Beauty and the Bodyguard

“Yeah!” Pinliang said confidently. “Shu, I’ll start grilling the shark for you and Yao Yao, okay? I couldn’t bring flammable stuff onto the plane, so I specifically brought a solar-powered grill! I’ll show you high-tech cooking in just a bit.”

“Ooh, nice! Hurry, then!” Yushu was delighted to hear that she’d be having barbecued shark meat soon.

Mengyao looked at the shark oddly. “How come this shark’s one fin short?”

“What?!” Pinliang’s eyes widened as he looked at the shark. It was true, the shark was missing a fin on one side! And it looked like it had been cleanly cut off by someone.

Pinliang was infuriated. That supermarket vendor had cheated him! Selling the shark to him for such an expensive price when he’d cut a fin off?! Pinliang decided that he’d raze the shop to the ground when he got back.

“Probably got taken off by Shu. Yeah, that’s probably it. She sliced it off with that rock!” Pinliang explained.

“Really? Wow, I’m good!” Yushu wasn’t expecting to have ripped the shark’s fin off of it like that.

“This shark, it’s not one of those frozen sharks sold at market, is it?” Mengyao kicked the shark. The body was hard, evidently prefrozen.

“Yeah, Yao Yao, why does it look like it’s from a market? Look, is that a price tag in its mouth?” Yushu started inspecting the shark curiously after what Mengyao said. “Is this really the one I killed? Did you get the wrong one, Liangy?”

“It’s the right one, for sure!” Pinliang gritted his teeth as he looked at the damned white price tag in the shark’s mouth. Was Xiaofu blind?! He didn’t see the missing fin, and he’d missed that price tag in the mouth too!

Pinliang held the curses in his mind back and quickly pulled the price tag out of the shark’s mouth. He stuck it into his own mouth and chewed on it a bit before swallowing it. “It’s not a price tag, come on! It’s a scallop, a really nice scallop! They say people die for money and birds die for food, so the shark must’ve come here looking for these scallops when Shu killed it with a rock!”

Pinliang changed the subject so the two wouldn’t dwell on the shark for too long.

“Scallop? And you just ate it raw?” Mengyao was starting to get suspicious.

“The shark was risking its life for it. It’s obviously really good. Oh, darn, I’m sorry, I should’ve saved something that good for you, Yao Yao!” Pinliang said.

“You can keep it. And stop calling me Yao Yao. It sounds weird,” Mengyao said.

“Doesn’t Shu call you Yao Yao?” Pinliang asked.

“Shu calls me Yao Yao sis, not Yao Yao. Do you want to call me that too?” Mengyao glared at him, her tone cold.

“Uh, never mind, then.” Pinliang didn’t want to turn into Mengyao’s little brother. It’d make it even harder for him to chase her! He laughed it off instead. “Well, I’ll go barbecue this shark then. Yo, boys! Come here and help out, let’s split this shark for the class!”

Similar to Mengyao and Yushu, some students were more or less suspicious of the origins of this shark Pinliang dragged up, but hearing that they’d all get a portion of barbecued shark was enough to stop anyone from doing anything irritable. They started helping Pinliang out, feeling a lot less hostile towards the guy now.

Pinliang set up the solar-powered grill and looked around, waiting for Xiaofu. After looking a while, he finally saw the guy walking over with a shirt wrapped over his head.

“How do you feel?” Pinliang asked quietly.

“Luckily, it only hit my forehead. It’s just a flesh wound,” Xiaofu said.

“Why didn’t you hold on a bit longer before sinking? I didn’t get to do anything! It was so embarrassing when you went down so fast! I didn’t get to be the hero at all.” Pinliang sulked.

“I couldn’t do anything about it, Liang Bro! That Chen Yushu’s too much. She shot a rock at me right at the start! If I didn’t sink and another rock came, I’d be dead!” Xiaofu said, still feeling threatened.

“You’re right. But damn, who would’ve thought that Chen Yushu would get so excited!” Pinliang shook his head.

“Should I go be a shark again?” Xiaofu asked carefully.

“That works. Let’s talk about this later.” Pinliang nodded. “Right now we have to get this grill going and start the barbecue!”

Pinliang and Xiaofu set the grill up, but it didn’t start heating up. Pinliang started getting worried after waiting a while. “What’s wrong with this thing. How come it’s not working?”

“Not enough solar power?” Xiaofu looked at the sun, his tone cautious.

“What do we do?” Pinliang looked up as well. Clouds were rolling in.

“It’s okay. There’s a manual pump, right? I’ll pump and you blow at the charcoal inside! It should get the heat going,” Xiaofu said.

“Alright!” Pinliang nodded and started blowing into the grill as Xiaofu worked the manual pump for all that he was worth.

They went at it for a long time to no avail. Pinliang’s mouth was swollen from all the blowing while Xiaofu’s arms throbbed with pain.

“How come the fire hasn’t started yet?” Yushu saw that the boys were almost finished cutting the shark up into portions, but Pinliang was still trying to start the grill. “What grill is that?”

“It’s a new model. I saw it on TV. Fish Bro’s recommendation,” Xiaofu said gleefully.

“You actually believe the shopping ads on TV?” Yushu’s eyes went wide.

“Uh…” Pinliang barely stopped himself from kicking Xiaofu. So this was some unreliable TV ad! He thought it was new technology.

“Liang Bro, don’t get mad! We’ll get it started soon. I’ll give a final burst of strength.” With that, Xiaofu increased his pumping speed, drenching himself in sweat from the work.

“Xiaofy, what’s with that wrapping on your head? You look like some Indian chieftain.” Yushu said as she reached for the shirt on Xiaofu’s head..

“Don’t! This is a symbol of effort of determination! You see those people with a piece of cloth tied around their heads on TV, right? See, I’m lighting this grill up with all I’ve got!” Xiaofu quickly explained.

“Oh, I see. Hurry up and pump then. Pump harder!” Yushu encouraged. “I’m hungry! Yao Yao said that if it’s still not done, we should get someone else to do the barbecue!”