Chapter 28 Qilin Blood

I was surprised when he asked me this question, but I didn’t know what he was talking about so I merely shook my head and said, “That big? I don’t think I’ve eaten something like that. But what exactly are you talking about? Master Liang, did you think of something just now?”

Master Liang touched some of my blood, sniffed it, and said to me, “After listening to what you guys were talking about just now, I suddenly remembered something. A long time ago, I once heard an old gentleman say that there’s a kind of thing that, if eaten, can give a person’s blood the power to drive away evil spirits and keep evil insects from coming near. It’s a very rare traditional Chinese medicine. Think about it, have you ever eaten anything similar to that?”

I sighed. A black, scale-sized thing? Traditional Chinese medicine? I was completely stumped. So many things had happened recently, and I usually ate in a hurry. Plus, I had never felt sick or cared much about what I ate. But now that he was suddenly asking, I suddenly couldn’t remember anything at all.

Lao Yang laughed at me and said, “I’ve only ever heard that black dog blood or rooster blood can drive away evil spirits. Who would have thought our Old Wu also has this ability? Don’t tell anyone about this. Otherwise, everyone will be asking for your blood and you’ll be milked dry in a few days.” After he said this, he started laughing again.

I cursed at him, “Can’t you show some fucking decency? What dog and rooster blood?! Let me tell you something. Since ancient times, human blood has always been the most powerful thing to drive away evil spirits, especially the blood of death row prisoners. In fact, there are still people who go to the execution grounds to ask the morticians to dip a white cloth in the blood of the executed so that they can hang it on their door beam. Don’t try and bullshit if you don’t understand.”

Lao Yang saw that I was angry and laughed smugly, but then he suddenly winced in pain and grabbed his back. He had probably injured himself there earlier but only noticed now because the laughter jarred his wound.

I secretly felt that he deserved it, so I ignored him and said to Master Liang, “Can you give me a more specific description? A black, scale-sized thing is way too vague. There are too many things that fit that description. Does this thing have any distinguishing features?”

Master Liang thought about it for a moment before saying embarrassedly, “I haven’t seen it with my own eyes; I’ve only heard it described by others. Plus, it’s been so long that I really can’t remember no matter how hard I try.”

I sighed in disappointment.

Master Liang smiled and said, “Young Wu, don’t worry too much about it. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, if it weren’t for you just now, we would have all died. I like to think of this as fate. In the underworld, we all have our own predetermined fate. Just think about it—with this gift, when you go grave robbing in the future, you shouldn’t face any difficulties.”

I couldn’t help but feel upset as soon as I heard this. Based on what he just said, the rest of my life was looking pretty bleak. If I continued to go grave robbing in the future, I figured it would be the same as courting death. I glanced up and said to them, “But my blood hasn’t been tested yet so I have no way of knowing if it’s really what saved us just now. If it wasn’t, then that’s definitely going to be a problem. We’d better take advantage of this opportunity and hurry out of here. We can talk about it later.”

Master Liang wanted to keep resting for a bit longer, but when he saw the bugs lurking around, he immediately agreed to my idea. We started to climb again, but after a few steps, Lao Yang suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop, “Wait…wait!”

I looked back and felt my heart thump—his face was pale, he was covered in a cold sweat, and his expression didn’t look too good. I quickly asked him what was wrong.

Lao Yang clung to a rock with one hand and touched his back with the other while saying through clenched teeth, “I don’t know. When I was laughing just now, my back suddenly hurt like hell. I might have pulled a muscle when the rope snapped earlier. Can you take a look at it? It hurts so much that I can’t use any strength at all.”

After the rope broke just now, we had all slammed into the wall pretty hard. I was also feeling pain all over my body, but the situation had been so critical just now that I didn’t have time to think about it at all. Now that the tense atmosphere had eased, however, these wounds immediately began to make themselves known. Lao Yang had originally been at the bottom of the rope and slammed into the wall much harder than us, so could he have fractured something?

I told him not to move as I lifted his shirt and saw that there was a bruised indentation on his upper back, around where the third rib was. When I lightly pressed on it, he suddenly screamed like a pig being slaughtered, bent over, and almost knocked me down.

Not good, I thought to myself. This injury doesn’t look all that simple. If it hurts this bad when I barely touch it, does that mean it’s really broken?

Lao Yang’s face was contorted with pain as he turned his head with difficulty and asked me how the injury was. I frowned, not sure what to say to him, before deciding on, “I can’t really tell just by looking at it like this, but based on how much pain you’re in, I don’t think we can make the climb. It’s possible the bone is broken, so you can’t do any more strenuous activities. This looks serious, so we need to find a flat spot where we can do a more thorough examination.”

Lao Yang was eager to climb up just a few minutes ago, but now he was already struggling. He clenched his teeth and said, “Thorough examination? Forget about it. Our torch and flashlight won’t last that long and we shouldn’t stay in this place any longer than we have to. We can look at it when we get to the top.”

Master Liang looked at his back, shook his head, and said, “No, Brother Yang, Young Wu is right. You have a deformed spot on your back so you definitely have to get it examined. If the bone is really broken, it has to be dealt with immediately. Otherwise, the bone can easily pierce your chest cavity and kill you. Trust me, I know a little about this kind of thing. We aren’t far from the top now, so there’s nothing wrong with a small delay.”

Lao Yang wanted to keep arguing, but he must have been in a lot of pain because the words immediately turned into groans. I glanced around at the small caves nearby and saw that they seemed to be relatively flat inside. After giving Master Liang a look, the two of us grabbed Lao Yang and dragged him into the best of the nearby caves. I then went back out, grabbed the torch, and inserted it into a crevice to prevent the bugs from entering.

The cave we had found was about seven or eight meters deep and less than one meter high. Because no sunlight had reached it for many years, the air was very damp and there were mold spots on the rock walls. We could see some signs of previous human activity, but they weren’t that obvious now. After walking five or six meters into the cave, we could see that the back was a dead end with rough rock walls and nothing else there.

I checked to see if there was any danger before putting the pistol away. Master Liang used the homemade gun to make a splint and tied it to Lao Yang’s back with a rope. It was only then that Lao Yang’s face relaxed a little bit. This master is certainly different, I thought to myself. He can do just about anything. If we go grave robbing in the future, we should definitely try to find such talent.

After Master Liang was finished, I asked him how Lao Yang was doing. “The bone doesn’t appear to be broken,” he said to me in a low voice, “but it’s probably cracked. I’ve given him basic first aid so it shouldn’t hurt as much as before, but Young Wu, you’d better persuade your friend that he can’t climb any further in this condition.”

I glanced at Master Liang and knew what he was really trying to say— he wanted to persuade me to go back down. After all, he had already hinted at me once or twice along the way. But then again, such an adventure really was too difficult for him. It was obvious to see that he had already thought of giving up and quitting, but he couldn’t bring it up because of how insistent Lao Yang was. Now that he finally had an excuse, however, it was only natural that he would exploit it.

But that also meant I didn’t know whether to believe him about the severity of Lao Yang’s injury.

Master Liang saw how suspicious I was and immediately said, “Young Wu, although I’m not with you guys, we’re all mixed up in the same business. This isn’t something I’d be careless about. You can also make your own assessment if you need to. But to be honest, looking at our current state, I’m afraid we’ll really die here if we try and persevere.”

I glanced at Lao Yang, who was suffering from another bout of pain and not paying attention to our discussion at all. I patted Master Liang on the shoulder and said to him softly, “It all depends on the situation. You should also get some rest. Now isn’t the time to talk about this. Even if you want to go back down, you still have to rest first.”

Master Liang muttered something under his breath, leaned back against the wall, rubbed his thighs, and stopped talking. I checked our remaining equipment, sat down as well, rubbed my temples, and began to think about what Master Liang had said.

Originally, I wasn’t interested in what Li Pipa had said at all so I didn’t have any objection when Master Liang asked me to give up earlier. But now that we had gone through so many hardships to climb up here, I was a little reluctant to give up. But I knew in my heart that what Master Liang had said was reasonable. Right now, one of us had a fractured bone, the second was in very poor health, and I myself had reached the limits of my physical strength. It would be really unwise for us to climb up recklessly.

But if we did give up, Lao Yang would be very upset. After all, he and I had come all this way together but now I was willing to join forces with an outsider to oppose him. He might not want to be friends with me after this. Besides, Master Liang might seem like a useless coward, but he was a veteran in the business. This might be a cunning trick of his to divide us. If I listened to him, we both might fall into his trap. This was definitely a tough dilemma.

After thinking about it for a bit longer, I couldn’t figure out what to do so I simply decided not to think about it. The best plan right now was to take things one step at a time.

I turned to look at the two of them. Master Liang was already asleep—he was so exhausted that he was snoring—and Lao Yang was also taking a nap. But he didn’t look like he was sleeping deeply, probably because of his back injury. Although this small cave was damp and cold, it was much more comfortable than hanging on the cliff outside. When I saw that they were both sleeping so soundly, an endless wave of tiredness suddenly struck me. Although I tried to force myself to stay awake, I soon fell asleep before I knew it.

I slept very soundly, and when I woke up again, my whole body was relaxed and I could feel a pleasant tingling sensation spreading throughout my limbs. At this time, the torchlight was very weak, making it obvious that I had slept for a long time. I poked my head out of the cave entrance to take a look and saw that almost all of the bugs outside had disappeared, and only a few were still scattered around the area.

I breathed a sigh of relief and then turned on the flashlight and pointed it up. From here, it looked like we were only about three or four hours away from the top of the bronze tree. The treasures supposedly hidden up there were almost within reach; it would really be a pity to go down now.

Lao Yang still hadn’t woken up yet, but his expression was calm and his condition seemed much better than before. I turned to check on Master Liang, wanting to wake him up and discuss what to do next, but when I looked, I found that the place where he had been lying just now was empty and he wasn’t there.

“Huh?” I automatically froze before coming back to my senses and shining the flashlight into the depths of the cave. But he was nowhere to be found. Where did he go? I wondered. At this time, I suddenly noticed that the gun used as a split for Lao Yang’s back was gone. As I immediately broke out in a cold sweat, I suddenly had a bad premonition and touched my belt—sure enough, my pistol was gone!

“Bastard!” I cursed. I honestly didn’t expect that such a gutless person would steal my gun and run away while I was sleeping! But why didn’t he take the flashlight with him? How could he do anything without any light? At this time, I was so anxious that I wasn’t thinking clearly and simply grabbed the torch and rushed to chase after him. This guy was slow, so if he left recently, I could definitely catch up with him in no time.

But as soon as I stepped out of the cave, I didn’t even have time to figure out whether he had gone up or down before something suddenly flashed before my eyes—a black shadow swung down from above and kicked me in the chest. All the breath left my body as I was sent flying back into the cave. After I slammed into the ground, I gritted my teeth and tried to stand up, but I felt another blow suddenly strike me in the jaw. It was so powerful that I almost fainted on the spot. I looked up in a daze and saw a fat guy with a cigarette in his mouth and a short rifle in his hand bend down and enter the cave. A pale-faced Master Liang quickly followed behind him.

I only took a quick look before I realized that I recognized this fat guy—he was one of the two Guangdong bosses, the one surnamed Wang. He pointed his gun at me and told me to step aside before turning to Master Liang and saying, “Old Liang, which of these young men has eaten Qilin blood?”

<Chapter 27><Table of Contents><Chapter 29>

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┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴ Hi lol. Sorry to go MIA for a week. We had a work event on Thursday so my coworker drove like halfway across the state to stay the night with me. Cue me going on a 5 day deep cleaning of the condo even while working OT (I’m traumatized. This is why I don’t invite people over). She stayed longer on Friday than I was expecting but it wasn’t like I could kick her out so I could work on DMBJ so here we are hahaha.