Chapter 18: The Art of Winning by Not Fighting

  Zhao Lili picked up the silver needle, and Zhao Yuer held a small cloth doll. Zhao Lili placed the doll on the ground and then used the silver needle to pin down the doll's sleeves, pant legs, and head, securing it firmly in place. With her eyes closed, she blew a breath onto the doll, and to their surprise, the doll began to move. Zhao Lili then took out a yellow paper and covered the doll's belly with it, and at this time, the sound of someone struggling could be heard from behind the door.

  The guesthouses in Miao Village were all made of wood, and the doors were no exception. Earlier, Zhao Lili seemed to have controlled Luo Hao with her puppet curse, so I took out my knife and scratched it on the wooden door. The door of this Miao Village was an ancient building, and the door bolt was also made of wood. With a bit of force, I easily opened the door. When the door opened, we were all surprised. Zhao Lili's victory spell was indeed 100% effective. We saw that the man named Luo Hao was lying on the floor of the guesthouse, stiffly forming a large character shape. He looked at us in terror but couldn't speak.

  The four of us entered his room and closed the door tightly.

  "Are you Luo Hao? The running dog of Benyamin Company, quickly tell me where the pair of handcuffs are placed, if you don't say it, I'll kill you!" As she spoke, Zhao Yuner picked up the plush toy in her hand, and Zhao Lili held a silver needle ready to stab.

  "Wait, who are you? I have no grudge against you, spare me! What's this about a bracelet?" He seemed to want to struggle desperately, but was firmly fixed to the ground by something.

  "Hurry up and say it, or I'll cut you in half!" Zhao Yuner picked up the scissors from the table behind her and snipped at Bu Ou.

  "I said, I really am a person from the Benyamin company. A few days ago, my manager sent me a pair of bracelets and asked me to give them to an old boss with the surname Tang. That old boss wasn't in Miao Village but in a place called Wen City. I've already delivered the bracelets there!" Luo Hao trembled with fear as he stared at the scissors in Zhao Yuner's hand.

  "Alright, if you dare to lie to me, I'll ruin you right now. Do you know how far we've come to find you? How can your company do such inhumane things?"

  "Our company has cast a spell on everyone, and I'm also forced to do things for them. Moreover, our company never tells us what they're doing, only a few leaders know." Luo Hao's emotions stabilized slightly.

  "So you're saying it's pointless to ask you about your company's affairs? You still won't tell the truth!" As Wu Shi Rong said this, he picked up a silver needle and stabbed it into the leg of the plush toy. At that moment, Luo Hao's leg suddenly twitched violently, and the intense pain made him cry out involuntarily.

  "Spare my life, I really didn't know, I really didn't know......" After saying these few sentences, Luo Hao actually fainted.

  "Nie Yu, it seems he doesn't look like a liar. He was in so much pain that he fainted earlier. If he knew, I guess he wouldn't be looking for trouble like this!" Zhao Yuner put down the cloth doll.

  I took a look around, Luo Hao's house was quite spacious and indeed looked like it was only occupied by one person. There were two beds but only one had been slept in. I walked over to the window and picked up the water bottle, pouring it onto his face. The cool water splashed on his face and Luo Hao slowly opened his eyes.

  "Big brother, sisters, you won't kill me, will you? Please spare my life, I'm also a university graduate who just found this job and didn't expect the company to lay off everyone. I'm not lying, please let me go, tomorrow I'll take you to find that boss surnamed Tang, how about it?"

  Lu Hao looked at each of us with an almost pleading gaze. I saw him not wanting to lie and exchanged a glance with Zhao Lili. Zhao Lili blew air on the puppet, and the silver needle on it actually fell down by itself. As the silver needle fell, Lu Hao moved his body and stood up, looking at our angry eyes before sitting back down.

  " Luo Hao, you're standing up now, but that doesn't mean we'll completely believe what you say. I'm holding your life in my hands right now, and if you dare to disobey me, I'll... " Zhao Lili said, making a stabbing motion with the silver needle.

  "It won't work, it won't work. What if I don't listen to you?" Luo Hao looked at Zhao Lili's silver needle in horror, while Wu Shi Rong actually smiled secretly.

  "What did you do today? We saw that you seemed to have come from the depths of the mountains?" I sat down beside Luo Hao, looking at him. He glanced at me and quickly shifted his gaze away.

  "Mr. Tang told me that I must go to the intersection of the road sign at the foot of Wushan Mountain every day." Luo Hao looked at me and moved his body a little further away.

  "Huh? Square road sign? What square road sign, where and why do you want to put up a road sign?" I was a bit puzzled, but Mr. Tang just wanted a square road sign, so why did he need it?

  "It's just a no-entry sign, he makes me put up the no-entry sign at more than 9 o'clock every morning, then blocks the mountain road with a pickup truck parked in the middle of the road. Then at 3 pm, he tells me to take away the sign and the car."

  After a detailed inquiry, Luo Hao had just arrived here for a few days. The Benyamin company sent him here to deliver the pair of handcuffs to an old boss surnamed Tang, and Luo Hao was not clear about what kind of person this Mr. Tang was, only knowing that he was very rich and seemed to be doing some big business, but this Mr. Tang had a bad habit of being a womanizer, always having beautiful women accompanying him, every time he went to see Mr. Tang there were different women with him. As for why he wanted to set up this signboard, he was not clear at all, and every day he just waited in the car for time to pass.

  "Nie Yu, I heard Luo Hao say that the sign on the road seems to be blocking others from passing through. He must have something fishy going on and is afraid of being seen." Zhao Yuner looked at Luo Hao and then at me.

  "We'll only know what that Boss Tang is up to if we go take a look," Wu Shi Rong glanced at his watch, it was already past 9 pm.

  "Alright, let's head back for now. Luo Hao, it's up to you to take us there tomorrow. If you dare to lie to us, we'll... You understand?" I picked up the plush toy and waved it around, Luo Hao stared at me and nodded silently.

  The next morning, the four of us went to look for Luo Hao together. We arrived at Luo Hao's inn and found him eating breakfast on the first floor. When he saw us coming, he forced a smile.

  "Lu Hao, will you take us there now? Our bracelets are ours, and we hope you won't hold a grudge against us for what happened yesterday. We did it to save people too, and if you help us get our bracelets back, we can use them to cure your Gu poison!" After hearing that they could cure his Gu poison, Lu Hao actually stood up and walked in front of me.

  "Brother, if you can really help me get rid of the curse, I'll serve you like a cow or a horse for the rest of my life. I feel that living now is more painful than dying. I don't want to do things that go against my conscience anymore. If it weren't for you telling me, I wouldn't have known that the bracelet was stolen."

  After Luo Hao finished speaking, we got on his small pickup truck together. The road was very bumpy, but it took less than an hour to arrive at the mountain he mentioned - Wushan.

  "In front of us is Mount Wu, which has an elevation of over 3,000 meters and covers several hundred square kilometers. It's a real giant mountain with many mineral deposits, rare animals, and even rumored treasures, but nobody has ever actually found any treasure. I suspect that Old Tang is searching for some kind of treasure too, that's why he asked me to block the road entrance so no one can drive in." Luo Hao said while driving.

  "By the way, didn't you guys use that little man's cursed method yesterday? I seem to have heard of it, and you're actually capable of this kind of thing, not simple at all!" Luo Hao's eyes were fixed on the front, now he didn't know why he was talking so much, maybe because we didn't mean to harm him.

  "This is called the technique of aversion, anyone who is cursed or any animal will be controlled by the wooden puppet and silver needle. Of course, we won't use it randomly, and using this spell requires sacrificing one's own blood, with blood as the spell, with the puppet as the body, the cloth puppet needs to be hung on the body for 49 days before the spirit will appear, a cloth puppet without spirit is not equipped with aversion spell." What Zhao Lili said was one of the unique spells in Xijiang, I don't understand it very well either.

  Yansheng, also known as Yasheng, is a type of witchcraft. It uses certain tools and forms to suppress bad things that may happen or have already happened, preventing them from happening or developing further, or turning them into good things. If used by bad people, it has the opposite effect, making bad things happen or develop. The techniques of Yansheng can use different tools, which come in many varieties. Small tools include dolls, keys, and copper coins, while large tools can be tables, beds, houses, or even entire cities. However, these methods have largely been lost over time.

  After driving for two hours, we finally arrived at the foot of Wushan Mountain. The car left the main road and drove onto a small path to the right. This Wushan Mountain is surrounded by tall forests everywhere, with birds chirping all around. The air is exceptionally fresh, and there are patches of white fog on the mountain waist, as if Wushan has already entered the clouds. Having grown up in a small mountain village since childhood, I finally saw such a majestic Wushan, and suddenly felt much smaller.

  "We've arrived, it's just here. I park the car every day and stand the sign at the back of the car here, waiting for a whole day before driving back to the hostel. It's been like this for several days in a row, nothing has changed." Luo Hao said as he stopped the car, and we four also got out of the car and looked around but didn't see anyone else.

  "So you come here alone every day? Why don't their people follow you? Besides, if they're afraid of leaking secrets, why not use their own people?" I'm really curious, if Tang boss is so rich, he can easily find someone to replace Luo Hao, why use this person who is not familiar with this place.

  Lu Hao skillfully picked up the road sign from behind the cargo box, which was about two meters high. He placed it on a wooden stake and secured it with iron wire, then parked the car at the intersection, motionless, and sat inside.

  "Hey! Are we just going to wait like fools? I feel that Old Tang will take this road sign as a signal and will be watching from somewhere far away!" Zhao Yuner said, looking out towards the distant high places, but the forest was too dense, and after searching for half a day, we couldn't see anything.

  "What you said is right, let's move forward and see if that Mr. Tang is hiding some treasure. How can we know what they're doing if we don't go take a look?" I finished speaking and led Wu Shi Rong, Zhao Yun Er, and Zhao Li Li as the four of us continued walking up the mountain along the road. Turning back to look, Luo Hao was sitting in the car fiddling with his phone and didn't even glance at us.

  We four walked forward for about an hour, and the mountain road became steeper and steeper. The originally flat small road was now on the outer side of the mountain, and the small road continued to wind upwards along the mountain waist, not only that but also there were huge stones and puddles all over the road.