I felt a surge of excitement. Could there be a car passing by? If so, maybe I could find someone who knew the way and could give me a ride to the Nashe tribe. After waiting for a while, a gray jeep sped toward me. I quickly waved my hands and called out loudly, “Hey—!”
The driver of the gray jeep clearly noticed me, slowing down before coming to a stop in front of me. Camping gear, including tents, was strapped to the roof—perhaps they were travelers on a road trip. I tried to peer through the windshield, but the glare from the snow was too strong, obscuring the person’s face.
Noticing that the car had stopped but neither the window rolled down nor the door opened, and no greeting came from inside, I figured the occupants were cautious, perhaps wary of encountering a threat. To reassure them, I unfastened my robe, revealing that I wasn’t concealing any weapons.
“I’m here for a trip, but I got lost. Would it be convenient for you to give me a ride?”
The gray jeep remained quietly parked there, with the windows still rolled up and the doors unopened. The headlights, however, kept shining brightly on me, as if the person inside were carefully scrutinizing me.
A chill of unease spread through me. Of course, I wasn’t a criminal… but what if the people inside weren’t good either? I was alone in the wilderness, dressed in expensive clothing, with no way to defend myself—and now they knew that too…
I shouldn’t be this unlucky, right?
As I thought this, I instinctively took a step back into the woods. At that moment, the door of the gray jeep suddenly opened, and a tall man in a yellow jacket and windproof hat jumped out. At the same time, there was a commotion from inside the car, followed by a desperate scream: “Qin Ran Ah Lang, run! They’re bad people, ah, umm!”
I was shocked—why did it sound like… Saibang’s voice?
As the man in yellow advanced toward me, I grabbed a stone and hurled it at him with all my strength. However, he dodged it effortlessly and, with the speed of a sprinter, lunged straight at me. Before I could react, his body slammed into mine, sending me flying backward and crashing hard into the snow.
Pain shot through my ribs, and my vision blurred with stars. Before I could get up, the man in yellow dropped to his knees, pinning me down with my arms trapped at my sides. Suddenly, with a sharp whoosh, a dark shadow struck the snow—just a centimeter from my temple, right beside my ear.
That was an arrow.
“Who are you? Are you here to rob?” I asked, my teeth chattering. I stared up at the man in yellow, but his face was hidden behind a windproof mask and goggles. He didn’t answer but pulled my hands to my head and tied them up with ropes. He put his gloved hands into my clothes and fumbled around my body, as if to confirm that I really had no weapons before pulling his hands out. I shivered and stared at him. As if he found my expression funny, the man in yellow tilted his head, suddenly pinched my chin, and laughed.
I gritted my teeth secretly. Is this robber flirting with me? Do I look like a girl?
“A man who looks like a fox—but even more good-looking than in the photo.”
When I heard him say this, I was stunned.
“Photo? What photo? Do you know me?”
“Hey, Brother Guman, what are you doing there? Are you having s*x outdoors?”
“Damn you.” The man in yellow responded to his accomplice with a smile, pulled out the arrow next to his feet, dragged me up from the ground, and walked towards the gray jeep.
A man in a red jacket was half-crouched on the car frame. Unlike the other guy, he wasn’t wearing goggles, leaving his eyes exposed. Though he had the face of a teenager, his low-set brow cast shadows over his gaze, and a scar at the corner of his eye added a fierce edge to his expression—like a leopard poised to strike.
I was shoved into the back of the car, where the seats had been removed, creating a space large enough to fit four people. The area was cluttered with various items, and among them, Saibang was tied up, curled up among the sundries. There were several bruises on his handsome young face, and his clothes were torn. It was obvious that he had suffered a lot.
As soon as he saw me, he started to moan and his eyes widened.
“Saibang!” I hurried over, cradling his head in my hands, and glared at the man in yellow who squeezed in. “How dare you use such cruel methods on a child? Are you even human?”
“Who told him to be disobedient? He’s clearly a mountain dweller from this area. Who would believe he went out to pick mushrooms and got lost on the way back? Wouldn’t it be better if he just led the way?” The man in yellow removed his windproof glasses, revealing a pair of dark eyes that gleamed with a sharp, menacing look.
“Lead the way?” I frowned. Are these people looking for the Nashe tribe?
What are they doing? What do they want to do in the Nashe tribe?
I overheard them mention the photo… they actually recognized me too…
I was full of doubts, but he didn’t answer and just took out his cell phone.
“Hey, boss, we found the person you were looking for. It wasn’t easy to track him down. He ran into me like a rabbit on the way. Isn’t this a coincidence?”
“He’s fine.” The man in yellow said, and suddenly grabbed my face. His thumb scratched the corner of my broken and bleeding mouth. I bit his hand hard. He hissed and raised his hand to slap me, but he was hesitant and held back.
“I promise, I promise, I won’t touch him before you come.”
After hanging up the phone, he stared at me: “Let go. Otherwise I will beat this kid.”
I gritted my teeth, opened my mouth, and spat out the dust on his hands.
“Finding a man to serve as the ghost partner for his son is quite unusual. Hey, are you the one on top or the below one?” Another voice interrupted—it was the young man in red speaking.
I stared at them, silent, a cold shiver running down my spine. From their earlier conversation, it seemed their “boss” had been searching for me, and they even knew my sexual orientation… which meant they’d done some investigation. But what did “ghost partner” mean? And what son were they talking about?
What exactly do they want to do?
I thought for a while, trying to recall if I had any past grudges with someone, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
“You are here for me, right? Whatever your purpose is, it should have nothing to do with this child. Just let him go. I will cooperate with you in whatever you want.”
“Sorry, finding you is just one of our tasks.” The man in yellow smiled and glanced at Saibang. “This kid is our navigation, we can’t let him go.”
“Are you… looking for their village?” I basically confirmed my guess, glanced at Saibang, and then looked at the two men.
The man in yellow didn’t say anything and raised his hand to take off his windproof mask. My heart sank, and I subconsciously lowered my eyelids and dared not look at his face, but I remembered the phone call he had just made.
—The “big boss” wants me to be safe and sound, so he doesn’t dare to silence me.
I lifted my eyelids, and a rugged, chiseled face came into view.
The man called Brother Guman had a bronze complexion, beard, distinct facial features, and deep brows and eyes, as if he had mixed blood from Southeast Asia. His hair was tied into a bun on top of his head with a wooden hairpin passed through it, and he wore a string of Buddhist beads around his neck. Combined with his strange and unfamiliar accent, I had a hunch that he was not from Jiangcheng.
Noticing me staring at him, he didn’t seem bothered at all. He flicked open his lighter with a “click” and lit a cigarette, but instead of smoking it himself, he handed it to me.
I hesitated for a moment and bit the cigarette butt.
This man was quite polite to me, so there was no need for me to make things difficult for myself.
The man in yellow lit the cigarette. I took a puff and said slowly, “Let the kid go. I know how to get to their village. I can lead the way.”
“Ugh!” Saibang protested.
“Tsk—” The young man in red sneered. “You don’t even try to make your lies sound convincing. Weren’t you just claiming to be lost? A city boy like you knowing the way? If that were the case, you wouldn’t have run straight into our trap like a rabbit as soon as you saw our car.”
This lie really was full of holes. I pressed my split lip together, at a loss for words.
Who are you calling a rabbit…
The man in the yellow jacket, called Brother Guman, didn’t speak to me again. After finishing the cigarette, he shut the trunk door, returned to the driver’s seat, turned the car around, and drove back in the direction they had come from.
The young man in red, however, crossed his arms and leaned back against the seat opposite me, closing his eyes to rest.
I felt an extreme sense of unease and couldn’t help but kick his foot. “Hey, kid, can you at least give me some information? Why is your boss looking for me? You guys didn’t happen to be following me since I left the city, did you?”
“Who are you calling a kid?” The young man in red opened his eyes and glared at me, his fierce gaze intensified by the scar at the corner of his eye, making him look even more intimidating.
“Fine.” I nodded. “Brother, I’ll call you brother, okay?”
He stared at me, raising an eyebrow. The corners of his lips seemed to curl up beneath his mask, and a flicker of mockery appeared in his eyes. “You’ll understand why we’re looking for you once you meet him. What’s the rush? You still haven’t answered my question.”
I rolled my eyes, refusing to entertain him.
Making fun of someone’s sexual orientation—this brat was downright vile.
“You’ve got quite a delicate face—must be the one on the bottom, huh?”
“I’ve had enough of this…” I couldn’t hold back anymore and lifted my leg to kick him, but the brat quickly pressed down on my knee, causing my leg bone to ache painfully, making me grunt in discomfort.
“Ah Ta!” The voice of the man in yellow came from the front. “You’re trying to mess with the boss’s people? Are you tired of living?”
“Eh, what’s this?” He grabbed my ankle and pulled up my pant leg.
At the sight of something on my ankle, I couldn’t help but widen my eyes.
—On my ankles, there were clearly two rings made of intertwined tree vines.
At first glance, they resembled shackles.
Could this… be something that Tunshe Nalin left for me? Is it some kind of parting gift?
Giving a man a pair of anklets is quite unique… and also very ambiguous.
Why did he throw me by the side of the road and then give me this thing?
I was puzzled, sensing that Tunshe Nalin truly had an unpredictable personality. When I looked up, the young man in red was staring at my anklets with a look of shock, as if he’d seen a ghost. He quickly rolled up his sleeve and grabbed my ankle.
“What are you doing?” I was startled by his sudden action and tried to pull my foot back, but my knee was pinned down, leaving me unable to move. I noticed the black tattoo on his arm, which looked like tadpole-like characters in Thai script alongside a snake. I was momentarily stunned. Then, I saw him take two yellow diamond-shaped paper slips from his chest, spit a mouthful of blood, and with a loud slap, press them onto my anklets, as though sealing something. I was dumbfounded, unable to comprehend his actions. “Are you crazy…?”
Before I could finish speaking, with a whoosh, the two talismans spontaneously ignited without any fire. I was so startled that I screamed, but before I could even feel the heat on my skin, the talismans turned to ashes. However, the anklet made of tree vines remained completely unharmed, not even scorched.
“Where did you get these anklets?” The young man in red, called Ah Ta, raised his head and stared at me. The scar at the corner of his eye slowly split open, oozing a thin line of blood.
“You… there’s blood coming from the corner of your eye.” I pointed it out.
“I want to know where you got these anklets!” He grabbed my collar, his eyes twitching slightly. “If you don’t want to die, tell us now, maybe we can still save you.”
“Save, save what?” I retracted my legs, “Psycho…”
“Ah Ta, what’s wrong?” Brother Guman’s voice came from the front.
Ah Ta covered his eyes, seemingly unable to bear the pain, and hissed, “He has strange things on him… It’s very powerful and might affect the boss’s ability to perform the ghost marriage. Brother Guman, come and deal with it. Ah, damn it, it hurts so much!”
