"Young Master, wake up!"

"Young Master, Young Master, wake up quickly!"

……

Hearing Fatty's voice, I drowsily opened my eyes. Fatty was holding a flashlight in one hand and shaking me frantically with the other.

I suddenly woke up, and asked vigilantly, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Take all your luggage, we're leaving," Fatty said quietly.

I rubbed my eyes, quickly put on my clothes, grabbed all my belongings, and followed Fatty out, bending low. The two dogs in the yard weren't even disturbed, and Old Zhang was sleeping soundly, snoring like thunder.

The car wasn't parked near the small wooden house, but at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

Fatty, Zoe, and Han Yu had already loaded their things into the car. After finishing, they woke me up. I followed Fatty a long way before stumbling into the car. I glanced at my watch, it was a little after two in the morning.

I didn't know what they had bought, but the entire car was crammed full.

Before I could ask, Fatty told me the reason for leaving: "This morning, when I went to buy outdoor equipment with Miss Zoe and Little Yu, we found we were being followed. There weren't many of them, but they must have been asking around in the nearby town for a while. We've been going out frequently these past few days, and we're all unfamiliar faces. In a small town, finding a stranger isn't difficult."

"Why did you have Old Zhang tell me to pack my luggage if you didn't come back for dinner?" I scratched my head.

Fatty explained, "That was our insurance policy before you came. If everything was normal, we'd be back before dinner at six in the evening. If we weren't back by six, there were only two possibilities: either we were caught, or we were being followed."

"Because it's a small town, it wasn't easy to shake them off, plus we weren't familiar with the roads here, so it took a little longer," Fatty shook his head.

"Will they go to Old Zhang?" I asked Fatty.

"They'll find him sooner or later, but we left quietly, and they won't find any clues here. Besides, Old Zhang is the forest ranger in this area, and this has nothing to do with him. They won't do anything to him," Fatty reassured me.

I never expected that the plan we made yesterday would be put into action today. Life is unpredictable.

After the car left the town and got on the national highway, Zoe, Fatty, and Han Yu hadn't slept all day, so they switched me to driving. Zoe told me to just keep going west along this road. There were hardly any cars on the road, and the three of them soon fell asleep. Fatty's snoring gradually grew louder. It seemed like those three were exhausted.

Listening to Fatty's rhythmic snoring, I sped along under the starry sky.

In the following days, the four of us took turns driving. Except for refueling, replenishing drinking water and food, and relieving ourselves, which required us to get out of the car, we did almost everything in the car. We got tired of the military rations Fatty had prepared in advance after only two days. Fatty began to reminisce about the bitter past: "Back when I was in the army, the military rations weren't as good as what you guys are eating now. Back then, when we were doing wilderness survival training, we were so hungry we had to eat bugs."

Fatty didn't quite finish what he wanted to say, and no one interrupted him, so he continued: "Those bugs, they came in all shapes and sizes. Some bugs tasted like farts when you ate them. I even ate a bug once that 'exploded' when you bit into it, with green juice…"

Zoe was drinking milk at the time, and almost threw up when she heard Fatty say "exploded." She glared at Fatty fiercely, waving her fist through gritted teeth, but didn't do anything because Fatty was driving.

Fatty saw Zoe's expression in the rearview mirror and quickly tried to smooth things over: "Hey, hey, Miss Zoe, don't get worked up! I'm just talking about my tragic experiences back then. Don't worry, when we get to Shaanxi, I'll treat you to paomo (lamb and bread soup), lamb soup, rou jia mo (meat sandwiches)… whatever you want. That grilled lamb, sizzling with oil, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, sprinkled with cumin and chili powder, the aroma just wafts up…"

The three of us couldn't help but swallow our saliva as we listened to Fatty talking about food. Zoe had never eaten those things before, so she didn't have much of a concept of them, but after hearing the descriptions, she was still a little fascinated, and her expression wasn't as fierce anymore.

Fatty even gave Han Yu a special look: "Little Yu, I'll personally grill a small lamb leg for you when the time comes."

This sentence made Han Yu's eyes light up, and she nodded repeatedly, swallowing her saliva.

Sure enough, food can solve everything, even curing Han Yu's autism.

If fighting only involved talking, Fatty's mouth would be invincible.

When we passed through Shaanxi, Fatty really took us to eat the most authentic paomo. It was Zoe's first time eating this special snack, and she ate three rou jia mo in a row, and added lamb offal and lamb soup twice while drinking the lamb soup, and ended up so full that she kept burping. When we left, Fatty even bought a freshly slaughtered lamb from a herdsman. That night, we set up a barbecue grill in an empty, deserted suburb, and Fatty used seasonings that I don't know where he got from to grill the best lamb I had ever eaten.

Considering safety issues, when leaving Shaanxi, Fatty specially exchanged an off-road vehicle from one of his comrades. Fatty repeatedly assured us that his comrade was trustworthy, so we changed cars, and Zoe gave Fatty's comrade two hundred thousand yuan. It wasn't until now that I realized how big Zoe's father's estate was. When Zoe came to China, she exchanged millions of dollars in foreign currency alone. I was completely dwarfed in comparison.

Although the off-road vehicle we exchanged for was a used car, it was much more comfortable than the Jeep.

Zoe felt that something was strange, and she asked Fatty, "Fatty, are you sure you're not lying to me?"

Fatty rolled his eyes at Zoe, "Damn it, I may be one who robs the rich to give to the poor, but I don't screw over friends! My comrade's family is involved in smuggling cars, and they also have some other businesses. Of course this car isn't worth two hundred thousand, the key is this set of license plates, and the disposal fee for that Jeep, adding it all up, it's definitely more than that."

"Disposal fee? License plates?" Zoe asked, "What do you mean?"

Fatty opened the glove compartment and took out a few fake license plates and fake documents, showing them to Zoe: "This is to avoid being tracked, we paid someone to get these. As for the disposal fee, I need to explain it to you properly."

Then Fatty changed into a comfortable position and said to Zoe, "That time when we came out of Old Zhang's place, we were followed for a while, do you remember? Our car and license plate were already exposed at that time. Shaanxi is very important, if we were discovered here and tracked all the way, then the road from Qinghai to Tibet would definitely be watched, and we would be very passive."

"So we need to change cars and use fake plates. And if that Jeep were to re-enter the market, the Z organization would definitely notice and be able to find us by following the clues. My comrade's family has a repair shop, and I asked him to dispose of that Jeep. Disassembling it also costs money."

"Is your comrade reliable?" Zoe asked.

Fatty patted his chest with conviction and said, "My comrade and I have a life-or-death relationship. I saved his life, if he dares to screw me over, I won't let him off."

……

Along the way, Fatty talked the most, but he brought us a lot of joy. He loved to tease Zoe, calling her "Miss Zoe" every day, and Zoe didn't bother to pay attention to him. When we were traveling from Shaanxi to Qinghai through Gansu, Fatty specially went to buy an oxygen concentrator. At first, we thought Fatty was being a bit redundant. Later, as the altitude gradually increased, the discomfort of the three of us, except for Fatty, gradually worsened. Altitude sickness made us very uncomfortable.

Thanks to Fatty's oxygen concentrator, we slowly recovered. We all admired Fatty's foresight, especially Zoe. After that, she hardly ever questioned Fatty again. She let him make any decisions and buy anything he wanted. Seeing Zoe's performance, I felt that this foreign girl was completely convinced by Fatty.

However, Fatty's focus was no longer on Zoe, and he didn't like to fawn over Zoe. He was partial to Han Yu. Every time Fatty gave Han Yu special treatment, Zoe and I could also freeload.

Sometimes, I always felt that I was superfluous in this team. They did the work, they took care of things, and they didn't need me to come up with plans at all.

When he wasn't driving, Fatty usually sat in the same row as Han Yu. Either one was in the driver's seat and the other was in the passenger seat, or they both sat in the back row, so Zoe and I were always side by side.

Once, Zoe drove for five hours, and it was Han Yu's turn to drive, so Fatty switched places with me and sat in the passenger seat, and then he kept talking to Han Yu about what happened when he was in the army. Han Yu also loved to listen to Fatty bragging.

Zoe didn't rest right away. She saw that I had been very quiet lately, and I didn't take the initiative to talk. I only said a few words when Fatty spoke to me.

Zoe asked me in a low voice, "Young Master, why have you been so silent lately?"

I smiled bitterly and shook my head: "It's nothing, I'm just having a little trouble adjusting to so many sudden changes."

Zoe looked into my eyes and said, "I minored in psychology in college. The eyes don't lie. I can tell you have something on your mind."

"There is a little," I said in a voice so low that only Zoe could hear, "Actually, I feel like I don't have a presence in our group of four. There are some things I can't do, like cooking, and some things I don't need to do, like making plans. I was just thinking, maybe the life I had before you came to find me was more suitable for me, even if it was a numb life of being deceived."

Zoe suddenly reached out and touched my head, quietly comforting me, "I understand how you feel now. Starting with the deaths of the children of the three missing American scientists, I seemed to have opened a Pandora's Box and embarked on a path of no return, and this has deeply affected you. However, even without my push, they would have come to you sooner or later, so don't be too fixated on the present."

Zoe didn't continue to speak, but looked at me with a hint of apology.

I sighed and said, "I don't blame you for this. I just feel like I'm useless. I haven't provided you with any information, and I don't have any skills to be proud of. I'm neither as versatile as Fatty, nor as good at thinking as Han Yu, nor as good at languages and organization as you."

"No, you're wrong. We need you, it's just that you haven't adapted to the pace yet," Zoe sincerely indicated to me.

We need you.

This sentence alleviated the second bout of anxiety I had since joining the team.

Later, Zoe and I chatted on and off, and unconsciously fell asleep head to head.

……