Two or Three Events in the Last Days 030
Chapter 30: Fighting
The group remained silent, each of them feeling uneasy. After passing those plants that had twisted cars out of shape, they felt a chill in their hearts. They slowly made their way to the town police station. The automatic retractable gate stood half open, and a notice was posted on the stainless-steel bulletin board at the entrance, warning nearby residents to stay home as much as possible and avoid going out. Yet there was not a single person in sight inside the station. The service center across the road was in the same deserted state.
Following Zhao Shaoqian, everyone eventually arrived at the town health clinic. The place was in complete disarray. Nearly all the doors and windows of the three-story building had been smashed, and some medical equipment had been battered beyond recognition and tossed into corners. Both the Chinese and Western medicine dispensaries were littered with scattered herbs and pills, mixed with shards of broken saline bottles. Zhao Shaoqian looked regretfully at the medicines strewn across the floor while searching for any medicinal supplies that had not yet been looted.
This street in Huangtai Town had existed for many years. A few years earlier, the town had developed a piece of land and built several rows of residential housing. Most of the townspeople had bought homes there, calling it New Street. However, aside from a kindergarten opening there, little had changed. People still habitually set up their stalls along the old street. Some houses on both sides of the old street had been built in recent years, but most were older storefronts with tiled roofs and wooden doors. After the sudden environmental upheaval, many of those tiled houses had been brought down by the rampant plants.
After leaving the clinic, the group walked the entire length of the street. The only credit union in town had its rolling shutter pried open, and its tempered-glass doors shattered. The counters inside were a mess, and the ATM had been thoroughly wrecked. It was easy to imagine that angry residents, unable to withdraw money, had vented their frustration there.
Across from the bank stood a mobile phone service shop. It looked much the same, with cracked phone cases scattered across the floor. Finally, the group entered a hardware store whose door had been forced open. In a battered cardboard box tucked into a corner, they found several sledgehammers and more than a dozen large combination wrenches. Both items felt satisfyingly heavy in the hand and made excellent tools for self-defense.
Nearly every shop along the street had its doors smashed to pieces. Some small supermarkets had been completely looted, and plants had grown deep into their interiors. As they were leaving, they happened to run into another group that had come out either to assess the situation or gather supplies. There were five of them, all adult men carrying batons, emerging from a small shop while cursing loudly.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Jing Lin remembered that the place had been a small restaurant with only three or four tables. Elderly men who came to the market often spent time there drinking and eating peanuts, while simple rice dishes and stir-fries were sold at lunchtime. The owners had probably left already and taken all the food they could carry. As a result, these men had found nothing and were especially angry.
When the two groups came face to face, everyone paused in surprise.
Jing Lin’s gaze deepened as he spotted a rather familiar fat man among them.
The man was named Liu Erkui. Unlike the friendly chubby boy who had once delivered salt to Jing Lin, Liu Erkui had been trouble since middle school, forming gangs and getting into fights. Back then, he had been so arrogant that he called himself the tyrant of Huangtai Town Middle School. Dark-skinned, thick-faced, and naturally intimidating, he was also notoriously lecherous. When Jing Lin’s sister had been preparing for the college entrance examination, Liu Erkui, who was attending a vocational school in the county seat, had repeatedly harassed her. Jing Lin had just entered middle school at the time. One day, during a break, he had gone to deliver something to his sister, who was attending extra classes, and happened to see Liu Erkui cornering her and verbally harassing her.
As a child, Jing Lin had often heard neighbors gossiping that he was cursed with an unusually hard fate. Over time, this had shaped his aloof and cold personality. He had become the type of person who stayed calm in any situation. Seeing his sister being harassed, he had not stepped forward immediately. Instead, he had quickly found a school security guard and informed him that a female student was being harassed by thugs at a certain location. Even after the security guard chased Liu Erkui and his friends away, Jing Lin’s expression had not changed. After returning home, he had not told his grandfather about the incident. Instead, he had found a burlap sack and a length of thick rope, filled the sack with fine sand, and waited alone along the route Liu Erkui always took home.
The students of Huangtai Town schools all came from nearby villages, and one of Jing Lin’s classmates happened to be from the same village as Liu Erkui. The classmate idolized Liu Erkui’s reputation as a school bully and often bragged about him in class. Because of this, Jing Lin had a general idea of where Liu Erkui lived and which road he used to return home.
That day, Jing Lin waited from afternoon until evening before finally spotting Liu Erkui. He threw sand into Liu Erkui’s face, and while Liu Erkui panicked with sand in his eyes, Jing Lin slipped a sack over his head from behind. Then came a merciless beating with a stick, leaving Liu Erkui howling in pain. At first, Liu Erkui had shouted threats, then he had begged for mercy, and when that failed, he had broken down crying. Once Jing Lin grew tired, he stuffed him into the sack, tied it shut, hung him from a roadside tree, and simply walked away.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Liu Erkui had been completely bewildered. He had offended many people over the years, and being ambushed was nothing new to him. It never occurred to him that the attacker could be a middle-school student five years younger than himself. Being hung from a tree all night left a deep psychological scar. After passersby rescued him the next day, he behaved himself for quite a while. Since he had committed plenty of petty crimes in the past, he did not dare report the incident to the police. He could only swallow his anger and stay home recovering from his injuries. By the time he recovered, the college entrance examination was already over, and Jing Lin’s sister was nowhere to be found.
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
However, Liu Erkui never knew who had attacked him. He did not know Jing Lin, nor did he know that Jing Lin had been the one who beat him. The grudge existed entirely on one side.
Liu Erkui had repeated a grade in middle school, failed to complete vocational school, and spent the years since loafing around as a street thug. Naturally, he was not a good person. Now, seeing several strong men and a pretty young woman, his gaze shifted to the bulging white bag Zhao Shaoqian carried. Not knowing what was inside, he immediately assumed they had arrived before him and taken valuable supplies. The urge to rob them arose at once.
Although Jing Lin and the others were all tall and sturdy, Liu Erkui had spent his life fighting and throwing his weight around in the area. He feared no one. Pointing at Zhao Shaoqian, he sneered, “Brother, don’t you know this territory belongs to Brother Kui? Got some nerve scavenging on my turf. If you’re smart, put the stuff down and get lost.”
The medicinal herbs Zhao Shaoqian had collected were meant to be taken back to the village to make medicine. Many villagers were waiting for treatment, and there might not even be enough. Liu Erkui’s arrogant attitude already irritated everyone. Why would they hand over the supplies after that?
Before Zhao Shaoqian could respond, Ma Chunzheng spoke first.
“Did someone write your name on this place? Why should we give you what we found?”
He was counting on those herbs to treat the red bumps on his daughter’s back. There was no way they would obediently hand them over just because someone demanded it.
“Exactly. You’ve got some nerve,” Zhao Zhiwen added. The way Liu Erkui had been leering at Yan Lu moments earlier had already made him furious.
Liu Erkui and the four men behind him immediately turned cold.
Staring at them, Liu Erkui said darkly, “Think carefully. My brothers and I can take a beating. But if something happens to this delicate little lady later, don’t blame us.”
Two or Three Events in the Last Days (TELD) is translated by Betwixted Translations. The site you’re reading this chapter on stole our translation.
Yan Lu took the large axe off her back and said impatiently, “If you’re going to fight, then fight. Stop talking so much.”
Yan Fei quickly stopped his sister from charging forward.
“Stand aside. There are plenty of men here. You don’t need to fight.”
Though he was not as strong as his younger sister, she was still the sister he had doted on since childhood. Threatening her right in front of him… wasn’t this simply asking for a beating?
Jing Lin and Zhao Zhiwen gripped the wrenches they had just acquired and tossed aside the wooden sticks they had brought, leaving them for Yan Lu to watch. Zhao Shaoqian also set down the medicinal herbs and hefted a sledgehammer, looking eager for action. As a doctor, he had never neglected physical training despite increasingly tense doctor-patient relations. Li Feiyu nervously gripped the iron rod he had brought from home and stood ready alongside the others. He had never been in a fight before. Ma Chunzheng had followed his father, the village captain, in handling disputes since middle school and was unfazed by the situation. The last member, Gao Changhui, who had previously been reprimanded by Yan Fei at Xie Shu’s house, was more timid than the others but still forced himself to stand firm with a sledgehammer in hand. He knew he could not retreat.
People from the same village had to stand together.
On the other side, Liu Erkui and his companions had first been startled by Yan Lu’s enormous axe. Now, seeing the group’s united stance, they felt their authority as local toughs had been challenged. With a curse, Liu Erkui charged forward, baton in hand.
And so the two groups began fighting in the narrow, weed-choked street.
Zhao Zhiwen and Gao Changhui, who had little fighting experience, suffered the most. But even rabbits bit when cornered. After taking several blows, Gao Changhui roared and wildly swung his wrench with no technique whatsoever. By sheer luck, he missed the person he intended to hit and instead smashed another man who was struggling with Zhao Zhiwen. The wrench connected solidly with the man’s jaw, sending teeth flying from his mouth along with a spray of blood. Before the man could recover, Zhao Zhiwen and Gao Changhui exchanged a glance and simultaneously roared. Ignoring everyone else, they ganged up on him, punching and kicking wildly until he could no longer get up.
As for Jing Lin, he had always lacked physical training and had no experience fighting. Perhaps because of his cultivation technique, however, his reactions were exceptionally quick. He dodged every attack thrown at him. After swinging at him for a long time without landing a single hit, his opponent exhausted himself. Then, unfortunately, he crossed paths with the red-eyed Zhao Zhiwen and Gao Changhui and ended up exactly like the first man.
Yan Fei, Zhao Shaoqian, and Ma Chunzheng, meanwhile, handled themselves with ease. Zhao Shaoqian and Ma Chunzheng each took a few hits, but Yan Fei calmly countered every move and struck back effortlessly. The youngest among them, Li Feiyu, darted around the edges of the fight, occasionally sneaking in a strike with his iron rod. He was surprisingly nimble.
Words from the Translation Crew
Miiya: Two of two for the week.
Translator: Miiya
Editor: MushroomKnight73
Proofreader: Yume
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