DBTC 07

Chapter : 07

Killing

The convoy had been traveling through the narrow valley for nearly two hours, wheels grinding over exposed rock layers, sending up dull, jarring thuds. The cliffs on either side gradually grew lower, and among the scattered rocks the dry bed of a stream appeared, fish bones embedded in the cracked mud. Withered thorns bore tattered leaf fragments like rags, rustling in the wind.

Ahead, the mouth of the valley let in daylight, and among the jumble of rocks traces of human passage began to appear—broken pottery shards, dried dung, half a worn-out straw sandal.

About a hundred paces from the valley mouth, Qin Hu’s voice came clearly: “Preparing to exit the valley. Qin Chuan, take the front. Han Zhen, guard the rear.”

“Understood.” On the mule cart ahead, Qin Chuan replied in a low voice, tightening his wrist, and the blue mule slowed its pace. He didn’t get down. His longbow lay across his knees, and between the three fingers of his right hand, he held a white-feathered arrow. His gaze, sharp as a blade, scraped inch by inch over the light and shadow, the cracks in the rocks, and the shifting grass at the valley mouth.

Behind, Han Zhen gave a low “Yes sir!” and angled the flatbed cart to a stop, nearly sealing off the path behind. With one hand on the reins and the other gripping his knife hilt, his gaze was cold and steady, locking down the mountain path behind him like an iron gate.

Qin Chuan’s mule cart was the first to approach the valley mouth. His eyes followed the arrowhead as it slowly swept across the cliffs on both sides. The cart rolled smoothly through the narrowest point; the arrow tip paused briefly at a patch of shadow on the left, then moved on.

As soon as he emerged from the valley mouth, Qin Chuan immediately reined the cart to the side, using the vehicle as cover, bow ready to guard the slope ahead.

Qin Hu’s carriage followed closely out. Seeing his elder brother unharmed, Qin Chuan gave a slight nod.

Han Zhen’s flatbed cart was the last to slowly back out—he kept facing the valley the entire time, only turning to follow after confirming no one was trailing behind.

Once the final pass was left behind, the view suddenly opened up—the dirt road merged into a slightly wider official road.

This “official road” was nothing more than a somewhat smoother dirt track, with no trees on either side, only endless scorched black fields, their cracks running like the veins on an old man’s hand.

On the distant horizon, distorted heat haze shimmered. The world was a deathly stillness of withered yellow.

Scattered refugees lay along the edges of the fields like discarded rags.

When this well-equipped convoy turned from the valley onto the official road, those numb eyes suddenly came alive—clinging greasily to the bulging sacks on the flatbed cart, the thick canvas covering the carriage, the lashed boxes and baskets on the mule cart, finally fixing greedily on the flatbed and the mule cart with the most cargo.

Qin Hu’s expression did not change; he only tightened the reins slightly. Up ahead, Qin Chuan had already laid his longbow across his knees, the leather strap of his quiver quietly undone. Behind, Han Zhen’s hand held the reins steady, his right hand silently resting on the hunting knife at his waist.

This stretch of road was especially oppressive.

The cracked fields stretched to the gray horizon, and occasionally the skeletal frames of collapsed farmhouses could be seen, their dark windows like empty eye sockets. The air was thick with dust and a faint, indefinable smell—something like the stench of things charred and then rotted.

Refugees began to appear on the roadside in twos and threes, sitting or lying down like discarded dregs after roasting. Most had hollow stares, and only when the convoy passed did a murky light briefly kindle in that emptiness.

Some swallowed hard, their throats bobbing. Some unconsciously shuffled forward half a step, only to shrink back again when they met Han Zhen’s cold gaze or Qin Chuan’s silent nocking of an arrow. The atmosphere was like a bow slowly being drawn to its limit.

Qin Chuan’s lead cart always maintained a distance that allowed for quick reaction without losing contact with the vehicles behind. Qin Hu was in the middle, his expression calm as still water, but the veins on the back of his hand gripping the reins were faintly visible. Han Zhen brought up the rear, his neck stiff from prolonged vigilance—the empty road behind was, paradoxically, even more unsettling.

Until a low-lying depression appeared ahead.

In that hollow, dozens of refugees had gathered in a dark, seething mass. A few dying campfires gave off choking smoke, bringing no warmth but making the gray crowd look even more forlorn.

When the convoy’s silhouette came clearly into view in the hollow, the deathly stillness was shattered.

Ripples of disturbance spread outward. A few men of sturdier build and sinister mien rose from the crowd and sauntered slowly to the middle of the official road, forming a loose semicircle, blocking the convoy’s way.

At their head was a balding man with a large, hideous burn scar running from his left face down his neck, gleaming with a waxy sheen in the dim light.

He raised his voice, hoarse but loud, carrying a reckless truculence: “Hey! You in the middle carriage! Stop! Share some food, save lives! Heaven is watching!”

Qin Hu’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. He lightly reined in, and the carriage slowed smoothly and finally stopped.

Qin Chuan’s mule cart stopped almost simultaneously, pulling up diagonally behind and to the side of the carriage, his right hand already silently gripping his longbow. Han Zhen’s flatbed cart also halted steadily a few paces away, his sharp gaze sweeping the rear and flanks.

Seven or eight men approached, leaning on sharpened branches or thick wooden clubs. Desperation, greed, and a glimmer of hope were mixed in their eyes as they sized up the vehicles repeatedly, lingering longest on Han Zhen’s heavily laden cart and Qin Chuan’s mule cart.

The balding man swallowed, his voice quavering with excitement: “Look… you’ve got a full convoy, you must have food! Have mercy! Just a bite, one bite! All these old folks and kids are waiting!”

Behind him, more refugees crowded forward hesitantly. The blind courage that numbers brought made the atmosphere suddenly taut.

Qin Hu sat erect on the carriage shaft, his gaze calmly sweeping over the men blocking the way, then past them to the gaunt, hollow-eyed refugees behind, and finally back to the balding man’s face.

He didn’t answer immediately, but that silent, mountain-like presence—with a hunting knife at his waist and a whip resting casually in his hand—carried its own intimidating authority. The balding man and his companions instinctively stopped about two dozen feet from the carriage, not daring to approach any further.

Inside the carriage, Zhao Wan’s heart suddenly tightened. Through the gap in the curtain, she could see the crowd blocking the road and the unmistakable tension in the air. Her father, Zhao Mingyuan, also clenched his fists slightly.

Han Zhen drew his waist knife with a sharp *shing*, the blade reflecting the pallid daylight. He didn’t speak, but held the knife point angled at the ground, his eyes icy as they locked onto the men in front, radiating a murderous aura without disguise.

At that moment, a lanky refugee on the flank, seeing Qin Chuan’s mule cart as seemingly “less guarded” and carrying plenty of luggage, flashed a vicious glint in his eyes. Gripping a sharpened branch, he crept closer!

Qin Chuan, who had been silently vigilant all along, moved!

In one crisp motion, the youth raised his longbow, his right hand drawing an arrow, nocking it, and pulling the string like lightning! The bowstring was drawn to seven-tenths of its full tension, with a soft creak, the arrowhead aimed steadily at the ground just in front of the lanky man’s feet.

“Back off!” Qin Chuan’s voice was cold as iron. “One more step, and this arrow has no eyes!”

The lanky man flinched, his steps halting abruptly. Pale-faced, he stared at the glinting arrowhead. His branch clattered to the ground, and he scrambled backward in panic.

“There is food,” Qin Hu finally spoke, his voice low but each word hard as ice. “Rations for survival. Whoever touches them,” he paused, his gaze slicing over the crowd like a blade’s edge, “dies.”

The balding man was stunned for a moment, his facial muscles twitching, the scar reddening. Being refused so bluntly in front of everyone, a rush of anger clouded his judgment.

He gritted his teeth, brandished his thick wooden club, and emboldened himself to take another half step forward, cursing: “Damn! You ungrateful bastard! You think we’re pushovers? Brothers, there’s only a few of them! What’s there to fear! Grab—”

The word “grab” was still on his lips!

Qin Hu, who had been sitting motionless, moved!

No one saw how he leaped down from the carriage shaft. They only felt a blur of motion, a gust of wind! He didn’t draw his knife. His form moved like a hunting leopard, closing the distance to the balding man in an instant!

The balding man’s pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively tried to raise his club, but before he could complete the motion, an iron-like hand had seized his weapon-wielding wrist with deadly precision, twisting and breaking it with a sharp wrench!

*Crack!*

The crisp sound of snapping bone exploded in the silent official road!

Before the balding man’s scream could leave his throat, Qin Hu’s other hand shot out like a striking serpent, fingers together like a beak, striking with lightning precision at the vital point just below his Adam’s apple!

“Urgh—!”

The scream was cut short, turning into a choked gasp. The balding man’s eyes bulged. His club clattered to the ground. His hands clutched uselessly at his neck. His body swayed, then crashed to the ground, twitched twice, and lay still.

Qin Hu had already released his grip, paying no heed to the limp corpse. He pivoted, his hunting knife somehow already in hand, and the blade swept out in a gleaming arc along his side!

*Squelch!*

One of the nearest men, who had been swinging a sharpened branch in a vicious stab at Qin Hu’s ribs, felt a chill in his side, followed by searing pain. He looked down to see a wound cut to the bone, blood gushing out! He fell back with a piercing shriek.

It happened in the blink of an eye—no more than a few breaths!

The balding ringleader lay dead on the spot; another accomplice was writhing and wailing from a grievous wound. The remaining men, terrified out of their wits, dropped their crude “weapons” with a clatter, their faces ashen as they scrambled backward.

Qin Hu stood with his knife in hand, the tip angled at the ground, a single thick drop of blood slowly sliding from the blade’s edge. His gaze swept slowly over the cowed men, then over the dumbstruck refugees behind them.

A deathly silence fell over the official road, broken only by the agonized moans of the wounded man and the mournful sigh of the wind across the wilderness.

Inside the carriage, Zhao Wan clamped her hand over her mouth, forcing the gasp back down her throat. Even through the carriage curtain, the crisp crack of bone and the spray of blood jarred her senses.

Her face was pale, her heart pounding, but she felt little fear. Instead, a cold realization sank into her heart—this was the path he had to walk, and this was how he protected her.

Han Zhen gripped his knife handle, his breathing steady, his gaze calm. His years in the border troops had shown him too much life and death. This scene was nothing more than the ordinary law of the jungle in these chaotic times.

“Anyone else want to try?” Qin Hu’s voice was not loud, but it struck each heart like chips of ice.

The refugees all stepped back in unison. Many lowered their heads, trembling, daring not to meet his eyes.

Han Yun sat on the flatbed cart, his heart seized as if by an icy hand. So the “kill” in “kill the chicken to warn the monkey” was such a real and bloody word.

The youth’s imagination of the “perils of the jianghu” was thoroughly drenched by the rapidly cooling blood before him, congealing into a heavy stone in his chest.

From the front of the cart, Han Zhen’s low voice came without turning around: “See that? Some paths aren’t cleared by yielding.”

Han Yun’s Adam’s apple moved. He made no sound, but nodded firmly, gripping his short cudgel tighter. When he looked again at the mountain road ahead, the youthful curiosity in his eyes had been overlaid with a hard layer of vigilance.

Qin Hu didn’t look back at them. He wiped his hunting knife casually on the dead man’s tattered clothes and sheathed it. He turned and walked with steady steps back to the carriage, vaulted onto the shaft, and didn’t spare the bodies on the ground another glance.

“Move out.”

The convoy slowly rolled away from the refugee camp under countless terrified, fearful gazes, leaving only that pool of blood—still not yet dry—seared into everyone’s memory.