Chapter 2: There Is No Going Back
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After searching through two pages, Xu Gaoxiang finally found the instructions. Once he had read them, he drew a deep breath.
“All weapons sold through this platform will not exceed the technological level of this world’s weapons by more than ten years.”
Following his own line of thought, Xu Gaoxiang located the world-famous AK-47.
“If I remember correctly, this rifle was developed between 1949 and 1950.”
Muttering to himself, he continued searching without pause. He looked up several weapons whose years of manufacture he knew. As his certainty grew, his expression became increasingly grim.
“Damn it! The good guess missed, but the bad one hit dead-on!”
He had already determined that the latest weapons he could purchase dated from around 1950. Subtract ten years from that, and there was a very high chance that—
“The Second World War is still raging!”
As a novice who had grown up in peaceful times, Xu Gaoxiang was not the sort of arms dealer whose eyes lit up at the mere mention of war. His first thought was that he was about to lose his life.
“No. I need to find somewhere else!”
He rose and hid behind a tree trunk, nervously scanning his surroundings as though afraid a stray bullet might come flying from anywhere.
“First, hide. Stay alive as long as possible.”
In a panic, Xu Gaoxiang hurried down the slope and found a dense thicket, where he concealed himself.
“Spit, spit, spit. What kind of mess is this?”
He reached up and brushed the dust from his head, silently cursing several times.
Once he had caught his breath, he tightened his clothes and opened the platform interface again, locating the section on precautions.
He wanted to see whether there were any other restrictions. Then he noticed a glaring red warning light.
He opened it.
“Crack…”
Xu Gaoxiang’s face turned deathly pale, and he nearly fainted on the spot.
The situation was this: originally, the platform had merely opened a passage and bound it to Xu Gaoxiang’s coordinates for the future transmission of supplies. Unfortunately, something unexpected had happened.
Perhaps through the favor of some transmigration god, the passage—which was only supposed to transmit inanimate objects—had somehow carried Xu Gaoxiang away from his own world.
The unfortunate part was that it was a one-way ticket. Xu Gaoxiang had indeed become an interworld arms dealer, but…
“I can’t go back! Damn it all!”
At that moment, every other emotion vanished. His eyes went blank, and his body slackened like a lifeless fish.
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“Ugh… There’s no hope! Let it all be destroyed!”
Never mind that he was in the middle of wartime, where any random bullet could take his life.
Even more terrifying was the fact that Xu Gaoxiang was now an undocumented outsider in this world. According to the platform, the energy enveloping him could last for only one week. Once it dissipated completely, the world would reject him like a ball being kicked away.
And since he could not return to his original world, he would be crushed between the two realms.
Bang!
At the thought of himself being blown apart in all directions, Xu Gaoxiang could not help shuddering.
Of course, there was still one slim chance of survival. As long as he continued spending vast amounts of energy to envelop himself, he could remain in this world.
That energy could be exchanged with his own trade points. However, maintaining it for a single day required fifty trade points. Even if he converted every point he possessed, he would live for only another two and a half days.
And he was currently stranded in the wilderness! Where was he supposed to find anyone to trade with?
Not to mention finding this world’s chosen protagonist!
That was the solution offered by the platform. Every world had someone favored by fate—the so-called protagonist. As long as the trading target was bound to that one individual, the energy cost could be reduced dramatically.
According to the platform’s calculations, he might then need only ten trade points, or even fewer.
Restricting the trading target meant lower expenses, but it also meant lower earnings.
“After all that, it’s still useless! Where am I supposed to find the protagonist? Search the entire world? Ah!”
Xu Gaoxiang’s eyes reddened. A silent tear slid down from the corner of one eye. After such dizzying reversals of fortune, he could take no more.
He lay there for a long while, trying to rebuild his mental fortifications.
“Better to live miserably than die well. I’ve already encountered transmigration and a platform, so my luck must be extraordinary.”
“Maybe I’ll run into a major customer the moment I leave this place! Maybe the protagonist will even be delivered right to my doorstep!”
The more he fed himself this comforting nonsense, the hungrier he became. He had not eaten anything in the first place.
His stomach rumbled loudly. Covering it with one hand, Xu Gaoxiang hurriedly opened the platform. It contained quite a variety of military food, including all sorts of ready-to-eat rations and canned goods, all at remarkably cheap prices.
“They even have happy otaku soda? Excellent.”
Xu Gaoxiang had not expected cola to count as military supplies as well. After browsing for a while, he spent five trade points and received a dark green padded coat, three cans of food, a bottle of cola, and a silver-colored lighter.
He put on the coat, picked up the cans and cola, and left the thicket. After looking around, he found an open patch of ground.
“First, I’ll eat something hot and warm myself up. It’s freezing out here. Everything else can wait—getting food into my stomach comes first!”
After gathering a good amount of dead branches and dry grass, Xu Gaoxiang hastily built a simple stove from several pieces of broken stone.
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Of the three cans, two were American—one containing luncheon meat and the other fruit. The third was a Japanese can of red-bean rice.
Xu Gaoxiang placed the luncheon meat and red-bean rice cans on the stones, then began lighting the dry grass and branches to heat them.
“Mm, not bad.”
While he waited, Xu Gaoxiang opened the fruit can and began eating. Before long, he had finished the entire can.
As the food heated, its fragrance began to spread through the air. Xu Gaoxiang broke off two straight branches, rubbed them vigorously, and used them to lift the cans away from the fire, placing them on a slab of green stone.
“Whew—ah… Hot, hot! Ha… ha…”
“Gulp… Ah! Burp…”
Unable to wait, Xu Gaoxiang burned his mouth and grimaced in pain before hurriedly washing it down with a large mouthful of cola.
As he devoured his meal, completely unaware of the approaching danger, the smoke rising from the fire had already been spotted by someone else.
On a distant mountaintop, low, ochre-colored shrubs grew densely across the slope. As the mountain wind swept through them, three shadowy figures could be seen faintly between the dry branches.
Steel helmets, khaki uniforms, and a Type 38 rifle in each man’s hands—they were unmistakably three Japanese scouts.
Judging by their appearance, the three men had already been observing the area for quite some time.
“Excellent! Our chance to distinguish ourselves has arrived. That must be an important Chinese official!”
“Ozawa, circle around from the side and cut off his escape route. Mingjing and I will launch a frontal assault. We must take him alive!”
After confirming that Xu Gaoxiang was alone, the Japanese soldier in the center immediately began assigning tactics.
The other two soldiers moved into action as well. The man called Ozawa nodded and answered, “Yes, sir,” then immediately began maneuvering tactically, crouching as he descended along one side of the mountain.
The remaining two Japanese soldiers continued watching for a while. Once the timing was right, they began advancing toward Xu Gaoxiang at astonishing speed.
Xu Gaoxiang remained completely unaware that danger was closing in. He was still leisurely drinking his cola. Having eaten his fill, he was even beginning to feel drowsy, and he let out a huge yawn.
With nothing else to do, he once again began browsing the platform, hoping to find some more good news.
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