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(1)

“What’s your name?”

“They call me Pan Zi, Master Three. P-A-N, Pan.”

“Oh, that’s an ancient surname. It’s great. Where are you from?”

“I was a soldier. I’m home now, but the farmland back in my hometown is gone. I don’t know what else to do, so I thought I could learn something from Master Three.”

“Have you killed people before?”

“I fought in the Vietnam War, so it was kind of hard not to.”

“Well, stay with me in the future. You don’t need to kill people. You just need to scare them.”

(2)

“Are we going to get caught?” Lao Yang asked beside a wall.

“Isn’t it a bit too late to ask this sort of question? It’s not easy for me to sneak out.”

“Alright,” Lao Yang said. “I’ll let you step on my shoulders. Be smart.” Wu Xie stepped on his shoulders and took a peek. Lao Yang asked, “Well?”

Wu Xie lowered his head, “We made a mistake! It’s a men’s toilet!”

——Childhood Memories

(3)

“Brother Wu Xie, what do you think of this flower?”

“Where did you get it? Your mom asked me to babysit you. You’re going to get me in trouble.”

“The elder sister over there gave it to me.”

—— Childhood Memories: Wu Xie and Xiuxiu

(4)

A foreigner drank too much, patted his wallet, and kept shouting at the bartender who was an Irish girl. Lao Yang had been silently enduring it until he found that he had run out of drinks. He tried to tell the man to calm down.

“Go away, you poor Korean man.” The foreigner slapped Lao Yang’s face with his wallet, and the cash inside flew all over the floor. “Do you know how much money I have? You poor wretch, go back to Vietnam.”

“Well,” Lao Yang took out the bank card from his wallet. “I don’t want to resort to violence. Let’s make a bet. If the money in my card is more than the money in all of your cards combined—” Lao Yang looked around and grabbed the Irish girl’s iPad off the counter. “You’ll have to eat this thing. Same goes for me if I lose. How about it?”

*****

Lao Yang looked at the ground that was getting further and further away, and sleepily listened to the aircraft engine’s roar. That huge scam in the early years also made him feel guilty.

Now, it was just a memory on a piece of paper. He remembered what the paper looked like, but he couldn’t remember what words had been written on it.

He had long realized the beauty of forgetting things.

*****

At Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport, Lao Yang lit a cigarette as he walked out of the taxi waiting area, carrying a backpack over one shoulder.

There were many fans who came to the airport to see their idol, shouting the name of someone who hadn’t been famous when he left China.

He touched the glasses on his nose, looked at the familiar blue sky that somehow felt unfamiliar to him, and bowed his head before walking into the crowd.

*****

Lao Yang was in the cemetery, holding a note that had become yellow with age. It took a long time for him to find the tombstone, and when he did, he stood there silently in the cold wind. After some time had passed, he put flowers in front of the tombstone and turned away.

His phone rang, and he picked it up, listening to a woman talking on the other end. “I, I, I know, Mom. I’ll be back after a while,” he said as he walked away.

(5)

Father’s Day.

Wu Yiqiong placed the fried river shrimp on a plate, untied his apron, and then took the dish out. He shouted to the other room, “Old lady, time for dinner.”

“Okay, this episode will be over soon.” A woman’s voice came from the back room.

He shook his head, opened a bottle of beer for himself, sat down, and then glanced at his phone on the sofa.

He cursed silently. I don’t know where this kid has been recently. It’s fine if he doesn’t want to come home, but he didn’t even think to give me a call.

*****

Wu Yiqiong looked at the note written outside the shop.

‘The owner is unavailable. The shop is temporarily closed for business.’

There were several reminders next to the note, telling the owner to pay the utility bills. He sighed heavily.

“Old Wu, did you come to see your son? He hasn’t shown up for a long time,” The owner of the neighboring shop said. Wu Yiqiong smiled, shook his head, and tore off the utility reminders. He was in the middle of trying to take the shop key out of his pocket, when he found that the lock had been tampered with.

(6)

Wu Erbai put a stick of incense in front of his father’s memorial tablet and fell into deep thought as he stood in front of it.

A seven-year-old German Shepherd was lying at his feet. It was the last dog Old Dog Wu had trained.

Wu Erbai had been raising this dog with the utmost care because he knew that it was the last trump card his father had left them.

*****

The German Shepherd unenthusiastically ate the meat in the dog bowl. The weather was too hot, so its appetite had waned.

“You really treasure this dog. What kind of meat do you give him exactly? It didn’t even bother looking at the veal I brought it the last time I was here. If the dog ever gets lost, it will starve to death if someone tries to feed it.” An old man said to Wu Erbai.

Wu Erbai smiled. “I can’t tell you. It’s complicated. It’s not expensive anyways, just hard to come by.”

(7)

“Aren’t you in pain?” The doctor asked.

“I can’t see what you can see, but I can see what you can’t.” The man said with his eyes closed.

“Are you sure you don’t want to have surgery? There’s a thirty percent success rate. It’s a pity not to try. You might really go blind in a few years’ time.”

The man shook his head, put on his sunglasses, and walked toward the door, “I won’t be alive by then.”

(8)

“You’re a Huaguxi (1) opera singer, so why do you also know how to sing Peking Opera?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid Er Ye will crawl out of his grave and spank you?” (2)

“I didn’t learn opera so that I could perform.”

Xiao Hua checked the carabiners one by one. “Er Ye also taught me how to sing Peking Opera. Huaguxi Opera was originally a cover. If everyone’s an excellent opera singer, then what’s the point of being a grave robber? Er Ye was talented. The gods gave him a beautiful singing voice. He said that it’s difficult to learn other forms of opera once you’ve learned one, but if you sing extremely well, then all kinds of opera the world over are the same.”

“What does that mean?” Fatty asked. “Why does it sound like some sort of martial art secret?”

“What Er Ye meant was that deep down, all operas are the same despite how they appear on the surface.” Xiao Hua pointed at the Yangshi Lei drawing and said to me, “This also applies to ancient tombs.”

(9)

“Why are you so good at singing everything?” Yun Cai filled a glass with homemade bitter wine for Xiao Hua. “Can you teach me?”

“What do you want to learn? Huaguxi, Huadeng (3), or Changsha Opera?” Xiao Hua asked her with a smile.

Yun Cai said, “I want to learn ‘The Hegemon-King Bids His Lady Farewell’ (4).” Xiao Hua smiled upon hearing her words.

Pan Zi said, “No. Don’t learn that. It’s unlucky.”

(10)

Yun Cai took off her underwear, made sure no one was around, and then walked into the lake. The bosses should all be having a meeting, so she thought she could secretly take a bath. The cold lake water made her feel calm, and just when she was about to swim deeper into the lake, a woman’s voice stopped her. “It’s not right to enjoy this all by yourself.”

*****

Yun Cai helped Xiuxiu untie the two buns in her hair and watched as it flowed down her back like a waterfall, “Your skin is so white, little boss lady.” Yun Cai said with envy.

Xiuxiu blushed and looked at her reflection on the lake’s surface under the moonlight. Her slim body was like white jade, “What’s so good about having white skin. I wish my boobs were bigger.”

“Bigger?”

“Yes, otherwise he’ll always think I’m a child.”

*****

“What are the bosses talking about?” Yun Cai was lying on a rock and could hear Xiao Hua’s voice in the distance. From the lake, the lights on shore looked very small and illusory.

“Fate, I suppose. Men always want to change their fate, but what they don’t know is that they are the ones chasing it,” Xiuxiu said as she washed Yun Cai’s hair.

*****

“Commander Wang, I’ve determined that the movement in the lake is really Miss Yun Cai and Miss Xiuxiu bathing.” Leather Bag secretly said to Fatty.

Fatty pondered for a moment before saying, “This lake is really strange. I can’t believe they’d do something reckless like this. They shouldn’t do that. As their elder, I have to ensure their safety. Go and get the binoculars. I’ll scold them properly.”

(10)

Xie Yuhua woke up from a nightmare and saw the bright sunshine and greenery outside the ward. The most vibrant season in Beijing almost seemed like an illusion, and made people feel that they could get drunk under the beautiful scenery and forget the things they had to deal with in life.

Xiuxiu was by his bedside, peeling an apple with a knife and eating pieces of it. Noticing that he was awake, she cut a small piece off and held it up to his mouth.

——Took place right after Vol 8

<What Are They Doing? Chapter 1.1 Black Glasses and Wang Meng><Table of Contents><What Are They Doing? Chapter 2>

******

TN Notes:

(1) Flower Drum Opera

(2) Er Ye was famous for singing Huaguxi operas only.

(3) Lantern Opera

(4) The opera tells the story of Xiang Yu, who was a prominent warlord. On the verge of total defeat, he decided to say goodbye to his wife. She couldn’t bear to part with him, so she committed suicide. Xiang Yu was saddened and killed himself as well.

******

I literally laughed out loud at “Commander Wang”. Fatty, you perv! (￣▽￣) These were all over the place on daomubiji.org, by the way, so Tiffany organized them for us （‐＾▽＾‐）

Translated by: Tiffany X

Edited by: merebear226

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