Chapter 36: Discovered
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As soon as those words were spoken, I saw every hunter present pawing at his food in silence.
The burly man draped in fox fur set his bowl on the ground.
He continued, but this time his voice had softened. “I know it hasn’t been easy for everyone to follow me into the mountains. Most of us make our living in the northern mountains, especially hunting yellow weasels. Asking you to do this has made everyone uncomfortable, but I’ll say the same thing again: since our employers have paid us, and since we’ve accepted the money, we ought to do the job properly!”
I had to admit it.
The burly man was very good at alternating a blow with a sweetener.
After hearing him, the other hunters thought it over for a moment before one of them spoke first. “Boss, if we’re really going to spend the winter in the Greater Khingan Range, we’ll need to arrange food and shelter!”
At that moment, the burly man suddenly gave an eerie smile. “No. We don’t need to prepare any of that.”
Everyone beside the campfire froze.
“Boss, what do you mean?”
The man in the fox fur paid no attention to their questions. Instead, he abruptly raised his head and looked in our direction, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“You two brothers! You’ve been hiding for quite some time. Isn’t it about time you came down?”
The instant he said this, I was utterly stunned.
Damn!
What did he mean?
Had he discovered us?
Just as I was about to move, Master Lao Chen’s voice sounded beside my ear. “Sanqi, don’t move! He might only be trying to bluff us!”
At that, my body, already poised to act, went rigid.
Bluffing us?
I saw the hunters seated around the campfire rise to their feet as well. Just like the burly man, they all turned toward us.
Some of them had already reached for their weapons.
Silence...
Endless silence began to envelop the entire area.
After about three minutes, one of the hunters walked up to the burly man and said doubtfully, “Boss? There’s someone here? I don’t see anyone!”
The burly man narrowed his eyes and ignored him. He kept staring fixedly in our direction and spoke again.
“You two, come out already! You’ve been lying there all this time. You must be tired!”
My fists were clenched tightly. I didn’t know how much time had passed before Master Lao Chen patted me on the shoulder.
“Let’s go, Sanqi. Since they’ve already found us, there’s no point in staying up here!”
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“Huh?” I raised my head and looked at Master Lao Chen in confusion.
He paid no attention to my bewilderment. Setting his shotgun on the ground, he shouted, “I’m standing up now! I don’t have a weapon in my hands!”
As Master Lao Chen rose to his feet, the burly man below lifted the corners of his mouth.
“It really is you, Lao Chen! A few of you, go bring them over!”
“Yes, Boss!”
...
Ten minutes later, Lao Chen and I were carried into the camp, bound hand and foot. The seven or eight hunters surrounded us...
It was not hard to see that every one of them wore a delighted expression. That was hardly surprising. Once they killed us, they would still have time to leave the Greater Khingan Range.
The burly man, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, walked up to Master Lao Chen and said calmly, “Lao Chen, we’ve been searching for you two for so long. I never imagined you’d actually deliver yourselves right into our hands.”
After thinking for a moment, Master Lao Chen said, “Give me a cigarette first.”
The burly man was taken aback, then smiled. He pulled two cigarettes from his pocket and placed one in each of our mouths. Then he took out a lighter and lit them for us.
“Mm! Zhonghua cigarettes really are something,” Master Lao Chen exclaimed after taking a drag.
“Lao Chen, we’ve known each other for more than a decade, but you know how things are,” the burly man said again.
“Mm! Of course I know. But before I die, there are a few things I’d like to ask you. Will you indulge me?”
“Of course.”
“This operation of yours—who was it aimed at?” Master Lao Chen asked.
“Our superiors didn’t say. They only told us to kill every one of you. That was the highest order we received,” the burly man replied calmly.
Master Lao Chen said nothing and took another deep drag.
Strangely enough, despite the circumstances, I felt not the slightest bit afraid. On the contrary, I watched the hunters around me with considerable interest as they stared back at me.
When we had finished our cigarettes, the burly man drew a knife from his waist and walked toward Master Lao Chen. A hunter not far from me also pulled out a knife and came toward me.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Wait!”
Master Lao Chen spoke again.
The burly man froze for a moment, then began to toy with the knife in his hand, chuckling. “Lao Chen, we’re both seasoned hunters and grown men. Don’t tell me that even now you’re thinking of begging me to spare your life—or this boy’s. You know that’s impossible.”
“It’s not that. There’s one more question. Tell me... did you kill the yellow weasels?”
Master Lao Chen asked in an unhurried voice.
“Oh... yes, we did. What of it? We wiped out an entire yellow-weasel den!” the burly man replied calmly.
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Master Lao Chen gave an eerie smile.
“You wiped out a yellow-weasel den? Are you sure... you killed every single yellow weasel in it?”
The moment he said this, I saw astonishment appear in the burly man’s previously calm eyes. It was not just him—even the hunters around him began to look somewhat frightened.
“What... what do you mean?”
“Didn’t we kill them all?”
...
The hunters soon began whispering among themselves.
The burly man suddenly stepped forward in fury and seized Master Lao Chen by the collar.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Heh-heh! Let me ask you this: aren’t you curious why we didn’t resist at all when you discovered us? We knew we were going to die, yet we still came here to meet our deaths. Don’t you think... that’s strange?”
Before the hunters could react to Master Lao Chen’s words, I suddenly saw it—
In the campfire directly before us, a twisted shadow appeared. Then shrieks, at once like sobbing and laughter, began to reverberate throughout the entire space.
“Woooo...”
“Heh-heh-heh...”
...
The hunters instantly raised their shotguns and looked around in terror. A stifling atmosphere began to circulate among them.
Clatter!
Suddenly, a sharp sound of shattering porcelain burst out beside the tent.
When I turned my head, I discovered that blood was seeping from every metal utensil, while great clusters of blood-red blossoms had burst from the muzzles of the shotguns...
At that moment, I finally understood.
The yellow weasel had brought me here not because it wanted us to avenge it. On the contrary...
We had merely been responsible for leading the way.
The one seeking revenge was, in fact, the yellow weasel itself.
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