The Kanto Army Fortress

Hu Ming and the others walked through the passage. Hu Bayi sounded a little worried. "Mingzi, do you think that monster will come out?"

Hu Ming fell silent for a moment. "I don't know, but don't worry. I have another plan for dealing with it." As he spoke, he patted the backpack on his shoulders.

Hu Bayi felt a little less anxious.

The Fatty asked, "Old Hu, Mingzi, where do you think this passage leads?"

Hu Ming replied, "Old Hu, do you remember the Kanto Army Fortress mentioned in that Japanese soldier's diary?"

Hu Bayi's eyes lit up. "Mingzi, you mean..."

Hu Ming nodded and kept walking.

The Fatty looked at the two men in front of him, completely baffled. "What are you talking about?"

Unfortunately, neither Hu Bayi nor Hu Ming paid him any attention.

Yingzi, walking beside him, said, "Brother Fatty, just follow Big Brother Hu and Brother Ming. You'll find out soon enough, won't you?"

The Fatty shot her a look. "Brother Fatty, like I don't know that? Come on, let's catch up with them."

After walking for a while, Hu Ming and the others spotted a huge iron gate ahead. Hu Ming aimed his flashlight at it. The wall around the gate was lined with neat rows of bricks, and a line of Japanese writing was visible.

Hu Bayi took another guess, piecing it together as best he could. "It says 'Kanto Army Fortress.'"

The Fatty couldn't help exclaiming, "Well, I'll be damned. We've been searching all this time, and the Kanto Army Fortress was right here."

He continued, "Mingzi, should we go inside and have a look? Honestly, I've never seen what one of these fortresses looks like."

Hu Bayi replied, "Aren't you afraid that monster will come out? We'd better hurry and find a way out. Who knows how long that corpse-binding rope can hold it?"

Hu Bayi didn't believe the big zombie couldn't break free. When he was alive, he'd been a powerful general with superhuman strength. Now that he'd become a red-haired zombie, he was even more terrifying.

After Hu Bayi said that, the Fatty remembered the big zombie hurling the coffin lid. His neck suddenly shrank, and he felt a chill blowing across the back of it. It felt like the cold had seeped right into his bones.

"You just had to say that. Now the back of my neck feels cold, and it's freaking me out," the Fatty said.

"Cold?"

"Yikes..."

Yingzi, standing behind him, sucked in a sharp breath when she saw his back. She didn't know what to say.

Hu Bayi and Hu Ming, who were ahead of them, also sensed that something was wrong. They turned around and saw Yingzi staring at the Fatty's back in terror.

Seeing everyone looking at him, the Fatty asked, "What is it now?"

Hu Bayi and Hu Ming didn't answer. They went straight over and saw several tiny footprints and handprints, about the size of a child's, on the Fatty's back and neck. They were crystal clear.

"Fatty, I think something evil has latched onto you," Yingzi stammered. Her words made the Fatty panic.

The Fatty trembled as he spoke. "Yingzi, don't make things up!"

He looked at Yingzi, his mouth going dry. Judging by the situation, Hu Ming seemed to understand what was going on. He looked at the Fatty and said, "Fatty, Yingzi's right. Something evil really has latched onto you. If you don't believe me, ask Old Hu. At a time like this, none of us would mess with you."

The Fatty looked at Hu Ming, Hu Bayi, and Yingzi. None of them seemed to be joking.

Hu Ming said, "But it's all right. We brought plenty of things to ward off evil, including glutinous rice and black dog's blood. You don't need to be afraid.

"But, Fatty, stop carrying your bag in your arms. Put it on your back. No one's going to steal your porcelain treasures, and you've got black dog's blood and other things in there. If you'd had it on your back just now, I don't believe that ghost would've dared mess around on your back."

Hu Bayi added, "It's fine, Fatty. It's probably just a little ghost. Yingzi can sprinkle some glutinous rice on your back in a moment."

Yingzi quickly grabbed a handful of glutinous rice and sprinkled it over the Fatty's back. Wisps of black smoke rose from it.

Hu Bayi nodded at the sight, then turned to Hu Ming. "Should we go in?"

Hu Ming looked at the huge iron gate. "We've come all this way. Why wouldn't we?"

"All right," Hu Bayi said.

Hu Ming and Hu Bayi led the way, Yingzi walked in the middle, and the Fatty brought up the rear.

They passed through the iron gate and walked a little farther before reaching the inside of the fortress. Hu Bayi's sharp eyes immediately spotted a generator room, and he led the others over.

"Mingzi, is that a generator?" Hu Bayi shone his flashlight at a huge machine enclosed behind an iron fence.

Hu Ming took a look. "That's right. It's a generator."

Hu Ming turned to the Fatty. "Fatty, check those iron barrels over there and see if there's any diesel left. This generator might still work."

"Sure, I'll check," the Fatty said, immediately rummaging through the pile of barrels.

Soon, to everyone's delight, the Fatty found half a barrel of diesel and managed to haul it over.

"Mingzi, see if this is enough."

Hu Ming glanced at it. "It's enough!"

With the diesel in hand, Hu Ming and Hu Bayi poured it into the generator and started it up. The machine roared to life, and the passage flickered between light and darkness. At last, all the lights came on.

The weapons section, supply section, food section, and more all came into view, neat and orderly.

The Fatty couldn't help exclaiming happily, "Would you look at that? This Kanto Army unit had quite a stockpile. Everything's in great shape. Old Hu, look, this rifle's brand-new, and there's even oil on the important parts." The Fatty was a skilled gun enthusiast and knew a thing or two about this stuff.

After speaking, he went to pick up a few rifles.

Hu Bayi shook his head slightly. "Fatty, you picked some pretty lousy gear."

"Take a look at this." Hu Bayi opened one of the weapon crates and pulled out a machine gun. He continued, bragging, "Now this is the good stuff. A Type 96 light machine gun. It has a 6.5-millimeter caliber and a range of over 3,000 meters. It can fire more than 500 rounds per minute. The magazine's a little small, though, holding only thirty or fifty rounds.

"But this gun was one of the Kanto Army's finest weapons at the time." As he explained, Hu Bayi inspected the new machine gun.

While Hu Bayi explained the gun to the Fatty and Yingzi, Hu Ming opened a wooden crate by himself and found it full of brand-new grenades. He took more than twenty and put them into his system space. Unfortunately, the space was only one cubic meter, so he probably wouldn't be able to fit much more gear into it.

When Hu Bayi had finished showing off, he immediately got the Fatty and Yingzi to arm themselves from head to toe.

Hu Ming wasn't idle either. Besides arming himself, he also stuffed two machine guns and ten boxes of ammunition into the space. It was full now.

At that moment, Yingzi seemed to spot two small figures in a corner.

"Brother Ming, look!" she called to Hu Ming.

Her warning snapped Hu Ming out of his daze. He immediately looked over.

He couldn't see their whole bodies, but he could make out a shadow that looked like a tiny foot.

Hu Bayi spotted it too. He turned to the others and said, "Come on. Grab your gear, and let's go see what's going on!"

Without hesitation, Hu Bayi took a machine gun and rushed after them.

Seeing Hu Bayi charge ahead, Hu Ming and the others immediately followed...

Before long, the two shadowy figures seemed to vanish.

Hu Ming frowned. "Old Hu, did we lose them?"

Hu Bayi nodded. "Everyone, watch your surroundings."

The others raised their guns and stayed alert.