BSI Chapter 9 Parting Ways?
Chapter 9 Parting Ways?
When we left the dead site, it was still high in the sky.
But after walking only three or five miles, the small team's steps became disordered. It wasn't that the road had become more difficult to walk; it was that the hearts of these people, already burning with hunger, began to act independently.
Li Qian walked at the front, his right hand pressed firmly against the hilt of his knife. He could feel the gazes behind him, like rusty steel needles piercing his back. Earlier at the mass grave, he had shared the dry biscuit stained with the sweat of the dead with Su Mo'er. In Sun Deshan and Awang's eyes, this wasn't sharing food; it was Li Qian risking their lives to support an "outsider" woman.
A wind blew in from the south, carrying scorched white ash that stung their faces. The group fell silent, their heavy, uneven breathing echoing across the desolate plain.
At times like this, no one is innocent. Everyone is calculating: who has left over, how long they can hold on, and when the young man with the knife will run out of strength.
Li Qian knew that the more he suppressed this resentment, the more it would explode. Rather than waiting for it to strike him from behind, he decided to let it show itself in the open.
As the sun began to set, the shadows were stretched out and twisted like ghosts.
The group walked around a barren slope and stopped beside a dry ditch. The ditch wasn't deep, but the earthen walls on both sides offered some protection from the cold wind, making it a place where they could barely close their eyes.
As soon as Old Zhao sat down, his body was like a broken old plow, leaning against the earthen wall, making a "ho-ho-ho" sound like a bellows being pulled from his throat.
Sun Deshan sat down as well. He didn't look at Li Qian, but kept his head down, digging incessantly into the hard ground with both hands. His fingernails were full of black mud, and his eyes were so sinister that it looked like he wanted to dig a piece of flesh out of the dry soil.
Awang was the slowest. He reached the edge of the ditch, his legs gave way, and he almost fell flat on his face into the ditch. He didn't have the strength to get up, and could only pant heavily like a dying dog. A layer of sticky white foam filled the bloody crack at the corner of his mouth, and his blank eyes never left the grain bag that had shrunk around Li Qian's waist.
No one offered to help. In these times, reaching out to help someone can cost you your life.
The lingering heat of the day hadn't dissipated, and the dry ditch felt like a stifling steamer. Li Qian leaned against the outermost earthen wall, his back ramrod straight, his eyes slightly closed. He didn't lie down; in this dog-eat-dog world, lying down often meant surrendering one's neck.
Time pressed down little by little, and the night, as thick as ink, gradually sealed off the outlet of the ditch.
In the deathly silence, apart from heavy breathing, only the occasional barking of wild dogs could be heard from afar.
Suddenly, Li Qian's ears twitched.
That wasn't the sound of the wind. It was the soft, slow rustling of rough linen rubbing against dry soil, with a deliberate, guilty glint in its eyes.
Someone is moving towards the mouth of the ditch.
Li Qian didn't even lift his eyelids. He knew that the first person who couldn't hold back wasn't bold, but because the servility and greed in his heart had reached the brink of exploding.
The sound paused for a moment, as if testing whether Li Qian was awake. A moment later, an even more chaotic friction sound appeared.
Two people.
Sun Deshan was in front, and Awang was behind.
These two men didn't act on a whim. During the day, their eyes met briefly over that piece of dry bread, and they decided on this midnight escape. They didn't care about the illusory future of heading south to Yunnan; they were eyeing the last bit of millet Li Qian had left to survive. In their view, as long as they stole the grain, with Sun Deshan's strength and Awang's cleverness, even returning to Baoding as bandits would be better than following this cold-blooded young man south.
The two of them shuffled along the ground toward the mouth of the ditch, keeping their movements extremely low, but their breathing became heavy and disordered due to tension.
Awang's shoulders were trembling, his eyes repeatedly drifting towards Li Qian. Sun Deshan, on the other hand, was even more ruthless. He clutched the sharp stone he had picked up during the day, almost touching the edge of the ditch.
Just as Sun Deshan was about to sit up, Li Qian spoke.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a red-hot nail, driven fiercely into the deathly silence of the ditch.
"Where to?"
These two words struck Sun Deshan and Awang like a thunderbolt, leaving them frozen in place.
Awang shuddered violently, almost falling back into the mud, and let out a distorted scream.
Sun Deshan froze for a moment before slowly turning his head. His face was obscured in the darkness, but one could sense his reddened eyes trembling wildly.
"Go out...and see. I can't hold my pee anymore," Sun Deshan gritted his teeth and forced out a reply.
Li Qian slowly opened his eyes. His eyes were chillingly cold in the dim starlight, exuding a deathly stillness like a frozen pool.
"You don't need to bring stones when you pee, and you don't need to hook the grain bag behind me."
The words were laid bare, like a resounding slap across Sun Deshan's face.
Sun Deshan decided to stop pretending. He leaned against the earthen wall and stood up abruptly, his voice rising several decibels, filled with a desperate, reckless arrogance: "Li Qian! Stop acting all high and mighty here! Give that pancake to that woman. We brothers worked hard and sweated, what did we get in return? You're trying to wear us down to death!"
Awang also scrambled to his feet, crying out, "I want to live too! You're holding onto the grain so tightly, I'm not going to suffer like this with you!"
The two are going their separate ways, and taking with them their share of the food.
Li Qian stared coldly at them, slowly drawing the dagger stained with the blood of Green Standard Army soldiers from his waist. The blade gleamed with a faint bluish light in the moonlight, almost blindingly so.
"I gave you food, not so you could leave now."
Li Qian's voice was flat and without any inflection, yet it carried an undeniable weight of pressure.
"What right do you have to tell us what to do?" Sun Deshan took a step forward, the stone shard in his hand trembling slightly. "That's a cake from a dead man's arms; whoever grabs it gets to keep it!"
"The cakes are from dead people, but I brought your lives back."
Li Qian stood up and approached Sun Deshan step by step, the stench of blood from past killings instantly enveloping him.
"In that forest, I stabbed the Green Standard Army soldier in the neck, so you wouldn't turn into rotten flesh like that man. I risked my life, not to lead a few cowards who would abandon their ranks after they were full. In the Qing Dynasty, abandoning your ranks meant death. By taking my grain, you took my life with you."
"Who owes you anything? I did my job too!" Ah Wang screamed, his voice full of guilt.
"The work you've done isn't worth half a sack of millet." Li Qian's knife tip curled slightly upwards. "You can leave if you want. Spit out what you've eaten. If you can't, you'll pay with your life."
The air seemed to freeze.
Sun Deshan's face twitched violently, and he growled in a low voice, "Are you trying to lock us up? Do you think you're the government, treating us like slaves?"
"In this desolate wilderness of the tenth year of the Xianfeng reign, the useless government has no power over life. I have grain and a knife, and I am the law."
Li Qian's words were domineering and showed no mercy whatsoever.
He stared at Sun Deshan, his eyes filled with a cold indifference that seemed to transcend all living beings: "Sun Deshan, you've been a镖师 (bodyguard/escort) before, you should understand. Taking the镖师's money and running away midway is called robbery. Here, robbery means paying with your life."
Sun Deshan stood there, his chest heaving like a broken blower. He wanted to rush forward, but looking into Li Qian's calm, almost cruel eyes, his courage slowly waned. He had seen ruthless people before, but he had never seen a monster like Li Qian, who could calculate human lives and food so clearly and act so ruthlessly with such self-righteousness.
"Hold!"
Sun Deshan swung his fist one last time, slamming it heavily against the earthen wall beside him, shaking down a layer of loose soil. It wasn't that he didn't hate, but he truly had no confidence that he could survive that swift blade.
He cursed, slumped back, sat down heavily, and buried his face in his knees.
Seeing this, Awang deflated like a punctured balloon, shrinking back into his original position and daring not to make another sound.
Li Qian stopped looking at them. He sheathed his knife and glanced at Su Mo'er, who was cowering in the corner, barely daring to breathe.
"Su Mo'er," Li Qian suddenly called out.
The woman shuddered and lifted her filthy face.
"Tomorrow morning, you will lead the way to the well. If they can't find it, they will eat you first, then me."
Li Qian's voice was soft, yet it sent a chill down Su Mo'er's spine. She nodded heavily, her jaw clenching.
The ditch returned to its deathly silence, but this silence was entirely different. It was an order called "loyalty," forcefully crushed and then forcibly bound together by the stench of blood.
Old Zhao watched from the side and sighed deeply. He knew that Li Qian was "training beasts".
Li Qian leaned back against the earthen wall and closed his eyes.
He knew Sun Deshan was resentful, and he also knew Awang was filled with fear. But in this world, people's hearts couldn't buy loyalty; only violence and absolute control could ensure survival.
He wants to turn these demons into his tigers.