Chapter 4: All for the Gun

Gao Yang thought he heard a strange laugh in his dreams—a somber kind of laugh that echoed around him.

Even half-asleep, Gao Yang knew the weird laughter was very close by, but he was far too tired to care. But when it stopped, Gao Yang felt his heart race and woke up abruptly.

Just like many others who had experienced it before him, Gao Yang felt a sudden jolt run through his body while he was in his deep slumber. Even though nothing had happened, he had been woken up. He opened his eyes and discovered four to five pairs of glistening green eyes staring right at him. There was a hyena standing right in front of him!

He stared blankly at first, thinking he was just having a nightmare. When he snapped out of it, he realized that he wasn't sleeping in his bed back home, but alone in the gra.s.sy fields of Africa. Standing in front of him were at least a dozen hyenas.

Smelling an intense foul odor, Gao Yang found himself face-to-face with a hyena. If the hyena opened its mouth, it could rip out his throat.

Although he was scared stiff, he pointed the gun to the hyena's head out of reflex, and pulled the trigger. With a ‘bang!’, the hyena instantly fell to the ground and frightened the surrounding hyenas as they scattered in every direction.

Gao Yang stood up fl.u.s.tered. His heart raced and he was breathing heavily. Eventually, his nerves gradually settled.

Gao Yang used his gun to prod the hyena's carca.s.s. With a bullet between its eyes, it was clear that it was dead. Seeing that it could no longer attack him, Gao Yang sat back down.

Gao Yang knew that even if there were more beasts around, they would have been scared off by the sound of the gunshot. Thinking about how close he was to becoming hyena food, his heart raced like crazy.

Though unsure as to whether hyenas actually hunted humans, Gao Yang knew that they'd never pa.s.s up a corpse. They probably targeted him a.s.suming he was dead, but even if he were alive, he wouldn’t be able to fight them off since they were as strong as a lion altogether. All they had to do was take a few bites and he would become a real corpse. 

Gao Yang sat paralyzed beside the carca.s.s as he hugged the AK-47 which had no ammo. Thinking back on the past two days, tears rolled down uncontrollably.

Gao Yang stroked the gun with his hands, causing a mixture of feelings to well up inside him.

The whole reason why he came to Africa was just to be able to use a real gun.

Gao Yang was born in the provincial capital of Jisheng and his parents ran a small factory. They weren't rich but his financial situation wasn’t bad. His parents loved him and ever since he was young, his life had been easy.

When Gao Yang entered junior high, his father brought him to a shooting range. At the time, he didn't have as good a control with real guns and bullets. However, it was there at the shooting range where he first showed his true talents.

He shot five or six times at the hundred meter target with a semi-automatic rifle. Besides the first shot, every other shot hit the eighth and ninth ring. Experienced soldiers who had used guns for years couldn't get these results, let alone a child who had just gotten his hands on a gun.

Gao Yang's score left the staff dumbstruck. Coincidentally, the shooting range was Jisheng's main shooting grounds. Normally, they still accepted customers who weren’t members of the club. Plus, they had staff who were experts in that field. After playing around for a while, Gao Yang caught the shooting coach’s attention.

After seeing him shoot, the coach allowed him to try the two hundred meter target. Gao Yang didn't care how far away the target was; he aimed and shot as usual. All his shots were were close to the bull's-eye. When the coach saw this, he called Gao Yang a young talent and immediately tried to convince Gao Yang's father to allow Gao Yang to train under his wing.

After arguing with his family for over a month, and his parents discovered that sports schools also had cultural cla.s.ses, and so they finally let him attend and practice shooting.

Other than just having the talent, Gao Yang was a hard worker once he became interested in something. After studying at the sports school for two years, he quickly became the youngest member in history to join Jisheng's shooting squad.

Gao Yang never partic.i.p.ated in any of the compet.i.tions even after he entered the squad, as it was already a feat to have joined the capital's squad on skill alone. Also, it wasn’t easy for him as a young shooter to partic.i.p.ate on a global level. The country had so many talented shooters that it was impossible for him to s.h.i.+ne.

It would also take two to three years of training to partic.i.p.ate in compet.i.tions, something that Gao Yang did not have patience for and did not see a future in. For a long time, his parents had also been hoping for him to return home. And so at the age of sixteen, he went back to attending regular school.

After training for three years, Gao Yang's performance in culture cla.s.s inevitably dropped as he was never the studious type. But Gao Yang discovered his second talent – studying foreign languages. While his cla.s.smates were scratching their heads about English, he found it incredibly easy. After three years of high school, he entered a third-rate university to study foreign languages.

Most people faced unemployment after graduation, but Gao Yang successfully found work at a trading company. His job allowed him to develop various skills, including his English speaking skills to the point where he was able to converse with foreigners without any problems. After graduating, he started his own trading company with his father’s help.

Unfortunately, just when Gao Yang's business was about to take off, the entire trading industry suffered a major economic crisis. Gao Yang was only twenty-three when his company closed down. 

Gao Yang's trading company had run for over a year and earned over twenty million in profits. However, this was a small achievement in comparison to his peers. In addition, he used all the money to buy imitation guns and high quality knives, and he even went backpacking. In the end, he didn't save a single cent.

When the company closed, Gao Yang didn't actually feel stressed. On the second day after its closure, he enthusiastically partic.i.p.ated in a Counter-Strike cosplay event.

While there were federal laws that restricted people from using real guns, Gao Yang managed to get his hands on a collection of imitation guns. He never turned to something as childish as laser tag since it wasn’t realistic enough. 

Gao Yang cosplayed Counter-Strike by using BB guns. Of course, to people unfamiliar with the game, they thought of the weapons as part of the costume; but for shooters like Gao Yang, they called it the “war game”. Even though it was a game, it was actually fairly accurate to reality.

Gao Yang had planned to use BB guns to cheer himself up. Unfortunately, he soon found out that although cosplaying Counter-Strike was legal, the use of imitation guns was not. The moment Gao Yang and group of friends held up their imitation guns, the police immediately arrested, detained, and fined them.

After staying at the police station for a few days, Gao Yang's father got him out. He was lucky not to be convicted for years.

The second day after he returned home from the police station, he saw an online advertis.e.m.e.nt about a private Ethiopian hunting ground. It would cost eight million eight thousand yuan and, with additional fees, it was possible to even hunt and kill a lion.

Gao Yang wasn't bloodthirsty, but he was curious about hunting as it was his dream to go to the plains of Africa and use real guns and knives. Rather than living in constant fear playing with imitation guns, Gao Yang wanted to go to Africa which offered him the real deal. 

 It’s not easy to change a person's interests in a short period of time, particularly someone as impulsive as Gao Yang. He got his collection of imitation guns and acclaimed knives and sold them off. With the money he got and his savings, he had ten million yuan—just about enough to take him to Africa.

Even though ten million yuan was just the base fee, he could only hunt small animals. Honestly, he wasn't interested in hunting docile animals. He thought of this trip as an excursion that would allow him to use real guns and see Africa's landscape.

When he arrived at Ethiopia, he transferred to another flight that took him to the hunting grounds, otherwise known as—h.e.l.l. Gao Yang, who had never taken a life, was plunged into this random battlefield, where he killed four people and a hyena.

During his training days, he had mostly practiced using pistols and rifles to shoot flying discs, thus he was used to shooting moving objects. To top it off, he would typically shoot twice in a row. 

Even though it had been many years since he last touched a real gun, let alone an a.s.sault rifle, he was able to naturally use his two shot skills with the shotgun. In fact, he actually performed well considering its difficulty.

Gao Yang was able to just pick up an AK-47 because of his years of training, imitation guns, and obsession with the military. Other than knowing where to buy firearms online, he learned about them and memorized their structures. He could dissemble any gun he touched, including something as basic as an AK-47.

Cosplaying in a Counter-Strike event once a week greatly contributed to his tactical skills. Getting hit by BB pellets was extremely painful.

Also, to make the Counter-Strike cosplay feel more realistic and look more professional, he learned quite a few combat hand signals online.

Gao Yang's skills weren't quite up to par to elite soldiers but they were infinitely much better than those wandering soldiers in the field who received no military training and clutched their guns.