Su Qing tut-tutted. ’Never in their wildest dreams,’ she thought, ’did these two boars imagine they’d learn how to do a handstand.’
"SQUEAL SQUEAL SQUEAL!" With their rears stuck in the top of the den, the two wild boars couldn’t move no matter how much they struggled. They squealed in frustration. But no matter how much the two large boars shrieked, the three smaller ones remained silent. Su Qing raised an eyebrow. ’Good grief. Don’t tell the two big ones just squashed their own young?’
Without giving it a closer look, Su Qing stored the entire family of boars in her space, placing them in the area with the vine chests. The whole family, neat and tidy, not a single one left behind.
Having harvested five wild boars, Su Qing was in high spirits. Even if she found nothing else tonight, these few boars were already a bountiful harvest. She decided to wander a little longer before heading ho.
Absorbing the green mist in the forest, Su Qing casually picked a direction and ambled on.
"Mmph... mmph..." Suddenly, a sound ca from up ahead. Hearing it, Su Qing couldn’t help but frown. ’Who would be aimlessly wandering the mountains in the middle of the night?’
’Wait!’
Su Qing narrowed her eyes. Listening to the sound, it seed to be the noise of a struggle.
Su Qing quickly pressed her hand against a creeping vine on the ground. Soon, a scene appeared in her mind’s eye.
The person tied up was actually Zhang Erlai!
Su Qing was a little surprised. ’Who did Zhang Erlai provoke to get himself kidnapped and dragged into the mountains?’
Zhang Erlai’s hands were tied behind his back to a tree trunk, and a dirty rag was stuffed in his mouth. He was struggling, making muffled noises.
Two n were standing guard nearby. One was by a campfire, roasting a wild chicken, while the other stepped forward and patted Zhang Erlai’s face. "Alright, quit your whimpering. We’re in the middle of a deep, old forest. You think soone’s going to co and save you? Dream on. I advise you to save your energy. When our boss gets back, you’d better obediently tell us what you know. Otherwise, kid, you might not live to see tomorrow’s sunrise."
After speaking, he drove a fist into Zhang Erlai’s stomach.
"Oof!"
Zhang Erlai doubled over in pain.
The man sneered, "See that? That was just an appetizer. If you don’t obediently tell us what you know, it won’t be as simple as just taking a punch."
The man roasting the chicken tore off a drumstick. Hissing and panting from the heat, he took a couple of bites before speaking. "Why are you wasting your breath on this kid? He’s just a lackey. If he won’t talk, we’ll just get rid of him. Worst case, we grab soone else to ask."
"This kid is highly valued by his big brother; he’s gotta know a lot." The man who had punched Zhang Erlai walked over, tore off the other drumstick, and began to eat. While gnawing on the chicken, he gloated at Zhang Erlai, "Slls good, doesn’t it? Too bad you won’t be lucky enough to have a bite."
Zhang Erlai gritted his teeth against the pain and glared furiously at the two n. They just laughed and went back to eating with great relish.
Hearing their conversation, Su Qing frowned slightly. ’What are these two trying to get out of Zhang Erlai? He never works in the village, so I know he must have his own way of making money. But I have no idea what he’s actually doing, or why he’d be kidnapped and brought into the depths of Baihua Mountain.’
Although Su Qing hadn’t interacted much with Zhang Erlai, she felt he probably wasn’t a bad person. At least, from her one previous encounter with him, he hadn’t seed bad.
Since she had stumbled upon this, and he was from the sa village, Su Qing couldn’t just ignore it.
However, she couldn’t just rush out to save him like this. She didn’t want Zhang Erlai to discover her secrets.
So, Su Qing disguised herself again. She had originally wanted to disguise herself as a man, but after a glance at the clothes she was wearing and her clearly developed chest, she decisively gave up on that idea.
She sared sothing on her face, concealing the scar on her left cheek and thickening her eyebrows. She used a branch to twist her hair into a bun and darkened her exposed skin. Soon, the image of a dark, scrawny girl was complete. With this appearance, even if Zhang Erlai wracked his brain, he would never guess it was Su Qing.
Luckily, Su Qing had stored so of her clothes from ho in her space earlier, which was convenient now. She chose a plain, seldom-worn set of clothes, changed out of her original outfit, and then stealthily crept toward the location of Zhang Erlai and the two n.
"Hey, when do you think the boss and the others will be back?" one of the guards asked as they ate and chatted.
"Don’t know. We just have to wait. Anyway, the boss told us to grab this guy, so our mission is complete. It’s nice to have so downti and not have to do any work."
"Hey, now that you ntion it, you’re right."
The two n looked at each other and laughed.
However, one of them quickly stopped laughing. His eyes widened in shock. ’When did this person get here? How did I not notice at all? She was already behind us by the ti I saw her!’
"You... you..." The man was so stunned he started to stutter.
"What’s wrong?" His companion, seeing the man’s expression as if he’d seen a ghost, asked in surprise. Seeing him staring right past him, a chill ran down his spine. Just as he was about to turn and look, he felt a sharp pain on the side of his neck, and then he lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.
Everything happened too fast, so fast that neither of them had ti to react.
Seeing his partner hit the ground, the startled man leaped to his feet. He grabbed a burning piece of firewood from nearby and swung it at Su Qing. "You bitch, you’re asking to die!"
Su Qing wasn’t the least bit afraid of his attack. After killing zombies for so long in the apocalypse, she had honed her combat skills and reflexes to a fine edge. Besides, after using the green mist to restore her body these past few days, she had already recovered seventy to eighty percent of her strength.
Seeing the man swing the flaming club at her, she instantly sidestepped and slamd a fist into his face.
"Argh!" The man’s head went blank from the impact. He stumbled back two steps involuntarily, the flaming club in his hand falling to the ground.
’Never give an opponent a chance to recover.’
Once she landed a hit, Su Qing never gave her opponents an opportunity to counterattack. She imdiately pressed forward again, smashing a fist into the man’s neck.
THUD!
Another body hit the ground.
Seeing that she had knocked both n unconscious, Su Qing walked over and infused a trace of gray mist into each of them to ensure they wouldn’t wake up. Only then did she turn to look at Zhang Erlai, who was still tied to the tree.
Having had nothing to eat and having been beaten, Zhang Erlai looked listless. He had been keeping his head down, only looking up when he heard the commotion to see what was happening. And then he saw it: the two n who had captured him had been taken down in a few punches by a single girl.
In the deep night, the firelight flickered across the girl’s profile, and Zhang Erlai found himself staring, completely srized.
’Heavens,’ he thought, ’did the gods send a fairy to save ?’
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