Book 3: Chapter 35: Roman Holiday


    Desperate, I wanted to pull my head out like crazy. It could be argued that my face was much smaller than Fattys, so there shouldnt have been any problems. But at this time, I couldnt figure out where exactly my head was stuck. After shouting, the glow stick fell out of my mouth again and hit the face below. The ck face rushed towards me without an ounce of hesitation, but at this time, a hand reached around my neck and stretched inside the stone monsters mouth. The hand lifted my chin as someone grabbed my cor and pulled me out.


    I fell to the ground but immediately got up to look into the stone monsters mouth. I saw half a face looking at me coldly from inside that dark hole. The glow stick, which had been squeezed out by this face, rolled out of the stone monsters mouth andnded on the ground outside.


    Then, the face quickly shrank back into the darkness.


    I patted my chest to make my heart beat at a morefortable rhythm and then turned to see that Poker-Face was the one who had pulled me out. Fatty, who was standing next to him, thought that I was messing around, "Is this the grasnd version of Roman Holiday?"⁽¹⁾


    "Fuck off! Theres something underground!" I yelled. If I had a knife in my hand, I probably wouldnt have been so afraid. But I only had one face, so all I could use to fight back was my tongue and saliva. It was enough to scare me to death.


    "Youve seen the world. What exactly could be underground to scare you like this?" Fatty continued to doubt. "Youre such a brat. Is this your revenge for me flirting with you earlier?"


    The reason why I had been so afraid was because that face had suddenly appeared and I waspletely unprepared. All I had was that stupid glow stick in my mouth.


    Fatty still didnt believe it at all and stretched his fingers out to the stone monsters mouth like he wanted to put his head in again. But Poker-Face immediately gestured at him, silently telling him to keep away from the stonentern. That was when Fatty finally understood.


    Poker-Face and I exined that it was a corpse. It had begun to rot and the vitreous fluid in its eyes was already cloudy.


    If the corpse had climbed up that twenty-meter pipe, then its torso must have been shattered into meaty lumps. Or, it had no torso at all and was pushed up by something simr to a neck. Whatever the case, it was terrifying to imagine.


    I had a faint hunch that our theory was correct and the ground under our feet was probably full of dead people. It seemed that anything buried on this grasnd became evil.


    "If what you said is true, then we have to catch it," Fatty said. "Instead of going into the underground pce and encountering this kind of thing, you might as well use your constitution to catch one, Mr. Nave. That way, well be prepared and know what were dealing with."


    "How am I supposed to catch it?" I asked.


    "Come now, all you have to do is repeat what you just did. But pull your head out a little slower this time. When you draw it out, well grab it from both sides and hold it down. Then youll know what it is."


    I immediately became furious. <em>Like Id ever dare stick my head in again!</em>


    While we were talking, Poker-Face raised the threaded steel pipe, inserted it directly into the stone monsters mouth, folded it in half with one hand, and then twisted the other end directly into the monsters mouth. In this way, the threaded steel pipe was stuck in the stone monsters mouth, forming an iron fence that would block anything from getting out.


    As I breathed a sigh of relief, I heard Fatty say that he wanted to dig. "Digging is fine, I said. But our weapons arent sophisticated enough, mainly because Little Brother doesnt have a knife. Maybe we can update our weapons before proceeding."


    Fatty thought for a while and then looked at the steel pipe in his hand. Its true that were really short of weapons this time, he muttered. I nced at Poker-Face, wanting to know what his thoughts were, but at this time, I found that he was looking at the other side of the hill. Then, he suddenly dragged me and Fatty to lie down in the grass behind the stonentern, which was just big enough to block us.


    I was surprised and followed his gaze, only to see a group of people appear on one side of the hill. There were about three or four of them, and they were all looking around. Then, they began tomunicate on their walkie-talkies.


    "Its one of Old Jin''s teams," Fatty said after taking a quick look. "Well, lets go persuade them. Lets persuade them to go back."


    <em>How exactly are we supposed to persuade a bunch of desperadoes to go back?</em> I asked myself. But after giving it some thought, I said, "Lets just knock them out, tie them up, and have Old Jin send someone here to drag them back."


    Fatty nodded. "I see three, maybe four. Well creep up on them from the shadow of the hillside. Little Brother gets two. You and I get one each. This is it; were officially starting to save people."


    I nodded and was just about to move, but at this time, Poker-Face held the both of us down. Then, we saw those three or four people start waving their hands, much like a parking lot attendant directing people to reverse their cars. Right after that, a line of jeeps came up from the shady side of the hill. We counted them and found that there were at least two Cruisers and four Jeep Grand Cherokee.


    Then we saw even more peopleing up from behind the vehicles. After counting them, I found that there were at least seventeen or eighteen people.


    We all looked at each other. "Didn''t Old Jin say that there were only about forty teams?" Fatty asked.


    "Maybe some teams have twenty people," I said. "Or some teams merged."


    "Isnt that cheating?" Fatty asked. "How are we supposed to save them now? Maybe there are more than a hundred people in these teams, and the three of us will only be able to perform a crosstalk and return unsessfully."


    "We can only save those who want to be saved." I was no longer worried about it.


    I poked my head out again and took another look. I had already locked on the person who seemed to be their leader, so I picked up the binocrs and carefully observed that person.


    I recognized him with just one nce and turned back to Fatty and said, "It''s over."


    "Don''t worry, theres a solution for everything, Fatty said. Is your Wu family here or something?"


    "No, you don''t know this person," I said. After hesitating a bit, I added, "This man is an old enemy of my Uncle Three. Hes an extremely weird person. If Jin Wantang was even willing to invite this person, then its definitely an act of betrayal."


    Fatty didnt know who this man was, so he was very confused. I had a very deep memory of this man, but I hadnt seen him since I was eighteen years old. I didnt know why I was meeting him again in this kind of ce.


    After thinking about it, I eventually said, "I want to run. I don''t want to save this man. It''s best if he dies."


    With that said, I came up with a n. I would hide in the grass, crawl to the shadow of the other side of the hill, and then squat in the shadows until there was a chance of escape. But as soon as I turned my head and started toy down on my stomach again, I saw that there was something more than six or seven steps away from us.


    It was squatting there and looking at us.


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Roman Holiday is a 1935 movie where a princess (Audrey Hepburn) sneaks out to go visit Rome. She meets an American reporter and spends the day with him. They visit the Mouth of Truth, where the reporter tricks her into thinking that his hand has been bitten off.