Unwilling to Give Up

The yellow mist worried that the Jin hostage would not let them off, but Sister Hua and the motorcycle rider remained unmoved. Three knights hailing from the Intelligence Bureau were apprehending a single apprentice knight; since the boy dared to flee, he was clearly no pushover easily handled. Sister Hua even remarked, "You're letting emotion get to your head. The Guizu aura in the mountains is thick." The yellow mist was clearly growing exasperated. "Catch him, and it's thirty gold coins each!" That was three thousand silver dollars—even for a knight, it was a massive sum. The motorcycle rider said nothing. Having advanced to knight only a few years ago, he truly needed to make money. Sister Hua, however, let out a soft scoff. "Who are you looking down on? That kid over there is a Jin hostage. Is that all he's worth?" "Fifty, not a coin more," the yellow mist sweetened the offer decisively, though setting a firm limit. "If you don't move now, he'll be in the mountains!" At this moment, the boy was still at least five kilometers from the foot of the mountain. Hearing that, the motorcycle rider's eyes widened significantly, but Sister Hua stated calmly, "One hundred, regardless of the outcome." "You motherf—Fine!" From within the yellow mist came the faint sound of grinding teeth. "Hurry up! Once he's in the mountains, it'll be a pain!" The two knights surged forward in an instant, rushing ahead like a gale. With a shrug of the motorcycle rider's shoulder, the rifle slung over his back whipped into his hands. Then he called out, "Sister Hua, dead or alive?" "I said, regardless of the outcome!" the female knight replied expressionlessly. However, they had delayed after all, and their start was a bit slow. The motorcycle rider sprinted with all his might, striving to close the distance between himself and Wu Youren. Going back for his motorcycle was out of the question now. Besides, the wilderness was full of pits and uneven ground; a motorcycle wouldn't necessarily outpace a warrior's full sprint. The youth wasn't running in a straight line, so although the gap was narrowing, it hadn't closed enough for them to stop and take aim. At the very same time, Wu Youren was tossing an item or two behind him every now and then. Most of them were duds or decoys, but some were real explosives, so the three pursuers dared not let their guard down. When they were barely a kilometer from the foot of the mountain, he actually lobbed a smoke grenade behind him. "Watch out, it's poisonous!" The three knights had grown used to the boy's bluffing, but those two words—"it's poisonous"—were still something they had to guard against! Wu Youren finally reached the foot of the mountain and charged up the slopes without hesitation. Seeing that he was about to make it into the mountains, the pursuers also gained an excellent field of view and a closer striking distance. The motorcycle rider had already swapped in an extended magazine for his rifle and began aiming on the run. The moment a good opportunity presented itself, he could halt instantly and pull the trigger. Yet in the next instant, Wu Youren, scrambling up the mountain, also drew a pistol and fired repeatedly behind him. He barely aimed at all; all his focus was on rushing to the crest as quickly as possible. Still, it couldn't be called blind firing either; the perception he extended allowed him to roughly sense what was happening behind him. The motorcycle rider was clearly disrupted. Even if a pistol had limited range, he had no desire to take a stray bullet. "How does this kid reload so fast?" The yellow mist flared with annoyance. "Would taking two damn bullets kill you? Why the hell are you dodging all over the place?" "This is tactical discipline built through hard training!" the motorcycle rider retorted, somewhat at a loss for words. Such subconscious reactions involved muscle and neural reflexes; they couldn't just be discarded on a whim. "What if he were holding a machine gun?" Sister Hua chimed in leisurely, "He handles a machine gun pretty well." "You motherf—..." The yellow mist reached halfway up the slope and let out a heavy sigh. "Forget it. He's into the mountains. Pursue!" "Are you insane?" Sister Hua was astonished. Continuing the chase into the mountains—was he tired of living? "Let's see how things look," the yellow mist swept toward the ridge with extraordinary speed. "Just these few strides... aren't worth a hundred!" He was determined to press the chase; if his two companions gave up, the prior agreement would be void. He saw nothing wrong with his logic. Running just a few steps and expecting to earn ten thousand silver dollars—what were they dreaming of? It wasn't that he was forcing his two companions into the mountains to take risks in the Guizu aura clusters; rather, outside the mountains... the two of them had failed to stop him! "Then into the mountains we go," the motorcycle rider said, flicking his shoulder to sling the rifle back behind him. "But if we have to enter a Guizu aura cluster, I might not join you!" The Guizu aura on the other side of the mountain wasn't everywhere the moment one stepped foot inside; it was merely a general regional designation. What was certain was that the deeper one went, the heavier the Guizu aura became. Thus, the motorcycle rider made his position clear in advance: everyone wanted to make money, but courting death was off the table. The three crested the ridge and paused in unison, taken aback: ahead lay a blanket of faint white mist, obscuring their vision. They could faintly make out the silhouette of the Jin hostage plunging deep into the white mist. The motorcycle rider whipped his rifle around once more, sending a long spray of bullets after him—more than twenty rounds in total. The bullets traced strikingly visible trajectories through the air. Yet firing was all it amounted to; there was no follow-up whatsoever. They did not even hear a faint groan. "You should've used ghost-vanquishing bullets," Sister Hua remarked leisurely, looking down below. "I don't have that kind of money," the motorcycle rider replied candidly. "Nor do I want to draw so much hostility." For knights, entering a Guizu aura cluster was indeed perilous, but as long as they didn't court disaster, their chances of escaping with their lives were not low. Ghost-vanquishing bullets, however, were second to none when it came to drawing hostility. "I'm going after him," the yellow mist revealed his form: a burly man leaning on a crutch, his left leg slightly bent. His face was grim. "If you two want to leave now... be my guest, but I won't honor the deal!" "At least twenty gold coins, and we can pull out at any time," Sister Hua stated leisurely. "Otherwise, I really am walking away." "Deal," the crutch-bearing burly man nodded crisply. "I don't want to make too much noise either." The three slipped silently into the white mist, unlike their overt, sweeping movements outside the mountain. Two or three minutes later, two figures stirred on the ridgeline, both dressed in military uniforms. The two had been drawn by the earlier gunfire. "What the hell... is there a new mission?" The other soldier shook his head, grinding his teeth as he spoke. "Probably more greedy bastards." "Damn it, is staying alive so hard? When they stir up trouble, we're the ones stuck wiping their asses!" The soldiers tasked with containing the Guizu aura genuinely loathed such occurrences. How could the three knights have guessed that people were badmouthing them from behind? Even had they known, they wouldn't have cared; the deeper they went, the heavier the mist grew. The three didn't dare separate too far, or they would easily lose touch. After more than ten minutes, one could no longer see a companion past two meters. The distance between the motorcycle rider and Sister Hua was only five or six meters, and that was with knight-level perception; any farther would be truly unsafe. The crutch-bearing burly man had transformed back into yellow mist, enveloping the two while also seeping silently through the white mist. "How can this kid... run so fast?" the motorcycle rider couldn't help muttering. "He really has a death wish. Could he... already be dead?" "Unlikely," Sister Hua replied. "The boy is quite something. At the very least, he feels it's safer than falling into our hands." "Rein in your perception," a voice sounded from within the yellow mist. "There are more and more Guizu aura clusters around us. It'll be enough for me to scout ahead for you two." His ability leaned toward the earth element, yet he could turn his body into mist; his reconnaissance capabilities were indeed far superior to his companions'. The two knights were silent. Only after a good while did Sister Hua sigh. "Why are you clinging to this so relentlessly?" The two of them had indeed intended to deal with the kid, but only for a bit of profit, whereas this man seemed bent on pursuing it to the death. "Wounding my man—isn't that reason enough?" the yellow mist answered casually. The one wounded by the arrow trap that day really was his subordinate—not on the Intelligence Bureau's official roster, but a peripheral member nonetheless. It was precisely for this reason that they had contacted the gatekeepers at Red Pine to keep tabs on Wu Youren's movements. "Heh," Sister Hua chuckled dismissively and said nothing more. Her unspoken thought, however, was crystal clear: *You think I buy that?* Meanwhile, the motorcycle rider confirmed once more, "So dead or alive makes no difference?" The yellow mist fell silent, answering only after a dozen seconds or so. "Preferably alive... The chances of Guizu mutation are lower." Clearly, he was holding something back! The motorcycle rider and Sister Hua exchanged a glance. They were all adults; who couldn't pick up on such little calculations? Still, it hardly mattered. A mere foreign apprentice knight—did his life or death really matter? Instead, the motorcycle rider remarked, "The weapons stay with us. You only want the person anyway." They hadn't even found him yet, and already they were dividing the spoils—truly a bit too impatient. Especially given that he was an alumnus of Red Pine, which he had used to gain the boy's trust. The yellow mist replied without a second thought, "Out of the question! I've already promised your payment; all the spoils belong to me." "If you want the blades, then there is no payment!" "You're already an ability master," the motorcycle rider said grudgingly, "and a knight on top of that. Do you really need to pinch pennies over this?" "Of course I do! Who complains about having too much money?" the yellow mist retorted with full conviction. "Besides, I've only awakened; I haven't reached ability master yet. This is precisely when I need money the most!" They had no interest in discussing the living, breathing Jin hostage; money, on the other hand, was far more worthy of debate... After another ten-odd minutes, Sister Hua objected once again. "That should be enough. I feel the surrounding threat growing greater and greater." She had drawn back a portion of her perception, but with cultivation at the knight level, her intuition was far sharper than an ordinary person's. "Why don't we turn back?" The motorcycle rider couldn't help chiming in. Money was nice, but one had to be alive to spend it. "Hold on for another half hour," the yellow mist said, unwilling to give up. "If we evacuate, the straight-line distance isn't far." Twenty minutes later, he spoke up with satisfaction, "All right, the white mist is thinning. You two will be able to see shortly." The motorcycle rider remained silent, but Sister Hua asked, "Still haven't found him?" "Tsk," the yellow mist hesitated before answering. "Looks like that little fellow really does have a few tricks up his sleeve." The motorcycle rider finally couldn't help saying, "I just hope... he isn't dead already." Advancing for another two minutes, the white mist grew noticeably thinner, and was becoming lighter by the moment.