Once We Lived in Nanjing

"I hope all these things we're looking for won't come in handy," Bai Yang said. "That would be the best, OVER."

"But this has taken you a lot of time and effort."

"Nothing is more important than your safety," Bai Yang said. "What is this bit of time and effort compared to your personal safety, OVER."

"Okay, then I'll grant your wish!"

Bai Yang started.

"What do you mean?"

"It means making all your efforts in vain."

The girl giggled on the other end.

Bai Yang was stunned.

"I... I don't understand..."

"It means, everything you did was unnecessary, it's not needed anymore, the problem has already been solved," Ban Xia explained. "You wasted your effort, doesn't that make you happy?"

"What?"

Bai Yang's eyes widened.

"You forgot to say OVER."

"O... OVER."

"That Bengal Tiger was killed by me this very afternoon," Ban Xia continued. "Therefore, the crisis is averted, BG4MXH, your efforts are all for nothing."

"Then... why didn't you say so earlier!" Bai Yang exclaimed, speechless.

The girl had already solved the problem but didn't tell him, making him stay up all night talking nonstop, looking like a fool.

"You forgot to say OVER."

"O... OVER."

"Is it not okay that I wanted to talk to you and hear your voice?" the girl craftily said.

"You... this..." The young man's face turned instantly red, bewildered.

Thankfully, she couldn't see him.

"Although the problem is already solved, I still wanted to hear you finish talking," Ban Xia said. "If you had prepared so much and couldn't tell me, then it would have all been wasted. Now that you've finished, you've completely done your job, and it wasn't a waste, right?"

Bai Yang put down the handset, his body relaxed, leaning back in his chair, he sighed.

This really was good news.

But he was curious about how the girl did it.

"BG4MSR, you said you killed the tiger? How did you do it? Are you Lin Daiyu? Can you also pull up willows effortlessly? OVER."

"This would be a long story, BG4MXH, you tell me not to be reckless, I can manage that, but sometimes you can't stop the other party from being reckless," Ban Xia said leisurely.

Let us turn back the clock eight hours.

·

·

·

Eight hours earlier.

At just one meter distance, characteristics beyond the creature itself are greatly reduced and smoothed over. At this moment, in the bushes, it's not a conflict between a human being capable of wielding technological power and a ferocious beast living on flesh and blood, but two mammals located at different positions in the food chain, like in the stories where in a spurt of rage, two corpses lay and blood flows five steps, and the world turns into mourning gauzes. At this extremely close distance, a powerful empire's army cannot withstand an assassin's desperate strike, and human civilization, built over thousands of years, is no match for the sharp fangs and teeth evolved by a tiger over millions of years.

As a top predator in the food chain, the Bengal Tiger emits a dangerous aura that strikes directly at the instinct of any creature. That foul, thick smell coming face-to-face could make any creature flee, it's a fear etched in DNA, a fear faced by our ancestors millions of years ago, continued by them, and now lurking within Ban Xia's body, causing numbness in her limbs.

The moment she saw those amber-colored eyeballs, the girl's mind went blank.

Turns out being petrified with fear wasn't just a saying.

The shotgun was on the grass next to her, about thirty centimeters to her left, but Ban Xia dared not reach for it; the shotgun was too long, and shooting would require a big movement.

The tiger was only one meter away from her.

Ban Xia had no doubt that it could easily grab her neck with a slight reach of its head, and crush her spine with a shake, killing her would be no harder than killing a chicken.

It hadn't moved because it was observing her.

Humans were so scarce in this world, tigers would always cautiously observe an unfamiliar creature they rarely encountered.

Both parties were at a standoff for a few seconds, the Bengal Tiger crouched in the bushes, half of its body concealed by dense branches and leaves, only its head and forelimbs were visible, its yellow-white fur gradually transitioning, thick and dense black stripes, and a face so large it was terrifying — just as Ban Xia had imagined, but much more frightening.

It was bigger than the girl had imagined.

So big.

This was the first thought that popped into Ban Xia's brain when it started functioning again.

Being stared at by a tiger was definitely not a pleasant experience; there were no emotions typical of a living creature in those eyes, they resembled a hunting machine, and for most creatures, this was likely the last face they would ever see.

The Sun was about to set, and the body of the Bengal Tiger was hidden in the shadow of a residential building.

Ban Xia noticed that its other eye was blind, with a clear scar that ran vertically across half its face.

Indeed, it was the tiger that attacked the teacher years ago, and its eye was blinded by the teacher's Dagger, no wonder the tiger appeared so recklessly in front of her, its sight was poor.

Ban Xia focused on it, slowly moving backward to increase the distance.

The teacher had once said that when facing large predators, one should never panic and turn to run, be it a tiger, a leopard, or a brown bear, running would trigger their hunting instincts.

The faster you run, the faster you die.

As soon as Ban Xia moved, the Bengal Tiger also moved; it pulled back its forelimbs and slowly raised its upper body, followed by the rear half of its body lifting off the ground, its fur rustling against the bushes.

It advanced one step toward the girl, attempting to close the distance, nobody knew what was going through the tiger's mind at that moment, whether it was about to pounce or simply pass by — and no one would ever know, because the next second a 9mm copper-jacketed steel core bullet penetrated its forehead, tumbled inside its skull, churned its brain into a bloody pulp, and finally exited the back of the cranium carrying a thick, dark-red slurry, leaving a nearly five-centimeter irregular large hole.

"Bang!"

The 8-gram bullet, exiting the barrel at almost four hundred meters per second, traversed the two-meter distance in 0.005 seconds, death arriving within five milliseconds, no creature could escape, the gunshot deafening.

The sound wave only managed to spread after the tiger's death, echoing between the circle of residential buildings around the community, startling a flock of birds.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

In the next four seconds, four bullets were fired into the tiger's body, one hitting the head, the other three hitting its neck and heart, each shot was lethal. The gun in Ban Xia's hand wasn't designed for hunting, but at a mere two meters, the short-range power of the Parabellum pistol bullets was enough to blow the brains out of a large feline.

In her life, Ban Xia would never draw a gun as quickly as she did today, not unlike a legendary western cowboy gunman in a life-or-death duel. She held the gun with one hand, fired the first shot, then raised her left hand to support the gun handle and fired the next four rounds. One-handed shooting was inaccurate, but luckily, the distance was close enough.

Ban Xia resolved her opponent with the first shot, then continued to pull the trigger and fired four more bullets to ensure the kill before collapsing weakly to the ground.

The Bengal Tiger's body lay in the grass, dark black blood slowly seeping from beneath its fur, staining the green leaves red.

The girl slowly backed up a few steps, then sat down abruptly, breathing heavily.

Her legs had no strength, soft as cotton.

The pistol also fell to the ground, her hands trembling too much to hold the gun. The trembling spread from her hands to her shoulders, from her shoulders to her hips and legs, and then to her whole body; soon, Ban Xia was shaking all over, feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit.

The actions of those few seconds had drained all her strength; Ban Xia lay down, lying on the grass beside the tiger's corpse, the air filled with a faint smell of grass and blood. She wanted to think about nothing and couldn't bring herself to move, both her soul and body as still as a rock, gazing up at the now completely darkened sky.

The girl slowly closed her eyes, she wanted to sleep.

"Teacher," she whispered softly.