As I lay on the dry ground, I heard Bai Haotian let out an exclamation and Black Glasses say, “Don’t panic. It’s normal that you wouldn’t be able to tell.”
I listened to Bai Haotian move as if she were cowering in the corner—she must have been very confused—and Liu Sang cried out, “What are you doing?”
Black Glasses said, “You all have probably heard some things about Wu Xie back in the day. In fact, when he came back that year, the Wu family always suspected that the one who returned wasn’t really Wu Xie. They believe he was switched with a fake.”
“Does the Wu family eat shit? How could they possibly get this wrong?” Liu Sang asked. “But even if the Wu family made such a mistake, Little Brother is a member of the Zhang family. He’s very familiar with bone contraction, so do you honestly think he would make such a mistake? What kind of trick are you trying to pull? Stop messing around.”
Black Glasses paused for a few minutes and then said, “Well, you’re right. I’ll tell you the truth. The two of us are being coerced. We’re blocking people from coming into this valley and killing however many show up. We must kill everyone except for Wu Xie.”
Black Glasses is really good at bullshitting, I thought to myself. Since he uses the same tone when he’s telling the truth and lying, it really makes people second-guess themselves.
But Liu Sang didn’t seem to believe him at all. “Then why bother saving us? If you had just left us alone, we would’ve died faster.”
“The person threatening us hasn’t contacted us for a long time. We don’t know what’s going on and are just waiting for his next instructions. I need to know if he sent you here to give us some news,” Black Glasses said very sternly. “Now, we need to check our code phrases to see if they match. If they do, you’ll know what I’ve said isn’t a lie and you can tell us what our next instructions are. If the codes don’t match, then I’ll take care of you right away. You two are no match for me, so sorry in advance.”
Liu Sang didn’t answer. I couldn’t see his expression, but I figured he had to have a puzzled expression on his face.
Then, Black Glasses suddenly said, “She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet (1). Please give the counter verse.”
Liu Sang still remained silent, so Black Glasses turned to face Bai Haotian in the corner, “Friends in the corner are also allowed to answer first. Our secret code has a total of eleven verses, so any one of them can be used for authentication.”
Still silence.
Black Glasses said quietly, “I’ll count down from three. Three—when I reach one, I’ll start killing so don’t blame me if you’re innocent—two…”
At this time, I didn’t believe that Black Glasses’ words would actually work. First, I still trusted these two people a lot. Although they both had problems, it wasn’t like they were big problems. Second, Black Glasses’ tone wasn’t serious at all, so no normal person would fall for it.
But before Black Glasses said the next word, Liu Sang unexpectedly said in English, “But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.”
Black Glasses clapped his hands together, “Sure enough, why didn’t you say it from the start? What’s the situation right now? We’ve been guarding this place for so long. Why did it take you such a long time to come here?”
“I wasn’t aware that you two were also pieces in the game,” Liu Sang said. “But I didn’t expect you to be able to say the code phrase.”
<Chapter 184><Table of Contents><Chapter 186>
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TN Notes:
(1) This was spoken in English and taken from the poem “Down By the Salley Gardens”. Link here.
MereBear's Translation 