Chapter 36 Back into the Cage
He could no longer remember how many days it had been since he was brought to the town.
When he just woke up, he was lying in a carriage. His neck seemed to have been reattached and the pain was unbearable. If the man had hit him harder that day, he might have died in the armory.
He didn't kill him, it definitely wasn't out of mercy.
That day, in a flash, Mu Jin changed his mind. He turned around and was about to give up everything, completely irrational. Even though freedom was just around the corner, it was no longer important compared to Jiaoran's life.
He lifted the curtain of the carriage and saw that it was Changshi who was driving the carriage and it was also him who knocked him unconscious.
I don't know what street this is.
In the past, he was trapped in the mansion and was always full of endless fantasies about the streets outside. However, the streets before him were narrow and chaotic, and from time to time there was feces that could not be determined by humans or cats and dogs.
He covered his mouth and felt like vomiting. His clothes had been changed and there was no sachet to avoid the stench.
To get from Chiritai to Siyuyuan, one had to take a carriage. At that time, his carriage was spacious and fragrant, which was completely different from the smelly carriage in front of him.
"Awake?" The Phoenix chick laughed out loud.
Mu Jin suppressed his anger in his heart and did not ask why he knocked him out that day. It was nothing more than breaking their previous agreement.
"This carriage is not good, change it for me." He still maintained the nobleness of a young master and ordered him.
Phoenix Chick tried to hold back, but couldn't help laughing. "Sir, just bear with it. I bought this car a few days ago. It doesn't have anything else in it except a few chicken coops."
"Chicken coop?!" Mu Jin's eyebrows jumped.
How dare he carry him in a car that was used to carry chickens and ducks!
"Well, sir, don't look down on chicken. Chicken is easy to digest. Didn't you often drink chicken soup when you were weak?"
As if this is a very common thing.
"Where are you taking me?"
When Fenghuangchu saw that he woke up, he whipped faster and sped up the journey. He looked back at Mu Jin, and his bottomless black eyes contained an excitement that Mu Jin could not understand.
Soon the carriage and horses left the small town.
Mu Jin returned to the car and calmed down a bit, "I'm tired."
On the way, Phoenix Chick lifted the curtain to take a look at him, and found that he was indeed sleeping. He then lowered the curtain and continued on his way.
He played a little tune while hurrying on his way, and no longer spoke much to Mu Jin.
In the second half of the night, while the phoenix chick was urinating, Mu Jin suddenly escaped from the carriage and climbed onto the roof.
He had to escape.
When Phoenix Chick turned around, the people in the car were nowhere to be found.
He smiled coldly and said, "Run away, run away, and see where you can run to."
Mu Jin ran through countless alleys and fled in a panic amid the barking of wild dogs. This was his first time seeing the outside world. He had never imagined that the streets outside were so dirty, the road surface was uneven, the houses were so cramped, dilapidated and narrow, and the stench was everywhere.
He was like a piece of white jade that suddenly fell into a pool of mud.
Just as he ran wildly all night and dawn was approaching, it seemed that no one was following him.
He was so tired that he collapsed on a piece of wasteland. The grass had withered and everything seemed to have lost its vitality, but for the first time he felt free. This world belonged to him. He was no longer a prisoner and there were no shackles behind him.
The phoenix chick suddenly flew over, flipped in the air, and landed right in front of him.
"Run, why don't you run?"
Sun Wukong could never escape from the palm of Buddha. The Phoenix Chick followed him all the way on the roof. His lightness skill was good and his speed was fast. If it were someone else, they might have lost him. But he followed Mu Jin, and he couldn't escape even if he had wings.
He stood steadily in front of Mu Jin, who was slumped on the ground, looked down at the young man, and said with a smug smile, "Are you such a fool?"
Mu Jin said nothing more, lay on his back on the vast ground and sighed.
It looked like he was tired after running all night.
After an unknown amount of time, Phoenix Chick let him catch his breath and kicked him, "Let's go, let's keep on going."
"Do I have to listen to you?"
"Yes, you must obey me."
"You brought me out here just to take me somewhere else?"
"Otherwise, you'd better be obedient, otherwise I don't care whether you bring back a corpse or a living person."
Mu Jin smiled and said, "Then you can only get a corpse."
Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly got up and attacked the phoenix chick.
The two men moved very quickly. Mu Jin did not carry a sword, and Fenghuang Chu did not intend to use any weapons. He did not want to kill Mu Jin unless it was absolutely necessary.
After a dozen or so back and forths, Mu Jin had slowed down. He still wanted to struggle, but Fenghuangchu picked up the whip and hit him hard.
With a snap, the man in front of him seemed to have changed into another face, just as cruelly, making him take off his shirt and be whipped. The injuries were too severe at that time, and his uncle asked people to use good medicine to nourish his skin and flesh. He was beaten so hard that he fell to the ground and vomited blood, and the snow was covered with his blood.
The pain made Mu Jin bite his lower lip, but compared to the pain, being imprisoned again made him return to endless pain and anger. His eyes were fixed on the phoenix chick.
Phoenix Chick stopped laughing at him. He saw the hatred in Mu Jin's eyes. After all, being hated by someone was not a pleasant feeling.
He stopped laughing, but Mu Jin started laughing.
Phoenix Chick didn't know what he was laughing at. This child was a freak. Could it be that he was driven crazy by him?
It sounded like a mocking laugh.
The autumn and winter winds were as cold as a knife. When the phoenix chick heard his laughter, he felt the cold wind sting and a cold sweat appeared on his forehead.
"why are you laughing?"
"Laughing... myself, I thought I was incredibly smart."
"You have never left the house, so it would be a bit uncomfortable for you to be set up by someone like me," said Fenghuang Chu.
He suddenly asked, "Why Jiaoran?"
Phoenix Chick spread his hands, "It's just a coincidence, it happened to be her."
"really?"
"Are you sad for Jiaoran?"
"I'm used to it."
"Get used to what?"
“You gain it and then you lose it.”
The Phoenix Chick had nothing to say.
He once truly thought that he could escape from the Governor's Mansion, find a free place to start a new life, and never be found by his uncle again.
But now it seems like just jumping from one cage to another.
One day not long after, he was forcibly taken to Huiying Inn by the Chief Secretary. It was already late at night. He remembered that there was a solitary lamp at the door of the inn. The wind and sand were blowing, and the candlelight of the solitary lamp was dimming.
The night fog shrouded the border town in a dreary haze.
There were no weeds along the road, and the dark night was filled with a spooky aura.
After walking for a long time on one of the streets in the town, I saw an inn, which was the Huiying Inn.
Most of the houses along the road were cave dwellings, and there were also some mud houses. There were cobwebs in the corners and dust on the windowsills. He was reminded of the magnificent buildings of the Governor's Mansion with carved beams and painted rafters.
It turns out that this is the scene outside the mansion.
He hadn't been to a place like this in nearly twenty years.
The lights in the inn were still on, and the melodious sound of drums could be heard from the end of the path.
He and Changshi were like two ghosts wandering in the night.
The closer they got to this place, the more elegant Changshi looked and the brighter his eyes became. Mu Jin felt that this was Changshi's hometown.
But he didn't understand why the Chief Secretary wanted to bring him back to his hometown, and who was waiting for him to come back.
The windows of the inn were closed, and there were a few moldy spots on the window paper. Under the light, a frail figure was reflected. It looked so lonely, as if it had been standing there for a hundred years, looking up in the direction they came from.
When the Chief Clerk entered the inn, the waiter came slowly to greet him. Just as he was about to say something, he caught sight of him and hurried upstairs to report, "Master's Wife, the Phoenix Cub has returned, and brought back a handsome young man!"
Only then did Mu Jin realize that the title of Changshi was just a disguise and his real name was Fenghuang Chu.
He found a place to sit down, deciding to make the best of it since he was already there. He just didn't know whether Chai Hui could get into the armory and find Jiaoran before Chai Che and the others.
If Chai Lie found her first, he would definitely use her to retrieve Gao Shan Shou, but if it was Chai Hui, based on his understanding of that fool, he would just hide her so that no one would find her.
His hand touched the greasy table, a corner of which was even chopped off. The black greasy stain made him frown. He withdrew his hand in disgust and embarrassment, not knowing where to put it.
There were cracks in the window frames, and every bit of it made him feel uncomfortable.
Soon, a woman with a horrifying scar on her face came down. Her eyes were beautiful, and Mu Jin felt very familiar with them, but he didn't know where he had seen them before.
She just stood at the stairs and watched, letting time slip away from her eyes.
He has grown up and looks like his father. There is a shadow hidden in his handsome face, making it impossible to guess his true intentions. There is always a hint of sadness under his lively eyes, and his face is pale, as if he has never seen the sun.
He looked up at her, and they both remained silent.
The phoenix chick leaned against the window, lying on the windowsill, looking at them quietly.
Her eyes were red, and she quickly wiped away her tears and put on a smile.
She walked over to Mu Jin and took his hand. "You must be tired after the long journey. Are you tired?"
Mu Jin shook his head and said nothing.
She stroked his face, with countless tenderness in her eyes, and said softly, "How can you be so thin? You're a boy, and you don't have any flesh on your face."
Mu Jin said, "I don't know why the Chief Secretary brought me here, but please let me go."
When she heard him call her only "wife", her hands trembled uncontrollably. At this moment, even if she had thousands of needles piercing her heart, it would not be as good as him treating her as a stranger.
"Okay, but it's getting late. Why don't you stay here for one night?" she said.
The young phoenix thought it was funny and went upstairs to find a room to rest.
"In that case, I'd better obey your command. Thank you very much, madam." He stood up and saluted.
The landlady asked the waiter to take him upstairs, and the waiter whispered in her ear, "Which room should he stay in?"
“The best one.”
The waiter was stunned for a moment, "But the best one——"
"Don't talk too much!"
The waiter led him upstairs. After Mu Jin left, she slowly closed her eyes, but tears could not stop flowing down.
She has been waiting for this day for so many years.
She sat down, wiped the candlestick, and specially selected the cleanest and brightest lamp and asked someone to bring it over.
She knew that he was afraid of the dark. She always remembered that whenever she carried him to a dark place, he would cry uncontrollably.
Mu Jin was sitting on a clean bed. Seeing a desk in the corner with a pile of papers on it, he couldn't help but walk over.
When sitting down at the desk, Mu Jin's hand brushed across the groove on the table. He gently put the paper aside and looked at the groove. Then he found that there were three or four pig and cow head patterns carved on the table with a knife, which looked like they were carved by a child with a knife when he was bored.
He looked at it for a while, then took out the stack of papers one by one.
In a trance, an indescribable fear arose in his heart.
Mu Jin hurriedly put all the papers on the ground, his fingers groping on the pattern on the table, his face changed drastically.
This... this is Jiaoran's painting.
He remembered that the things Jiaoran had drawn under the poem were extremely similar to those on the table.
He had seen Jiaoran draw several of the mechanism diagrams on these papers before, and one of them was a siege mechanism diagram, which he had seen Jiaoran draw with his own eyes.
At that time, he felt strange and asked Jiaoran why she knew about the ladder. Jiaoran said that she had just seen such a pattern in a book, and she thought it was interesting, so she tried to learn it.
Jiaoran was illiterate at that time, so he believed that she was not deceiving him. She just happened to see these pictures and found them interesting, so she wrote them down.
He told Jiaoran about Mozi's encounter with Gongshu Pan, who untied his belt to form a wall and used tokens as weapons. Gongshu Pan devised nine strategies for attacking the city, and Mozi countered them all nine times. Gongshu Pan's offensive weapons were exhausted, but Mozi still had more than enough for defense.
Finally, Jiaoran was asked, if she were Gongshu who was defeated in every battle, what should she do?
Jiaoran thought for a long time and said, just admit defeat. Since my mechanical skills are slightly inferior to others and my techniques are not as good as others, of course I have to admit defeat.
He told Jiaoran that sometimes winning or losing is not a personal matter, but concerns an entire city or a country.
Jiaoran asked him in return, if it were you, what would you do?
He said, kill Mozi.
Jiaoran smiled and said, "I thought so too." But then he thought again, "Couldn't Mozi have known that Gongshu could have come up with this idea?" So even if Gongshu had killed Mozi, the man who designed the mechanism, as long as Mozi had arranged it in advance, the city would still be unconquerable.
Mu Jin sat at the desk, thinking carefully about what had happened so far. He turned around and saw the wind blowing in from the window. He seemed to see Jiaoran lying on the window and looking into the distance. He looked at the window for a long time without coming back to his senses.
All kinds of thoughts came into his mind in waves, and when he piled them together, he couldn't find the right direction.
Who is the owner of this inn?
Who is that woman with the long scar on her face?
Jiaoran lives here? This looks like her room. Could this be her home?
What was Phoenix Cub's intention in bringing him here?
What is the relationship between the Phoenix Chick and the innkeeper?
What is the relationship between Jiaoran and the owner of this inn?
He didn't know how long it took, but his legs became numb and he slowly stood up.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, and a ray of sunlight flowed in through the window.
He had an idea that this was not the end, but the beginning of everything.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
