DBTC 05

Chapter : 05

Old Ties

The rustling was very faint—like dry leaves being carefully brushed by something, or a small nocturnal animal stepping on crumbled soil.

Qin Hu’s body remained perfectly still; only his eyes slowly shifted in the darkness, precisely locking onto the direction of the sound—a pile of rocks about waist-high, some twenty-odd paces outside the grove. His thumb, resting on the knife’s hilt, lightly traced the cold, rough tsuba. Qin Chuan’s bow-arm muscles tightened slightly, his breathing growing slower and softer, his gaze piercing sharply into the same patch of darkness. Yet his posture stayed as steady as a boulder, without a single unnecessary movement. The campfire’s glow was limited and couldn’t reach that far; the rock pile was merely a darker, blurred shape in the night.

The sound stopped for a while, as if observing. Then came another extremely faint noise—someone, or something, moving at a painfully slow pace.

Qin Hu’s ear twitched. Three people. Their footsteps were unsteady and dragging, not like trained fighters—more like people so starved they’d lost all strength, yet still forcing themselves to creep closer. They were careful, trying to use the darkness and the wind to mask their movements.

Qin Hu moved.

Slowly, lightly. He didn’t rise. He simply turned his hunting knife, pointing the tip diagonally at the ground. Then he reached out with his left hand and picked up a thin, sharp-edged stone flake from beside his foot.

The crackling of the campfire conveniently masked the tiny movement of his fingers.

He pinched the stone flake and flicked his wrist sharply!

*Whoosh—!*

The sound of something cutting through the air was sharp and brief!

Immediately after, from the darkness some twenty-odd paces away, came a heavy *thump*—the stone striking something hard!

“Ow!” A stifled cry, laced with pain and terror, burst out involuntarily, then was immediately muffled.

Hasty, panicked rustling followed from the darkness.

Inside the carriage, Zhao Wan jerked, her eyes snapping open. Zhao Mingyuan also woke at once.

Qin Hu remained seated by the fire, as if that throw had nothing to do with him. He merely raised his voice slightly, speaking toward the darkness in a flat tone:

“Scram.”

The commotion in the darkness stopped at once. After a moment of dead silence came the sound of stumbling, desperate running, quickly fading away.

Only when no further unusual noise could be heard did Qin Hu slowly relax his grip on the knife.

“Brother.” Qin Chuan called out softly, not as a question, more like a confirmation.

“Mm,” Qin Hu replied. “A few starving wretches who’d lost their heads. A stone sent them off—peace and quiet.” He paused, his voice dropping a little lower. “Saves them from disturbing the carriage.”

Qin Chuan said nothing more, but his grip on the bow steadied, his gaze slowly sweeping the shadows around the camp.

Qin Hu leaned back against the cart wheel and closed his eyes. But his breathing didn’t deepen into sleep; his ears remained sharp, listening to the surroundings. This night was destined to be restless.

Inside the carriage, Zhao Wan listened to the silence returning outside—only the wind and the crackling of firewood. She gripped the corner of her quilt tightly, her palms cold and damp.

That sound of the stone striking and the brief cry of pain startled her more than the daytime confrontation had. Night concealed too much savagery—and Qin Hu, in silence, had precisely kept it all at bay.

In the latter half of the night, Qin Hu woke on time to relieve Qin Chuan. He added a few thick, slow-burning branches to the fire, keeping the flames at a low but steady glow.

Then, carrying his hunting knife, he silently expanded his patrol around the camp, venturing far enough to barely make out the outline of the official road.

Under the thin moonlight, the official road lay like a dead gray snake, empty. He listened intently—apart from the wind, only faint, ethereal sounds drifted from far away, impossible to tell if they were wolves howling or people weeping.

Returning to the camp, he checked the horses, added the last bit of wood to the fire, then sat in the deepest shadow at the outer edge, his back to the campfire, facing the most open and most likely direction of any threat, waiting silently for dawn.

The hours dragged by. At last, the eastern horizon began to show a faint, pale gray—the first hint of dawn.

Qin Hu rose and stretched his stiff limbs. He walked to the carriage and tapped lightly on its wall: “Father, Wan’er, dawn’s coming. Time to prepare to move.”

Neither Zhao Wan nor Zhao Mingyuan had truly slept well. They rose at once. After a quick wash and packing up the bedding, Qin Chuan swiftly harnessed the horse and mule.

At the first glimmer of daylight, the two carts left the poplar grove and turned onto a more remote dirt road—still passable. Qin Hu seemed exceptionally familiar with this route, handling it with practiced ease.

“Hu’zi, we’re turning off the main road?” Zhao Mingyuan asked in a low voice.

“Mm. We’re picking up a family.” Qin Hu’s voice was steady. “There’s a place called ‘Stone Hollow’ about ten li ahead. A man named Han Zhen lives there.”

“Former border scout. Hard skills, hard character.” Qin Hu kept his eyes forward, his tone concise. “Three years ago, I hunted down a mad tiger alone. He saw the tracks and acknowledged my skill. Later, he was escorting goods and got ambushed by bandits at Black Wind Cliff—thirteen of them.”

He paused, as if merely recounting an ordinary event: “I happened to be nearby. I ran into them.”

The carriage fell so silent you could hear the wheels grinding over gravel.

“Killed the bandits. Brought him back.” Qin Hu said it casually, as if it hadn’t been a bloody battle of one against thirteen, just taking care of a minor nuisance. “He was badly wounded. Took two months to recover. Since then, he’s taken orders only from me.”

What Qin Hu didn’t say was that when he’d seen Han Zhen covered in blood, his back to a cliff, still refusing to retreat despite everything—

He’d seen another possibility. If he, Qin Hu, weren’t there, and Wan’er and his father-in-law were cornered, who would fight for them? One more helper like Han Zhen meant one more layer of protection.

What he wanted was never gratitude—it was tangible, solid strength he could hold in his hands.

Inside the carriage, Zhao Wan listened in silence, her fingers tightening slightly. Thirteen fierce bandits… he had glossed over it with just three words: “Killed the bandits.” The blood and brutality beneath that calm made her heart tremble—yet strangely, also gave her a sense of security.

“He has a younger brother, Han Yun, sixteen years old,” Qin Hu continued. “Han Zhen’s skills are solid, and his brother has trained with him too—some fist and foot work. An extra pair of hands on the road makes things safer.”

The carriage moved forward in the growing light. Zhao Wan gazed out the window, gaining a clearer picture of the man Qin Hu had pulled back from the brink—a man Qin Hu himself deemed “solid in skill,” someone worth making a detour to collect even on a flight from famine.

The road ahead was unknown. But Qin Hu had already calculated every step in advance.