Chapter 6: On the Run

  Li Guoting fled Panlong Town overnight.

  He followed the winding mountain path from Panlong Town to the neighboring county, running forward in the dark. As he ran, he heard a series of fierce barks from behind him, followed by the sound of horseshoes, which came from the distant black mountain ridge towards his direction. He turned around and looked back, seeing a row of torches lit up on the mountain road in the distance. Someone shouted: "Hurry up and chase, don't let that kid get away!"

  The mountain wind carried the cold earthy smell, blowing the shouting voices of those people into Li Guoting's ears. He knew he had been discovered.

  Li Guoting was a little scared in his heart. Although he grew up on this land, after all, he had never run such a long distance before. Moreover, the road was slippery and dark at night, with strong winds and cold temperatures. He had never taken the mountain road leading out of Panlong Town before, nor did he know which direction to run in. The shouting voices behind him grew louder and closer, with the sound of dogs barking and horses' hooves coming from the nearby mountain ridge. The situation was urgent. If he didn't want to be caught, he had to keep running forward without hesitation.

  The shoe on his right foot had gone missing at some point, and in the freezing cold, he was running with one bare foot on the snowy mountain path, yet Li Guoting didn't feel the slightest bit of chill. Instead, he broke out into a sweat.

  As soon as he ran down the mountain slope, he heard the footsteps chasing him getting closer and closer. Li Guoting turned his head to take a look, and found that not far from him, at the bend of the mountain path, behind a clump of low shrubs covered with snow, a torch suddenly rose up. The torch was swaying forward in front of the shrubs. The shrubs covered with white snow reflected the dark red light with a yellowish hue emitted by the torch in the darkness. This light happened to shine on Li Guoting's back, who was hesitating at a fork in the road ahead.

  "Halt! Halt! Where are you running to?"

  As the torchlight rose, the Chen family's servant who was chasing from behind saw Li Guoting running forward with one foot bare.

  "Hurry up and chase him, that poor kid is ahead."

  Another loud shout from a family member rose up behind Li Guoting.

  "Get after him quickly, don't let that little brat get away. Heavy reward for capture."

  Li Guoting recognized this as Liu Xueren's hoarse voice, Chen Guangfu's big steward.

  Li Guoting knew he was in trouble, having run for half a day, yet the Chen family's people still caught up with him. No use hesitating, might as well keep running and worry about it later.

  Thinking of this, Li Guoting was like a startled rabbit and didn't care about anything else. He simply shook off the broken cotton shoe with a missing heel from his left foot. With both feet bare, he didn't even care about the cold and icy snow-covered mountain road beneath him. Crouching down, he ran down the small path on the right side of the fork in the road, which was full of thorns.

  "Come on, chase him! That kid ran down the road to the right."

  A household servant held up a torch and shouted loudly.

  "Go after him, go after him. Hurry up and catch the poor guy, Master will heavily reward." Butler Liu Xueren panted as he ran up, directing the house servants to closely follow the path where Li Guoting had escaped, chasing after him.

  "Halt! Halt! If you don't halt, I'll shoot!" Along with the shouting, Li Guoting heard the sound of a gun being cocked from behind him. He knew he was in trouble and that the pursuing soldiers had caught up with him again. Without hesitation, he continued to run down the mountain path.

  Bang! A gunshot rang out. A bullet, shining with a flowing light, broke through the quiet of the night sky and flew over Li Guoting's head, hitting a tree in front. The bullet exploded on the trunk, bursting out a piece of bark.

  "Woof woof——."

  After the gunshot, there was a burst of barking.

  Li Guoting didn't care about anything anymore. Those two feet, not feeling the slightest chill of the snow underfoot or the thorns of the brambles by the roadside, ran desperately towards the deep ditch at the foot of the mountain.

  As he ran to a bend in the mountain road, Li Guoting heard a gurgling sound of flowing water. He looked down and saw that beside the slope covered with thorns was a stream leading out of the mountain. He turned his head and looked back, only to find that the group of people chasing him were still closely behind him. The torches and shouts from behind made it clear that they were getting closer and closer.

  "Can't run along the road anymore." Li Guoting thought. That way, he wouldn't be able to run far before being caught by them.

  In a state of urgency, Li Guoting stretched out his hand to part the thorns by the roadside, took a step forward, and drilled into the thorn bush. He passed through the thorn bush by the roadside, jumped into the icy stream, and soon he waded through the stream and came to a shrub covered with snow on the opposite bank. He lay his body under the shrubs, curled up into a ball, holding his breath, and remained motionless, hiding in the shrubs.

  Butler Liu Xueren and the head of the Panshan Town Security Team, who arrived later, led a group of Chen family servants and security team soldiers along the mountain road where Li Guoting had just run down, chasing after him.

  It wasn't until dawn broke that the entire valley finally returned to calmness.

  The group of Chen family servants and town security team members who were chasing Li Guoting didn't know where they had chased him to. Anyway, Li Guoting, hiding in the bushes by the mountain stream, no longer heard their voices.

  Hiding for half the night, Li Guoting was frozen from head to toe and shivering all over. His two hands had pulled his cotton-padded jacket tightly around him countless times, hoping that the jacket his mother had left him could withstand the cold a little longer.

  He tried to move his frozen, numb feet. It felt like they weren't attached to his own body, but rather stuck in the snowy ground. They wouldn't listen to his brain's commands.

  He knew his feet were numb with cold. So, he leaned forward and put his mouth close to his toes. He opened his mouth wide and blew hot air onto his feet. Before long, he felt the numbness in his frozen feet start to fade away, and the tight skin on his feet began to loosen up. He then moved his bare feet around, and the toes that had lost all sensation earlier now started to move again.

  He gritted his teeth and stood up. Dragging his frozen stiff legs, he walked out of the bush. Climbed onto the mountain road.

  Hungry and tired, Li Guoting finally left the territory of Panlong Town after running for a day. In the evening, he arrived at a small village by the riverbank, feeling both hungry and exhausted.

  The village is nestled against the mountain. In front of it lies a stretch of fields bordering the riverbank. On a patch of land to the south, covered with a thin layer of snow, stood a hut made of thatch, about one person high. Li Guoting dared not enter the village, he didn't know where this was and feared being discovered by Chen Guangfu's men, so he skirted around the village and ran into the fields.

  The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow, and some white radishes had not been harvested. He was too hungry, so he quietly ran to the thatched hut, taking advantage of the twilight. He crawled on the ground, secretly pulled out two radishes, and quickly retreated back, climbing up onto the thatched hut.

  The hut was covered with thick dry straw. It seemed that someone had lived here before. Li Guoting knew that there were radishes in the field that hadn't been harvested yet. This hut might be where the person watching over the radishes lived.

  Anyway, I'm too tired to run anymore. My stomach has growled countless times from hunger. And my body is freezing cold. Let's just rest in this shed for the night and make a run for it again at dawn tomorrow. On such a cold day, probably no one will come here anyway.

  Thinking of this, Li Guoting relaxed his tense body for a day and burrowed into the dry rice straw pile in the hut. To say nothing of it, the straw pile was really warm, and as soon as he crawled in, Li Guoting felt that his body was not so cold anymore.

  He bent down, pulled out the two white radishes he had secretly pulled out of the ground earlier. Greedily gazing at the radishes with mud and snow on them, he said: "I'm starving to death. Radish, oh radish, as long as I have you, I won't be afraid of dying. As long as I can survive, I'll take revenge in the future. I'll definitely build a temple for you and offer sacrifices to you every day."

  As he spoke, Li Guoting wiped the snow mud off the radish green skin with his hand and opened his mouth to take a big bite.

  Maybe he was too hungry, so he quickly finished two turnips in a few mouthfuls. He still felt a little hungry.

  He crawled out of the haystack, lifted his head and looked around. The sky had already darkened, and in the village not far in front of the thatched cottage, lights had begun to twinkle. A gust of evening wind brought over a burst of barking dogs. The families living in the village were probably starting to cook dinner. As soon as he thought of dinner, Li Guoting couldn't help but salivate.

  Thinking back to when my parents were alive, I wasn't like the others in the village either. At that time, sitting at the small wooden table in the center of the house, I was drinking the corn porridge cooked by my mother. But now, not to mention a bowl of corn porridge, even a steamed bun, no one would give me.

  "Damn it, one of these days I'll have my day in the sun and throw all these wealthy bastards in jail, not give them clothes to wear or food to eat, let them suffer too." Li Guoting said to himself, gazing resentfully at the village lit up by twinkling lights.

  He stayed in the thatched hut for a while, but his stomach was still hungry. Li Guoting glanced around and saw no movement, so he crawled out of the straw heap, slid down along the pillar of the thatched hut, crouched down, and came to the same piece of radish field as before. He crawled on the ground, stretched out his hand to pull up the radishes. This time, he was a bit greedy and pulled up three in a row, stuffing them into his own cotton-padded jacket. Just as he was about to retreat, he felt a large foot stepping on his calf from behind, causing him to shout "Ah" in pain. He suddenly turned around.

  "Damn it, you little thief, dare to steal your grandfather's radish." Along with a loud shout, Li Guoting saw a man holding a hoe and wearing a cotton hat on his head, using one foot to step on his calf. The hoe in his hand was also raised high and swung down at him.