Chapter 54: The Mountain Cave

  It was unknown how long had passed when Zhou Xuan Zhang slowly came to.

  He found himself in a stone chamber, with hard rocky walls on all sides, and an oil lamp hung on the wall, casting a faint blue flame.

  The 1888 Committee rifle disappeared from view, Zhou Xianzhang shouted twice. "Na Ha Wu! Yao Xi!"

  His voice echoed in the stone room for a long time before it returned to calmness.

  "Jin Xiu, Jin Xiu!" Zhou Xianzhang shouted loudly again.

  There was no response either.

  Zhou Xuanzhang broke out in a cold sweat, all 108 guards had vanished without a trace.

  The entire vanguard was annihilated without firing a single shot! The commander of the vanguard was taken prisoner!

  Zhou Xuanzhang stood up and felt around the stone wall in all directions. The stone wall was as hard as iron, without a single seam.

  After groping for a while, Zhou Xuanzhang gradually calmed down.

  Before he fainted, he smelled a strange fragrance, which indicates that he was knocked down by anesthetic.

  The purpose of those who knocked him down is unclear, but since they used anesthetic incense, it seems that these people don't want his life for the time being.

  Otherwise, at the edge of the pine forest, Zhou Xuan Zhang would either be pierced by a thousand arrows or shot into a sieve by chaotic gunfire!

  Since they don't want Zhou Xuzhen's life, they shouldn't poison Na Wu either.

  Zhou Xuanzhang worried about Jin Shu and her mother, they were women, if they fell into the hands of those people, who knows what would happen.

  "What kind of people are you!" Zhou Xianzhang shouted at the stone wall.

  The stone wall has no gaps, which means there must be gaps on it!

  And there must be a pair of eyes staring at him through the gap.

  "Stop pretending to be dead, I know you're all staring at me! If you've got the guts, come out and face me, don't shrink away like a bunch of turtles!"

  A faint humming noise came from above, Zhou Xuanzhang looked up and saw a tiny starlight flickering on the top of his head.

  No wonder the four walls are tightly sealed, it turns out the exit is on the ceiling.

  "Hey, I'm Zhou Xuan Zhang, the commander of the Qing army! If you want to find trouble with the great Qing dynasty, come at me! Don't bother my brothers! Those two women have nothing to do with us, I just met them on the road and accompanied them for a while. Let them go quickly! If you want to kill or rob, I'll let you!"

  "Watch out, it's hard!" came a clumsy Chinese phrase from above.

  "What kind of people are you? What did I do to offend you? If I'm going to die, let me die with a clear conscience!" Zhou Xianzhang shouted.

  "Yours, don't worry about it. I'll make sure you die a clear and transparent death! Don't speak now!"

  "Damn it, you're Japanese!" Zhou Xuan Zhang shouted.

  "Yours! Full of nonsense! I'm a great Korean, not a damned foreign devil!"

  "You son of a bitch, you're originally from North Korea," Zhou Xianzhang said angrily: "You're pretending to be a ghost! Your conscience is rotten!"

  "Damn it, Qing people's conscience is rotten to the core!" The voice above his head became even angrier: "There are no good people in the Great Qing Empire! All that talk about benevolence, righteousness and morality is just a show! Crafty and deceitful, utterly despicable!"

  "It's yours! What are you talking about!" Zhou Xianzhang was completely surrounded by that voice, and also spoke in Korean: "It's ours, the work of saving Korea, the work of fighting against Japan."

  "Bother! The ones fighting against foreigners are fake, but those helping the imperial court fight us are real!"

  "What kind of people are you? Why should I hit you?" Zhou Xianzhang was at a loss.

  "When you're beheaded, you'll know!"

  "Hey, hey, you, speak clearly!"

  No matter how loudly Zhou Xuan Zhang shouted, there was no response from above.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang had no choice but to lower his flag and stop drumming, sitting in a corner of the wall panting.

  Zhou Xuanzhang's heart slightly calmed down. The person on his head was not Japanese, but Korean. At least, they would not be unfavorable to Jin Xiumu and her daughter.

  Thinking of Jin Shu, Zhou Xuanzhang felt a surge of sorrow and pity. A 16-year-old girl, in this chaotic world, it's too hard for her.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang shouted at the top of his lungs: "Hey, those two women are Koreans, they want to go to Ping'an to find their father, please help them out as fellow Koreans."

  There seemed to be someone whispering something on top of my head, but after a while, it was silent again.

  It was unknown how much time had passed when a loud rumbling sound came from above and an opening appeared, with a beam of light shining down.

  A ladder stretched down from the entrance of the cave.

  "Someone at the entrance shouted: 'It's yours! Climb up quickly!'"

  Zhou Xuan Zhang sat in the corner of the wall, sneering: "What's the point of climbing up there?"

  "Beheading work!"

  "I went through so much trouble to climb up here just for you to chop off my head, am I an idiot? If you want to chop off my head, you damn well come down here!"

  "Everyone in the Qing dynasty is Xue Ren Gui! Cunning and treacherous! You come at me, I'll chop your head off!"

  "It's fine if you know!" Zhou Xianzhang said with a smirk: "If I don't go up, and you don't come down, neither of us will chop off the other's head... Slowly, I'll still go up!"

  At the entrance, two rifles were stretched out, and the dark muzzles were aimed at Zhou Xuan Zhang. There was no blind spot for shooting in the stone room.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang had no choice but to climb up the ladder under the muzzle of the rifle.

  At the entrance, five Koreans wearing white clothes and conical hats with white hemp wrapped around them stood, as if they were attending a funeral.

  The first person was short and small in stature, with no beard under his chin, a dark and thin face, and four people behind him holding Mauser guns, the muzzles pointing at Zhou Xuanzhang.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang snorted: "What kind of hero is this, pretending to be a ghost?"

  The dark and thin man drank and said: "All of Daqing's are Xue Ren Gui's work, to deal with Xue Ren Gui, can only pretend to be a ghost!"

  In North Korean context, Jang Sung-taek is synonymous with cunning, treachery and ruthlessness.

  "Nonsense! Xue Ren Gui is a great hero, not a petty person!" Zhou Xian Zhang shouted.

  "A small person is a big person in the eyes of another small person!" The dark and thin man sneered: "Don't talk nonsense, let's go! Hurry up!"

  Zhou Xuanzhang only then noticed that he was walking in a grand mountain cave, the cave body was wide and high, about 20 meters high, with a width of over 10 meters at its widest point, and the four walls were filled with lanterns and torches, illuminating everything brightly.

  Five men pushed Zhou Xuanzhang along the cave, and the mountain cave became wider and wider, forming a wide road of over ten meters. On both sides of the stone wall, many stone niches were excavated, with doors and windows, shining with lanterns, like one household after another.

  The sound of "moooo" echoed from the ox horn in front, and people poured out of the stone cave, with men and women, all dressed like the thin black man, wearing white clothes and straw hats, with white hemp wrapped around the hat, walking along the main road.

  The crowd grew larger and larger, with everyone remaining silent, only the dull sound of footsteps echoing within the cave.

  A dark and thin man pushed Zhou Xuanzhang, wherever they passed, the crowd made way, standing on the side of the road silently watching Zhou Xuanzhang, with complex expressions on their faces, anger, joy, ridicule, envy...

  In front of him, the space became more and more open. Before long, Zhou Xuanzhang arrived at a spacious great hall. The hall was over 10 acres in size, with a height of tens of meters. On top of it hung dozens of giant oil lamps, illuminating the entire hall brightly.

  At least 800 people gathered in the hall, and many more came from seven or eight entrances around the hall. The crowd stood in line, in good order, with a solemn atmosphere, not a single person speaking.

  In front of it was a high platform, on which hung a large black-framed portrait. The portrait depicted a middle-aged man wearing a gauze hat and a sixth-rank official uniform, with thick eyebrows and phoenix eyes, no beard under his chin, looking elegant and dignified, but with a worried expression.

  In front of the picture is a cluster of white chrysanthemums. In the midst of the flowers stands a tablet, inscribed: "The spirit tablet of Jin Yu Jun, Judge of the Ministry of Revenue."

  Zhou Xuan Zhang's mind buzzed with a loud noise, and he lamented in his heart - I am doomed!