Otaku Translation: Honey Badger's Streaming Life C148

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Chapter 148: Shooting Stars

In keeping with the principle of seeing a performance through to the end, Gu Lang endured yet another beating.

Of course, Wang Ping hadn’t put much effort into it—just enough to keep the livestream audience from getting suspicious. Still, Gu Lang remained utterly miserable, continuing to explain himself even as they sat down for dinner.

By the time the clock struck eight and prime-time TV dramas began airing, the sky over the plateau had finally darkened.

In a sheltered hollow to the south, a certain honey badger sat scowling, cradling a stainless steel bowl nearly the size of his head. He slurped noisily at the fragrant fish soup inside.

Though the duck had flown away, the small fish snatched from its beak remained.

However, a palm-sized fish wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy Wang Ping, let alone feed both him and Gu Lang. So after boiling two packs of instant noodles mixed with luncheon meat purchased in Lhasa, Gu Lang prepared a separate meal for Wang Ping, simmering the tiny fish in a pot.

Unfortunately, the fish was so small and the water too plentiful, turning what was supposed to be braised fish into more of a fish broth.

But Wang Ping’s scowl wasn’t due to this culinary mishap.

At that moment, despite the absence of a campfire, the campsite was bathed in bright light. Gu Lang had pulled out an entire row of light stands from the trunk and mounted them on the roof of the SUV. Where a campfire should have been, he’d set up a portable gas stove connected to a gas canister, transforming wilderness survival into something resembling a suburban picnic.

The final straw? From beneath the rear seats, he produced an inflatable lounge chair typically used in pools. After inflating it with a foot pump, he sprawled out on it with smug satisfaction.

“For fuck’s sake… Why didn’t you just bring your whole damn house?” Wang Ping thought bitterly. The car was packed with all sorts of bizarre items Gu Lang had secretly loaded without his knowledge. With all that space, couldn’t he have brought more food instead?

Currently, Wang Ping perched on a small folding stool, cradling his steel bowl, his face exuding resignation as he watched Gu Lang regale the camera with tales of their adventure. Surprisingly, this unconventional take on outdoor living left many viewers feeling inspired.

To the average person, the idea of wilderness survival seemed distant primarily because of its harshness. But Gu Lang’s livestream made some realize that if even a slacker like him could enjoy life on the plateau, perhaps they too could venture outdoors.

“Misleading the masses…” Wang Ping shook his head and sighed.

Several hundred meters away, the wind picked up over the lake, sending waves lapping rhythmically against the shore.

“I wonder where the team is now…” Setting down his bowl, Wang Ping sighed softly.

Five hundred kilometers away, not far from Provincial Road 205, stood a perpetually snow-capped mountain. At its base, two canvas tents were pitched side by side, their edges weighted down with stones and earth. Steel cables anchored them firmly to the ground. On either side of the tents leaned several battered bicycles.

Opposite the tents, near the mountainside, burned a campfire. Several figures sat around it, speaking quietly. The flickering firelight cast long shadows on the tent walls.

“Boss, what’s the deal with this mission?” Iru, who tended to blend into the background at night, sat closest to the fire, grumbling. “I get that the weapons are crap, but why don’t we even have a car? Hundreds of kilometers! You actually expect us to ride bikes? Fuck you, my legs are killing me!”

Luke sat a little further away, his face alternately lit and shadowed by the flames, looking grim. Hearing Iru’s complaints, he shook his head in exasperation. “Do you think we’re somewhere else? This is China! I’d love to get a car too, but tell me—where do we find one? We crossed the border illegally; our papers are useless. Be grateful we’ve got bikes.”

“So why did you pick such a distant starting point? Why not something closer?” Iru fired off questions in rapid succession, his words tumbling over each other. Sometimes the others worried he might pass out mid-sentence from lack of breath.

“Ha! Iru... If it were you, where would you cross the border?” Before Luke could respond, an Asian man sitting beside him chimed in, a mischievous grin on his face.

“Oh, Mr. Hee, are you trying to trick me again? Nice try!” Iru shot back, his large eyes gleaming in the darkness. “If it were me, I’d cross at Srinagar—it’s the closest straight-line distance to our target!”

“Is that so?” Park Yoo-hee suppressed a laugh, ignoring Iru’s casual address this time, and pressed on. “Then tell me, which direction is Srinagar?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Iru rolled his eyes dramatically, pointing southwest like a villain from Detective Conan. “It’s… uh…”

“Haha…”

The group erupted in laughter. Across the fire, a young girl wearing a baseball cap laughed so hard tears streamed down her face.

Iru’s finger indeed pointed toward Srinagar—but between Srinagar and China lay the Himalayas, the world’s most famous mountain range.

“Shit! You guys just love laughing at me!” Iru shouted indignantly.

Around the fire, everyone chuckled except for one person.

Anna sat in the shadows farthest from the flames, knees hugged to her chest, gazing up at the starlit sky.

Though it wasn’t yet midnight, the plateau’s sky was already dotted with countless stars. A shooting star streaked across the heavens, its tail blazing brightly.

“Shooting stars, please grant us success on this mission,” she whispered silently.

Wang Ping lowered his clasped paws, staring at the night sky as his thoughts wandered.

“Boss,” Gu Lang called out. Having finished the livestream, he’d just returned from washing the cooking gear by the lake. Standing by the car, he gestured toward the tent. “Time to sleep!”

“Sleep? Isn’t it a bit early?” Wang Ping stood up on the roof of the Jeep Wrangler, scratching his head, then saw Gu Lang motioning toward the tent he’d set up.

“No way, you expect me to sleep in the tent with you?” Wang Ping mentally scoffed, shaking his head firmly before pointing at the vehicle beneath him.

“Wait, you want to sleep in the car?” Gu Lang blinked, glancing back at his prized tent and then at the Wrangler, clearly baffled. “The tent is so comfortable—why sleep in the car?”

Wang Ping inwardly sneered.

“Do you think I’m as stupid as you? Sleeping in a tent without even lighting a fire? In the car, it’s quiet, has leather seats, and fucking air conditioning!”

Ignoring Gu Lang’s enthusiastic invitation, Wang Ping jumped down from the roof along the hood, opened the door, and climbed inside.

“Fine, fine, suit yourself. At least you can keep an eye on the car…” Gu Lang muttered, switching off the lights atop the SUV before heading back to the tent with a flashlight. Inside, he sighed at the hammock he’d specially hung for Wang Ping. “He really doesn’t know how to enjoy life…”

From the passenger seat, Wang Ping peered out the window with his night-vision eyes. Once Gu Lang disappeared into the tent, the honey badger rubbed his paws together, opened the dashboard drawer, and retrieved the tablet Gu Lang had given him to play with.

Inside the drawer lay a capacitive stylus, which Wang Ping nimbly grabbed. He tapped open Google Maps on the screen and entered a set of coordinates.

The map shifted, revealing a terrain of yellow-brown interspersed with patches of white.

After calculating the distance, Wang Ping tossed the stylus aside, reclined on the seat with the tablet in his arms, and sighed deeply.

“They’ve barely covered a tenth of the journey…”

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