I called out, "You've taken the wrong bus..." The bus to Henan was on the second route, and Guan Yu was about to go down the first staircase.
I watched him get on the train before I left. Guan Yu stood by the window, waving at me incessantly. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "When the train leaves, I'll get a sleeper berth..."
And so, I bid farewell to Lord Guan. Luckily, I was with him, otherwise the old man would have gone down to Guangzhou.
Stepping out of the train station, I felt a deep emptiness. Although I hadn't spent much time with Second Uncle, the old man's kindness and integrity were truly admirable. It was a pity he only stayed with me for a few hours, helped me in a fight, and didn't even have time to treat me to a meal—just a few lamb skewers—before leaving. This saddened me greatly. If it weren't for the troublesome events of tonight, I would definitely have taken him to Henan. Leaving now, if Lei Laosi thought I had run away, might cause further trouble.
I went back to the pawnshop; everyone else was already asleep. When I entered the sleeping room, only Xiang Yu was sitting on the bed reading. Seeing my bloodied and battered state, he chuckled, clearly in high spirits: "Got into a fight again?" I was furious! How could he be like that? I almost couldn't resist eating his biscuit and then beating him up. But I thought better of it; I'd already suffered enough today. Actually, even if I hadn't eaten Fang Zhenjiang's biscuit, I would have just taken a little longer to be beaten, and Second Master would definitely have saved me in the end. But after transforming into Wu Song, things seemed even worse. Now my head was broken, and my hands were twitching. It would have been better if I had just exposed my back to get beaten up. So, I must be careful with this biscuit in the future. Xiang Yu, with his massive build, can lift a thousand pounds without a problem, but if I lift one, it might break somewhere—it's like a 286 CPU trying to run Vista.
I applied ice for a while and then went to sleep, sleeping soundly until late the next morning. When I sat up, I immediately felt a sharp pain all over my body, as if my muscles were being ripped apart with razor blades, and my inner thighs were burning. After a moment of distraction, I remembered that yesterday, besides practicing Iron Head Kung Fu, I had also done high leg raises. Yesterday, the pain was in the injured areas, but today it was radiating outwards, indicating that I had strained several areas.
I think my example perfectly illustrates the question: can an Alto with a Ferrari engine actually reach 300 mph?
The answer is yes! But the car will have to be scrapped after running for 10 minutes.
I brushed my teeth, limping like a puppet, and then collapsed into a chair downstairs, not wanting to move anymore.
Around 10:30, a young man about my age pushed open the door and came in. He had a round face, fair skin, and showed signs of middle-aged weight gain. He was quite tall, probably close to 1.9 meters.
I straightened up a bit and said in a pretentious manner, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" After all, I'm still the pawnshop manager, so I'll try my best to do my job well before I leave.
As the large, fat man closed the door, he politely asked, "Are you Xiaoqiang?"
"Yes...it's me." I answered while looking at the fat man, and found him somewhat familiar. After a few more glances, I knew I had definitely seen him before, but I just couldn't remember where.
The fat guy had a similar expression, pointing at me with one finger, looking like he was scratching an itch through a boot, clearly unable to remember who I was.
I stood up, extended my hand, and said somewhat awkwardly, "Have we met before?"
The fat man grasped my hand and said hesitantly, "I think so too."
I scratched my head hard and finally asked, "Where was your family from when you were a child?"
The fat man said, "East Gate Street..."
"Me too!" I stared intently at the fat man, then suddenly slapped my thigh: "Erpang! You're Erpang, right?"
Almost at the same moment I blurted out his name, Erpang unexpectedly shouted, "Xiaoqiang!"
We burst out laughing, wrestled arms, and sized each other up. I gave his protruding belly a hard slap and cursed, "You son of a bitch, we haven't seen you since you moved, and you never even tried to come visit us."
Erpang chuckled, a little awkwardly, and said, "I moved out when the college entrance exam was almost here, so I didn't have time. When I came back, you'd all have moved too."
I took out a cigarette and offered him one: "We used to fight all the time when we were kids."
Erpang lit the cigarette in my hand and laughed, "That's right."
We sat on the sofa, looking at each other, and suddenly couldn't find anything to talk about, so we just laughed awkwardly.
This is Erpang, whom I often mention; he's three years older than me. As I said, we've never gotten along since childhood, always bickering as we grew up, so we're kind of childhood friends. Now that we've met, all those childhood memories come flooding back. But we're both in our thirties now, so those unpleasant things are just a thing of the past. Seeing each other again feels quite warm, though we're a little awkward, just not quite knowing what to say. We look at each other, it's a bit funny, but also a little embarrassing.
Finally, Erpang broke the silence first, saying, "I thought it was Xiaoqiang, but it's you."
I asked, "Hey, by the way, what do you want from me?" As everyone knows, pawnshops are different from convenience stores; ordinary people wouldn't come into a place like that.
When Erpang heard my question, his expression suddenly changed, and he said, "I'm looking for you because someone asked me to."
"Who is it?" I asked nonchalantly.
Erpang didn't answer me, then paused before asking, "Where's Guan Yu?"
I was momentarily stunned and asked blankly, "What did you say?"
"Where is Guan Yu? Didn't he come yesterday?"
I almost bit my tongue off, stammering, "How did you know?"
Erpang suddenly said somewhat embarrassedly, "I... am Lü Bu."
Chapter Fourteen: Finding the Horse
Erpang is Lu Bu? I've been fighting with Lu Bu since I was a kid? Am I pretty fierce? Or to put it another way: Is this what Lu Bu is like?
Without exaggeration, although I couldn't beat him when we were kids, I beat him up all the time after we got to the second year of junior high. Erpang was actually a pretty good student at school. He lost interest in fighting just in time for my peak period. Plus, Erpang's dad was extremely strict with him. If he found out he was fighting outside, he'd come home and whip him with his belt—do you think his dad was like Dong Zhuo?
Even though I knew it was all true, I couldn't help but tease him: "How do you look like Lü Bu?" I pinched the flab on his stomach. "Lü Bu is like this?"
Erpang sucked his belly in hard, lowered his head and said, "It wasn't like this in my past life."
I casually said, "If you were Lü Bu, then I would be..." But after thinking for a long time, I couldn't come up with a good reason. Lü Bu in the Three Kingdoms seems to be the undisputed leader, so it wouldn't make sense to say anyone else. There's a saying that Lü Bu is the best man and Red Hare is the best horse, so I can't exactly say I'm Red Hare, can I?
I glanced at him sideways and said, "He Tiandou sent you, didn't he?"
"You knew all along?"
"Nonsense! What do you want with Guan Yu?"
Erpang shrugged: "What do you think? Anyway, it's not like we're catching up. Where did he go?"
I said, "I came here yesterday but left after only a short while; I went to another city."
Erpang asked, "Really?"
"Do you think Guan Yu is afraid of you? He would have pounced on you long ago if he were here." I asked, puzzled. "Besides, although you fought with Guan Yu, you don't seem to have much of a grudge between you, do you? If you want to find someone, you should find Cao Cao, or Liu Bei would also make sense. Finding Guan Yu is completely irrelevant."
Erpang said, "Just tell me when he'll be back."