Three Shots to the Soul: Fighting from the Northeast to Hunan

My name is Liu Sanxiang. I was named that because I let out three thunderous farts when I was born. Later, people started calling me Liu Sanqiang, because when you shoot a Japanese soldier, you always have to put one more round in him. In the winter of 1938, the Japanese burned my village. My father fell in the courtyard, and my mother died by the stove. I grabbed my father’s old flintlock and went after them. Three shots, three Japanese soldiers dead. That was how I became a sniper in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. I’ve got a foul mouth, full of dirty jokes and crude slang. The more it hurts, the more I run my mouth; the worse things get, the more I joke around. I’ve never once said, “I think of you as a brother,” but whenever a comrade dies, I carve another notch into my rifle stock. Then I met Viper. He was the ace sniper of the Ghost Shadow Company. One shot killed Old Liu, who was always nagging about his steamed corn bread going cold. One shell blew Wang Xiaocao to bits, the man who always asked, “Is your home colder, or mine?” And in the end, even Instructor Ma, the only man I’d ever truly respected, fell to his gun. From the White Mountains and Black Waters of the Northeast to the green cotton fields of North China, and then to the muddy ponds of Hunan. For seven years, I chased him alone for seven thousand li. One comrade after another was gone. I went through rifle after rifle. The notches on my stock filled up, and half my hair turned white. Everyone thought I was dead. Even the army listed me as a deserter. No one knew I was still after him. On the eve of Japan’s surrender, in an abandoned temple, Viper and I finally stood face-to-face. There were only three bullets left in my gun. One for my father. One for my mother. The last one, for myself. This isn’t some epic tale of a hero. It’s just the story of a hunter who spent seven years collecting a blood debt.