Chapter 24: Don't blame me for being ruthless

Thick smoke billowed over the entire post station, flames raged, and the air was filled with pungent smoke. The temperature inside the post station rose rapidly in an instant, reaching an unbearable heat.

Zhou Tinglan lay on the bed, feeling unbearably hot. She turned over, tucked the quilt under her, and muttered, "Why is it so hot?"

Zhou Tinglan sniffed the pungent smell of smoke and started coughing violently. She sat up immediately, grabbed the quilt to cover her mouth and nose, and looked around. The beams of the house were falling down with fire, and the scene in front of her had become a sea of ​​fire.

Zhou Tinglan was amazed in his heart, how could someone play like this, a fire could start while sleeping, who the hell is this!

Acting decisively, Zhou Tinglan tore off the corner of the quilt, wet it with the unfinished tea on the bedside cabinet, and quickly ran towards the door of the wing room with his head bowed.

Before Zhou Tinglan could run to the door, a huge wooden beam broke with a crackling sound and was about to hit Zhou Tinglan. She took two steps back in time and escaped death.

The door to the wing room was suddenly thrown open by someone from the outside, and Xie Zechuan rushed in. Seeing Zhou Tinglan's current condition, he rushed over and shook her hand, saying, "Lan'er, hurry up, we have to leave here as soon as possible!"

Xie Zechuan held Zhou Tinglan's hand and dodged the fireballs falling from all around. Zhou Tinglan followed closely behind without saying a word because he was worried that the smoke would choke his lungs.

A person suddenly rushed out from the opposite corridor. Zhou Tinglan looked carefully and saw that it was the waiter. He looked panicked and tried to escape towards the door of the post station with unsteady steps.

"Be careful!" Zhou Tinglan let go of Xie Zechuan's hand through the cloth and ran towards the waiter.

A thick pillar fell in the direction where the waiter was running. Zhou Tinglan pushed the waiter away and took him away.

"Thank you." The waiter thanked Zhou Tinglan and turned around to continue running towards the door.

Zhou Tinglan frowned slightly. Xie Zechuan rushed over and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Zhou Tinglan was fine. "Lan'er, let's get out of here quickly. The post station is about to collapse!"

When the two rushed out of the inn gate, Zhou Tinglan saw the waiter standing under a big tree in the distance. He kicked the tree stump angrily, and it seemed that he kicked too hard, so he hugged his foot and cried out in pain.

Zhou Tinglan thought, this person has gone crazy because of the post station. Tsk, there is one more madman in the world from now on.

Looking back at the post station that was destroyed by the fire, Zhou Tinglan couldn't help feeling a little regretful. The fire had really burned everything down, leaving only scorched earth.

"Why did the post station suddenly catch fire?" Zhou Tinglan looked at Xie Zechuan beside him and asked.

Xie Zechuan didn't answer directly. He leaned over and touched the ground with his hand, then looked around. His expression became more serious. "The post station has been sprinkled with kerosene. Just a little spark will start a raging fire."

"Who is so vicious..."

"It's you! It's you, right?" The waiter appeared in front of Zhou Tinglan and the others without them noticing. He roared at them, "It must be you. No one else has been to the post station recently. Why did the fire start as soon as you arrived?"

Zhou Tinglan acted as if he was looking at an unreasonable child: "Waiter, you have to be reasonable. What do you mean by something bad happened just because we arrived? Is this what I want to see happen at the post station?"

The waiter stomped his feet and was about to go up and hit Zhou Tinglan in anger, but was stopped by Xie Zechuan.

Xie Zechuan said angrily: "Lan'er just tried her best to save you in the post station, but now you are biting us back. The fire in the post station was not caused by us. If you insist on maintaining this attitude, we will not accompany you!"

"You still want to leave!" The waiter rushed forward and grabbed Xie Zechuan without hesitation: "You must give me an explanation today!"

The waiter was violently thrown away by Xie Zechuan, and collapsed to the ground, staring blankly at the two people in front of him.

"It's not a good idea for us to just leave like this." Zhou Tinglan looked up at the sky. It was dark, and it should be past noon. Calculating the time, the fire should have been set at midnight.

"Give us some money, consider it as our compensation to them." After saying that, Xie Zechuan reached into his pocket. Zhou Tinglan saw that his expression was gradually becoming embarrassed.

She asked curiously, "What happened? Didn't you say you would give me money?"

"Lan'er..." Xie Zechuan stammered, "I don't have any money..."

Zhou Tinglan suddenly looked towards the burning post station. Oh my God, they put the silver and money in the bag, and then... and then ran away so quickly that they didn’t manage to take anything out!

"What should we do then?"

The waiter saw the two men's actions and seemed to understand something. He stood up and shouted at them, "Pay me money, or you won't be able to leave today!"

"It's not that we don't want to pay you, you...you wait a little longer." Zhou Tinglan looked at Xie Zechuan and asked him what to do now.

Without money or luggage, the two of them had no choice but to sleep in the carriage if they continued on their journey.

"Can you please allow us to look for it again?" Xie Zechuan said.

The waiter's eyes wandered, and from time to time he looked into the depths of the woods behind the two of them: "No!"

Zhou Tinglan was helpless. Just as he was thinking about whether he should go into the post station to check if there was any money that had not been burned after the fire was out, a sound of breaking air came from behind him.

She dodged to the side, and the arrow did not hit them, but instead lodged deeply in the tree trunk next to them.

Zhou Tinglan turned around and saw several burly men appear behind him, one of them holding a bow and arrow.

"What's going on?" someone asked. He fell silent the moment he saw Zhou Tinglan and the other person. He turned aside and whispered to the person next to him, "Are they the two he was talking about?"

"That's right, there's nothing wrong with that."

Zhou Tinglan saw them pointing at him and thought something was wrong. The waiter had already run towards the group of big men in front of him, and they seemed to be a group of people.

"We are also heartbroken by this tragic news about the post station. We will give you some compensation."

Before he could finish his words, the waiter interrupted him, saying, "They have no money. Don't listen to this guy's nonsense!"

Xie Zechuan blocked the sight of the big man in front of him and said, "We can make it up to you later. I won't break my promise."

"Who would believe your nonsense? Either come with us or die here!" The big man didn't want to say more to the two men. He took out the long knife behind him and pointed it at them.

Zhou Tinglan exchanged glances with Xie Zechuan: "We'll go with you."

The two men were blindfolded and taken to a carriage. As the carriage started moving, their hearing became particularly sensitive.

Zhou Tinglan leaned close to Xie Zechuan and whispered, "Do you hear the sound of water?"

"Yeah." Xie Zechuan held Zhou Tinglan's hand, signaling her not to be afraid.

The carriage gradually went up, turned a sharp bend, and finally stopped. The two men were driven off the carriage and pushed into a compartment.

Zhou Tinglan groped under him and found the ground was covered with hay. It was probably a storage room. The two of them sat down on the hay.

"What should we do? Are we really going to be killed if we just sit here?"

The reason why Zhou Tinglan and Xie Zechuan agreed to come along was, firstly, that they were in a very difficult situation and could not pay the compensation money, and secondly, they felt that the people in front of them looked at them with strange eyes.

Before Xie Zechuan could speak, a fierce quarrel was heard outside the room.

"Those two people are inside. If we kill them, we can get a lot of money. The post station has been burned down, and I don't want to make a living by robbery anymore!"

It was the waiter's voice.

Zhou Tinglan was shocked when she heard this. Someone was paying to kill them. Who was it? Was it from Beijiang City or Shangjing City?

Someone said in embarrassment: "But those two people inside did nothing wrong. If we rashly take their lives, wouldn't that be a bad idea?"

"I say you are too soft-hearted. Without money, how are we going to live in the future? There are so many mouths to feed in the village!"

"But……"

The quarrel outside the room became more and more intense, and the two men heard everything.

"Xie Zechuan, I have an idea to persuade them to rebel." Zhou Tinglan thought quickly in his mind and whispered to Xie Zechuan.

"Lan'er has an idea now, how smart!"

Xie Zechuan always knew that Zhou Tinglan had a lot of thoughts, so he squeezed Zhou Tinglan's hand.

Zhou Tinglan shook off Xie Zechuan's hand and said angrily, "Don't you see what time it is? You're still making a fuss!"

Xie Zechuan moved towards Zhou Tinglan and said, "If I don't bother you, what good plan will Lan'er come up with?"

Before he went to Beijiang City, he had led his soldiers to suppress bandits. The bandits in the mountains often came down the mountain to rob the people's belongings. Because they were familiar with the nearby mountains and good at hiding, they were extremely difficult to deal with. It took him a lot of effort to catch them at that time.

Therefore, when Xie Zechuan heard Zhou Tinglan say that there was a way to persuade them to rebel, he showed great interest.

"Although we don't know who the other party is, he must have hired these people to take our lives. From this we know that the other party is rich, and these people are poor. Why don't we just make them rich?" Zhou Tinglan said proudly.

“But we don’t have any money!”

Unexpectedly, as soon as Xie Zechuan finished speaking, he was hit hard by Zhou Tinglan. Zhou Tinglan said angrily: "Xie Zechuan, we can help them make money!"

Could it be that Xie Zechuan's brain was burned out at the post station just now? He couldn't even respond to such a simple question.

"Lower your head." Zhou Tinglan then told Xie Zechuan about his money-making plan.

"That's right. This way, we can hide the truth and return to the capital with money, and we can also solve the problem of this group of people."

Xie Zechuan kept praising him.

The quarrel outside the compartment seemed to have reached a climax. At the same time, the compartment door was violently slammed open by someone, who shouted angrily: "Whatever you are unwilling to do, I will do it!"

He looked at Zhou Tinglan and the other man in the wing room and said, "Don't blame me for being ruthless. Someone really paid a high price for your lives, so it's worth your visit to our village!"

Zhou Tinglan heard the sound of a knife being pulled out, and she hurriedly said, "Wait a minute, I have something to say!"

The man paused, then continued, "Since the little beauty has something to say before she dies, let me hear it. What can you say?"

The sound of a knife falling to the ground was heard, and Zhou Tinglan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, fortunately, she caught up.

"I heard everything you said outside."

"so?"

"I have a way for you to not only receive the hire money, but also earn more money. What do you think?"