The moment Zhou Mingzhu locked eyes with the man, she knew they were in trouble.
Taking advantage of the chaos, he blatantly slipped something from his sleeve to a young man in his twenties or thirties standing behind him. The accomplice wore a dark blue woolen Zhongshan suit, a middle-part hairstyle, and glasses, and was pretending to kindly help him steady himself.
"Ouch! Watch where you're going, why don't you! You're going to trip me if you fall over!" the young man said in a slow, Southern-accented drawl as he gave the middle-aged man in the patch-covered clothes a quick hand.
Yet, as the bespectacled man in the dark blue Zhongshan suit spoke, he swiftly tucked the object passed from the patched farmer into his own jacket. Zhou Mingzhu didn't even catch how he had done it. Had it not been for the way the Spirit Spring Water had nourished and improved her physical faculties, she would never have been able to track such a lightning-fast movement.
It was too late for Zhou Mingzhu to look away; she had already seen too much. The eyes of the honest, simple-looking, patched middle-aged man who had been staring back at her shifted in an instant from appearing guileless to cold, vicious, and murderous.
Zhou Mingzhu made an immediate judgment. She shouted at the top of her lungs, "Catch the thief! They're part of a criminal syndicate!"
The moment the words left her lips, the patched "honest man" whipped half a razor blade toward her. Instinctively, Zhou Mingzhu lunged at Qitong and Lujun, pinning them firmly beneath her.
Qitong felt Zhou Mingzhu trembling all over and asked softly, "Mom?"
Lujun, however, kept his lips pressed shut. Without a word, he tightened his grip on Qitong’s small hand.
Because Zhou Mingzhu had ducked, she didn't see the man sitting across from her—who had been dressed like a bandit from a war-era drama—erupt into action the instant she shouted. He slammed a fist into the patched farmer two rows ahead.
That wasn't all. Two soldiers in grey-black padded jackets and tattered cotton hats also leaped from their seats. The onlookers, unaware of the truth, were frozen in terror; every move the three men made was a lethal strike—aimed at temples, eagle-clawing throats, palming jaws, or snapping spines. Even the most unobservant layperson could see that both sides were trying to kill each other.
The other pickpockets, who had seemed like unrelated passengers, were armed with razor blades. They handled the blades with terrifying ease, prompting the nearby passengers to scramble down and hide under the tables between the seats. Three more accomplices behind the patched farmer, the man in the Zhongshan suit, and a woman in a woolen skirt heard the commotion and bolted toward the end of the car.
Zhou Mingzhu felt a cold chill run through her, and her head felt like it was throbbing with pressure. She had heard that in typical period dramas, one usually ran into human traffickers on a train—why was her situation so bizarre?
Zhou Mingzhu turned her head slightly and peered through the gap in the table at the battle unfolding ahead. It seemed they had moved away from her section and were fighting closer and closer to the restroom.
She hurriedly felt herself to see if she had been cut. She had heard that when sharp blades or shrapnel slice into flesh, the surge of adrenaline can sometimes mask the pain. She was terrified that she had been sliced in an artery without noticing. That would be a disaster.
Luckily, after checking herself, she found no blades. Only then did she lower her voice to whisper to Qitong and Lujun, "Stay crouched by the seats and don't poke your heads out. Be good."
Qitong’s large eyes were filled with tears, but she bit her lip, nodded, and didn't make a sound. Lujun kept his lips pressed tight, clutching Zhou Mingzhu's finger so hard he wouldn't let go.
Zhou Mingzhu patted his hand gently and broke free of his grip. Sitting up, she looked toward the back of the car and saw the middle-aged woman who had been shouting "Make way" when she boarded. The woman was clutching her parcel, acting just like any other passenger, looking back with a very natural expression of fear before hurrying toward the next carriage.
Two conductors were rushing over from the front. Zhou Mingzhu pointed at the woman and shouted to them, "Catch her! That woman with the old floral parcel is part of the pickpocket gang!"
The woman’s fleshy face suddenly turned vicious and terrifying. She shoved the two approaching conductors aside and bolted forward.
The moment Zhou Mingzhu finished shouting, two loud "bangs" rang out through the carriage.
Her scalp went numb. Others just encountered human traffickers, but what kind of "blind box" had she opened? A pickpocket organization that possessed martial arts and guns?
Zhou Mingzhu immediately ducked back down in front of Qitong, between the two facing seats. Although she desperately wanted to peek and see what was happening, her instinct for self-preservation won out.
Crouched on the train floor, she felt a wave of nausea from the rhythmic swaying of the 1978 green-skinned train. The elderly people in the aisle next to her were also huddled under the table, just like her.
The old man whispered to her, "Young lady, you're a real one!" He gave her a thumbs-up. "How did you know they were a pickpocket gang? When you let out that shout, we thought you were crazy! But your eyes are sharp—they really were!"
Zhou Mingzhu’s face was pale, and she managed a stiff, awkward smile. She was now wishing they *were* just there to steal money; if they weren't, she should probably stop traveling altogether!
But no matter how she thought about it, the object the patched farmer had hidden in his sleeve looked like a brown leather notebook. She took a deep breath and chanted to herself, "It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s, okay..."
She didn't know how much time had passed before the fighting in the carriage finally stopped. A brave middle-aged man in a grey woolen Zhongshan suit dashed over and slammed the carriage door shut.
Only then did the carriage return to life. People began to whisper and discuss what had happened. One or two people who had been cut by blades were busy boasting about how they had fought back and helped the comrades catch the gang.
Zhou Mingzhu, feeling like a survivor of a disaster, turned her head and said weakly to Lujun, "Xiaojun, help your sister onto the seat. My legs are numb; I need a moment to recover before I can stand up."
Zhou Mingzhu sat on the floor as the train continued to rattle forward, *clack-clack, clack-clack*.
After a long while, she finally pulled herself up and sat on her seat. Just then, the voice of a conductor came over the train’s loudspeaker:
"Dear passengers, regarding the upcoming stop, Guibei Station: due to special circumstances, this train will not be making any stops at the scheduled stations ahead. We ask for your cooperation. We sincerely apologize for the unpleasant experience this trip has caused you."