Chapter 48 Do you really want to live such a life?
"So this is the kind of life I want you to envy?" A group of people rushed in and grabbed Su Jinghe in no time. Su Jinghe only had time to ask Zhuge Qiri this question before he was dragged away. Song Shiyi was also dragged away.
Zhuge Qiri had no idea that Su Jing and he had both "seen" someone at the bottom of the mountain. How could they not have seen that they were about to be taken hostage?
Damn it, the key point is that Zhuge Qiri himself didn’t take this into account, otherwise he would have escaped just now.
"Military advisor? Military advisor envies this kid?" The baby-faced man stood beside Zhuge Qiri, thought for a while and found some words to comfort his military advisor.
"Although this guy is good-looking and seems to have a good family background, in terms of maturity, stability and ability, our military advisor is still superior. There is no need to envy him!"
What do you know? Just comfort me.
Zhuge Qiri was delayed for a minute by him. He lost sight of the man and quickly ran out. "Don't threaten me with him. Those people down there are my family!"
"Ah?" The baby-faced boy's face twisted a little when he heard it. He hesitated for a few seconds and then quickly ran to stop his boss.
"Boss, stop throwing stones. We are one of them! We are one of them!"
Thanks to his fast running, he was able to stop the bandit leader just as he was about to throw the first stone to test the water, and he succeeded - halfway.
The baby-faced boy looked at the boss who was still pushing the big rock down after he heard him say that the people below were the military advisor's family members. He was shocked, as if he saw his own parents fighting on the spot, even though he was an orphan.
"Boss, you..."
"Huh?" The bandit leader frowned. "Everyone knows the people coming down here are from the military advisor's family. Why don't they arrest the military advisor as well?"
The baby-faced boy hesitated for a while, but finally ran out to pass on the boss's instructions.
Zhuge Qiri, who was captured and brought to the front as a threat, looked at the obvious attire from a distance. If he had not been tied up, he would have really wanted to find a place to hide.
It's embarrassing, so embarrassing.
"It seems that you are really envious. How come you were caught too?" Su Jinghe looked at Zhuge Qiri, quite confused.
"It was because I said something when you were arrested that the person coming was from my family..." This was the flaw that Zhuge Qinri felt when he reviewed the situation!
"It's okay. After we are rescued, you have so many people to prove that you are the victim, so the mistakes I made as a military advisor will be written off." Su Jinghe said this, and the person behind him hit his shoulder with a wooden stick, causing him to hiss in pain.
[Tsk, it seems not everyone has a baby face, allowing people to chat freely.]
You are so angry that you can express it in your heart. How angry must you be if you are not allowed to speak?
Song Shiyi was not as relaxed as Su Jinghe. If he had let down his guard because of the baby-faced guy and had a relatively innocent misunderstanding about the bandit's nest because of Zhuge Qiri's appearance, all misunderstandings would have disappeared the moment the bandit leader appeared.
This guy is really vicious.
It's okay that he looks rough with his beard, but the scar that runs across half of his face is real, and his murderous spirit can be seen through the scar.
It was terrifying. Such a person was less than twenty steps behind them, holding a knife and looking fiercely at the mountain below. How did Su Jinghe and Zhuge Qiri manage to chat calmly?
Song Shiyi was extremely nervous, not to mention chatting, fearing that he would die if he didn't pay attention, and even more afraid that Su Jinghe would die if he didn't pay attention!
Damn it! If he had learned martial arts earlier, if he had the ability to fight ten people alone, they wouldn’t have been kidnapped and wouldn’t have fallen into such danger!
Su Jinghe was calm, and it was hard not to be calm.
From the time they were captured to the time they were placed in front of the formation, less than two hours had passed. In that time, not even a single stage play had finished.
He hadn't even seen blood since he was kidnapped, so he didn't feel nervous at all.
Of course, I became nervous the next second.
An arrow shot straight towards him. If the gangster behind him hadn't been quick-witted, it would have hit him!
"Horrible! Is this your way of rescuing hostages?" Su Jinghe was so frightened that he could hardly focus. He slowed down and swallowed, then asked Zhuge Qiri, who was standing beside him, in a low voice.
Because Su Jinghe was helped by someone, he happened to be with Zhuge Qiri now. The two of them felt quite at ease as they huddled together for warmth.
I can't feel at ease at all.
"I've never been rescued either... This is the first time." The two people who were chatting very naturally just now seemed to have revealed their true colors, and their voices became much lower.
"What's going on? Wasn't it said to be someone from the Zhuge family?" The bandit leader behind took two steps forward and looked at the arrow that missed the target and was shot down. There was no information on it, but it was obvious that it was a real arrow, not a wooden arrow.
"This is really going to...hiss...wuh..." Before the boss could figure out what was going on, he was hit by two more arrows.
Then, a barrage of flaming arrows fell on the top of the mountain.
To catch a thief, you must first catch the leader. Once the leader is "dead", the others will watch as the rockets set the trees and even the houses on fire, and they will flee in all directions to save their families, their property, or even escape in the chaos.
Su Jinghe, Song Shiyi and Zhuge Qiri were just left there. They helped each other to open the ropes that bound them. They were surprised to find that the baby-faced man was standing right beside them, watching with an expressionless face, staring blankly at the "corpse" of their boss, whose life or death was unknown.
Song Shiyi quickly moved to protect Su Jinghe behind him, and whispered to this careless boss, "I'll protect you, let's go down the mountain."
Su Jinghe glanced at the baby-faced man, and did not go up to talk to him as stupidly as Song Shiyi had worried. Instead, he took Song Shiyi and Zhuge Qiri down the mountain naturally.
He also picked up some bows and arrows, and had to draw circles around burning trees when he came across them on the road.
"Where are they enclosing the land?" Song Shiyi encountered no new danger while walking, especially after seeing several familiar voices coming up and down not far away, he knew that the secret guards had caught up with him again. After feeling safe, he had time to chat with Su Jinghe.
If we didn't chat, my heart would be pounding. When the arrow was shot at Su Jinghe, Song Shiyi would rather it was him!
How terrible it is! If anything happens to Su Jinghe, their entire family’s lives will probably be over.
It even happened right under his nose!
but……
"Actually, it would have been fine if we hadn't dodged the arrow." Zhuge Qiri didn't know whether he was analyzing to excuse his family members, or just looking for a topic to make the three of them seem less embarrassed.
"Be careful of fire. Forest fires are very dangerous. If the fire covers too large an area, it will be difficult to put out. Move away all the flammable materials nearby so that the fire will not start again." Su Jinghe first replied to Song Shiyi, and then to Zhuge Qiri.
"It seems so. It doesn't look like it's aimed at my heart, nor does it look like it's aimed at my head."
After taking both into consideration, they focused on eliminating the hidden dangers.
After hearing what he said, Song Shiyi and Zhuge Qiri also joined the front line of the firefighting.
They didn't have any water, but luckily there was soil on the mountain. They buried the small fire with the soil and stepped on it, and it disappeared.
After working so hard, the three of them looked like fallen nobles when they met people, looking dirty and dusty.
The group they ran into was also here to put out the fire.
"It seems that your family is still doing well." Song Shiyi was about to get angry, but seeing that there was a backup plan, he was somewhat calmed down.
Some people in the Zhuge family were unhappy when they were told so directly that "it's still okay".
"What are you talking about? Who are you two and why are you with our Qi Ri?" The person who spoke impulsively was a young man who looked to be about the same age as the baby-faced boy.
When he saw this person, Su Jinghe also thought of Baby Face, and he said to Zhuge Qiri.
"Do you feel a little sorry for the people in this village?"
"What did you say..." The young man got even angrier when he heard that. What's wrong with this guy? Who does he think Zhuge Qiri is? How could he be so sympathetic to the bad guys?
Unexpectedly, Zhuge Qiri pondered for a minute and actually nodded. "It wasn't easy for them either... They weren't bandits at first. It's said that during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong, they couldn't pay taxes and were bullied, so the whole village moved to the mountains together..."
Su Jinghe didn't react much to his words, but the people of the Zhuge family reacted strongly, "Brother Qi Ri, you..." If no one had stopped them, they would probably have rushed up to ask Zhuge Qi Ri why.
Yeah, why?
Song Shiyi also wanted to ask, if he was captured and taken to the mountains during a good day, and was made a "military advisor" who couldn't even buy clothes, let alone feel heartbroken, he would be considered kind enough not to secretly kill a few people in the middle of the night to vent his anger.
Su Jinghe shook his head. "The whole village has gone up the mountain. Who can bully such a united village?"
Zhuge Qiri was also stunned. He was young, only about twenty-five or twenty-six years old this year, and was born in Zhuge Village. They lived in harmony in the village. In recent years, the economy of the Song Dynasty had flourished again, and their lives had become better.
But the story of Zhenzong happened only a few decades ago, and he had heard about it. In addition, during his studies, he had also witnessed the people being oppressed by some officers and soldiers who had some power and did not treat ordinary people as human beings. When he heard about what happened in their village, he believed it.
After Su Jinghe asked back, he also felt something was wrong, "Hmm... you didn't dare to resist before?"
"Actually, before they knew you, anyone passing through this area would be robbed and killed." Su Jinghe thought for a moment, "Robbery and murder."
"They don't dare rob large caravans, but if they rob small caravans, they kill everyone. Ordinary people come and see if it's worth it." After Su Jinghe finished speaking about this criterion, he looked at Zhuge Qiri and raised his eyebrows. "Does it sound familiar? You've been doing the same thing since you came here."
"Before you came, they killed people to prevent the news of the dangers of their mountain from spreading. After you came, they used your name to get people to pay them. Since you didn't tell their fortunes, they hired scammers to pretend to be you and defraud them of their money."
Su Jinghe stretched out his hand and pointed at the noisy hilltop behind him. "You don't need to worry about them. They have elderly parents and children to take care of. The people they killed were also in trouble. Even that baby-faced man only started living a normal life after you came. Didn't you see it just now? He couldn't even cry. This is the true face of this bandit den."
Zhuge Qiri knew that this was not a good place, but he...
"Are all those who passed by here before dead?"
"Some are alive, but those who were robbed are all dead. So it's a good thing that you came. Look, they found that killing them is not that valuable, so they didn't kill them all." Song Shiyi was also shocked after listening to Su Jinghe's story. He saw that Zhuge Qiri's expression was a little strange, so he thought of an angle to comfort him.
It was not his intention to be caught and taken to the mountains, and it was not his intention to work so hard to find a way out for himself!
Song Shiyi tried to make amends for Zhuge Qiming, but no one in the Zhuge family wanted to make amends for him.
"Brother Qiming, you can see that this is not a good place." The person who looked at Su Jinghe angrily at the beginning also heard what Su Jinghe was saying.
But Su Jinghe and Song Shiyi wanted to comfort Zhuge Qiming. The choice he made was just to protect himself in the crisis, and he didn't really want to be a bad guy. The man from the Zhuge family expressed his misunderstanding of Zhuge Qiming.
"After the servant came back, why is there no information about this place? We even received a letter from you once, saying that everything was fine here and it was very interesting. You even wrote a story about it!"
These words also made Zhuge Qiming explode.
"I have a letter. I have given it several times, but I am trapped here and cannot send it out! If I could send it out, would I work so hard to be a military advisor for this broken place and select fat sheep with money and evil deeds for them?" After Zhuge Qiming bumped into Su Jinghe, the relaxed and stable mentality that he had brought up was suddenly destroyed. It was as if he was back to that broken mountain stronghold. The scenery was clearly familiar, and he could even see places he could name in the distance.
He was trapped in such a place! Who could believe this?
I waited for my family for more than a month at this place not far from my home.
"I can't wait for any news from you. Do you know how desperate I am here?" Zhuge Qiming's voice revealed deep powerlessness and frustration.
The two sides confronted each other, and the atmosphere suddenly became cold. Only Su Jinghe was left present, still working hard to clear the dead branches and weeds as if nothing had happened, using sand to put out the fire, and even took a sickle, a more useful weeding tool, from the Zhuge family. He was very active, like a natural farmer.
Song Shiyi saw Su Jinghe working hard to cut the grass, so he followed suit.
It is difficult for a judge to judge family affairs. This scene really makes people wonder how to deal with it.
As soon as Zhuge Qiming finished speaking, it was the turn of the Zhuge family to explain.
They actually didn't know why, and just tried to say things like "The elders are also considering the overall situation", "They are here to rescue us now", "It is safer and more stable, there can't be any more danger".
When they failed to appease Zhuge Qiming at all and instead made the originally strong adult look even more vulnerable, Su Jinghe naturally went over and gave the sickle in his hand to Zhuge Qiming.
"I know you're feeling down, and your family members inexplicably want to be heroes themselves. Instead of reporting the matter to the police, they sent someone to rescue you themselves, making you stay here for so many extra days in vain.
Staying in a dangerous place for too long does have an impact. You'll feel sorry for the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled. It's not that you've been assimilated, it's just that you're naturally compassionate."
Su Jinghe has said all the pros and cons of this.
Not to mention the people from the Zhuge family, even Song Shiyi was stunned.
"But these people are bad people. Some are perpetrators, and some are protectors. Even you, who later became a military advisor to protect yourself, were also condoning them." Su Jinghe had just comforted Zhuge Qiming, and began to use cruel words to make him feel more guilty little by little.
"So you have to atone for the past month or so. If you don't want to tell anyone about what happened in this bandit mountain, we can keep it a secret for you. Then you have to be a good county magistrate and serve more people."
When Su Jinghe told Zhuge Qiming that he was a bad person, some people in the Zhuge family became anxious again. His next sentence was about something that the Zhuge family didn't know yet. After all, the servant said that Zhuge Qiming had given up his official position.
In fact, they were also wondering whether the elders delayed in rescuing Zhuge Qiming because they felt that Zhuge Qiming's temper needed to be tempered. After all, Zhuge Qiming, who passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi, was the first of the young generation in Zhuge Village. It was a pity that he gave up his official position just like that.
Now that they know there is a turning point, some people are already very happy and can even become officials.
"We won't tell anyone, but please..."
"I will tell you everything. I will tell you all the wrong things I have done and what I did in this bandit mountain." Zhuge Qiming's choice was also within Su Jinghe's expectations.
The system's evaluation also states that this person is capable and a good person.
"You! Hey!" The middle-aged man who had been silent just now couldn't help but say these words. It seemed that he was very dissatisfied with Zhuge Qiming's decision.
Song Shiyi followed up on the dissatisfied uncle and said, "We won't keep it a secret either. If you had reported it to the police earlier, we wouldn't have suffered such a disaster, so we have no obligation to keep it secret."
It can't be kept secret either.
Song Shiyi faced the glares of the group calmly. He thought to himself, the secret guard is in the tree not far away, keeping it secret? He was really overthinking it. Every word said here today would reach His Majesty's ears!
While Song Shiyi was clearing weeds on his way down the mountain, he also saw some footprints. Judging from the same shape of the footprints, they were definitely the secret guards.
It was also because the Zhuge family arrived quickly and were lucky that they were rescued by the secret guards later! The Zhuge family can't even think about doing meritorious service for their crimes!
"We just met by chance, so we'll say goodbye."
After a disagreement, the group forcibly took Zhuge Qiming away, leaving only Su Jinghe and Song Shiyi.
"What should we do now?" As they walked, they reached the foot of the mountain.
Su Jinghe suddenly thought of something very serious, "Our grooms, our guards, our carriages, our donkeys!"
"Sir, sir!" When Su Jinghe and Song Shiyi were looking at each other, they heard voices calling from behind. They saw that it was the grooms and guards carrying large and small bags.
The carriage and donkey had been sold, and some of their clothes and daily necessities had also been sold, but there were still some left.
Looking at the exquisite tea sets and clothes, Su Jinghe sighed, "It must be my aunt. She must have anticipated this, right? This group of people wanted to get a good price for these expensive-looking items, so they didn't have time to sell them... Instead, my comfortable clothes have been packed up and sold off. Why? And my carriage..."
"It's okay..." Song Shiyi felt that these things were also in the hands of the secret guards. "Let's wait here and let them buy them back. It should still be in time now."
Song Shiyi winked wildly, and one of the guards was smart enough to quickly say that he would go and buy it.
At night, Su Jinghe suddenly remembered something.
"We and the Zhuge family... parted ways on bad terms?"
Song Shiyi looked at him in surprise and wanted to ask back, "What else?", but he held back. This was his boss, so he finally said it tactfully.
"Probably."
"But our destination this time is Zhuge Village... In fact, this Zhuge Qini is the brother of Zhuge Qiming and Zhuge Qiuyue whom we are looking for." Su Jinghe fell silent after he finished speaking.
Song Shiyi also managed to keep the words coming and laughed, "The sun and the moon are bright, that sounds quite pleasant."
"The sounds of us getting beaten out of Zhuge Village should be quite pleasant to the ears."
Su Jinghe was already observing a moment of silence for his future self.
Two days later, Zhuge Village.
Before Su Jinghe entered the village, he ran into the same group of people he had just seen, and they looked at each other in surprise.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com