Chapter 132: The Crazy Foreigner

After those individuals went into hiding, Pidan kept searching with his binoculars. He checked several times, but they remained hunkered down behind the trees, not moving an inch, leaving Chu Feng with no clear angle for a shot.

"Pidan, you should know how to use a rifle. Take this and look for an opening to fire. I’ll go down and flank them; let’s try to round them all up at once."

Chu Feng tossed the sniper rifle to Pidan. With a single leap, he sprang onto another tree. Moving fluidly from branch to branch, he reached the tree where the Caucasian man had fallen. From this vantage point, he spotted the three foreigners huddled behind the trees, all of them too terrified to show their faces.

Chu Feng slid silently down from the tree and approached one of the men—a Black man. Before the man could react, Chu Feng delivered a sharp chop to his neck, knocking him unconscious instantly. To prevent the sound of a body hitting the ground from alerting the others, Chu Feng caught him and propped him against the trunk.

He crept toward the next man. His footsteps were so light they made no sound at all. The foreigner was shivering behind his tree. Suddenly, a mischievous idea flashed through Chu Feng’s mind. He changed his approach, abandoning the stealthy path to walk directly toward the man from the front.

"Bert, are you alright?" one of the others suddenly shouted. Chu Feng gauged the source of the voice; it was just to his front left.

He continued his leisurely pace. As he neared the man, Chu Feng suddenly lunged forward and pulled a hideous face.

"Aah!" The man, convinced he had seen a ghost, screamed in terror and fainted on the spot.

The shout alerted his companion, who scrambled to run away. But there was no outrunning Chu Feng; he was overtaken in two strides. Chu Feng delivered another quick chop to the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious as well. After searching the men, Chu Feng found no tools, only a few passports.

Chu Feng flashed his flashlight toward Pidan, who was still in the tree, signaling him to call the police to take these foreigners into custody.

Seeing the signal, Pidan dialed the authorities. Before long, officers from the Songshan police station arrived at the foot of the mountain and took the foreigners away. Chu Feng breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't expected the mission to be completed so quickly, nor that these "international thieves" would turn out to be so amateurish.

Chu Feng and Pidan returned to the Shaolin Temple. They had intended to return to their quarters, but considering it wasn't appropriate for two men to share a room with a woman, they skipped it and simply slept in a hall where the monks usually chanted.

The next morning, they were awakened by the sound of chanting. They rose to find the monks surrounding them, reciting the Diamond Sutra. After the prayers, Chu Feng and the others shared a vegetarian meal with Master Yuanjue. Following breakfast, Chu Feng bid the master farewell, preparing to return to the capital.

The sarira had already merged with Chu Feng’s body. Master Yuanjue did not try to keep him at the temple to become a monk, but simply urged him to perform more good deeds in the future.

After saying goodbye to Master Yuanjue, Chu Feng, Pidan, and Ziyan headed down the mountain. A few steps later, they ran into the police officers who had taken the foreigners the night before.

"Just the people we were looking for! What about their passports? It turns out these foreigners came to Shaolin to learn kung fu; they never expected to get beaten up by you."

The police explained the situation and the true identities of the men. Chu Feng, Pidan, and Ziyan couldn't help but burst into laughter.

It turned out that these foreigners had frequently seen Chinese martial arts on television and were deeply enamored with them. Upon arriving in China, they were told that real kung fu could be learned at the Shaolin Temple, so they set out to find it. They reached Zhongyuan City after dark and, inspired by what they’d seen on TV, donned black clothes and tried to sneak over the temple walls, thinking it would move the monks and inspire them to teach them.

"I finally understand why there are so few foreigners left," Pidan said, clutching his stomach in laughter. "If this were back home, they probably would have been shot on sight." He never imagined their obsession with Shaolin kung fu would lead them to play "black-clad ninjas" climbing walls in the middle of the night.

Chu Feng felt these men must have had their brains squeezed by a door—who else would be crazy enough to dress in black and try to scale the walls of the Shaolin Temple in the dead of night? He handed the passports to the police and accompanied them to the hospital to check on the foreigner who had been wounded by the tranquilizer dart.

The man shot in the leg was receiving treatment at the Zhongyuan People’s Hospital, and the projectile had been removed. None of them had ever expected to be "shot" while visiting Shaolin at night.

Chu Feng treated the injured man’s wound and massaged the necks of the two he had knocked out; as for the one who had fainted from fright, there was little he could do. The police sternly lectured the group, telling them that if they wanted to learn kung fu, they should come during the day, stay at a hotel, and visit at a proper hour.

Looking at the foreigners, Chu Feng figured they likely wouldn't dare return to the Shaolin Temple; they were clearly traumatized. After leaving the hospital, the group didn't rush back to the capital. The real international thieves were still at large, and Chu Feng’s mission wasn't finished.

"Where was the intelligence report saying those thieves were hiding?" Chu Feng asked, wanting to analyze whether they might still be in the vicinity.

"A luxury international hotel two kilometers from mine. The National Security Bureau spotted them there, but by the time we moved in to make the arrests, they had already fled."

Pidan pointed out the hotel’s location on a mobile map. It was far more opulent than Pidan’s own establishment and one of the premier hotels in Zhongyuan City.

"Let’s get something to eat first, then we’ll head over to check out that hotel. Find a local officer and have them send someone to accompany us."

It was past noon, and having missed breakfast, Chu Feng’s stomach was growling. Pidan quickly ordered some food, and after finishing their meal, the three of them drove straight to the hotel.