"It hurts!" Hongzhou muttered. Then, he slowly opened his eyes, but he couldn't see anything.
"Hongli!" Hongzhou realized that his hands and feet seemed to be bound by something, and he immediately cried out in panic.
“Here!” A voice rang out from beside Hongzhou; it was indeed Hongli.
"Hongli, where are we? Why are my hands and feet tied?" Hongzhou asked anxiously.
"Me too. We were kidnapped!" Hongli's voice sounded much calmer because he had woken up earlier than Hongzhou and had already seen his current situation.
"Kidnapped?" Hongzhou asked incredulously. "Who's so bold as to kidnap us?"
"I don't know, we'll find out soon," Hongli said. "Move closer to me and see if I can untie the ropes on your hands."
Upon hearing this, Hongzhou immediately crawled toward the voice and touched one of Hongli's legs.
The two brothers fumbled together to untie the ropes binding each other, but after a long time, they still couldn't get them together.
"Try biting that lump on my hand with your teeth," Hongli said, still unwilling to give up. When he woke up, he found himself dumped here like a dead pig. His initial fear was no less than Hongzhou's, but since he had already been tied up here, he had no choice but to accept reality.
Hongzhou tried his best to bite the rope on Hongli's hand as he wished, but having been pampered since childhood and being quite young, he couldn't bite it open.
Clang!
A voice came from outside; someone was coming.
Hongli and Hongzhou quickly separated and waited quietly for the person to approach. They were also eager to know where they were and who had brought them here.
The door was opened, and light finally streamed in. Hongli looked around and realized it was already night.
"Go and pull them up, our elder brother wants to see them," one of the men said gruffly.
Hongli and Hongzhou were able to see where they were by looking at the lanterns the men were holding. It turned out to be a thatched hut, practically bare, with nothing inside. The men who came were three burly men dressed in coarse linen trousers.
Hongli and Hongzhou were just twelve or thirteen-year-old boys when they were grabbed and lifted up like chicks by two strong men.
Hongli took the opportunity to observe his surroundings and found that he was in a farmhouse. There was no street outside, so it must be the countryside, because he could hear the chirping of frogs and crickets.
Hongli and Hongzhou also gave up their plans to shout. There should be no one around, so no matter how much they shouted, it would be of no use.
Hongli and Hongzhou were led into a room, and when they entered, they found that there were actually many people in the room. One person was sitting in the north-facing seat, and then several people were sitting on either side of him, about four or five on each side, so there were about ten people in the room.
"Big brother! It's those two!" the burly man who had brought Hongli and Hongzhou over said to the man in the middle.
Hongli quickly glanced at the people to his left and right, then looked at the person sitting in the middle. He saw that the man was very handsome, but there was a very frightening scar on his forehead that ran from his forehead to his eyelid.
"Dalin, are these two the sugar daddies your brother mentioned?" The scarred man's sharp gaze had already swept over Hongli and Hongzhou several times.
“Yes, brother, my brother Zhou Hei said that these two hired his carriage to take them to Prince Yong’s mansion. He said that these two are well-dressed and have nice things on them, so they should be young princes in Prince Yong’s mansion. If we kidnap them and ask Prince Yong for a ransom, it will be enough for us brothers to live on for at least a few years,” Da Lin said.
Upon hearing this, Hongli finally understood how he had ended up in the hands of these people. It turned out that the coachman, seeing that he and Hongzhou were well-dressed and that he had been sent to the Yong Prince's residence, assumed that he was the master of the residence and had kidnapped him to collect a ransom.
"Who are you people? Release us right now, or else..." Hongzhou understood and shouted.
“Otherwise, we won’t be able to go back and report to Prince Yong. Brother, please, please release us quickly,” Hongli hurriedly interrupted Hongzhou. After saying that, he winked at Hongzhou.
Scarface was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. Not only him, but the people on his left and right sides also burst into laughter, as if Hongli had said something incredibly funny.
"You brat, you'd better tell me the truth. Are you the princes of Prince Yong?" Scarface's smile vanished, replaced by a cold and fierce expression.
“Of course we are not!” Hongli said. “If we were Prince Yong’s sons, we would surely have people following us around. Brother, we are just the children of the stewards in the mansion.”
Hongzhou understood Hongli's meaning and immediately followed up, "Brother, why are you arresting us?"
Da Lin glanced at Hongli from head to toe, then clasped his hands in a fist salute to Scarface and said, “Brother, don’t listen to these two boys. They look so delicate and fair-skinned, they don’t seem like servants’ sons. Brother, don’t listen to their nonsense.”
Scarface immediately stared at Hongli and Hongzhou like a hawk, chuckling as terrifying as a night owl, its sudden sound in the dead of night truly frightening.
"Come on! Hang that kid up!" Scarface suddenly pointed at Hongzhou and said.
Hongli's expression changed drastically. Before they could react, two burly men emerged from the back door and grabbed Hongzhou. Hongli hurriedly tried to pull Hongzhou away, but he was only a twelve-year-old boy. How could he possibly withstand such a strong and muscular man? He was easily pushed to the ground by one of them.
Hongzhou struggled desperately, but it was all in vain. Two burly men untied Hongzhou's hands, then tied them up again, hanging him up. Hongzhou had never experienced anything like this before; he immediately felt as if his arms were about to be torn off.
Hongli didn't know how to stop them from harming Hongzhou. After several thoughts raced through his mind, he realized that these people were probably a gang of bandits who had kidnapped him in order to demand a ransom from Prince Yong.
"Are you all just after the money?" Hongli immediately turned to the scarred man and asked.
"Haha, kid, you've thought it through? If you don't tell the truth, your brother will be tortured to death by them." Scarface stared at Hongli with a sinister look.
“My mother has money. She has served in the Yong Prince’s mansion for so many years, so she naturally has money. I wonder how much you want to release us?” Hongli continued.
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