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Chapter 11

Yan Tuo was just as shocked as Nie Jiuluo.

He stared at Dog Tooth for a while before asking, “What happened to your eye?”

Dog Tooth stammered, “I accidentally poked it last night. If you keep this up, my head… my head is spinning…”

With such severe injuries, the pain on his face was clearly genuine. Yan Tuo loosened his grip and asked, “How did you poke it?”

Dog Tooth, like a weak patient, slowly curled back into the suitcase, mumbling incoherently, “It was just an accident, my head hurts…”

Yan Tuo said, “You’re lying.”

As soon as he said this, the room fell silent for a few seconds. Dog Tooth stopped making any noise, and the faucet dripped slowly.

Yan Tuo finally spoke up, “There are no dangerous facilities in the hotel room. If you were injured in the room, why didn’t you complain earlier? Did you go out last night?”

Dog Tooth panicked, “No, no, I just accidentally poked myself with a toothbrush, a toothbrush…”

Before he could finish, he felt the world spinning and then heard a loud bang as his entire body was thrown to the ground, seeing stars—Yan Tuo had flipped the suitcase over with one hand.

Before Nie Jiuluo could react, Yan Tuo had stepped on Dog Tooth’s back, pressing his entire body weight onto that leg, making it hard for Dog Tooth to breathe. It wasn’t over yet; Yan Tuo pulled out a gun from his lower back and pressed the muzzle against the back of Dog Tooth’s head with great force, almost flattening his ugly face against the ground.

“Are you taking me for a fool? Aunt Lin said, if you cooperate, I’m here to pick someone up; if you don’t, I’m here to deal with a corpse.”

Dog Tooth, terrified, squeaked in a high-pitched voice, nearly crying, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. Last night, you called me useless and said that woman who was near Sun Zhou saw me and drew a picture for the police. I was so angry, I wanted to… to get back at her…”

Yan Tuo was taken aback and unconsciously glanced at Nie Jiuluo.

Nie Jiuluo appeared innocent but cursed inwardly.

“I climbed out the window; I don’t know where I was. My foot slipped, and a wire on the window poked into my eye socket… I was afraid you’d find out, so I didn’t say anything.”

Nie Jiuluo’s heart raced, but she could quickly assess the situation.

— These two were indeed accomplices. — Yan Tuo could control Dog Tooth, but Dog Tooth clearly had ulterior motives and was deceiving Yan Tuo. — There was also someone named “Aunt Lin” above them.

The room fell silent again for a few seconds. Yan Tuo removed his foot from Dog Tooth’s back, and Dog Tooth let out a relieved sigh, clumsily crawling back into the suitcase. He fumbled with the suitcase, which was swaying like a small boat being pushed by waves.

After a while, he managed to stuff himself back in and pulled the lid down, but not completely; the lid was propped up by more than an inch.

His single eye peered out through the gap, watching Yan Tuo’s boots. The rivets on the boots glinted with a cold, bronze hue. He also saw Nie Jiuluo, who was handcuffed and sitting in the corner by the water pipe. She was also wearing boots, with clear anti-slip patterns on the soles.

He didn’t recognize Nie Jiuluo, as he had never seen her in the light. He had only collided with her pencil in the dark, which was so sharp that he didn’t even feel the pain at that moment.

“Did you understand everything I just told you?”

“Everything you just told me?” Dog Tooth was stunned for a moment before realizing, “Yes, you said you’re going out for a while and that I should keep an eye on Sun Zhou and this woman.”

“Just keep an eye on them, don’t touch them.”

Dog Tooth hurriedly responded.

The scene was too bizarre for Nie Jiuluo, making her scalp tingle. Why wasn’t either Yan Tuo or Dog Tooth mentioning anything about treating the wound? It was an eye injury!

Everything that needed to be said had been said, but Yan Tuo still seemed uneasy. He walked around the bathroom, trying to find any oversights or hidden dangers.

Finally, his gaze landed on Nie Jiuluo.

She was the biggest danger.

He took a roll of wide tape and walked over to Nie Jiuluo. With a ripping sound, he tore off a long strip and then crouched down in front of her.

Nie Jiuluo instinctively turned her head away, “I won’t scream. This inn has no guests, and you’ve left someone here to watch over me. I’m not that foolish.”

Yan Tuo wasn’t swayed by her words: “Miss Nie, you’re very articulate. Dog Tooth can’t handle your sweet talk. It’s better to seal it up.”

Nie Jiuluo cursed him inwardly for being blind: Did he still think Dog Tooth was a good guy and was afraid she might trick him? He himself had been fooled by Dog Tooth.

Nie Jiuluo decided to endure her situation, thinking that evil people would eventually meet their match, and she was content to play deaf and dumb while watching the dog-eat-dog drama unfold.

She then attempted another tactic: “Can I at least have something to eat?”

She hadn’t eaten since noon when she was at the temple, and she had missed her meals while being kidnapped. She had already skipped two meals—if it were someone else in her place, they might have lost their appetite, but not her. She needed to be well-fed to have the energy to deal with these villains.

Yan Tuo acted as if he hadn’t heard her request and directly applied the packing tape to her mouth. To prevent it from loosening, he pressed down firmly on both sides with his palm.

Nie Jiuluo’s thin skin turned red as the blood rushed to her face from the pressure.

Before leaving, Yan Tuo addressed her request, saying, “You look like you can handle hunger. Missing a few meals won’t kill you.”

The car left the inn, and Yan Tuo turned on the navigation system, heading straight for Banya Village.

A person should not be left in the dark; they needed to know the details of their situation.

He didn’t dare to drive into the village, so he parked the car at a considerable distance and walked the rest of the way, every step taken cautiously to avoid detection.

As he passed through a small forest during the day, he saw a figure approaching from the opposite direction in the moonlight. Yan Tuo quickly stepped into the woods to avoid being seen.

The person was unaware of Yan Tuo’s presence and continued walking at a leisurely pace, their voice reaching him before their figure did.

“The Eight-Nation Alliance has already reached the village entrance, and they’ve taken all the pigs. I feel like we really can’t rely on the old Buddha anymore.”

It was Ma Hanzi, holding a ladle and “making a phone call” to an imagined superior, reporting, “Commander, we’ve increased our patrols, day and night. Absolutely, absolutely, we cannot let the foreign devils into Banya.”

Yan Tuo was speechless.

After the commotion earlier in the day, he could be certain that Ma Hanzi was indeed a fool, and a rather busy one at that—fighting demons by day and battling foreign devils by night.

Ma Hanzi continued to speak, anxiously passing by Yan Tuo: “Yes, yes, I will contact the Boxers as soon as possible…”

Yan Tuo waited until Ma Hanzi had walked far away before emerging from the woods and swiftly making his way into the village.

At night, with the help of the lights, things became clearer: the entire village had only one source of illumination.

The lit place was familiar—it was the bungalow in the east of the village. Both rooms inside were brightly lit, with the windows half-open. Even before Yan Tuo got close, he could hear the clattering sound of mahjong tiles.

He crouched down and moved closer to the inner room, peeking through the window.

The woman from earlier who had tricked him into moving the pickled vegetable jar was there. She was lighting an incense stick with a lighter. From the outer room, someone called out, “Sister Hua, hurry up, we’re waiting for you to start the game.”

The woman, clearly Sister Hua, put down the lighter and lit the incense stick’s head. “I’m coming, I’m coming. Just wait while I offer incense to Master Yu.”

She said this while turning towards a small shrine.

Yan Tuo looked at the shrine. Honestly, he had never heard of a Master Yu or Master Feng associated with the shrine, only familiar deities like the Second Master and Guanyin. He was even more confused when he saw what was inside the shrine—a small bronze tripod, about the size of a teapot. Given its appearance, it was clearly a replica, likely from the Yiwu market.

Sister Hua offered three bows to the shrine, murmuring, “Master Yu, please bless us with peace and safety inside and out, and may the crops flourish and bear fruit.”

After finishing her prayers, she hastily inserted the incense stick and quickly made her way to the outer room.

Yan Tuo carefully moved to the window of the outer room and glanced inside. His heart skipped a beat—most of the people inside were “familiar faces.”

At the center of his view was a mahjong table, with three players waiting for Sister Hua to join. Behind the table was a wooden bed, still covered with a straw mat.

On the bed sat Shan Qiang, cross-legged against the wall, his head wrapped in a bandage resembling an Indian Sikh’s turban. He had a blank expression, neither speaking nor moving. If not for his small eyes occasionally glancing at the mahjong table, Yan Tuo might have thought he had been stunned silly by the crippled old man’s stick.

Among the three at the mahjong table, Yan Tuo recognized two of them. One was the limping old man, who had a bandaged arm and was using only one hand to shuffle the tiles. The other was the big-headed man, who seemed to have a true love for cucumbers with sauce—there was a plate of cut cucumbers next to him with a large dollop of spicy sauce.

The third person…

Yan Tuo focused on the remaining woman, the only one he had never seen before.

She was a woman in her thirties, with long, wavy hair, voluptuous and alluring—almost to the point of being seductive. She wore a nostalgic apricot-colored matte silk deep V-neck long dress. The exposed skin at the V-neck was as smooth as snow, tantalizingly suggestive, with finely drawn eyebrows and eyes that seemed to hold a mischievous sparkle, as if they could reach out and tickle your heart at any moment.

As she arranged the mahjong tiles, she did not look up and addressed Sister Hua: “Hurry up, we’re waiting for you.”

Sister Hua jogged in to take her seat, instinctively wiping her hands on her clothes before reaching for the tiles. She paused and asked, “Are we just playing like this?”

The woman glanced at her and replied nonchalantly, “How else do you want to play? Want me to hire a musician?”

“No, I mean…” Sister Hua nervously looked toward the half-open window, “What if that person comes back for revenge?”

Yan Tuo’s heart tightened; the “person” Sister Hua mentioned was most likely referring to him.

The woman seemed uninterested: “It’s best if he does come back. I’m actually hoping he would. He didn’t make it back today, so he missed out.”

She added, “You guys are really useless. Four of you couldn’t even stop one person.”

The big-headed man glared sideways: “Who are you talking about?”

He spoke as he picked up a piece of cucumber, dipped it in sauce, and bit into it with a crunch, venting his frustration.

The limping old man stacked the tiles into a wall with one hand, showing his annoyance as the tiles clacked together: “Que Chai, stop talking nonsense. Even if you were here, you wouldn’t have stopped him.”

Que Chai huffed, her lips curling in disdain.

Shan Qiang, weakly trying to mediate, said, “Enough with the infighting. The more I think about it, the more it seems something’s off. Tea Sister, should we inform Uncle Jiang?”

“Old Jiang is busy with important matters outside. It’s not worth making a fuss over.”

“Not worth making a fuss over?” Shan Qiang became agitated, forgetting his supposed weakness, his voice rising. “Tea Sister, think carefully. Is this really just a small matter? Why do you think Uncle Jiang went out?”

At Shan Qiang’s words, Que Chai seemed hesitant. She held the dice, not immediately starting to deal. After a moment, she turned to the big-headed man: “Big Head, are you sure it’s the same smell?”

Sister Hua chimed in, “Couldn’t it be the smell of sauce that you mistook?”

The big-headed man sneered, “With that strong odor, could I possibly have mistaken it?”

He pointed at his oily nose. “Even if you don’t believe me, you should trust this nose.”

A strong smell?

Yan Tuo was baffled. He maintained good hygiene and his car was clean, with no unusual odors.

Que Chai rolled the dice, then gathered the tiles after noting the result. “That’s indeed strange. Did anyone remember the car’s license plate number?”

Shan Qiang, weakly, said, “I had noted it down, but when Crippled Dad hit me, I lost track of the sequence.”

The big-headed man, sounding resentful, said, “What good does remembering it do? We’re just a few people here, and we barely have enough to guard the house. Can we still chase him down?”

Que Chai gave him a sideways glance: “What’s the rush? We can check the license plate and find his family. He won’t fly away. Wait for Old Jiang to return, and we can block his way and settle the score.”

Sister Hua was still unsettled: “What if he comes back for revenge before Old Jiang returns?”

Que Chai looked at her with contempt: “Then just talk to him. Is there anything that can’t be talked out? He came with goods; he might even want to join us.”

From the tone and attitude of the conversations, Yan Tuo guessed that Que Chai was probably a minor leader among them.

Perhaps because everyone was feeling uneasy, the mahjong game didn’t last long. By just after ten, the game was over, and everyone but Sister Hua went back to their own homes.

In Banya Village, there were no streetlights. Walking at night relied either on flashlights or phone torches. With four people heading in four different directions, the faint light from the torches was like slender, wandering fish, lost in the vast, unending darkness.

Yan Tuo moved like a shadow, following behind Que Chai.

The mountain village was eerily quiet in the dead of night. Que Chai, in her apricot-colored high heels, walked with a swaying grace, the heels clacking sharply against the ground.

However, women are always more sensitive. As she walked, she suddenly stopped, alertly shining her flashlight behind her and calling out, “Who’s there?”

Yan Tuo had already quickly slipped into the darkness, watching her intently.

After a few seconds, seeing no movement around, Que Chai took it as her own over-caution. She sighed deeply and muttered, “This cursed place, I’m never coming back here again.”

 

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An Owl Rising From The Green Soil

An Owl Rising From The Green Soil

Love On The Turquoise Land (Drama)
Score 8.0
Status: Ongoing Type: , Author: , Artist: Released: 2020 Native Language: Chinese
Over two thousand years ago on a deep night, Xu Fu* set sail to the eastern seas in a treasure ship to search for immortality, but few people knew that at the same time, a group of black-turban soldiers secretly entered the vast and dense Nanbao forest… A millennium later, the dark legend continues to slowly grow in the shadows. Xú Fú: Qin dynasty court necromancer and was tasked by Qin Shi Huang to look for the elixir of life between 219 BC and 210 BC. He never returned after departing on his second mission in 210 BC.

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