It was still that middle school, building the gatehouse, nearing completion, with some rebar about the thickness of a thumb, still unused, piled near a dug-up pit with pipes.
My brother's and my team was called the Divine Dragon Special Forces, and we had recruited quite a few Han youth afterward. This operation was still called the Long Fist Operation. The naming was inspired by Zhang Fei's up-down A skill in the Three Kingdoms arcade game. Why still? There were many previous operations.
At that time, arcade games were also electronic heroin, similar to today's short videos or other screen addictions, just that now the name for electronic addiction sounds nicer, called electronic pickled vegetables. Many people scroll through their phones while eating; if they watch food videos, even ordinary fried rice can taste like a delicacy.
Being addicted comes at a cost; spending money leads to a lack of money, which means you have to find ways to make money. In this light, live streaming, short video teaching, and selling goods align with the national GDP consumption logic.
For preparations, we basically didn't need candles anymore; this time it was a flashlight, silver tin, using two size 1 batteries. It was quite heavy and hurt a lot when used as a weapon. Two people. Do we need a black donkey's hoof? No need. We still needed a brave heart. Let's go.
We went directly to the area near the pit piled with rebar and entered the tunnel from there. The tunnel was square, surrounded by red bricks, though the color of the bricks had faded to a black-gray. It had been there for some time.
At the entrance, there were 2 or 3 large valves, and the pipes were quite thick, about the same thickness as my waist at the time. The surface was wrapped in insulating asbestos and a material like snake skin, which I had seen in some hallways; it heats up in winter, like heating pipes. But I had never seen pipes this thick.
As soon as we entered, we realized we made a mistake. We had brought only one flashlight, but it seemed there was only one usable at home; the other battery was dead, and buying batteries would cost money, and these large batteries weren't cheap either. Let's try it first; I turned on the flashlight, it was quite bright, with no pipes overhead, most of the pipes were on the right side, two thick ones and a few thinner ones. I was in front, lighting the way, and when I felt I was crawling too slowly, I adjusted my posture, trying to keep my weight on my legs and feet, which made me much faster.
At first, my brother was afraid of the dark; I shone the light ahead, illuminating above us. Initially, the path was unclear, but he soon adapted, feeling that no matter how the light shone, he could see the way. There were probably pipes inside, along with artificial bricks, all neatly arranged. There was not much worry or fear. We kept moving along the passage; encountering bright lights meant we were at the exit, and for some reason, there were no covers. We just popped our heads out to see where we were in the school; the first exit was about 30 meters south of the teaching building, and the second exit was at the southeast corner near the eastern wall of the school.
I was very happy to see that the southeast exit, near the wall, was south of the teacher's dormitory, which was separated by woods and a pile of waste. Previously, we had caught dragonflies and roasted sweet potatoes there, with no one to supervise. It was great.
The path was clear; it was time to act. The rebar, about the thickness of a thumb, was too long, around 2 meters, and we couldn't bend it. Luckily, there were shorter ones, about 1 meter long. We pretended to play nearby, throwing stones or mimicking characters from Street Fighter fighting each other. This time, I felt it was too fake; it might just be a ploy. It seemed there was no opportunity; the construction workers were all on this side, working close to us, with no chance at all. That rebar wasn't like Wukong's needle that could shrink; I wished it could.
We couldn't just wait around. I told my brother that we should go home and eat something first, and then see if there was an opportunity during their lunch. We didn't walk on the surface but went through the underground passage to the eastern wall and then climbed back home.