Mercenary's War

In his sleep, Gao Yang seemed to hear a bout of laughter, strange and eerie, drifting near and far, hovering all around him.

Remaining in a half-asleep state, Gao Yang could hear the bizarre laughter close at hand, but extreme fatigue made him disinclined to care. However, for some reason, when the laughter stopped, an overwhelming sense of palpitations jolted Gao Yang awake from his stupor.

Many people have had this experience: while sleeping soundly, suddenly waking with a start, even though nothing has happened. That was exactly what Gao Yang experienced, except that when he startled awake, he was shocked to find at least four or five pairs of green-glowing eyes staring at him, and standing right in front of him was a hyena.

After waking up, Gao Yang at first thought he was having a nightmare, but after only a moment of stunned silence, he remembered that he was not in his bed at home, but all alone on the savannas of Africa, and those standing in front of him were at least a dozen real, live hyenas.

Gao Yang smelled a strong, foul odor. A hyena was almost face to face with him, close enough to bite his throat with just a snap of its jaws.

Nearly scared out of his wits, Gao Yang instinctively swung his gun and pulled the trigger at the hyena's head before him. With a loud "bang", the hyena before him dropped to the ground, and the group of hyenas surrounding Gao Yang scattered in fear at the sound of the gunshot.

Gao Yang scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding violently. After standing in place, panting heavily for what seemed an eternity, his nerves, stretched to the breaking point, finally began to settle down.

The hit hyena lay dead between its eyes, indeed beyond dead. Gao Yang poked at the hyena's corpse with his gun to confirm it wouldn't stand up again before sitting down with a thump.

Gao Yang knew that even if there were other wild beasts nearby, they would have been frightened away by the gunshot, but the thought of having almost become hyena fodder still made his heart pound in fear.

Although he did not know whether hyenas would hunt down living humans, Gao Yang was aware that they would not pass up any corpses, and perhaps these hyenas thought he was dead, which is why they targeted him. With a bite force even stronger than a lion's, even if he were still alive, just a few bites from a hyena would turn him into a real corpse.

Slumped beside the hyena's body, Gao Yang hugged his bullet-less AK-47 tightly, uncontrollable tears streaming down as he reflected on his experiences over the past two days.

Touching the gun in his hands, Gao Yang was flooded with emotion: his present predicament was all because of the gun he was holding.

The reason Gao Yang came to Africa was simply to play with real guns.

Gao Yang was born in the provincial capital of Ji Province, where his parents ran a small factory. Although they were not extremely wealthy, their living conditions were relatively good, and his parents doted on him, his life progressing smoothly since childhood.

In middle school, Gao Yang's father took him to a shooting range for fun. At that time, gun control was not very strict, and the range featured live ammunition. It was there that Gao Yang first displayed his shooting talent.

Shooting a 100-meter target with a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, aside from the first shot, Gao Yang never scored below seven rings, with most of his bullets hitting the eight or nine rings. This level of marksmanship might seem unremarkable, but even veterans with years of gun experience couldn't necessarily achieve such scores, let alone a child touching a gun for the first time.

Gao Yang's performance astonished the staff at the range, and as luck would have it, the range was part of a training base for the shooting team of Ji Province which also opened to the public to generate revenue; thus, the staff there were knowledgeable. Caught up in the excitement, Gao Yang soon drew the attention of a professional shooting coach.

After watching Gao Yang shoot a few times, the coach suggested he try hitting a 200-meter target. Gao Yang didn't care about the distance; he just aimed and fired, each shot hitting near the bullseye. The coach, after seeing this, proclaimed that Gao Yang was an excellent shooting prospect and immediately discussed with Gao Yang's father the idea of training him as a shooter.

After pestering his family for over a month, and once his parents learned that the sports school also provided academic education, Gao Yang finally got his wish and entered the sports school to train in shooting.

Gao Yang truly had a talent for shooting and was willing to endure hardship for what interested him. After two years in the sports school, he swiftly made it onto the Ji Province shooting team, becoming the youngest member in its history.

However, after joining the team, Gao Yang hardly had any opportunity to participate in competitions. Being accepted into the provincial team meant competing with skilled individuals; they wouldn't easily allow a junior like Gao Yang to stand out. And as for joining the national team and showing his skills on the world stage, that was even less likely for him. With numerous shooting talents in the country, it was not his turn to take the stage.

To participate in the competition would require at least two or three more years of training. Gao Yang, young and lacking perseverance, quickly grew bored of shooting practice, with no end in sight. So, he beat a retreat, especially since his parents had long been hoping for his return. Consequently, in the year he turned sixteen, Gao Yang went back to continue his studies.

Three years of shooting practice had inevitably caused Gao Yang to fall behind in his academic studies. Plus, he was never all that studious. However, at this time, Gao Yang discovered his second talent: learning foreign languages. English, which troubled most people, came surprisingly easy to him. After enduring three grueling years of high school, he ended up going to a third-tier university to study languages.

For many, graduating college meant unemployment, but Gao Yang had started part-time work with foreign trade companies during his freshman year. His spoken English was decent—good enough for communicating with foreigners—so upon graduation, he set up his own foreign trade business with help from his father.

Unfortunately, just as Gao Yang's career seemed to be getting on track, an economic crisis hit, dealing a massive blow to the entire foreign trade industry. Gao's company was no exception, and at the age of twenty-three, he was forced to declare his first business bankrupt.

Gao Yang's foreign trade company had been operational for a little over a year. Its performance wasn't spectacular, but it had earned him a couple of hundred thousand yuan—a modest achievement among his peers. However, Gao Yang spent almost all his earnings on replica guns and some famous knives, then proceeded to travel all over the place with a big backpack, saving nothing.

With the company's bankruptcy, Gao Yang felt surprisingly little pressure. The very next day after the company went bust, he cheerfully participated in a live-action CS game.

Due to national regulations, real guns were not an option, but that didn't stop Gao Yang, who had a collection of replica firearms, from engaging in anything as tame as the sort of live-action CS where being hit by a laser is neither here nor there.

What Gao Yang engaged in was a live-action CS using replica guns that fired BB pellets; to outsiders, this was known as 'wargame'. Even though it was still a game, the aim was to make everything as close to actual combat as possible.

Gao Yang had initially intended to vent his frustration through the BB pellets, but while playing live-action CS wasn't illegal, using replica guns was. While Gao Yang and his teammates were exchanging fire with these replicas, the police swooped in and caught them all in one fell swoop.

A fine and detention were inevitable. After a few days in the lockup, Gao's father managed to get him out, fortunately avoiding a prison sentence of several years.

The day after Gao Yang got home from the station, he saw an advertisement online. It was for a private hunting trip in Ethiopia, priced at eighty-eight thousand yuan, with an additional fee for those wishing to hunt lions.

Gao Yang wasn't bloodthirsty; his interest in hunting stemmed more from curiosity, but the advert had everything he loved: the chance to wield real guns and knives in the wilds of Africa. All things considered, Gao Yang figured he'd rather head to Africa for the real experience than play with replicas under the constant fear of being busted.

One's interests can't be changed overnight, and Gao Yang was the kind of person who acted on his impulses. He thus sold all of his painstakingly collected replica guns and famous knives and, together with his savings, managed to put together one hundred thousand yuan—just enough to afford a trip to Africa.

Although one hundred thousand yuan was the bare minimum, only enough to hunt common small game, Gao Yang had little interest in shooting defenseless animals. He saw it more as joining a travel group; handling real firearms and experiencing the African landscape was satisfaction enough.

Gao Yang spent all his savings to go to Africa, arriving in Ethiopia before boarding the plane that would take them to the hunting grounds—or as it turned out, a plane to hell. Soon after, Gao Yang found himself in an unexpected gunfight, which led to a man who had never killed before taking the lives of four men and a hyena.

When Gao Yang used to train in shooting, he practiced with both handguns and rifles, but his main event was the multi-directional clay pigeon shooting. Thus, Gao Yang's habit was to fire two shots in quick succession, especially at high-speed moving targets.

Despite not having touched a real gun in years and using an assault rifle instead of the shotguns he was familiar with, Gao Yang naturally fell back into his habit of firing two shots. Thankfully, though it was more challenging, the tactic proved quite effective.

As for how Gao Yang could pick up an AK-47, having never touched one before, and use it without any unfamiliarity—that was thanks to his collection of replica guns. Also, being a true military enthusiast, he had retained detailed knowledge of military firearms, which he procured from the internet and books, including memorizing the structure diagrams of most firearms. He could disassemble and then reassemble a real weapon upon encountering one; AK-47s, with their simpler design, were particularly straightforward for him.

Furthermore, Gao Yang's regular participation in weekly live-action CS sessions had taught him most tactical movements; getting hit with a BB pellet really did hurt.

To make live-action CS feel more realistic and professional, Gao Yang had spent countless hours online learning various tactical maneuvers and hand signals.

While Gao Yang's skills might not compare with those of elite soldiers, when put against those who had no military training and took up arms in war as mere irregulars, Gao Yang was undoubtedly far superior.