My hometown is far away in Moscow.

033 Katyusha Roar

The one who shouted was a Russian woman wearing an apron. Her exact age was hard to tell, but she was probably between 40 and 60. She was taller than Yu Feifei and shorter than Yan Zhiwen. She had big eyes, a big mouth, and a big head, with a not-too-thick head of golden hair. Her body seemed to have expanded six times, and her waistline was definitely larger than her height. She was as strong as a small elephant.

Her arms resembled Hu Yi's legs, and her thighs resembled Lu Tao's waist. Perhaps due to excessive fat accumulation under her arms, they could not lie close to her body when hanging down. Instead, they were held at a 30-degree angle to her torso, making her arms appear thick and short. She could not touch her navel with her outstretched hands.

The middle-aged woman, like a giant emperor penguin, rushed into the crowd with a "thump, thump, thump" sound. The two groups who had been fighting earlier quickly moved aside to make way for her. She went straight to Black Hair, grabbed him like a chick, and slapped him hard on the back of the head with her large, bear-paw-like hand.

Blackie was slapped until he was dizzy and about to retaliate when the old woman opened her blood-red mouth and roared at him like a Katyusha rocket launcher at full power: "What's wrong with you! What time is it?! You're already this drunk! Are you out of your mind?! You're so drunk you shouldn't be at home! You suddenly pop out here and embarrass yourself! Luckily I saw you upstairs! Otherwise, I don't know how much you would have gloated over you! Look at your shameless behavior! You even touched that girl's breasts! You deserve to be beaten! Get back home right now! Get out now!"

The woman had an exceptionally strong voice, and her pronunciation was awe-inspiring. Each word she uttered was like a rocket exploding on the black-haired man's face, startling him so much that he stumbled backward, and his previous arrogance vanished instantly.

The woman finished spitting out all her ammunition in one go, then reached out her sleeve to wipe the spit she had sprayed on Blackie's face. Blackie instinctively backed away, stiffening his neck in anger, his face full of resentment but unable to speak out, yet he refused to leave, just standing there awkwardly muttering to himself.

Xu Qiang quickly ran to the two of them and smiled generously at Hei Mao: "Hey, friend, I believe what happened today was just a misunderstanding. Our dorms are nearby, so we can be considered neighbors. I hope we can get along well in the future." As he spoke, he extended his right hand in front of Hei Mao.

Black Hair, now sober, looked up at the sky with a bitter expression, then glanced at the glaring old woman beside him. Reluctantly, he reached out and shook hands with Xu Qiang, then turned and left with his head down. The other Russian children also scattered under the old woman's urging.

The Chinese students breathed a sigh of relief and gave the woman grateful looks. Yan Zhiwen swaggered over, wanting to say a few polite words, but unexpectedly, the woman slapped him on the back of the head: "You guys get out of here too!"

"What are you doing?!" Yan Zhiwen saw stars before his eyes after being slapped, and scratched the back of his head, looking aggrieved. "They provoked us first, we were just defending ourselves!"

"I don't care!" The middle-aged woman stood with her hands on her hips, spitting menacingly at Yan Zhiwen. "I don't know any of you! Go home! Don't come here to fight again!"

"Damn it, are you even being reasonable..." Yan Zhiwen wanted to say more, but the woman turned and walked away. Yan Zhiwen could only reach out to tidy his messed-up hair, annoyed, "Damn it, I don't like arguing with old women. If it were a man, I would have—"

Lu Tao walked over and grabbed him with a grin: "Forget it, look at her arms and legs, even if you tied them together, they wouldn't be a match for her."

"That's true." Yan Zhiwen laughed heartily. "Let's go home for dinner!"

Although the fight just now only lasted a short time and neither side gained much advantage, and Peng Song even had some bruises on his face, they had successfully rescued Li Baoqing and Yu Feifei. Everyone was in a good mood and praised each other's fighting prowess all the way back to the dormitory.

The other preparatory students returned to their rooms, while Yu Feifei was invited by Xu Qiang and others to Yan Zhiwen's room for a meal to calm her nerves. Yan Zhiwen praised her with admiration, "I didn't expect Feifei to be so capable. That three-hit combo you gave Black Hair—a foot stomp, a groin kick, and a pot-swinging—tsk tsk, really impressive!"

Everyone chimed in, and Xu Qiang smiled and asked, "Has Feifei practiced self-defense?"

Yu Feifei smiled shyly: "No, my boyfriend taught me this before, but I've never used it before. I just remembered it in a hurry, and I didn't expect it to be so useful."

"Your boyfriend?" The boys were quite surprised. "Why have you never mentioned him before?"

"Hey, what's there to mention?" Yu Feifei rubbed her hands awkwardly. "I call him twice a month, and each call lasts no more than ten minutes. I bet he's almost forgotten about me."

"Oh, so you had a master who taught you." Peng Songqian chuckled twice. "I thought you'd received Brother Tao's true teachings. I heard Brother Tao won against the skinheads last time by grabbing their groin..."

Everyone looked at Lu Tao, only to see that his face was not good, and he looked somewhat depressed. Peng Song quickly shut his mouth. Lu Tao noticed that everyone was staring at him and forced a smile: "Feifei is a girl, and it's not unreasonable for her to do anything in self-defense. I am a soldier, after all, and being forced to use such despicable tactics is really... really... sigh, it makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it."

Everyone fell silent. Hu Yi comforted him, "Brother Tao, there's no need to think so much. You were just defending yourself. The other side was outnumbered and even more despicable. Whatever means you used were legitimate. You couldn't just sit and wait to die, could you?"

Lu Tao nodded without saying a word, while Li Baoqing grinned and said, "Old Hu is right. Besides, there's nothing wrong with grabbing someone's crotch. When I was a kid, I watched a movie called 'Eagle Claw Iron Shirt,' in which the protagonist defeated the final villain by using his egg-crushing skills."

Lu Tao smiled slightly, seemingly somewhat relieved. Yan Zhiwen quickly changed the subject: "Today we finally had a fight with the Russians, but unfortunately not the skinheads."

Xu Qiang shook his head and laughed, "We're lucky. If we had really run into the skinheads, it wouldn't have been so simple."

Hu Yi asked curiously, "Brother Qiang, have you ever encountered skinheads?"

"Of course, the most we ever encountered was thirteen skinheads between the two of us."

"So many?!" Li Baoqing stuck out his tongue. "Then how did you escape?"

"I didn't run away. The Chinese guy I was with at the time was a black belt in Taekwondo, and he took down eleven of the other guys by himself."

"One against eleven?! What about the other two?"

"They ran away."

"Wow!" Hu Yi and the others exclaimed in disbelief, "That guy is too amazing!"

"He was really fierce. I heard he practices combat taekwondo, which focuses on real combat. He can basically take down one person at a time. It only took him about half a minute to take down everyone. I was standing next to him and didn't even see what happened." Xu Qiang put down his chopsticks, reached up and smoothed his braid behind his head and laughed. "That incident was quite sensational at the time. The local Chinese weekly magazine 'Lu Xun' even reported on it. Zhiwen was influenced by him to start practicing taekwondo."

"That's awesome! That's so cool!" Li Baoqing's eyes lit up, his face full of longing. "What kind of javelin did I practice back then? I should have learned taekwondo or sanda or something, and fuck those skinheads!"

"Your physical foundation is quite good, but martial arts training requires cultivating one's character, which takes time and effort. Besides, violence is never the best way to solve problems." Xu Qiang smiled at him. "I advise you to give up the idea of ​​using violence to fight violence. Hearing other people's stories may seem impressive, but when it comes to your own situation, it might not be so fun."

Hu Yi snapped out of his reverie of the black belt fighting the skinheads alone and asked thoughtfully, "Brother Qiang, were these troublemaking Russians today similar to the skinheads?"

Xu Qiang pondered for a moment and replied, "They share some similarities in their views, but they are mostly ordinary kids who have been instigated by that black-haired guy. They are not as extreme as the skinheads yet, but it's hard to say what will happen in the future. Speaking of which, that black-haired guy should also belong to a minority group that is hostile to the skinheads in Russia, but he vents the same emotions on us foreigners."

Hu Yi found it hard to understand: "I heard that skinheads worship Hitler, that's unbelievable, completely unimaginable. The Soviet Union only collapsed a few years ago, how could such things appear?"

"Skinheads are a foreign phenomenon, not unique to Russia. I can't explain the deeper reasons, but it's said that many famous British football hooligans are skinheads." Xu Qiang clasped his hands together and hugged one knee. "The skinheads who are causing the most trouble on the streets of Moscow right now are about your age. They were born during the most decadent period of the former Soviet Union, experienced the social upheaval brought about by the collapse of the country in their childhood, and grew up in a terrible economic environment. They are easily dissatisfied with the things around them and are naturally susceptible to the influence of extremist ideologies. In addition, some people with ulterior motives support and exploit them, which eventually made things uncontrollable, leaving this cancer in Russia."

Hu Yi and Li Baoqing listened with a mixture of understanding and confusion, but they felt that what Xu Qiang said was very profound and seemed to make a lot of sense, so they kept nodding.

"The Russian government is gradually increasing its crackdown on them, but it's unlikely to be effective in the short term." Xu Qiang sighed slightly and said seriously, "It's almost April. Zhiwen and Xiao Lu have probably reminded you more than once that April 20th is Hitler's birthday every year, and skinheads from other cities come to Moscow to hold rallies in the days before and after that. Schools will give foreign students a holiday for security reasons. Based on experience, their activities will gradually increase recently, and the streets may be dangerous. You need to be extra careful, and it's best to stay home as much as possible."

Although Xu Qiang gave earnest and heartfelt advice, most of the preparatory students were no longer as afraid of skinheads as they had been when they first arrived in Russia. In the past six months, they had seen and heard too many things that seemed unbelievable to their friends back home, and living in that tense atmosphere every day, their initially taut nerves had gradually relaxed.

Besides, no matter how bad the surrounding environment is, life still has to go on. For these eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds, staying at home during the cold winter is barely tolerable, but with spring approaching, being cooped up at home like a stuffy can after class is really unpleasant. Especially for the bold and active like Hu Yi, they all feel like they've grown hair on their bodies, always looking for an opportunity to go out for a stroll nearby and release the restless youthful energy within them.

However, there's only so much around the school and dormitory, and it's in the middle of nowhere, so wandering around every day isn't very interesting. Two weeks later, Hu Yi planned to find some time to go out and go online to contact his friends back home.