The one thing the Hengduan Mountains never lacked was an endless succession of peaks. Dense foliage blocked out the moonlight as the massive mountain slopes plunged downward.
Yet at the foot of the mountain, a section of the cliff face folded sharply inward.
The hollow beneath the cliff offered ample space, but its upper rim was concealed by sprawling, leaning trees, keeping visibility quite low. After the earlier bout of chaos, the captors had threatened the medical personnel into silence and sent two scouts out to survey the surrounding area.
In the dim light, water trickled down from fissures in the rock, and insects chirped in the brush.
The wound was just above the back of her knee, on the side of her thigh—a long, deep gash. Amid the agonizing ache of torn flesh, Xiao Li gritted her teeth, drawing in ragged, shuddering breaths that wrenched the hearts of those around her.
She was only sixteen, normally such a lively girl.
She had been the very first one to toss a little sour pear to Han Qingyu. Later, once they grew familiar, she had earned a new nickname from it, one she genuinely liked.
It hurt so much.
Tears streamed down her cheeks uncontrollably, yet she dared not cry out. Her body trembled involuntarily, each breath quivering. Her lips had begun to turn pale, and the healthy, rosy glow of her young face had gradually drained away.
The hair clip had been thrown behind her back at the exact moment the bearded man hauled her up, just as the rest of the doctors and nurses had lunged forward.
The young girl loved pretty things, loved things that sparkled. Realizing she had the clip and coming up with the plan had both been somewhat accidental. Having heard that a small mirror could signal a location to bombers, she had made a daring attempt.
Xiao Li felt she truly lived up to being Han Qingyu's friend.
Thinking of the injuries covering Qingzi and Wu Xu... Now I have some too.
*But if this leaves a scar, I won't look pretty in summer dresses anymore! Ugh, it hurts so much. I'll kill you all.*
The hair clip now lay outside among the rocks, its tiny mirror reflecting the moonlight. There was no telling whether the helicopters in the sky could spot it.
"Look for medicine. Everyone check—does anyone have medicine on them?" Fortunately, everyone present was medical staff. After a pool of blood had soaked into the ground, the bleeding had finally been stanched.
His hands slick with blood, the doctor looked up, wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm. Letting out a cautious sigh of relief, he whispered to the people nearby, telling them to check if anyone happened to be carrying medicine.
The rustling in the dark put the guards on alert, and one stood up.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"...Make another sound and I'll start killing people, hear me?! With this many of you, killing one or two won't hurt our business. Figure it out yourselves."
In truth, according to what the contact sent by Snow Lotus had said, every person from Azure was worth money; otherwise, he would have done it long ago. After issuing his threat, the bearded man carried his blade back toward the cave mouth and crouched down again.
A man with slitted, triangular eyes crept over to his side and whispered, "Hey, Boss... are we really going to return... sell all these people back?"
The bearded man glanced up at him. "What of it?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could keep a few to be women for the brothers?" Slant-eyes offered an ingratiating, lecherous grin. "I've never seen so many pretty girls before."
The bearded man instinctively glanced toward the crowd, paused, and turned back. "In your fucking dreams... Snow Lotus calls the shots on this. You think they’d listen to us?!"
Though he said the words, a trace of temptation and greed flickered in his demeanor.
"Who cares about them? Even Snow Lotus doesn’t know how many we actually grabbed, right, Boss? Once we get out, we’ll just stash a few away first."
"Then knock 'em up, knock 'em up, and break their legs. Back in the village, wasn't that how they handled the women they snatched from outside?" Slant-eyes added.
Low, vile chuckles echoed between them.
The sound sent chills down the spines of the medical staff.
"If you put it that way..." the bearded man muttered. Then, tilting his head with a gesture, he asked, "If we really did that, which one would you guys want?"
Gazes from all around snapped toward the captives, sickening and vile.
"If I really got to pick, I'd take the one who made a fuss just now—that stubborn little wench." Slant-eyes watched the bearded man's expression, grew excited, and turned with his knife, heading straight for the crowd.
Just at that moment, a nurse who had found a tube of ointment on her person was quietly passing it along.
"What's that?!" Spotting the movement from afar, Slant-eyes strode over and pressed his blade against the throat of the person who had just received the medicine. In a low, vicious voice, he snarled, "Hand it over!"
"Give it here!" The tip of the blade pricked the skin.
Taking the ointment and inspecting it, he turned to glance at Xiao Li lying on the ground. Understanding dawned on him. Crouching down with knife in hand, he said, "I suppose I could give it to you."
The surrounding doctors and nurses all stared at him.
"Promise to be my woman once we get out, and I'll give you the medicine." Waiting a few seconds without an answer, he pressed, "Well?!"
Xiao Li turned her body aside and looked away, refusing to face him.
"Oh-ho... not afraid to die, are you?!"
The blade moved closer.
Xiao Li still didn't look.
"Quite the stubborn one, aren't you? Tell you what—just say the word. As long as you agree and make me happy, I'll give you the medicine. Otherwise, you might just bleed to death right here, you know?" Slant-eyes smirked repulsively.
Behind her, an older nurse gently tugged at the hem of Xiao Li's clothes. "Xiao Li..." Under the circumstances, almost everyone believed that Azure's soldiers would come. Agreeing for now to secure the medicine seemed acceptable.
Though her consciousness was drifting, Xiao Li shook her head. Weakly yet resolutely, she said, "No. I'm going to marry an Azure soldier someday. I can't go promising something like that to anyone before I even meet him."
A single sentence—she refused even to offer a perfunctory compromise. Enraged, Slant-eyes shoved the blade forward a fraction. "What did you say?!"
"I said, no!" Facing the tip of the blade, Xiao Li pushed herself up stubbornly and glared at him. "I said I won't insult the Azure soldier who's going to marry me by making promises to a piece of shit!"
This was the stubbornness of a sixteen-year-old girl, her purest longing and conviction... unburdened by calculations of gain and loss, free from the pragmatism of compromise.
As her words fell, the entire hollow fell dead silent.
"You think I won't kill you?!" In a fit of fury, Slant-eyes raised his blade, poised to bring it down on Xiao Li.
Terrified screams erupted from the crowd as the doctors and nurses lunged forward to shield her.
A figure went flying.
A man, suddenly, went flying through the air.
In that single instant, a black spear carried Slant-eyes and his knife hurtling backward across the space before the crowd... *Bang!* He was pinned to the stone wall behind.
The spear had driven through him right between his shoulder and chest, not killing him instantly.
The abrupt turn of events left everyone dazed.
"Fatty! Old Dong...!" Unable to see clearly, the bearded man engaged his device, rose with his blade, and shouted twice toward the outside.
Yet neither of the two men he had sent to scout the perimeter responded.
Within their field of view, three silhouettes appeared outside the cliff face, bathed in moonlight.
"Grab them—" Azure was here! The bearded man roared, wheeling around to pounce on the crowd. He took only a single step... before his entire body suddenly dropped shorter.
His legs were gone.
As for the others, they couldn't even manage a move.
In the faint light, two spinning blades whipped like lightning through the paths of the remaining guards, as though steered by remote control—silent and swift.
In an instant, those closest to the crowd were killed, and those farther away were crippled. Not a single captor could move again.
Against Han Qingyu and Wu Xu, the strength of these guards was a pathetic joke. They had pinpointed this location through aerial reconnaissance from the helicopters. Upon reaching the perimeter, dealing with the two scouts outside had cost a moment, and taking stock of the enemy's numbers and positions inside the cave had cost another.
That was all.
Visibility beneath the cliff remained poor. The change had happened so abruptly and so brutally that the medical personnel hadn't even processed it, trapped in an onslaught of screams and overwhelming terror.
The three silhouettes walked in from beyond the cliff. One of them bent down, picked up a hair clip from the ground, looked up at the frightened scene, and spoke:
"Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. We're going home... I'm taking you home."
Without thinking, he had said "home."
Home? The crowd finally came to their senses. Looking around and gazing at the figures emerging from the outside, they settled... filled with an immense sense of security.
That voice... Xiao Li turned her head in surprise. "Qingzi?! Qingzi, is that you?"
Though she was so weak, the voice that called out was suddenly bright and clear.
*But hadn't Qingzi and the others already left?*
Han Qingyu said gently, "Yes, Xiao Li."
Their footsteps were steady and unhurried as the three continued forward. Wen Jifei's blade was now in Han Qingyu's hand as well, on guard against any sudden development. One guard struggled to drag his remaining arm toward his knife—*snick*—and his other arm was gone too.
"Xiao Li really is stubborn, but she's damn brave, isn't she?" Wen Jifei said with a grin.
"Yeah," Han Qingyu nodded.
"Yes," Wu Xu nodded as well.
They had overheard the tail end of that conversation.
"Right?" Xiao Li choked back a sob, sounding a bit proud. *Hiss*—she drew in a sharp breath of cold air, and then, *waaah*, burst into loud, unrestrained tears.
Chapter 221