The Pot Can't Call the Kettle Black

Switching from hard seats to hard sleepers was a good thing, but there was one part Bai Yao didn't like much.

Gu Yang and Comrade Jiang Rou were also staying with them.

The train's sleeping berths were arranged in upper, middle, and lower tiers. There were exactly six of them, and the conductor had seen them traveling together and assumed they were close, so he had assigned them berths together.

Bai Yao didn't know what the others thought, but he hoped nothing would happen and everyone would stay safe until they got off the train.

Gu Yang was already a protagonist who was prone to attracting trouble, and now there was another protagonist, Hu Yang, who hadn't even made his move yet.

One protagonist alone had managed to bring trouble like enemy agents down on them. Now that two protagonists were together...

Bai Yao: I don't even dare imagine it.

Before long, everyone had brought their luggage over.

They still had a little while to wait before dinner, so they all chatted from their respective berths.

Hu Yang talked the most.

He talked about everything from Jiang Rou's great strength to Kong Wu's fighting prowess and Bai Yao's deft thievery.

Finally, Hu Yang asked a question that had been puzzling him.

"Bai Yao, why were you carrying quicklime around?"

"Because boys have to protect themselves when they're away from home too," Bai Yao said with a smile.

At that, Hu Yang looked thoughtful, while Jiang Rou's gaze changed slightly, as if she were studying him.

Kong Wu and Dongfang Dazhuang, on the other hand, both agreed wholeheartedly.

At the same time, though, Dongfang Dazhuang could tell that the educated youths their village would soon be receiving were all tough customers.

There was Kong Wu's strength, Bai Yao's ruthlessness, and the silly, wealthy Hu Yang.

That was right. In Dongfang Dazhuang's eyes, Hu Yang was silly, the very well-behaved and obedient sort.

Luckily, though, Hu Yang and Bai Yao got along quite well. With Dongfang Dazhuang, who was from the village, there too, Hu Yang didn't need to worry about being bullied after going to the countryside.

As for Gu Yang and Jiang Rou, they weren't his concern. He hadn't promised to help the two of them get to their village.

After talking for a while longer, everyone got ready to head to the dining car.

Nothing unexpected happened at dinner, and they finally finished the dumplings and braised meat they hadn't eaten at noon.

After eating and drinking their fill, they had nothing much to pass the time. They had also talked so much during the day that none of them felt like chatting anymore.

Just then, Jiang Rou provided something to pass the time. From her shoulder bag, she took out a Chinese chess set.

The moment Bai Yao saw it, he was utterly speechless.

Good grief, couldn't you at least make it look more convincing?

Taking a chess set out of a shoulder bag was reasonable, but she'd put the pieces in there loose, and he hadn't heard them clatter against one another even once up to now.

Did that make any sense?

Luckily, the board she took out was made of cloth. Otherwise, he really "wouldn't have been able to bear looking."

As for using a piece of cloth as a chessboard, emmm, that was perfectly reasonable. She had money and cloth, didn't she?

"Who's going first, then?" Hu Yang asked, interested.

Bai Yao said, "You guys play. I'll just watch. I don't know how to play Chinese chess."

Kong Wu said, "Me neither."

Hu Yang said, "Same here."

Dongfang Dazhuang said, "I know even less about it."

They had thought Gu Yang and Jiang Rou would play Chinese chess, but unexpectedly, Jiang Rou said, "That's all right, that's all right. I have five-in-a-row here too. You can play that. It's easy."

As she spoke, she pulled two big handfuls of pieces out of her bag. They were Go pieces, black and white mixed together.

Bai Yao: ...

Miss, are you really taking everyone for a blind fool?

Even that elementary school kid from the world of Conan knew to take a shot from cover and then hide before making trouble.

But you, Jiang Rou...

"How do you play five-in-a-row?" Hu Yang asked with interest.

Hu Yang's interruption put an end to Bai Yao's thoughts.

Come to think of it, of the six people present, only Dongfang Dazhuang didn't have a secret. The rest all did.

That was right. Hu Yang's and Kong Wu's secrets had also been exposed; Bai Yao simply hadn't said anything.

Take the dumplings and braised meat they'd had for dinner, for example.

In the summer heat, and in the stuffy confines of the train at that, how could those two boxes of food still taste as though they'd just come out of the pot after being left for a whole day?

So he might as well keep his eyes open and pretend to be blind.

Besides, the pot couldn't call the kettle black. He was sure his own deft thievery that afternoon had aroused their suspicions too, so they were all much the same.

He then listened to Jiang Rou explain the rules of five-in-a-row as though he were a beginner.

In the end, those playing Chinese chess played Chinese chess, those playing five-in-a-row played five-in-a-row, and those watching watched.

Early in the morning, the train was still rattling along. There were still quite a few empty berths in the sleeper car, but there were more people now, and it had naturally grown noisy and chaotic.

How could anyone keep sleeping in an environment like that?

Even so, Bai Yao had no intention of getting up.

Honestly, he was incredibly glad they'd switched to the sleeper car.

After a night in a sleeper berth, he felt as though every bone in his body was about to fall apart. If he'd spent the night in a hard seat, he probably would have fallen apart for real.

Fortunately, he only had to endure one more day. If the journey had been any longer, it would have been a nightmare.

Hu Yang and Gu Yang were much the same as Bai Yao. It was their first time experiencing anything like this too, and the conditions were far worse than what they were used to at home.

Although the three of them hadn't moved, breakfast was bought for them.

That was right. Kong Wu, Dongfang Dazhuang, and Jiang Rou had gone to buy it.

After all, they had to use up the free meal vouchers.

Breakfast was simple: porridge and two vegetable buns.

Bai Yao ate only one bun and gave the rest to Kong Wu.

It wasn't that he wasn't hungry. The porridge scraped his throat, and the buns were so plain there wasn't a trace of oil to be seen.

Honestly, those vegetable buns almost gave him the illusion that eating one would suck the oil right out of his body instead.

Kong Wu didn't mind the leftovers. He ate them straight away, since food without any oil really didn't keep hunger away for long.

They carried on like that until noon, when everyone hurried to the dining car.

Lunch was better and had a little oil in it, so quite a few people came to eat at this time. When Bai Yao and the others arrived, they had to line up and wait.

They weren't in much of a hurry, though, so they simply waited.

But they had barely been in line for a minute when a woman suddenly cried out in panic, "Help! Mama's, Mama's precious little girl, don't scare Mama!"

Everyone turned to look and saw the woman repeatedly patting a little girl on the back. The child was clutching her throat, her face flushed red.

As soon as Bai Yao saw this, he knew the child had something lodged in her throat and needed the Heimlich maneuver immediately.

But before Bai Yao could finish the thought, Jiang Rou had already rushed over, saying, "Give me the child. I can save her."

The woman hurriedly handed the child in her arms over, her eyes full of sorrow.

She didn't know whether her child could really be saved, but this was the only person who had said she could save her.

Jiang Rou took the child and skillfully performed the Heimlich maneuver, leaving the people around them full of curiosity.

Or rather, of everyone in the carriage, only Bai Yao understood what was happening. Everyone else looked bewildered; after all, the Heimlich maneuver hadn't been invented yet.

But soon the child spat out a piece of candy, and everyone saw that she could breathe freely. A burst of enthusiastic applause rang out.

At that moment, Bai Yao suddenly felt that the scene was very familiar, like a plot that often appeared in women's-channel stories about going to the countryside.

But there was already a reborn male protagonist from a men's-channel period story and a protagonist from a women's-channel dual-male-lead period story. Surely there wouldn't be a female protagonist from a women's-channel period story too?

Thinking this, Bai Yao looked at Kong Wu. Could he be a protagonist too?

Kong Wu noticed his gaze and turned to look at him. "Is something wrong?" he asked, puzzled.

Bai Yao said, "Uh, no."

He had a feeling life was only going to get livelier from here on.