Chapter 1073: Waiting to be buried with Han Yunxi
The poison guards stopped Ning Cheng as soon as he killed his way out, giving him a toxin that left him completely weak as he fell to his knees. Soon after that, he lost consciousness and fainted away.
“Treat the poison, keep him alive!” Jun Yixie howled at them. His eyes had turned completely bloodshot like a beast on the verge of going mad! He’d given Ning Cheng so many chances and was sincerely genuine in his offers for an alliance.
Why?!
Why does Ning Cheng keep fooling me? What’s so great about that pair of used shoes, Han Yunxi? Why is Ning Cheng so loyal?![1]
Jun Yixie didn’t get it, but he didn’t want to wonder any further!
“He wants to die together, does he?” Jun Yixie snarled, “Fine, Ning Cheng, this lord will help you! You just wait; I’ll definitely have Han Yunxi accompany you in death! Definitely!”
He was already injured, but all that shouting made it impossible for Jun Yixie to stand. Backing up a few steps, he toppled to the ground still fuming. He glared at Ning Cheng before hollering, “Ning Cheng, this lord will definitely make you regret! I’ll make sure you’re sorry for your choice! Definitely!”
Then he lost all energy to lie down on the ground. His gut injury was severe and fresh blood seeped from the wound despite him putting pressure on it. It soon stained his clothes and formed a pool on the ground.
This was probably the greatest attack against him in his life!
If stupidity caused him to be tricked by Ning Cheng the first time, then his own uselessness was to blame for this time. Thus, Ning Cheng would rather risk destruction of good and bad alike than cooperate with him.
“They’re all liars!” he emphasized, word by word.
Bai Yanqing, Bai Yuqiao, and Ning Cheng are all liars!
Jun Yixie looked at the faraway skies above him[2] and suddenly broke into a cold laugh that was both cruel and absolute. Slowly his eyes slid shut as he slipped into unconsciousness. The guards around him panicked, not knowing what to do.
Hao San quickly ran over to support his master and shouted, “Doctor! Find a doctor here, quick!”
“Someone, ah, hurry and get a doctor here now!”
—
By the time Jun Yixie regained consciousness, his abdomen wound had already been treated but the slightest movement would bring him pain. Any actions he took felt like ripping the injury apart. Hao San was pouring medicine when he saw his master wake and quickly sent orders to fetch the doctor.[3]
“Master, don’t move! You definitely can’t!” Hao San ran over to press Jun Yixie back down.
“It’s only a minor injury, what’s with the fuss?” Jun Yixie asked unhappily.
Hao San’s face was all agitation. “Master, this is no small wound. The doctor said it’s extremely deep. Any further and the blade would have pierced through the other side, making it impossible to save you!”
Jun Yixie stared at him icily and persisted in getting off the bed, but he’d hardly sat up when blood seeped from his injuries.
“Master! This servant saved you, so just lie down properly! If anything happens to you, wouldn’t that be just what Ning Cheng wants?” Hao San pleaded desperately.
Jun Yixie hadn’t expected his wounds to be so serious. He lied back down and stared at the bloodstains on his stomach blankly. By now the doctor was here and grew agitated at the sight of fresh blood. However, he didn’t dare scold Jun Yixie, but went straight to work stopping the bleeding again and applying a fresh layer of bindings.
Jun Yixie lay there unmoving and unspeaking, seemingly distracted. It wasn’t until the doctor finished treating his wounds that he demanded, “How long until this recovers?”
“This one is useless, but Your Highness Duke of Kang will not be able to leave the bed for at least three days. The dressings will need to be changed every other day for the next ten days, and the bleeding will stop within 15 days. You can move about normally in one month,” the doctor said while shaking with fear.
Jun Yixie waved at him to leave before asking Hao San, “Where’s Ning Cheng?”
“Locked up in his cell. The poison guards have already treated his poison,” Hao San hesitated before asking, “Master, should we deliver his daily antidote today?”
Jun Yixie had initially poisoned Ning Cheng with a toxin that needed daily antidotes to prevent his death. The pills were in Jun Yixie’s hands and no one else’s, not even Hao San. This was why Ning Cheng couldn’t escape and had chosen to try and bring Jun Yixie down with him instead.
“Give it to him!” Jun Yixie took out a pill without hesitation. He was cold to begin with, but now he was downright frosty. “Serve him well. Until Han Yunxi arrives, he cannot die!”
Hao San quickly took the antidote and rushed to the prisons. Meanwhile, Jun Yixie summoned a soldier and said in a low voice, “Transfer all the archers you can here for this lord. Also, deliver all the gunpowder in the army here as well. Keep everything under wraps!”
“Yes!” the soldier obeyed and left.
After Jun Yixie’s explosion of temper, his personality grew erratic and strange. He never went to visit Ning Cheng again, but had Hao San deliver him antidote everyday. While recovering, he began to re-fortify the defenses around Tiger’s Prison while constantly investigating the whereabouts of Ning Jing and the rest. No one knew the mysterious man who had been able to control the tigers, which became the greatest source of dread in Jun Yixie’s heart.
If he ever found out that man was Manager Jin one day, how would he feel?
—
Currently, Manager Jin was still in the same dense forest not far from Tiger’s Prison. The reason was because he’d been injured so severely that he’d yet to regain consciousness. There was an entrance to a mountain cave hidden within the woods that was nearly imperceptible to the naked eye, even if one walked right by the door. Beyond the grasses and plants laid a tiger’s den.
Inside the cave, all was dark.
Manager Jin lay unconscious on the ground with the one remaining white tiger quietly guarding his side. Mu Linger held a baby in swaddling clothes while dozing off by the wall. She was skinny to begin with, but the torment over the past few days had turned her wan and pallid. Aside from her thinner frame, her complexion had turned ashen as well, while dark circles lined her eyes. Even her bright, lively pupils had lost their usual spark.
She was sleepy beyond belief, but clutched tightly at the baby, Tang Li and Ning Jing’s daughter. With both her parents missing, Mu Linger had taken on the initiative to nickname her Tang Tang (唐糖).[4] She wanted this child to reunite with her parents one day and smile as sweetly as sugar.
Mu Linger soon nodded off again, but it wasn’t long before her eyebrows creased and her face grew taut with fear. Once again, she was reliving the day of their escape. Bai Yuqiao had been sharing a white tiger with the unconscious Ning Jing while Su Xiaoyu rode another tiger on her all. They had killed their way through the enemies surrounding them, while she and Manager Jin had quickly caught up to reunite with the trio. But when they fled into the forest, they ran into a terrifying black-robed stranger.
She had no idea what he did, but the white tigers behind them had suddenly collapsed and melted into puddles of bloody water. After the horrifying sight, Manager Jin had ordered everyone to split up and escape, but there wasn’t time before the black-robed figure came snatching for the baby. At the same time, Bai Yuqiao and Su Xiaoyu’s tigers had also been reduced to bloody puddles.
When she and Jin Zi had been on the brink on despair, Bai Yuqiao suddenly threw herself at the man and held him fast so they could escape. Manager Jin had no time to worry about Ning Jing or Su Xiaoyu and fled with her and the baby into the deepest parts of the forest. Mu Linger didn’t even had time to react, much less find out whether Ning Jing and Su Xiaoyu had escaped. Nor did she know if Bai Yuqiao was still alive.
She couldn’t begin to imagine what would have happened to them if the black robed man had caught them and the child. Would they too, be reduced to puddles like the tigers?
Jin Zi didn’t dare take any risks. When he saw the black-robed man didn’t give chase, he had the white tiger run right while he fled with Mu Linger and the baby to the left. In the end, she couldn’t run any further, so Jin Zi carried them both on his back. He seemed to be fleeing with his life on the line, because after they reached this den, he set them both down and fell into a stupor.
Mu Linger knew there were cases where people simply exhausted themselves to death, but she never saw she’d witnessed someone she knew going through it firsthand. Scared witless, she spend the entire day looking after Jin Zi, checking his pulse at multiple intervals while fearing for the worst. Meanwhile, little Tang Tang grew hungry and cried all day, leaving her at a loss. She wasn’t sure if the black-robed man was still looking for them.
When she was about to lose it, the giant white tiger tracked them down and even brought back a black tiger that had just given birth. Without a choice, she could only feed Tang Tang tiger’s milk. The starving baby simply took the milk-provider as its new mother and didn’t fear the beast at all. Over the next few days, she and the black tiger grew quite close.
As if awed by the giant white tiger, the mother tiger treated little Tang Tang very lovingly and acted extremely deferential. Mu Linger was still cautious, however, and only allowed the baby to sleep by the mother tiger’s side after multiple days of observation. With it comforting the child, she could take time to look after Jin Zi. Although the white tiger had brought back multiple medicinal plants for her, they didn’t make much of a difference for the man’s injuries.
After staying in the tiger’s den for three whole days, she finally ventured out to look for more ingredients. She didn’t dare go far, but lingered close to the entrance of the cave.
Abruptly, Mu Linger cried out in the middle of her nightmare. “Run! Big sis Jing, you have to run away! Run away!”
“Sobsob, big sis Jing, hurry and get out of here! You can’t die when you haven’t even seen Tang Li yet! Big sis Jing, run away already!”
“Tang Tang, where’s Tang Tang? Give Tang Tang back to big sis Jing! Give her back!”
Tears filled Mu Linger’s face as her shouts startled the two tigers awake. The mother tiger was about to go wake her up when she stopped to look at the white tiger. Rising to his haunches, the white tiger crept devoutly towards Manager Jin, who had opened his eyes and woken up. Immediately, the mother tiger turned and bowed piously towards Manager Jin as well, like a vassal greeting its lord.
Manager Jin silently sat up before gently rubbing the big white tiger’s head. Seeing Mu Linger sobbing so wretchedly, he knitted his brows and prepared to wake her up, but Mu Linger suddenly burst into miserable sobs.
“Qi gege….Qi gege, where are you? Qi gege, don’t you want Linger anymore? Where are you, Qi gege? Qi gege…Mu Linger misses you so much…”
1. He’s just not that into you bro.
2. I think this is an error on the author’s part, isn’t Ning Cheng’s cell underground?
3. iirc this guy was smirking at JYX not long ago so perhaps we’ll get Liar #4 in a few more chapters to add to JYX’s collection? Lolol.
4. Tang Tang (唐糖) – the first Tang is from Tang Li (aka her last name), while the second Tang means “sweet, sugar, candy.”
