ve passed through several toll booths safely. If the police are targeting us, they would have long since taken action.”

"I hope so!"

"Can’t you stop with all the negative words all the time? It's really unlucky... Pei, pei, pei[1]!"

The driver's cell phone rang. When answering the phone, the body of the car started trembling. The two heard a loud bang. It seemed that the tires had burst and the four tires had burst together.

Then, a bright light came from the field ahead and the two screamed. An ambush!

The van with the flat tires couldn’t move at all as the off-road vehicle ahead of them came rushing over violently, running into them and knocking over their van. They rolled over a few times in the field and when they stopped, the body of the car had already been seriously deformed. The two people inside were knocked unconscious with their heads covered in blood.

Two people jumped out of the off-road vehicle and one of the big men stepped forward, reaching into the car window. He cut their throats skillfully and they stopped breathing with their last gasp.

The other person was wearing gloves and began to search through the scattered goods. There were mandarins in the boxes, but under each box were pistols wrapped in baking paper. There were a total of sixteen guns.

These smuggled guns that were worth a million yuan were casually packed into a big black bag. The man with the guns then whistled to signal his companion to get in the car.

After getting in the car, the throat-cutter asked, "I still don't understand. Why do such a thing?"

"We’re fulfilling orders to get money. Are you unhappy with having money?"

"Do you dare to spend it though? The police are already targeting you." The companion sneered. "You’re getting really cowardly now. You only take on risk-free work. When will we find the police to settle the score?!"

"Haha, are you still thinking about this?" He patted his companion's shoulder. "What's the point of a game without an opponent? We’re able to get where we are because we’re cautious."

"I want to kill someone! I want to commit a crime alone and leave down my name in history instead of wearing the fictional name ‘Zhou Xiao’." The companion rubbed the blade in his fingers.

"Don’t rush. When the time is right, I’ll let you go out and make a big commotion... And this experiment is what I wanted to do long ago. Think about what wonderful reactions would come about when an ordinary person with hatred gets a gun.”

The companion smiled with interest. "The police will be tortured to the point of being terribly defeated."

"And isn’t it fun for us to watch on the side?" He started the car. "Let’s do the delivery!"

The companion suddenly said, "It seems like it’ll rain... My shoulder is starting to hurt again."

In the early morning of July 17th, Wang Xu was woken up by the alarm clock and got up to put on his clothes. The window was covered with raindrops from last night. He walked out of the bedroom and saw his mother sleeping on the sofa reeking of alcohol. The TV was left on the whole night and was just displaying a screen of white noise. The ashtray on the coffee table was full of cigarette butts and the whole living room was filled with the pungent smell of smoke.

His mother was still dressed up in nightclub clothes, with a gaudy red skirt and black fishnet stockings. The makeup on her face was drawn on like a ghost and no matter how thick the makeup was, it couldn’t cover the growing wrinkles on the corners of her eyes.

Wang Xu wrinkled his nose in disgust, picked up his mother's wallet, and took his pocket money for the day. Although there was a few hundred yuan in the wallet, he didn't touch them. Instead, he picked out a twenty.

When he thought of going to school, he was in a heavy mood, but he couldn't miss school. If he skipped class and the teacher's phone call reached home, his mother would play out a bitter drama act, saying how she worked so hard in the clubs just for him. She’d say that she raised him with abundant food and accommodation, yet he couldn’t even study properly. Then, she’d start crying about her miserable life again and how she was impregnated by Wang Xu’s father before she got married, had to drop out of school to give birth. And then she’d talk about how the man was caught by the police while she raised the child alone, as if her miserable life was all Wang Xu's fault.

Wang Xu had shouted more than once during their quarrels asking why she gave birth to him at the time if she didn’t want him. His mother's answer was either more violent crying or a slap in his face, depending on her mood at the time.

Later, in his biology class, Wang Xu found out about the "mystery" between men and women, and despised irresponsible mothers even more. It turned out that his birth was for the joy of the process. This woman's whole life was stupid and she lived like an animal that could talk.

Wang Xu carried his school bag on his back and was about to leave. Suddenly, he found a shoe box beside the door with a note reading, "Wang Xu to personally receive." The note was wet and crumpled, as if it was drenched in rain.

Wang Xu was a bit startled. Which courier was so capable that they could put it in the house?

After thinking about it for a while, something seemed wrong. There was no delivery note on the box. Besides, he didn't have any friends outside the city and his father in the prison couldn't send things out. In fact, he rarely even sent letters to him.

Wang Xu opened the box and found it filled with crumpled newspaper shreds with a dark object in the middle.

He opened his mouth in surprise. This... This was a gun!

Upon touching it, he could feel the coldness of the hard metal. This gun was very heavy and seemed to be real. The inscriptions above were all in English, so he didn’t know what model it was.

In addition to the gun, there was a box of bullets.

He poured the bullets in his palm. The texture seemed very real. Then, he pulled the cartridge out, pressed the bullets in, and then inserted the cartridge back. There was a dial on the side of the gun, which was probably the safety.

He hadn’t eaten pork, but had watched a pig run. After all, he often got exposed to firearms in games and movies. He knew how to use[2] the gun and how to aim.

After opening the safety, Wang Xu held the gun in his hand and aimed with one eye closed. There was a subtle resistance from the trigger. As long as it was pulled hard enough, the bullet would be fired out.

Of course, he didn’t dare to shoot. The gunshot would be very loud and the whole building would hear it. His mother would be woken up as well.

Ah, right, wouldn't this gun have been brought back by mother?

But the words on the note weren’t written by my mother. Besides, how could a dancer in a nightclub get a gun? This looks like the real thing!

After pondering for a while, Wang Xu hid the gun full of bullets in his school bag as he took the box downstairs and threw it away.

This dangerous thing was in his school bag. He felt weird, but at the same time, he also had an inexplicable sense of security. If Dahu bullied him again today, he would use this gun to scare Dahu.

After making up his mind, a smile appeared on Wang Xu's face.

1. Chinese version of “touchwood”.

2. Editor Conspiracing’s note: The author wrote “transport the gun” here, but we’re unsure what they meant by that, so we wrote “use” instead.