Chapter 183 Wake Up
The lanky man stepped into the cave, still wearing that same devil-may-care expression.
“Master Wang is doing just fine, isn’t he? Some are sleeping, some have wandered off, and he just dumps these bastards in here and calls it a day?”
He laughed as he spoke, then casually raised his foot and kicked Master Wang square in the stomach.
The short, pudgy man’s whole body jerked three times, like a fat pig whose tail had just been stepped on. My heart jumped along with him. Thank goodness it had been Lian who knocked him out earlier. Even after taking a kick like that, Master Wang still didn’t wake up.
I couldn’t help wiping away a bead of sweat.
Was this skinny bastard genuinely stupid? Or was he testing us, deliberately playing the fool?
When he saw that Master Wang still hadn’t stirred, he clicked his tongue and shrugged it off, then headed straight for the cell holding the Golden Armored Guards.
My heart tightened. Lian and Nanguan Bo tensed at the same time, though their breathing remained unnervingly steady.
The lanky man pulled a ring of keys from inside his robe and gave it a shake.
My heart instantly sank.
Damn it. He had keys too?!
If he came over to our side, we’d be exposed on the spot!
He inserted a key into the lock and gave it a gentle twist.
Click.
The door swung open.
He squatted down and started slapping the Golden Armored Guards left and right, hard enough to make their faces crack with sound.
Smack, smack, smack, smack—
Every slap made my heart clench.
And yet not one of those Golden Armored Guards so much as groaned. They lay there as lifeless as corpses.
Apparently satisfied with himself, the lanky man burst into laughter twice, as though he had just won a fortune at cards.
I swallowed the words that were burning inside me:
What the hell is wrong with this guy?!
After finishing his little performance, he turned around and glanced toward our side.
I nearly had a heart attack.
But then he exclaimed in a strange, theatrical voice:
“Huh? How come there are so many handsome young men lying over here? Oh-ho… what a rare sight… what a shame… hahahahaha…”
He laughed like something had gone seriously wrong inside his head, yet he made no move toward us.
I secretly let out a long breath of relief. My legs had practically gone weak.
He rolled his shoulders and walked out of the cave.
I immediately nudged Lian with my elbow, then secretly kicked my brother.
“Ask you two—what do we do now?”
Lian ignored me completely. He was already examining Hua and the others, checking each of them from head to toe.
My brother also reached inside his robe and pulled out a small porcelain snuff bottle. I recognized it at once as one of the special bottles made by the Nanguan family. What was inside it, though—something for clearing headaches, detoxifying, or killing parasites—I had absolutely no idea.
He pinched the bottle between his fingers and gently waved it beneath the noses of the three unconscious men.
Just then—
Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the cave.
The lanky man… was back!
We hurriedly dropped back into position. I barely had time to close my eyes and could only leave them half-open.
This time, the lanky man was carrying a huge bundle of firewood and leaves. He casually tossed piles of them beside both cell doors, then stacked several more heaps on the ground.
The instant I saw what he was doing, my toes went cold.
Damn it.
He was going to set the place on fire!
He was going to burn all of us alive!
Sure enough, he pulled out a fire striker and struck it.
Fssst.
A flame sprang to life.
He first lit a pile near the Golden Armored Guards, then hummed a little tune as he moved over to set fire to the pile on our side.
I couldn't take it anymore and blurted out:
“Hey—!”
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Smack!
A soft cord shot through the air and slammed straight into the iron bars of our cell, knocking them open.
Lian had already launched himself out like a hawk bursting from its nest. The cord wrapped around the lanky man’s wrist in a single loop, only for the man to yank it back with tremendous force.
Nanguan Bo followed close behind. He sprang up in one fluid motion and drove a fist straight toward the man’s ribs.
Unfortunately, the cave was too narrow for either of them to fight properly.
And the lanky man fought like a madman. His close-quarters technique was strange and vicious, and his strength was absurd. Within just a few exchanges, he actually forced both Lian and Nanguan Bo to retreat half a step.
The sound of their movements reverberated through the stone chamber.
I barely had time to watch. I could only desperately shake Hua and the others by the shoulders.
“Hey! Wake up! Wake up!! If you don't wake up now, you're going to become roast meat!!”
With a roar, the flames surged upward.
A wave of heat struck my face. My eyebrows nearly curled from the heat.
And then—
The lanky man suddenly let out a strange cry and bolted toward the cave entrance.
Lian immediately gave chase.
Nanguan Bo was about to follow, but then he glanced back at me.
That look said it all:
“My little brother is more important than that lunatic.”
He gritted his teeth, turned back, grabbed my hand, and started dragging me outside.
I refused to let go.
“Hua and the others haven't woken up! We can't leave them behind!”
Nanguan Bo frowned.
“But we can't carry three people out.”
I was frantic, like a giant monkey clinging to a tree.
Just then—
A soft footstep sounded.
Lian… had actually come back.
And he was carrying a huge pot of milk tea in both hands!
The men outside had already ladled out quite a bit, but the pot was still large and generously filled.
Without saying a word, Lian raised it and tipped it over, pouring a huge amount of milk tea onto the fire.
Whoosh—
The flames hissed violently and immediately shrank by half.
He changed his angle and poured the remaining hot milk tea over another pile of burning wood.
The sweet smell of milk tea mixed with scorched ash, making my eyes water.
At last, most of the flames had been extinguished. Nanguan Bo stamped out the remaining embers.
The cave fell dark again. The one feeble torch still flickered against the wall, illuminating three faces.
Me: panting as though I had just been hauled out of the bottom of a river.
My brother: half his face blackened with soot.
Lian: sleeves completely soaked, expression absurdly calm.
I took a huge breath.
“…Why did you come back?”
Lian wiped his face.
“Because there was still milk tea left.”
I…
He actually had a point.
I collapsed against the wall, completely drained, with the sickly sweet smell of milk tea filling my nose.
Just then—
“Cough, cough… Who burned whatever they were cooking?”
A terribly weak voice drifted out, accompanied by a strangely unmistakable tone of annoyance.
It took me a moment to process it.
My brother and Lian exchanged a glance.
The next instant—
The cell on Hua’s side erupted with a clatter of movement.
The three of them had finally woken up.
Hua was the first to grunt and roll himself up from the floor. He felt around blindly and muttered:
“What happened? Who started the fire? Why didn't anyone call me over to warm myself by it? …Hmm? What smells so good… Milk tea?”
He tore off the black cloth covering his eyes. His eyes hadn't even opened yet, but his nose had already perked up.
“Hey, hey, who made the milk tea? Why didn't you call me—!”
He stopped halfway through the sentence when he finally realized he was sitting in a cell, with three people sitting neatly beside him and Master Wang unconscious nearby.
He froze.
Three seconds passed.
Then he asked very quietly:
“…Is it morning already?”
I almost burst out laughing.
Hua Xiang also woke up beside him, moving slowly, as though he had just crawled out of a coffin.
“Mm… Is it daylight? …Why are my ankles so light? …I remember being tied up tight.”
And then there was Mu Cangli.
His first words after getting up were:
“Who took off my shoes?!”
Three enormous black lines appeared across my forehead.
“You three, shut up,” I said irritably. “It's not morning. You didn't start the fire. You didn't make the milk tea. You nearly got roasted alive.”
Hua blinked and looked at the remnants of rope around his feet.
“Big Brother, did you cut these?”
Nanguan Bo coughed.
“…Probably.”
Hua Xiang looked at the open cell door and exclaimed:
“We've been rescued? Then why didn't you wake us up sooner?!”
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.
“You slept like dead pigs. We couldn't wake you.”
Mu Cangli added:
“I'd say even thunder wouldn't have woken you.”
Hua patted his chest and muttered:
“Good grief. I thought someone had specially made milk tea to comfort us…”
I took a deep breath.
We nearly ended up as ashes at the bottom of a cooking pot, and you're talking about being comforted.
After the three of them babbled nonsense for a while, they finally regained their senses. The knot of anxiety in my chest loosened by half, so I immediately turned to Lian.
“What about that lanky guy? Didn't you chase after him?”
Lian answered calmly:
“He ran fast.”
Nanguan Bo frowned.
“You didn't catch him?”
Lian shook his head.
“Had to put out the fire.”
He pointed at the piles of firewood on the ground, now thoroughly soaked, speaking with the same calm tone he might have used after watering flowers in a courtyard rather than extinguishing a raging fire.
“If I hadn't come back, all of you would be ashes.”
I had no answer.
Lian continued:
“That man's footwork was strange, and his qinggong was fast. I don't know where he has gone for now.”
I shuddered.
“Then doesn't that mean… we've lost the trail again?!”
The cave fell silent for a moment.
Then Lian added, almost casually:
“Don't worry.”
He removed a tiny porcelain container, no bigger than a fingernail, from his waist and flicked it lightly.
It was completely empty.
“I already planted the Blood Lotus Cult's ‘Tracker Worm’ on him.”
I stared at him.
“…The what?”