After Guan Ze brought the sword down on the nose of the man called Baldy on the ground, the air around them froze.
There are food stalls and small restaurants next to the hotel. It's six or seven o'clock, which is the peak dining time, so there are quite a lot of people here. When they see that a fight is about to break out here, they all stick their heads out to look over here.
Actually, Lin Yao was not used to being watched by others, especially in a situation like this, but he could not care about anything else at the moment. He was not even surprised that there was a big man in Guan Ze's car. He just stared at the people in and out of the other car.
"You..." The bald man had a blade on his nose and didn't dare to move. He just rolled his eyes and looked up twice, then spoke hesitantly, "Guan Ze?"
Lin Yao suddenly felt very proud. The bald guy lying on the ground seemed to be the leader of this group. But when he said Guan Ze's name, although he was hesitant, there was shock in his voice that could not be concealed.
Scare you to death!
Lin Yao looked at the people around him with satisfaction, not knowing whether to rush forward or stand still. Suddenly, he saw the person in the driver's seat of the Cheetah car got out of the car for some reason, holding a big iron rod in his hand, and had already walked behind Guan Ze.
Lin Yao's blood suddenly rushed back all over his body, and his meridians were all out of place. Guan Ze's attention was on Bald Brother, and he didn't notice the person approaching from behind. Even if he noticed, when he turned around to fend off the person behind him, Bald Brother and the others on the ground could have taken the opportunity to attack him, and Guan Ze would definitely be the one who suffered!
"Fuck you!" Lin Yao shouted loudly and swung the half brick in his hand out fiercely.
He felt that even though he was such a grown-up standing here, someone actually dared to attack Guan Ze as if he didn't exist, which made him very angry and humiliated.
The brick hit the man's wrist holding the iron bar quite accurately.
Hey! Where are you running!
But the man was quite professional and held the iron rod very tightly, so Lin Yao did not see the expected scene of the iron rod being smashed out of his hand.
The movies are all fucking lies!
As long as the iron rod did not fall out of his hand, Guan Ze's passive situation remained unchanged. Lin Yao had no choice but to rush over before the man could react. When Lin Yao was in school, he always won the first place in the 100-meter race in the sports meet. The physical education teacher always praised him for his quick reaction and explosive power when starting.
So when he rushed over as if he was running a 100-meter race, the man had no time to dodge.
Lin Yao's plan was to rush over and grab the iron rod, but plans always make people fail. Just like the time when he pounced on Guan Ze outside the amusement park, he failed to stop in time. So the plan was changed temporarily, and he ran directly into the man due to inertia.
The two men hit the cheetah behind like cannonballs, making a thrilling sound.
Lin Yao took the time to applaud himself in his heart. This man looked taller than Guan Ze. If he wasn't tall enough, he might have been bounced back to the snow after being hit. That would have been really embarrassing.
He didn't know if his elbow had hit the man's stomach, but after the man was hit against the car door, he bent over with a rather unhappy look on his face. Lin Yao took all his strength, grabbed the iron bar in his hand and pulled it hard, snatching the iron bar away from him.
"Just stay still!" Lin Yao was afraid that he was not dead yet, so he raised his foot and kicked him on the side of the knee.
The man twisted and knelt on the snow.
"What do you want?" Bald Brother was still the boss after all, so he quickly calmed down in this situation. He supported himself with one arm on the ground, controlling the distance between his nose and the blade, and raised the other arm like he was doing yoga, waving it at those people in a very cool way, "Wasn't it bad enough that I made you suffer in the beginning? After all these years, you still want to..."
"Brother Bald," Guan Ze's knife loosened, "I came back just to take a look. I don't want to cause trouble to others, and I don't want anyone to cause trouble to me."
"I won't cause you any trouble," Baldy grinned. Lin Yao saw a large scar on the lower left side of his face and the exposed neck, which looked like a burn. The skin was all red, and it looked scary. "I don't even want to see you."
"That's good," Guan Ze pulled the knife out of the snow, loosened his knees that were pressing on Bald Brother's back, stood up, wiped the knife on his body, and waited until Bald Brother stood up before he calmly uttered one word, "Money."
"What money?" Bald Brother was stunned.
"This is the money I need to repair my car." Guan Ze pointed to two cars that were crashed together.
"Fuck, you are so arrogant!" Someone couldn't help but curse. Even in the nearby towns, no one dared to talk to Bald Brother like that. They hit Bald Brother's car and asked for money. "You hit it yourself and..."
"Alright," Bald Brother waved his hand, turned around and looked at Guan Ze, and after a long while he gritted his teeth and said, "Go to the repair shop in town and tell them that I asked you to fix it."
"In town?" Guan Ze raised his eyebrows and smiled disdainfully, "I can't trust it. There are no accessories."
"What do you want!" The muscles on Bald Brother's face twitched. It was obvious that his anger had reached its peak, but he was still trying hard to suppress it.
"20,000," Guan Ze stretched out two fingers and shook them in front of his eyes. "I'm going out to eat now, so I might be back late at night. Just bring the money to the front desk and give it to me before 12 o'clock."
After Guan Ze finished speaking, he waved to Lin Yao without waiting for any reaction from those people, and turned to walk towards his car: "Let's go eat."
Lin Yao hurriedly followed him. The fire in Baldy's eyes made him feel a little scared. He took two steps before he remembered to throw the iron rod in his hand to the ground.
When the iron rod hit the curb that was not covered by snow with a clang, the bald guy behind him gritted his teeth and shouted, "Fuck!"
Lin Yao didn't look back and followed Guan Ze into the car.
Guan Ze started the car and drove forward slowly. When the two cars separated, the front bumper of the Cheetah fell to the ground. Although Lin Yao did not see the rear bumper of the Grand Cherokee fall off, he estimated that it was not much better.
After the car drove out of this small street and turned onto a deserted main street, Lin Yao let out a long sigh and looked at Guan Ze: "What happened?"
"I know that person." Guan Ze smiled.
"Is there a grudge?" Lin Yao's mind was in a mess. He had a lot of questions to ask, but he didn't know where to start.
"Well," Guan Ze sighed softly, "It was him who made Ning Juan jump from the third floor."
"I..." Lin Yao was stunned. That man was the bastard who forced a teenage girl to jump from the third floor? He immediately felt that the half brick should have hit that man's face. "Fuck!"
"I feel like that guy is quite afraid of you," Lin Yao was silent for a while, then turned his head and stared at Guan Ze. "He was able to do that to you, so he definitely didn't take you seriously at that time. What did you do to him?"
"I won't say this anymore, I'm afraid I'll scare you." Guan Ze stretched out his hand and scratched his hair. "You were quite fierce just now, I didn't realize it. If you provoke me, I'm afraid you'll be hard to deal with."
"So don't piss me off," Lin Yao rubbed his nose, and suddenly remembered Guan Ze's sword, and raised his voice, "Forget it, stop pretending, there's a man with a sword in his car who's leaving!"
"I'm used to it. Otherwise I wouldn't feel at ease." Guan Ze laughed.
"Are you bringing it to work too?" Lin Yao glanced at him.
"Yeah, it's always in the car, and there's also a gun at home..."
"Damn it, Guan Ze, you are a gangster!" Lin Yao jumped, loosened his seat belt, turned around and glared at Guan Ze.
"A gun that shoots BB bullets," Guan Ze looked at him and smiled, "Why are you so nervous? It's used when the outdoor club has sex in the wild."
"It's still controlled, okay?" Lin Yao frowned. "Tell me about that bald guy... He doesn't seem to be bald. He has hair. Is it a wig? But you can't pull the wig off. Is it a hair transplant? Oh, the effect is not bad... What did you do to him?"
“… I hit him with a brick.” Guan Ze almost lost his concentration as he listened to Lin Yao muttering to himself.
"Brick? I learned this from me, not bad," Lin Yao said with a click of his tongue, "He will behave himself just by hitting him with a brick? That's impossible."
"Then they took him to a dilapidated house and tied him to the water pipe with an iron chain." Guan Ze parked the car on the side of the road. These memories were a little unbelievable to him. He still remembered the sound of the bald man struggling frantically when he woke up, causing the water pipe to clang.
"Beat him up? Pee on his face?" Lin Yao couldn't think of anything that could make the bald man so afraid of Guan Ze.
"I set the fire," Guan Ze closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, "and then left."
Lin Yao was stunned and speechless for a long time. He knocked the man unconscious, tied him up in the house and then set fire to him
"Aren't you afraid that he will be burned to death?" Lin Yao asked with difficulty, remembering the hideous scars on the bald man's face and neck, "He escaped?"
"The water pipe was rusted, and he pulled it apart," Guan Ze exhaled slowly, "I just wanted to burn him to death at the time, nothing else in mind."
"You..." Lin Yao also leaned back in his chair, looking at the snow outside the window. He felt that he had difficulty breathing. Guan Ze actually did such a thing and planned to burn a person to death. "Director Guan, it's amazing that you can still sit next to me and talk about this today."
"Do you know why I am so grateful to Uncle Ning?" Guan Ze still closed his eyes and reached out to hold his hand. "After this incident, he told me that if something really happened to Baldy, Ning Juan's leg would have been broken in vain."
"That's right," Lin Yao held Guan Ze's hand with his backhand, and felt that Guan Ze's hand was very warm, "And then?"
"After Ning Juan was discharged from the hospital, Uncle Ning took us away and went to the city to open a shop, and let me go to school," Guan Ze started the car, "I am very lucky to have met Uncle Ning. My current life and the people I have met..."
Guan Ze pinched Lin Yao's chin: "It makes me feel lucky."
Guan Ze did not take Lin Yao to eat on the small street where the hotel was located. He drove the car onto another road in the town. The town was really small. Lin Yao looked around and saw four main streets in all directions, from the place in the middle of the town which should be a vegetable market and a small square. There were also some small alleys and streets on the streets. It would probably take less than an hour to go around the town.
"Where shall we eat?" Lin Yao looked out the window.
"Let's go to a small hot pot restaurant. We'll be there soon," Guan Ze looked out the window as if looking for something. "I haven't been back for a long time. I don't know if it's still there. The owner is an old lady. She's very nice and often leaves some clean food for me."
Lin Yao actually wanted to ask why he didn't go to the place where Guan Ze used to live first, but when he heard this, he stopped talking. For Guan Ze, this was the place where he had been given warmth and help. Compared to his family who ignored him or even hated him, he would naturally come here first.
"It's right here," Guan Ze pointed ahead and parked the car on the side of the road, "Ten yuan for a full meal."
"What a low cost." Lin Yao jumped out of the car and saw the small shop. There was not much business. There was not even a sign on the door. There was just a piece of cardboard made from a cardboard box hanging next to it, with a message written on it: "Ten yuan for a full meal."
"It may not taste very good," Guan Ze locked the car and came over to hug Lin Yao's shoulders, "Just bear with it, and consider it as accompanying me."
“It can’t be bad. Sometimes I can even taste how good my mom’s cooking is…” Lin Yao chuckled.
Lin Yao followed Guan Ze and lifted the thick cotton curtain to enter the store. There was no business in the store. Only an old man came up to greet them: "It's cold, come and sit down. What would you like to eat?"
The old man must have been quite surprised to see two people whose clothes were completely different from those in the town walking into such a store. After asking them questions, he looked them up and down.
"Just order two of the dishes you have on hand," Guan Ze glanced at the menu on the table, "Are you alone?"
"No, no, the chef is here, my son is here," the old man probably thought Guan Ze had questions about the dishes in the restaurant, and explained anxiously, "Don't worry, the dishes are all fresh."
"Whatever you want, it's fine," Guan Ze smiled, "Isn't Grandma Cao here?"
“You are…” The old man was stunned and looked at Guan Ze with some surprise.
"You may not remember me. I used to go to your kitchen to ask Grandma Cao for food," Guan Ze moved closer to the old man. "I'm Guan Ze."
The old man stared at him for a long time, his eyes widened, and after a long while he said in surprise: "It's really you, you have changed a lot, not like a monkey like when you were a child, dirty and black..."
Lin Yao felt like laughing when he heard this, so he quickly picked up the cup and poured some hot tea to drink, and then he told the black monkey...
"Of course it has to change. It's been more than ten years." Guan Ze pulled the old man to sit next to him. "You have very good eyesight. You still remember me."
"Yes, I remember. It was so cold and I didn't have any cotton clothes to wear. You must be feeling better now. Look at your outfit. You look so energetic!" The old man smiled happily. After laughing for a while, he sighed, "If your grandmother Cao saw you, she would definitely praise you."
Guan Ze was stunned for a moment, and lowered his voice: "Grandma Cao..."
"No, I lost it the year before last. I'm old now, and I can't get up after falling down." The old man patted his shoulder and said, "Good boy, remember to come back and visit. I'll go to the back to prepare food for you, you sit down."
The dishes the old man prepared for the two of them were quite simple, just home-cooked stir-fries, but the portions were surprisingly large. Lin Yao listened to the old man chatting with Guan Ze while he concentrated on eating. This was the old man's intention, and he felt that the two of them should not leave any food.
Guan Ze didn't eat much, he was just busy talking, and probably the news of Grandma Cao's death affected his mood, so he ate much less than usual. Lin Yao held his breath and finished several large plates of food, and finally felt that if he bent down, something tragic would happen.
"Are you full?" Guan Ze looked at Lin Yao and pointed at the little chicken soup left on the table. "Have some more soup."
"I'm full." Lin Yao held his stomach and sat up straight.
"The soup doesn't take up much space, so just eat it up." Guan Ze didn't pay much attention to how much Lin Yao ate, he just felt that he was about 80% full.
"Goodbye, I just used noodles to fill the gaps and now I can't even bend my waist. Ask your uncle if I ate a lot." Lin Yao stood up slowly, wondering whether he should jump a few times to eat the food.
The meal lasted more than two hours, and it was already ten o'clock when we finished and left. The old man refused to take any money. His son also came out and said that it was very kind of Guan Ze to think of coming back to visit, so he couldn't take any money.
The old man’s son was a big fat guy, and he was pushing and pulling Guan Ze like they were fighting. If you didn’t know, you would think they were fighting happily, so Guan Ze had no choice but to give up.
Finally, the two of them returned to the car. After driving for a while, Lin Yao began to laugh, holding his stomach and laughing: "Guan Ze, what were you like when you were a child? Were you pretty?"
"What do you want to say?" Guan Ze laughed, "I was pretty when I was a kid."
"Guan Hei Hou'er," Lin Yao smiled and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, "You were malnourished at the time, right?"
"I guess so. At that time, I was so hungry that my eyes were glowing green every day." Guan Ze thought about it and realized that hunger was indeed his biggest torture every day during those years.
"You've really suffered a lot," Lin Yao sighed as he leaned back in his chair after laughing. "My family also suffered when I was a child, but I was too young at the time and my family gave me everything I needed, so I didn't feel much."
“So having a home is better than anything else.”
Guan Ze did not drive the car back to the hotel, but drove out of the town. Once out of the town, the dirt road was covered with snow. Apart from the road illuminated by the headlights, there was no other light.
The snow had stopped and the surroundings became extremely quiet. The only sound was the sound of car engines.
Lin Yao felt that the current atmosphere was very wonderful, as if he and Guan Ze were the only two people left in the world. No one disturbed them in the quiet darkness, and he felt at ease as he drove forward with the bumper half detached.
"Where are we going?" Lin Yao checked the time.
"Climb the mountain," Guan Ze raised his chin towards the front, "Let's go up the mountain to see the snowy scenery under the moon."
Lin Yao looked forward and saw some dark shadows in front of him, but he couldn't tell whether they were trees or mountains.
It was not until half an hour later when Guan Ze stopped the car and turned off the lights that Lin Yao could see clearly that there was a small hill in front of them. It was not high, but there were several hills connected together and it looked quite imposing.
"Can we see the snow scenery if we go up now?" Lin Yao jumped on the snow, and the snow under his feet made a crackling sound.
"You'll be able to see it when the snow stops." Guan Ze looked up at the sky. It was no longer snowing.
"Ah," Lin Yao also looked up, "the moon is out."
Guan Ze was happy but didn't say anything.
"The moon is out... It sounds a bit weird..."
"The moon is out." said Guan Ze.
"Well," Lin Yao was a little embarrassed and jumped twice, "Climb to the top of the mountain? How long will it take?"
"It'll probably be more than an hour. It's up to you." Guan Ze walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk, took out a large mountaineering bag and put it on his back.
"I'm fine," Lin Yao patted his bag, "What's this? Aren't all the luggage in the room?"
"Gun." Guan Ze locked the car and walked towards the path leading into the mountains.
"Hunting? Can we still hunt in winter?" Lin Yao ran a few steps to catch up with him, a little excited, forgetting that he had said before that this was a restricted animal. "What can we hunt? Bear? Wolf? Leopard? Or pheasant?"
Guan Ze sighed, hooked his arm around his neck and pulled him in front of him, then kissed him hard on the lips: "Shut up."
Lin Yao seldom climbed mountains. Even when he did, he would walk up along the built steps like climbing a building. This was the first time he had walked on a mountain road that was made up of uneven pits dug out along the mountain.
In addition, it had snowed and the ground was a bit slippery, so he walked quite awkwardly. However, it was quite helpful in digesting the food, and soon he felt that the feeling of being bloated and about to burst disappeared, and his body began to heat up.
After climbing for an hour, Guan Ze stopped and touched his forehead: "You're still strong, do you want to rest for a while?"
Lin Yao originally wanted to take a break, but from here, he could already see the snow scene at the foot of the mountain blocked by dense woods. The surprisingly quiet white world under the moonlight made him very excited. He wanted to get to the top of the mountain quickly to see this scenery he had never seen before without any obstruction.
"Okay," Guan Ze continued to move up, "Don't take off your clothes, or you'll catch a cold."
"Yeah." Lin Yao followed closely behind him.
Forty minutes later, they finally reached the top of the mountain. Lin Yao's legs were a little sore, and his pants were a little wet. He knelt down to comfort Guan Ze seven or eight times in silence, and his pants were soaked.
"From this side," Guan Ze pointed to the other side of the mountain, "this side is very open."
Lin Yao walked up to him and looked down the mountain in the direction of his finger. There were no buildings on this side. It looked like it was all farmland covered with snow, flat and open.
Apart from the quietly falling moonlight, there was no other light at the foot of the mountain. The snow on the ground quietly reflected the moonlight, flashing star-like lights, which contrasted with the stars in the sky.
"So beautiful." Lin Yao said softly, a little excited.
"What time is it?" Guan Ze asked beside him.
Lin Yao took out his phone and took a look: "It's still a few minutes to 12 o'clock, what's wrong?"
"I've got a little surprise for you." Guan Ze put the bag on his back at his feet, squatted down, took something out of the bag and placed it on the ground.
"What is that?" Lin Yao looked at the thing in the moonlight. It was a cylinder with a fixed bracket underneath. It looked like a small cannon barrel.
"Tell me at 12 o'clock." Guan Ze didn't answer him, but just fixed the cylinder on the snow.
"Yeah." Lin Yao looked at the time on his mobile phone. He didn't know what Guan Ze was going to do, but he was still looking forward to it.
Three minutes later, the phone showed 00:00 on December 27, and Lin Yao said, "We're here."
"Lin Yao, happy birthday." Guan Ze walked up to him and kissed him on the forehead.
Lin Yao was excited and was about to hug Guan Ze and kiss him madly when he suddenly heard a hissing sound from the cylinder and then he saw tiny sparks.
Before he could react, the cylinder made a loud noise.
The sound broke the quiet night and Lin Yao felt as if the mountain beneath his feet was shaking.