Cai Qiong was so terrified she could barely run, her legs feeling weak. Still, she clenched her teeth and continued forward, though she was much slower than when she had started. The uncontrollable tension forced her to stop and pound her thighs before she could continue.
She had wanted to call Xu Qian, but they hadn’t exchanged contact information. Her only option was to call the police. If the people in Paigou Village hadn’t heard the gunshot, no one would know that sothing had gone wrong. By the ti the police arrived, it would be at least half an hour. Not to ntion the mountain climb, there was no way they would make it in ti.
Driven by a single, insistent thought, Cai Qiong forced her tense body to turn and run back toward the mountain.
When she got back to the spot, she was still about twenty ters away when she saw two figures lying on the ground. The sight startled her. Her view was partially obscured by the trees, making it difficult to see clearly. One of the n lay face down; he was hefty and didn’t look like Wang Jian. The other was covered in blood, lying face up.
"Wang Jian!"
Cai Qiong felt like an idiot for instinctively calling out his na. If the man on the ground is Wang Jian, doesn’t that an the one still alive is the bad guy? In that case, I’m surely dood. When she first t the two n, she hadn’t been in any state to analyze them, so now she was just guessing. But it’s too late for that. I’m already here. I ca back for Wang Jian, didn’t I?
"Wang Jian, are you okay?" Cai Qiong called out again, and this ti she heard a sound.
Not far from her side, the bushes rustled, and a figure erged.
Cai Qiong scread, her shriek piercing the woods. The sudden appearance of the person had truly terrified her. She imdiately crouched down, wrapping her arms over her head and burying her face between her knees. I’m going to die here with Wang Jian. She had always been afraid of death, but in this mont, it felt as if so internal valve had been released.
"What are you shouting about? Why are you back? Didn’t I tell you to go? Why are you so disobedient?"
The voice was so familiar. Cai Qiong froze, then slowly lifted her head. The light in the woods was poor, and the man was standing right next to her. Looking up, it almost seed as if a halo glowed behind his head, but she could still make out his features.
"Wang Jian?"
"Hmm."
"It’s really you! You scared to death." Upon confirming it was him, Cai Qiong jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him in a tight hug.
Wang Jian gasped from the force of the embrace and could only manage a wry smile as he patted her back. "Easy there, I’ve been shot."
His words hit her like a jolt, reminding her of the gunshot she’d heard. She sprang back from his arms and began looking him up and down. She hadn’t looked closely before, but now she saw that he, too, was covered in blood.
Seeing the look in her eyes, Wang Jian understood her fear and explained, "Most of this blood belongs to that guy, Monkey."
"What happened?" Cai Qiong asked, confused. She had clearly heard only one gunshot. How could the blood be Monkey’s? "You said you were shot, so how can it all be Monkey’s blood?"
Hearing her question, Wang Jian inwardly sighed. Won are all the sa, always nitpicking. I clearly said *most* of it, not *all* of it, but she just had to get stuck on the wording.
"When he fired, the gun’s chamber exploded," he explained. "I was very close, so I was wounded too. He was essentially obliterated."
He gave her a brief summary. "After you left, they thought I’d gone with you, so they chased in your direction. I set up an ambush... Honestly, it was just luck. When he grabbed the gun, I was out of options. In the heat of the mont, I jamd the barrel with my wood chopper. I wasn’t thinking straight. If it had been a proper firearm, I would have been killed for sure. The lucky part is that their modified gun had so major problems. I never expected it to actually explode..."
Wang Jian was still shaken. The explosion had left him stunned, and he had hidden in the nearby bushes, worried that others might show up. Fortunately, as a practitioner of Chinese dicine, stopping his own bleeding was a simple matter of a few well-placed silver needles.
"How is your wound?" Cai Qiong glanced at his left shoulder. The shirt was torn, and a closer look revealed the heaviest bloodstains, clearly where he’d been hit by shrapnel. "It’s okay..." she answered her own question, rembering Wang Jian’s advanced dical skills. The state of the wound was no surprise to her. "The bleeding has stopped, and there are no fragnts left. It was the best possible outco in a terrible situation."
Without even realizing it, Cai Qiong finally let out the breath she had been holding.
"Yeah. I gave it so basic treatnt," Wang Jian nodded, changing the subject. "Why did you co back?"
Cai Qiong’s face flushed with guilt at the thought of having run away. If anything serious had happened to Wang Jian, she would have been devastated. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that. She said softly, "I ran until my phone got a signal. I called the police and then ca back."
What a foolish woman, Wang Jian thought, though not out of bla. He ant it literally; she was genuinely a bit foolish. Few people, after fleeing in terror, would manage to calm down and have the courage to run back. It’s one thing to rush into danger on impulse to save soone. It’s another thing entirely to run back toward certain death after calming down. That kind of action requires a much deeper motivation.
Wang Jian deliberately provoked her, "Wouldn’t it have been better to just head down the mountain after calling the police? If you ca back and found them instead of , you might have died. And with your looks, death might not have been the worst of it."
Cai Qiong licked her dry lips and retorted, "Am I the type to be afraid of death...?" She trailed off, blushing as she recalled her earlier actions, then pressed on, "I didn’t co back for you. I just knew if I ran away like that, my conscience would haunt for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live like that, so don’t get any ideas."
"Hmm." Wang Jian squinted. She probably didn’t even believe her own words, but he didn’t bother calling her out on it. Instead, he added fuel to the fire. "I believe you. After all, I didn’t tell you to leave to save you. I just figured I could handle them both on my own and you’d be in the way."
At his words, Cai Qiong’s eyes went wide. She slapped him on the chest, hitting his wound and making him grimace in pain.
She shot him a look. "Serves you right."
"Monkey is dead. What about Lao Zhou?" Cai Qiong asked, her gaze already shifting in that direction.
Wang Jian smiled. "That guy can’t move a muscle. Don’t worry about him. We’ll just wait for the police to take him away."
The two walked over. Half of Monkey’s neck and chin were blown off, and blood pooled on the ground. His face was frozen in a dumbfounded expression. Even in death, he couldn’t understand why Wang Jian would think to jam a gun barrel with a wood chopper.
Nearby lay Lao Zhou, half of his face buried in the dirt. Several silver needles protruded from the back of his neck, rendering him immobile. He could only widen his eyes, his gaze burning with a consuming hatred for everything around him. But due to the awkward angle, he couldn’t even et their eyes as they approached.
This was undoubtedly the most humiliating and hateful mont of Lao Zhou’s life. What he was experiencing now was a living death. If he had another chance, he would have paid more attention to the trees as he gave chase. He would have made sure this kid got a taste of this feeling.
Lao Zhou knew it was over for him. Staring at Monkey’s corpse, a chill mixed with the hatred in his heart. This kid... he’s not normal.
"Are your silver needles so kind of high-tech device?" Cai Qiong marveled at the needles in Lao Zhou’s neck. "They can heal people, knock them out, and even paralyze them. That’s incredible." It was completely different from the Chinese dicine she knew. Hearing about it from Cai Xing was one thing; seeing it with her own eyes was another matter entirely.
Wang Jian just smiled, not bothering to explain sothing that couldn’t be sumd up in a few sentences. "There’s nothing special about them, really."
With that, he squatted down and pulled the silver needles from the back of Lao Zhou’s neck.
Cai Qiong had been about to stop him, but to her surprise, Lao Zhou didn’t move an inch after the needles were removed.
Lao Zhou himself had the sa reaction. He had been bracing himself to fight back the mont the needles were out, but he hadn’t even felt the sensation of them being removed. A terrible possibility dawned on him, and he began cursing silently and furiously.
"This..."
"What’s wrong?" Wang Jian asked Cai Qiong with a smile. "See? These silver needles are no different from any others. But the acupoints and ridians of Chinese dicine are mysterious, which is why they can have such miraculous effects."
Cai Qiong wasn’t thinking about that. Staring at the silver needles in her palm, her mind reeled. "Why isn’t Lao Zhou reacting? You... this..." She pointed at the needles, then at Lao Zhou, her expression saying everything.
Wang Jian glanced at Lao Zhou and explained to Cai Qiong, "Oh, of course he can’t move. If pulling out the needles let him move, I’d be an idiot for doing it, wouldn’t I?"
"Don’t worry," Wang Jian continued with a smile. "It’s a normal reaction, just like surgical anesthesia."
"Oh!"
Cai Qiong felt sothing wasn’t quite right, but since Wang Jian said so, and she didn’t understand any of it, she took his word for it.
"Let’s go," Wang Jian said, pulling Cai Qiong toward the path down the mountain. "We need to get to an accessible spot; otherwise, the police won’t be able to find us. As for Lao Zhou and Monkey, let’s just leave them here."
There were so things Wang Jian left unsaid. Lao Zhou’s state was indeed similar to surgical anesthesia, but anesthesia is temporary. His silver needles, however, had directly damaged the man’s spinal nerves. Once the numbing effect wore off, Lao Zhou would only be able to speak. The rest of his body would be completely paralyzed.
The silver needles in Wang Jian’s hands could save lives, but they could also kill without a trace. Wang Jian felt that for a man like Lao Zhou, a fate worse than death was the only true punishnt. If Lao Zhou could still move, he might co back for revenge soday. Wang Jian had no intention of giving him that chance, so paralyzing him was the better option.
As for whether any wild animals might co and gnaw on the two of them, that was beyond his control.
Wang Jian held Cai Qiong’s hand as they walked down the mountain. Cai Qiong glanced back several tis, but Wang Jian never once looked back.
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