After jumping off the trail, Qi Tongwei tumbled all the way down the hillside.
A steel ball had struck his right shoulder, lodging deep in the muscle without fracturing the bone. A few more had grazed his right arm, leaving only superficial scratches. The agonizing pain nearly caused him to pass out, and with his arm rendered powerless, he tumbled another ten meters or so before managing to grab a small tree and barely halting his descent.
His left wrist brushed against a dead branch, tearing a long, ragged gash. The sharp agony robbed him of the strength to hold onto the sapling, and he slid down a bit further.
"Bang!"
A bullet seemed to graze his scalp, driving straight into a patch of brush not far beside him.
He instantly pressed himself flat against the ground, pulling his body as low as possible to avoid detection.
"Swish!"
He heard the sound of rushing wind from his left, followed by the rustling of bushes not far away on that side, and distinctly heard the dull thud of a stone hitting the ground.
"Bang!"
Following a gunshot, the cluster of brush where the stone had just landed exploded, wood splinters and branches flying in all directions.
"Ge, over here!"
Qi Tongwei saw a head poke out from behind a nearby boulder—it was Huo Ge, beckoning to him. The boulder jutted outward at an angle, and hiding beneath it provided perfect cover from the gunfire above.
Qi Tongwei raised his head to scan the upper slope for a few seconds. The shadowy figures of the three Wang brothers on the trail above had not yet pursued them down.
Taking a few deep breaths, he carefully moved laterally, using the dense thicket as concealment. Just as he neared the boulder, he spotted two figures above splitting into two paths and descending.
"Hurry, we can't stay here long!"
Crawling behind the boulder, Qi Tongwei grabbed Huo Ge and urged him to run downward.
"Wait, your wound!"
Seeing the blood streaming from Qi Tongwei's shoulder, Huo Ge reached into his backpack and fumbled around, pulling out a roll of gauze and a packet of medicinal powder.
"Bang! Bang!"
Two more gunshots rang out, one of them kicking up a spray of rock fragments and a flurry of falling leaves that danced above their heads. One of the rounds must have struck the rock right over them, and the dislodged debris rained down on Qi Tongwei, forcing a muffled groan from his lips.
"How are you?!"
Seeing Qi Tongwei's right shoulder drenched in blood, Huo Ge quickly tore open the medical supplies.
"I'm fine, just grazed by a bullet—thankfully it missed the bone!"
Enduring the pain, Qi Tongwei felt around his right shoulder and arm; the injuries were not severely crippling. The real trouble was that he had also injured his left wrist during the fall. Now, both of his hands were practically half-useless, making it difficult even to hold a gun steady.
"Let me bandage that for you!"
Huo Ge poured all the medicinal powder directly onto Qi Tongwei's wound and wrapped it securely with the gauze in a matter of seconds.
"Did you study first aid?" Qi Tongwei flexed his left shoulder; Huo Ge's wrapping technique was surprisingly solid, and the gauze showed no signs of coming loose.
"I learned it. When you drive big trucks, you have to know a little bit of everything!"
"There's a gun in my bag, help me get it out! How's your marksmanship?"
"I'm a hundred-percent hit with CS!"
"..."
Qi Tongwei gave him a speechless look. Of all times, the kid was still joking around.
Huo Ge let out a dry laugh. "I've played live-action CS too. Beyond seven paces, I hit every time! Within seven paces, I'm fast and deadly!"
Qi Tongwei nodded, accepting that as bare-minimum weapon familiarity. "Have you ever fired a real gun in reality?"
"My family used to have a muzzle-loader."
"Good enough. Take the gun and stand guard! Watch both flanks—if anyone shows their head, take a shot. Make every bullet count, we only have seven."
"I can use your gun? Isn't that against the rules?"
"We're on the verge of disaster, why worry about rules?"
"Why aren't you taking it?"
"My hands have no strength right now, how am I supposed to shoot?!"
"Fine!"
Huo Ge retrieved a Type 64 pistol from Qi Tongwei's pack. "Damn, such an old piece?"
Qi Tongwei instructed, "It'll do. The sights on this one run a bit to the left, so aim slightly to the right when you line it up, I'll te—"
Huo Ge picked up the Type 64, smoothly cocked the slide, removed the magazine, reinserted it, and chambered a round. His pre-firing check was as fluid as flowing water.
Qi Tongwei stared in utter disbelief. "And you said you've never handled a gun?"
Huo Ge flatly denied it. "I really haven't fired a real gun, but I used to join militia training back home and practiced stripping and assembling unloaded firearms, so I know a bit of the basics!"
Qi Tongwei was in no mood to investigate the truth of Huo Ge's claims. He peeked his head out cautiously and snapped it back just as fast, catching sight of two figures descending from above and creeping toward the boulder. It seemed the three Wang brothers were splitting up to encircle them, though they still didn't dare charge straight down, choosing instead to advance slowly while using the trees for cover.
Qi Tongwei took out his phone to call the police, only to find there was no signal in the mountains. He tried dialing three or four times, but the calls wouldn't go through.
"Do you have a signal?" Qi Tongwei asked Huo Ge.
"I tried a few times before we came down, no signal!"
Huo Ge pulled out his phone to prove it, but just as he did, it started ringing. "Jingle bell~"
"Hello," seeing Liu Yifei's number on the screen, Huo Ge hurriedly answered.
"Hello, Huo Ge, are you still watching the meteor shower?"
Liu Yifei's soft voice came through the receiver.
"Yeah, still in the mountains, but there are only one or two meteors left now. Are you still watching?"
"I can't see them here, clouds are blocking the sky!"
"Oh, why aren't you asleep yet?"
"I couldn't sleep after reading your script, and I thought of something: our country doesn't allow modern ghost films, so your movie probably won't pass censorship!"
"Is that a thing? Why?"
"To break feudal superstitions—it's about atheism!"
"I can rewrite the script, change it into a suspense thriller instead~"
"You can still change it? How—"
Before Liu Yifei could finish her sentence, a couple of loud "bangs" echoed directly above Huo Ge's head. It appeared the three Wang brothers had heard the phone ringing and fired toward the source of the sound.
"What are you guys doing, setting off firecrackers?" Liu Yifei asked, finding it strange as she heard sounds resembling firecrackers coming from the other end of the line.
"We're playing a live-action CS game!"
"Playing games in the mountain this late?"
"Yeah, two against three, my side has a slight advantage!"
"..." Liu Yifei hesitated for two seconds. "Well, have fun playing then!"
Sensing that Liu Yifei was about to hang up, Huo Ge hurriedly blurted out, "Wait, wait, help me—"
He was just about to ask Liu Yifei to help call the police when the cell signal dropped out again.
Qi Tongwei was on the verge of losing his mind. If his hands weren't injured, he would have grabbed Huo Ge by the collar. "Can you talk about serious matters first? Bullets are flying over our heads, and you're still in the mood for romance!"
"We were talking about making a movie, that is a serious matter! Those three punks, what is there to be scared of?!"
"You aren't scared? Why don't you rush out there!"
"Wait a minute, let them get closer, and I'll pick them off one by one! You really think that because I only shot a muzzle-loader, I'm not a sharpshooter?!"
"..."
Qi Tongwei began sizing up the surrounding terrain, wondering where they could charge out; otherwise, once the three Wang brothers boxed them in, they wouldn't even have a place to cry.
"Bang! Bang!"
While the two were bickering, two more loud cracks sounded from the boulder above. This time, the echoes didn't come from directly overhead, but from both flanks—it seemed their pursuers were closing in from the left and right.
We are in grave danger!