In the middle of the night, Cheng Nuo was surprised to hear sounds from the room behind the prison door. Chang Chun slowly walked inside, followed by two other people.
Cheng Nuo’s heart leapt and he subconsciously shrank away from them. The guards were Cao Tuo’s trusted subordinates so when Chang Cun gave them the order, two of them followed him inside while the third went to report it to Cao Tuo.
Chang Chun looked around, holding aloft a torch, until he found Cheng Nuo. Then he sneeringly said, “Open the prison door and take that black-haired one out.”
One of the guards smiled at him ingratiatingly, “Chief, the boss hasn’t assigned these people to anyone yet. Until then, I can’t move them elsewhere…”
Chang Chun felt that these guards weren’t paying him the proper respect but, on the other hand, he was a little worried that the boss would disapprove. Now the boss and other bandit chiefs were all drunk during the celebration party. He hates Cheng Nuo so much that he couldn’t help but want to torture him to death. In truth, he had already killed countless people on the way to see the bride off. He had only refrained from doing anything to Cheng Nuo because he was afraid of causing a disturbance during the celebration. Now he couldn’t bear to wait anymore!
He stopped talking nonsense with the two guards and took out a stick of Soul Calming incense. When he blew it towards the guards, they fell into a trance. Those two would lose half an hour’s worth of memories, including their memory of Chang Chun being here.
In addition, he knew that one of the guards had left to call for help, which was exactly what Chang Chun wanted. Let him bring Cao Tuo and Jin Yu here! Then he could get rid of them once and for all. Later on, all he had to do was to say that they had been envious of his promotion and had schemed to kill him when everyone else was drunk. Chang Chun had just been credited with great achievements and, as far as the other leaders knew, there was no reason for him to take action against these subordinates, so the leaders wouldn’t doubt his explanation. As for this person surnamed Cheng, he was just an insignificant captive that no one would care about…
As Chang Chun thought about all of this, his smile grew wider and wider until Cheng Nuo thought he looked like a demon.
Chang Chun opened the prison door and sneered at Cheng Nuo, “What’s the matter? You want to stay inside and not come out?”
Cheng Nuo took a deep breath and walked out with his head held high. He said, sneeringly, “Of course, the air outside is better.”
Chang Chun snorted. It wouldn’t be good to do anything here where there were many people. He pushed Cheng Nuo outside then lit a stick of Soul Calming incense at the door of the cell.
Two of Chang Chun’s new subordinates were waiting outside. When they saw him come out they quickly greeted him. Chang Chun said coldly, “Do you remember what I told you?”
The two men quickly nodded and grabbed Cheng Nuo, one on each side, shoving him forward.
Chang Chun followed behind them as they strode briskly to their destination. He would take his time torturing this person. He had made sure that for this Cheng person escape was impossible and death imminent!
Cheng Nuo took a deep breath. Looking at the bandits who were on night duty carrying torches, he knew that this moment was crucial. He had to make a move now or he wouldn’t be able to escape!
They quickly arrived at Chang Chun’s new residence. Chang Chun was in a rush and didn’t bother to search Cheng Nuo. He just ordered his two men to guard the entrance then pushed Cheng Nuo into a woodshed, planning to hang him by his hands from the roof beams.
Cheng Nuo pulled on the slipknot as Chang Chun approached. Pulling out his knife from the storage bag hidden in his sleeve, Cheng Nuo slashed out at Chang Chun.
Chang Chun was surprised but managed to dodge the knife. He shot out several poisonous needles. Although Cheng Nuo was able to avoid most of them, one of the needles hit his shoulder, making his arm numb and unable to move. He gritted his teeth and rushed forward. The antidote he had been given earlier was helping him fight off the effects of the poison but that wouldn’t last forever. He has to defeat Chang Chun quickly!
Although he couldn’t use his elemental energy skills and his physical condition was not good, Bai Rui had personally taught him hand-to-hand combat.
Chang Chun also drew his weapon but when the two weapons collided, Chang Chun’s knife was cut in half. Cheng Nuo was overjoyed. This knife was so powerful! As Cheng Nuo slashed out with the knife again, Chang Chun barely managed to dodge but his chest and lapel were cut.
Chang Chun started sweating. He sent out iron thorns to stab Cheng Nuo who leapt to the side, his feet on the wall, to avoid the thorns. Cheng Nuo wanted to take advantage of his position to slash at Chang Chun but he was hit with another poison while his body was still in the air. Cheng Nuo’s body fell limply to the floor.
Chang Chun sneered, “Cao Tuo and Jin Yu really did a good job! I was careless… but you’d better save your energy now.”
He re-tied Cheng Nuo’s arms and feet, removed the storage bag from his sleeve, then stuffed an antidote into Cheng Nuo’s mouth. Chang Chun didn’t want him to die too soon.
Cheng Nuo’s face was pale and somewhat bluish. The poison burned like fire, making him sweat and pant from the pain.
Just then there was a commotion outside. Chang Chun kicked Cheng Nuo and said with a sneer, “Ha, those two really care about you!”
Chang Chun lit a candle and placed it on a windowsill. Smiling, he turned around.
The door was quickly kicked open and Jin Yu rushed in first.
With some difficulty, Cheng Nuo spat out a few words, “Poison… go… outside…!”
Cao Tuo was shocked and quickly covered his nose and mouth as he pulled Jin Yu back. Jin Yu felt a little dizzy and his footing was already becoming unstable.
Chang Chun glared at Cheng Nuo then said to the two newcomers in a cold voice, “Let’s not even talk about how I’m your superior right now. Let’s talk about friendship instead. We grew up together in the slums but you drove me out because of this outsider! Now we are brothers-in-arms. What about this Cheng person?! He’s just a dog of the nobility! Are you really going to fall out with me because of him?!”
Jin Yu swayed on his feet and said angrily, “You just tried to drug us! Do you truly think of us as your brothers? When we were children, you were the one who tried to frame big brother Cheng so big brother Guang drove you out…”
Cao Tuo tugged on Jin Yu’s sleeve and said, with a frown on his face, “It’s useless to reason with him. Chang Chun, as long as you let elder brother Cheng go, we’ll let bygones be bygones, or else the boss won’t forgive you for interfering with the captives!”
Reika’s Notes:
- This chapter is by Reika of Creativenovels and BCNovels.com
- “Cao Tuo pretended to put Cheng Nuo’s knife away…” – Uh, I was wrong earlier. I thought 刀 meant a sword but here it’s clear it’s something small. It seems weird that Cheng Nuo was armed with only a knife that’s small enough to be tucked into his boots but that’s what the text says.
- “Liu Wu who had a square face” – I debated using “square jaw” instead. P.S. The oval-shaped face is considered the most beautiful by traditional Chinese beauty standards.
- “If Cheng chooses to join us” – Whoa, did you know that there is a specific word for “running away to become a bandit” in Chinese? It’s 落草 meaning “take to the greenwood; take to the heather; become an outlaw.”
- “I’m one of the ten chiefs now” – I suppose that some translators would just write this out as Shi Dangjia since it seems to be a title but I prefer to make the meaning clearer to casual readers. Basically, one of the ten chiefs or bosses of the bandit gang.
- “…a shameless toady to the nobles!” – He actually used the word 狗 (dog) here but “toady” gets the meaning across better in English.
- “…spat in contempt.” – 呸 It’s either literally spitting or just going “tch!” or “bah!”
- “Slipknot” – 活扣 a knot that can be undone by a pull.
- Thanks for reading!
