A Mercenary's War Chapter 93: Ardent Kung Fu Fan

功夫迷

Chapter 93: Ardent Kung Fu Fan

Translated by: kevin1782

Edited by: Isalee

Taking off that ugly yellow camo uniform, the road after was indeed a lot easier to tread; at least they didn’t encounter any intense battles.

Gao Yang and the rest experienced a super close shave at the start. After an uneventful and enduring month, they left Misurata with white knuckles. Apart from the three hundred thousand dollars in cash, they also brought loot from the battlegrounds and invaluable experience.

Waiting for them to retreat completely out of the city, everyone’s hearts that were hanging on threads could finally be at ease. Ali, who had lost too much blood and was hence a little weak, shouted for Gao Yang to stop. He forced a grin and told Gao Yang in a small voice, “Guys, you saved our lives. Now, we should do it according to the rules, to express our gratitude, I have twenty grand, I...”

“Wait a moment, the time y’all saved my friends and I at Benghazi, how much did y’all take?”

Gao Yang interrupted Ali’s sentence, and Ali was stupefied for a moment before he replied, “Not the same. Benghazi then wasn’t so dangerous as it is now, it’s not the same.”

Gao Yang impatiently waved his hand and said, “Alright, I feel that we’re friends, so can we not talk about money? Where are y’all planning to go? Any reliable route to take? Also, you need to receive treatment right away. Can you find a doctor? If you can’t, I think I can try and help you find a person.”

Ali was dazed momentarily before chuckling once more, “Thank you, but no need to trouble you again. We can find reliable doctors, and there are also people who can send us off. We intend to go to Zimbabwe. We have already earned some money, enough for us to pile it up and buy farmland. After we buy land in Zimbabwe, we’ll go Somalia and to bring our family members there. As long as we leave Somalia, we will live happy and blissful lives ever after man.”

Gao Yang shook hands with Ali and patted his shoulders. He laughed, “Congratulations, remember to give us a call after buying the farmland. We can visit you guys and do some fishing and hunting and other stuff.”

Ali and his comrades were all laughing, especially Ali who laughed effulgently. He loudly said, “No problem of course, y’all will get the best hospitality and treatment. Bro, can you leave me your phone number? As soon as our farmland is open, I’ll give you a call.”

Gao Yang used a pen and gave his number to Ali as he asked, “I’m somewhat curious — how much are your merc hiring fees? How much are you earning? Uh, sorry, if it’s inconvenient, then no need to reply.”

Ali smiled gleefully. “We reached the good times just in time, eight hundred USD a day in Misurata.”

Ali and the rest were getting the lowest prices, but eight hundred a day was already worth being happy over about for them. Seeing Ali in so much joy, Grolev patted his shoulders and smiled, “You’ll be alright, I hope your farm will be set up soon. Also, remember to greet your families on our behalf.”

Ali’s face dimmed a little and said, “I don’t have a family anymore, but if I marry and have a bunch of kids, I’d have a family then, right? Hence, I’ll pass your greetings and well-wishes to them, but it may be many years later. Alright, bros, not gonna take up any more of your time, I also gotta find somebody to take us out immediately. Especially for me. Gotta find a doc and get an operation. Regardless if I can use it or not, I still wanna leave my leg there, haha.”

Waving towards Gao Yang, Ali was supported by two men and they slowly left. Seeing Ali’s silhouette from afar, after a long while, Grolev solemnly said, “He’s very lucky.”

Gao Yang was confounded. “Please, he just lost a leg, okay?”

Grolev heaved a long and heavy sigh. “He lost a leg, but he survived. As a merc, being able to get off the war ground with a good amount of money to smoothen out the rest of his difficult life, he’s really very lucky. You gotta know that only a handful mercs go home alive. Even fewer for those who could make a sum.”

Gao Yang shrugged and said, “What you said also makes sense, but I firmly believe that all of us will get home alive, and that we will all earn big bucks. I also have no place to spend my money even if I wanted to. Moreover, we all have families, and I still intend to let my parents live the best life ever man.”

Grolev smiled and said, “You have ties of kindred in your heart and hence you wouldn’t lose yourself. Family is our strength. Family keeps us from becoming zombies that only know how to kill and spending extravagantly when we’re rich.”

Gao Yang nodded and said, “That’s right, having a family means having hope, or a goal. At least we know who we’re fighting for. Alright, now where do we go? I wanna hear all your opinions. Do we go Tripoli to rest for a few days and continue participating in the war, or do we get to return to South Africa to rest for a certain amount of time?”

As for this, Tribo always had a ‘no-problem’ attitude towards everything. Jin would listen to Gao Yang. After those two expressed that they’d let Gao Yang decide, Gao Yang shifted his gaze toward Grolev. 

Grolev hesitated for a moment and said, “Remember that friend of mine? He took drugs because of the immense pressure, and then he was ruined by drugs. He’s my best brother, but he still swallowed the money I was sending to my family for drugs. I feel that despite the good circumstances now, we should still rest and relax for a while.”

Gao Yang also felt that he was already tired both spiritually and physically after a month. They had to replenish their equipment a little too. Not mentioning anything else, the bulletproof vests that saved him, Tribo, and Grolev were now all worn out beyond usable. In addition, Gao Yang always felt very anxious and hesitant without the vest on.

“Alright, then we will go back to South Africa immediately and rest properly for a good amount of time. We still gotta up our défaut a little. I plan to train in some melee combat. Hare, you can finally train your shooting. Toad, as for you, you can use the opportunity to get used to foreign weaponry. You’re still somewhat unfamiliar with the weapons from foreign countries, and you’re not really adept at using them. Old Maoist, uh, you don’t have much to work on, you can find and go do awesome activities [1] with your wife.”

Jin and Tribo could speak English now, albeit still not fluent in writing either, they could basically already understand most of the spoken words. To let them master English as fast as possible, Gao Yang always talked in English. He’d only sometimes translate when they couldn’t understand. But when saying names, Gao Yang was used to saying them in Mandarin.

After hearing Gao Yang saying those words excitedly, Grolev used a very strange tone to repeat “Old Ruski[2]”, these two Mandarin words before saying, “What you mean by Old Ruski is me right? What does that mean? Is that the Mandarin way of saying, ‘Big Dog’?”

Gao Yang smiled gleefully and said, “Old Ruski just means Old Ruski, it has no relationship with Big Dog. Don’t ask any more, there aren’t so many whys in this world; we think of all Russians as ‘Old Ruskis’. Alright, brothers, let’s set off!”

Hearing Gao Yang’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed announcement to set off, Tribo shrugged and said, “How do we set off? From where do we do that?”

Gao Yang naturally looked at Grolev. Grolev shrugged and said, “I guess y’all should have Vampire’s phone number right? It’s Ulyanko. I reminded you guys to take down his number. I dare say, that fellow is definitely here.”

Gao Yang fished out his satellite phone and tried to switch it on. It didn’t allow for him to make a call and the phone automatically switched itself off. Misurata had already stopped the power lines; there weren’t any places at all to charge his phone.

Seeing Gao Yang’s expression, Grolev nodded and said, “It’s alright, you can try to use radio to contact him instead. He has a strong radiological repeater [3] that can provide radio signals for free. Oh, I forgot to tell you guys this. Ulyanko has equipment that can track the signal. As long as we change our walkie-talkies to his frequency, it’ll do. He wouldn’t forfeit any business opportunities, man.”

Although there wasn’t any power left in the satellite phone, their walkie-talkies still had power. One of the guaranteed items for mercenaries were batteries from the Libyan government troops. Though the quality of the batteries was very poor, at least they still had batteries to use.

Grolev adjusted his walkie-talkie’s frequency and shouted, “Hey, Vampire, big business. If you can use the electromagnetic positioning system, then come over to us quickly.”

Grolev released the talking button and Ulyanko’s voice immediately rang over.

“Coming right away.”

Ulyanko said ‘right away’, and although it wasn’t as exaggerated as he had said it, Ulyanko used only fifteen minutes to reach before them.

Ulyanko brought four cargo trucks, two SUVs, a CMB [4], and what was extra was that there was even an ambulance with the red cross. A formidable array of cars arrived before them.

Ulyanko got off from an SUV. He still had that same smartly-dressed outfit on him. From afar he had already opened his arms wide. He first gave Grolev a bear hug and then naturally Gao Yang too. He didn’t care at all if Gao Yang and the rest were dirty all over or if it would dirty his branded suit.

When Ulyanko hugged Tribo though, his nose automatically twitched a few times. Then his expression was somewhat awkward.

Tribo smelled himself for a few times and looked at Ulyanko innocently. He used somewhat grammatically wrong English and said, “I smell very smelly? Shouldn’t be right? I used two canteens’ worth of water to wash my butt man, shouldn’t be able to smell anything right, how about you smell in detail?”

“Nope, nope, not smelly, not smelly. You misunderstood, misunderstood man.”

Ulyanko awkwardly smiled and looked somewhat panicky. He quickly walked two steps and held Jin’s hand and shook it nonstop. He said, “Ah ha! Let me guess, you must be the ‘Frog’ who iced the eight people from the Machete Mercenary Corp, right? Wow, too awesome, kung fu, Chinese kung fu, ha! Yo! Yo! Ah-da![5]”

After waiting for Ulyanko to finish his weird howls, Jin firmly shook his hands and said, “My name’s Toad, not Frog, it’s Toad! Although toad is frog, and vice versa, you have to call me Toad.”

Ulyanko nodded in succession and said, “Hama, Hama[6], not green frog. Hey, you know what, you’re my idol. My most revered idol is Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan’s very cool too. You have now been added to my list of people I respect, y’all are all the same, Chinese kung fu, heavens! I can finally see a kung fu expert live! May I ask, can you teach me a trick or two? I can pay for them! Shifu[6], please show me De Way[6] man!”

Translator’s note(s):

爽 - means to feel real good or do activities that makes you feel real good. Singaporean-slang translates this mandarin character as, “Shiok!”. Yeap. http://www.chtoen.com/%E5%A5%BD%E7%88%BD%E7%9A%84%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E6%80%8E%E9%BA%BC%E8%AA%AA Basically calling them “Old Ruski” would be less offensive than the original saying, “Hairy Beast”. (Mandarin: 老毛子, 二毛子 , etc.). Chinese started calling them in the late Qing Dynasty. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%80%81%E6%AF%9B%E5%AD%90 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeater Repeater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Motor_Bus wow. CMB.Bruce Lee’s sound effects. That’s what Uly was trying to imitate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQmPzTS8k-M Original novel: ‘Hama Hama’, thought that it’s not good to spoil it yeah? Hama — 蛤蟆.Originally the novel also put 西父, the exact same way the Caucasians say ‘Shifu’. The author must be bored haha. Same, 图位 (Tu Wei/De Way)is purposely written from the meme Knuckle’s in. https://www.teepublic.com/posters-and-art/show-me-de-way 

Chapter end