You've Got Guts

Only when Liu Jingming saw Wu Youren retrieve two arrows did he speak in shock. "You even used a bow?" The last trap had merely been nails and arrows buried in a pit, but this time, it was an active attack! Wu Youren pondered before replying, "It seems to have hit... When setting traps, one can't always stick to the same routine." If it were still just a pitfall, the intruder could breach it simply by wearing a pair of thick-soled boots. Who designed traps that way? What worried Liu Jingming was, "Isn't this against the rules?" Wu Youren answered in all seriousness, "There's ghost-dispelling powder on the arrowheads." The patrol knight from last time hadn't ultimately forbidden him from laying further traps, and he had even sent word through Rossi later on. As long as Wu Youren insisted that this was intended to deal with Guizu, he doubted Red Pine wouldn't take that factor into account. Ultimately, this was a process of probing each other's bottom line. Though it skirted danger, he felt it was necessary to test the waters. Without taking action to test them, the bottom line would never reveal itself. Once Liu Jingming got over his shock, he began to fret. "Is my supply chain exposed just like that?" "The noise was minimal. People might not come," Wu Youren said, in a far better frame of mind. "Hardly anyone comes here, and I never considered myself that important." He was indeed right; after quite a long while, there was still no reaction from the surroundings. Then he began considering another question: "Do you think that person came for me, or for your source of goods?" "Who knows?" Liu Jingming shook his head in disinterest. "Forget it, I'm heading back... You only ever scare me!" There was no need to shoulder everything himself! Wu Youren smiled casually. Liu Jingming was somewhat more trustworthy than the other hostages; letting him secretly investigate and shoulder a bit of the pressure was fine. What puzzled him most now was: what was this intruder's background? To have approached so close without being detected, the person likely possessed the cultivation of a knight. Yet for such a simple mechanism to have actually injured them, it didn't seem quite like a knight either. Plagued by this doubt, he couldn't focus on his cultivation at all and only managed to catch a brief wink of sleep once dawn broke. Near midday, the caretaker came by, asking with a solemn face, "Did someone come last night?" "Yes." Wu Youren nodded. Strictly speaking, the man before him was the lowest-level peacekeeper here. Yet his strength was rather unimpressive. "You used crossbow bolts?" He surprisingly didn't know Liu Jingming had secretly visited. "No," Wu Youren flatly denied. "I merely used a trap with a spring plate." "Who came?" the caretaker pressed on, looking exceedingly grave—one would never guess the two previously had a decent rapport. "I don't know," Wu Youren continued shaking his head. "They ran very fast. I didn't dare turn on the light." He couldn't be blamed for not daring to turn on the light. The light bulbs he had purchased previously had been smashed multiple times, and Red Pine had yet to give him an explanation. Since no one reimbursed him for the items he bought, whether he used them was entirely up to him. "Was there bodily poison smeared on it?" The caretaker's questions came one after another. "I don't know," Wu Youren answered crisply. "I never deliberately smear bodily poison; it would only be accidental contamination." "Heh, accidental." The caretaker chuckled, shook his head, and left. In the afternoon, Shi Linyuan actually showed up, and alone at that. With a fake smile, he greeted, "Youren, long time no see." Wu Youren stared blankly at him, staying silent for a full five seconds before asking, "Who are you? Have we met?" "That's about enough," Shi Linyuan's face darkened. He had originally intended to be more cordial; after all, among the hostages from Hostage Manor, this was the only one who had made a name for himself. Yet his disdain for the young man was deeply ingrained to his bones, mixed with a hint of hostility. If Wu Youren had spoken politely, he would have let it slide, but this outright denial left him completely humiliated. "Think about your family!" Wu Youren blinked, raising his voice slightly. "So we're old acquaintances... Are you a hostage too?" "Holy shit!" Shi Linyuan's expression changed completely. Lowering his voice, he gritted his teeth and hissed, "Are you crazy?" Currently, among the five Jin hostages at Red Pine Martial Academy, only Wu Youren's identity was semi-public. Wu Youren, however, continued in an unhurried, moderate tone, "So are you a hostage or not?" "Fine, you're ruthless!" Shi Linyuan spun around to leave. "Don't think that just because you cozy up to a grand knight, nobody can handle you!" Wu Youren cast him a disdainful glance, let out a soft snort, and went to build a fire to cook. His heart was far less calm than he appeared, silently pondering: Even Liu Jingming wasn't necessarily certain he had linked up with Hong Yan. That meant that no matter how pathetic Jin was, its intelligence network in Liang had not been completely wiped out! Yet so what? The bad blood between him and Shi Linyuan had formed long ago. Setting aside everything else, just the grudge over being pushed into the water meant he could never let Shi Linyuan off. And this time, the man had actually dared to threaten him with "family"? At that moment, he even had the impulse to report him to the Life-and-Death Knot—not that he hadn't done it before! Thinking it over, however, he abandoned the thought. Earlier, he had reported Instructor Kelly because they were strangers, but who in the Protocol Office didn't know Shi Linyuan was a hostage? Reporting a companion he had lived with for eight years—Wu Youren didn't want to make a spectacle for outsiders, nor did he want people questioning his character. Even more, he didn't want others figuring out his behavioral patterns and thereby completing a psychological profile on him. Besides, all he could report was clandestine colluding, but if hostages didn't collude in secret, that would be truly abnormal. An inconsequential report would only cause others to look down on him—what point was there in that? Regardless, Shi Linyuan's appearance dampened his mood even further. Yet misfortunes never come singly. That very night, the burly man from the Life-and-Death Knot sought him out again. This man approached from the main road out front, where there were no traps, and his knock on the door wasn't particularly wild. Wu Youren opened the door and sighed. "Is getting a good night's sleep really that hard?" "Oh? Look at you... grown quite a temper, haven't you?" The burly man sneered, reaching out to grab him. "Looks like you need a lesson." Wu Youren dodged aside, slipping past the grab. "My lord, have you turned aberrant?" "I'm fucking normal as can be!" Hearing this, the burly man ground to a halt mid-motion. After a pause, he flashed a sinister grin. "You've got guts, daring to threaten me!" Though he said this, he had watched the youth grow up before his very eyes. Disciplining Wu Youren had merely been a whim, intending to make the boy see reality and keep his head from swelling. Yet he also knew that the traps the boy set around the cottage were growing increasingly vicious; if they truly clashed, he might not walk away unscathed. Once the commotion of a fight grew too large—his identity could be known to the Jin hostages, but it wasn't suitable to be made public. If he ended up wounded, he would become the laughingstock of his colleagues. "I'm not threatening you," Wu Youren replied solemnly. "I just want to ask: what exactly is the protection fee I pay protecting?" "Didn't you pay your protection fee to Hong Yan?" The burly man sneered. "The academy students picking on you has nothing to do with us." The leak about his hostage identity was definitely this man's doing! Wu Youren was completely certain of it. At this moment, however, dwelling on it was pointless. He countered, "It was four silver dollars a month, wasn't it?" "You still care about such petty cash?" Hearing this, the burly man grew infuriated. "Knight-grade blades and swords—you're a big shot now!" "It's still a protection fee," Wu Youren replied in a deep voice. "If you can't protect me from others harming me, at least don't kick me while I'm down, right?" "Kick you while you're down?" Hearing this, the burly man's fingers twitched, an impulse to strike rising once more. In their line of work, striking at the drop of a hat was second nature. Without cruelty, one couldn't deter sly degenerates. Yet cruelty was merely a tool; the fundamental objective was ensuring goals were met. And it had to be admitted that the youth had grown up now—never mind his reputation and accomplishments, even his strength had increased. Those who only knew brute force couldn't last in this trade; knowing how to use both threats and inducements, and catering to people's desires, was proper protocol. So, though somewhat disgruntled, he suppressed the urge. "I came this time to inform you that the military wants to requisition you. There's a major battle coming." "I'm not going," Wu Youren refused without hesitation. "When we left Hostage Manor, the Protocol Office gave a promise: no military conscription." "That was to exempt you from fighting other nations," the burly man answered coldly. "Do you really think we're deaf and blind?" "My identity has already been exposed." Wu Youren paused intentionally. Whose fine handiwork was that? "A Jin hostage requisitioned by the Liang military—what kind of situation are you putting me in?" Yet the burly man proved brazen enough. "Isn't this precisely the moment to witness the friendship between Liang and Jin?" "Friendship between two nations... Then how do you explain my vegetable garden?" "The culprits can be severely punished," the burly man replied without thinking. "The students' discipline has grown lax; a rectification is indeed necessary." Fuck me... Wu Youren listened in disbelief. Are you serious? Then again, people in this trade stopped at nothing to achieve their aims and truly had no bottom line. Moreover, the actions of those Liang students were indeed too childish; giving them a slight knocking down was well within reason. Considering how those teenagers had acted after being manipulated by the Life-and-Death Knot in the first place, it was truly ironic. Wu Youren believed the man could actually pull off something like that, but there was no way he would accept conscription into the army! Especially now that his hostage identity was out in the open, it was even less possible. Otherwise, he would become Liang's textbook case of defection. Even if Jin didn't retaliate against his family, he would be nailed to history's pillar of shame! He blinked. "Then what about Viscount Jingmo's daughter, Sally?" "Damn it," the burly man's face darkened at the mention. "You're getting too presumptuous. What status do you have, and what status does she have?" "There are fewer than a hundred Jin hostages," Wu Youren answered with a straight face. "How many children of Liang viscounts are there?"