Chapter Thirteen: Omens Surrounding Him

  Danger lurks everywhere

  Yun Xiang Tian discovered that there was a pair of eyes staring at him from behind, but before he could react, he smelled a faint fragrance. "Damn it! Mother... It's the anesthetic again." He cursed and fainted. When he woke up again, he found himself tied to a chair in a small room. There were three people in the room, all wearing black hoods and night clothes, making it impossible to tell who they were. Yun Xiang Tian didn't show any surprise, trying to move, but the ropes were too tight, leaving no hope of escape. Seeing that Yun Xiang Tian was awake, one of them walked over and said: "Tell me, where are you going? Don't tell me you're playing hide-and-seek with those two people. Be honest, or you'll suffer less."

  A woman was speaking, but she intentionally disguised her voice, making it impossible to tell who it was. Yun Xiang Tian thought to himself: "There aren't many women in the mountain stronghold, who are they?" Yun Xiang Tian carefully observed them, but they were wearing masks and the lighting in the room was dim, making it impossible to see their faces. Another person walked over, kicked Yun Xiang Tian, and said in a low voice, "What are you looking at? Be honest! Tell me, what did you come here for?" She pulled out a short knife and began to taunt Yun Xiang Tian's face with it, saying menacingly, "Tell me, or I'll stab you!" Yun Xiang Tian pretended to be afraid and said, "I...I was just wandering around, didn't think I'd end up here. I was going to scare those two people later." The person questioning him seemed very angry, held the short knife to Yun Xiang Tian's chest, and growled, "You..." The other person who had been silent until now took the short knife from her hand, smiled slyly, and began to gesture with the knife in front of Yun Xiang Tian, saying, "Don't be afraid! As long as you tell the truth, nothing will happen. But if you don't..." She swung the short knife downwards towards Yun Xiang Tian's lower body, laughing and saying, "I get angry easily, and my hand shakes. Who knows where the knife might land? If I accidentally turn you into a eunuch...tsk tsk. That would be a pity." After finishing speaking, she continued to laugh to herself.

  Yun Xiang pretended to be scared out of his wits, and even thought about peeing in his pants to add to the atmosphere, but he restrained himself. He spoke incoherently: "I'll go there... Ah, mom, I really don't have any money, I gave a jade pendant to the leader of the Red Mountain Village. Yes, yes, yes, the leader has money, she has a lot of money, you can use me to exchange for money with her, she will definitely give it to you!" As he pretended to shiver with fear, he quietly pulled out a small knife hidden in his sleeve and slowly cut through the rope.

  The second interrogator kicked Yun Xiangtian again and said, "You're a bear, you've disgraced your father..." She suddenly stopped, as if realizing she had misspoken, and gave Yun Xiangtian a slap on the ear, saying, "You're useless, what's the point of keeping you? Boss, I think it's better to just kill him, less trouble..."

  The first speaker to talk pondered for a moment and said, "This thing is indeed useless if left behind, but killing him would be unbecoming of that person's face. Why don't we take him back and think about it again?"

  Just as the three of them were whispering to each other, Yun Xiang Tian had already cut off the rope. He suddenly stood up and said: "Three female heroes slowly discuss, I'm leaving!" Before they could react, he turned around and jumped out of the half-open window behind him.

  The second speaker rushed to the window, as if he wanted to chase after him, but was stopped by the first speaker. She didn't show any surprise or anger, instead, she smiled and said in a soft voice: "Not bad, indeed not bad, I didn't expect us to fool this little kid."

  After Yun Xiang Tian escaped, he found himself still in An Min Village. He recognized the direction and carefully avoided the patrolling personnel and hidden stakes along the way, sneaking back to his room, thinking about the origins of those mysterious black-hooded figures. After dawn, he heard some bad news that the Japanese army had planned to launch an attack towards Ling Feng's direction. To confirm the authenticity of the message, he quickly walked towards the Mountain Stronghold Assembly Hall.

  Yun Xiangtian had just walked into the hall when someone came forward to greet him. He approached Yun Xiangtian and said respectfully, "Young Master Yun, our camp commander has asked me to deliver a letter to you." As he spoke, he pulled out an envelope from his bag and handed it to Yun Xiangtian with both hands. Yun Xiangtian recognized him as one of the National Army soldiers who had accompanied Huang Min to the mountain stronghold yesterday. The letter read: "Dear Young Master Yun, I cordially invite you to visit me at my humble abode. Please do not decline." It was signed "Your brother Huang Min". After reading the letter, Yun Xiangtian asked the soldier, "Does Commander Huang have something important to discuss with me?" The soldier replied, "You will naturally know when you arrive, Young Master Yun." Yun Xiangtian knew that asking further would be futile, so he bid farewell to Hong Shangu and headed towards the Lingfeng Military Camp.

  Under the leadership of that soldier, Yun Xiang Tian arrived at Huang Min's command center without any obstacles. After the soldier's report, Huang Min came out of the house and said with a smile: "Welcome, welcome, younger brother, please come in!" Yun Xiang Tian nodded slightly and smiled, saying: "Older brother is being polite, older brother first." Huang Min patted his thigh and said: "Forget it, I'm not used to this etiquette. Let's go inside and sit down," and he stretched out his hand to pull Yun Xiang Tian into the house, pointing at someone and saying: "Take a look, do you still recognize him?" After finishing speaking, he actually chuckled. Yun Xiang Tian naturally recognized this person, who was Ye Zi Chun. However, Ye Zi Chun's appearance was extremely disheveled - his head was wrapped in bandages, his eyes were black and purple, like a panda, his cheeks were swollen like two big steamed buns, and his entire face was distorted. His right arm was suspended in a sling, and his whole body was covered in bloodstains. He stood there, unable to tell if his legs were injured. Looking at Ye Zi Chun's appearance, Yun Xiang Tian struggled to hold back his laughter. He walked up to Ye Zi Chun, bent down, and teasingly touched Ye Zi Chun's leg, saying: "Older brother Chun, is your leg okay?" Ye Zi Chun heard this and lightly kicked Yun Xiang Tian to the ground, angrily saying: "What? Do you want my legs to be crippled by them too?" This one sentence made Yun Xiang Tian and Huang Min burst out laughing, and in their laughter, Ye Zi Chun's anger was alleviated. The three of them were originally unrelated, but a life-and-death battle at Anmin Village had turned them into sworn brothers. After the joke, Ye Zi Chun told Yun Xiang Tian and Huang Min about the perilous events of that day and night, which would be etched in his memory forever.

  At that time, Yezi Spring was chasing after the figure, and when he reached the back of the rock, he was suddenly ambushed and hit on the head with a stick. He let out a loud "ah" and fainted. When he came to, he found himself in complete darkness. He couldn't see anything around him, but he could feel that he was tightly bound to something like a chair. His head hurt terribly from the blow. He gently shook his head, feeling something moving back and forth on top of it. If he didn't move, the thing would slowly come to a stop and press lightly on his head. If he moved his head slightly, the thing would swing back and forth, taking a long time to stop. Yezi Spring had no idea what the thing was, and he didn't want to know. He only wanted to know who had ambushed him and how he could escape. Suddenly, a sliver of light came in from outside, growing brighter until he could see things clearly. He realized that he was in a cave, tied to a chair. He looked up at the thing on top of his head, and what he saw made his soul take flight. A woman's corpse was hanging above him, her hair scattered all over the place. Because of the rope, her head was bowed, and her face was obscured. Her eyes were wide open from suffocation, and her tongue was sticking out due to the pressure of the rope. She was wearing a white robe that swung back and forth with her body, and a pair of red embroidered shoes that seemed to be staring at Yezi Spring as they swayed back and forth above his head. Yezi Spring forcefully turned his head to the side, terrified to the point of almost fainting. Just then, the light suddenly disappeared, and he heard a rustling sound. Something touched his cheek, and Yezi Spring knew it was the woman's feet. In a situation where he couldn't escape, Yezi Spring's spirit had completely collapsed. He let out a loud scream and fainted again.

  Also don't know how much time passed, Yezi Spring woke up again. This time he found that his surroundings were flickering with blue ghost fire, and the ghost fire reflected a group of green-faced ghosts with sharp teeth. Yezi Spring suspected that he had already died in Huangquan. He moved slightly, no, he was still tied to that chair, and this was still that mountain cave.

  The leaves sprang into motion, and a wicked demon stepped forward, letting out a chilling howl; "What brings you to Mount Fengling? Speak the truth."

  The leaves sprang up and saw that the female corpse had disappeared. After listening to him, he was not afraid, but rather thought: "You're still too tender to pretend to be a ghost and scare me." He coldly smiled and said: "I'm going to Fengling Mountain? I'm going to Fengling Mountain to protect it, to keep our ancestors' things from being tainted by evil people. You treat me like this? Do you know that I am a proud army lieutenant? Let me go quickly! Don't you really want to become isolated ghosts?" He struggled hard, trying to break free from the ropes.

  The evil spirit punched Ye Zichun's eye with a fist, and Ye Zichun's eyes hurt. Then, stars flashed, and tears flowed down. The evil spirit stopped pretending to be tough and grabbed Ye Zichun's collar, asking: "So it's Lieutenant Mr., great! Tell me, what is your purpose?"

  "Listen up, I came to Mount Fengling just to guard its secrets. What do you think? You still dare to hit me?"

  The evil spirit let out a loud shout and said, "You dare to call me old in front of me? Watch as I beat you so badly that you won't even dare to call yourself 'old' again!" After finishing speaking, another punch landed on Yezi Spring's other eye. Following that was a series of slapping sounds, "Peng peng pa pa". "Speak, how much do you know about the secrets of Fengling Mountain?"

  Ye Zi Chun's cheeks were swollen, and his mouth was bleeding. He was dizzy and saw stars. He had reached the point of uncontrollable anger and said furiously: "Damn it! I survived the war against Japan, but today I fell into the hands of you shameless bandits! I'll fight you to the death!" As he struggled to get up, he didn't realize that his hands were tied behind the chair and his feet were bound to the legs of the chair. He was heavily thrown to the ground and felt a sharp pain in his right arm, causing him to pass out again.

  This time when he woke up, he was lying in a mountain folk's house in Qing Shui Bay. The mountain people told him that he was found under Feng Ling Mountain and they saw that Ye Zi Chun still had breath, so they rescued him back. Although Ye Zi Chun was in severe pain all over his body, he didn't dare to delay, and hastily hired a donkey cart to come to Huang Min's military camp.

  Yun Xiangtian and Huang Min sighed endlessly after hearing Ye Zichun's experience. The two of them comforted Ye Zichun while guessing who had done such a vicious thing to him. At this time, the orderly brought in a telegram, and Huang Min's face changed suddenly after reading it. He handed the telegram to Ye Zichun, who looked at it and sighed, "Alas, military orders are hard to disobey! What a pity that our great rivers and mountains will be given away like this." Saying so, he threw the telegram onto Huang Min's desk.

  Huang Min glared with bloodshot eyes, stifling for a long time. He slammed the table and shouted in a low, excited voice: "China is almost gone, damn it! They're still issuing this kind of crap order. Today, today...!"