Zhou Qingmei was speechless for a long moment. She had already told him there was knockout powder in the meat, so why was he still eating it?
Not only did Fang Shuwen eat it, he wouldn't let Zhou Qingmei have any either.
He said to Brother Sun:
"My humble wife can't eat meat. If none of you want this bowl, I'll finish it all myself today."
Zhou Qingmei lowered her head so no one could see the cracks forming in her expression.
Who's your humble wife?
Pah!
Still, seeing how happily he was eating, she figured he probably didn't take that little bit of knockout powder seriously, so she left him to it.
She had expected Brother Sun to ask Zhou Qingmei to try some too, but to her surprise, he didn't force the issue.
They enjoyed themselves well enough over the meal, making casual conversation.
After they ate, the side room was ready, and Brother Sun sent Fang Shuwen and Zhou Qingmei there to rest.
The two closed and barred the door, then climbed onto the kang. Only then did Zhou Qingmei look at Fang Shuwen.
"Are you all right?"
Fang Shuwen smiled.
"How could a little knockout powder do anything to me?"
He wouldn't claim that his Muscle Tendon Change, cultivated to grand perfection, made him immune to all poisons, but he truly didn't take this mere knockout powder seriously.
"...Impressive, impressive!"
Zhou Qingmei rolled her eyes at him, then frowned.
"I thought this was just an ordinary family. I didn't expect them to put knockout powder in the food.
"Judging by this, I'm afraid the family has done this sort of thing plenty of times.
"I've heard my master say that people of the jianghu have their own skills, but ordinary folk have their own methods too.
"You can't underestimate anyone.
"I never took it to heart before, but today I've seen it for myself."
Fang Shuwen smiled.
"Those by the mountains live off the mountains; those by the sea live off the sea. Food is the people's heaven.
"But if they can't get enough to eat, they have to eat the living people passing through.
"That man Sun isn't just honest-looking on the outside and ruthless on the inside. Even his son is no ordinary character.
"His delight when he saw us was genuine.
"You and I aren't related to him, and we've never met him before. For him to be that happy, there must naturally be something in it for him.
"And since that benefit wasn't on the dinner table, I'm afraid it must lie with the two of us."
At the dinner table, Fang Shuwen had given him a chicken leg, and that had been his final test.
The boy hadn't eaten it, not because of his upbringing. The look he gave his father hadn't been a request for permission... he had been asking for help.
Naturally, he hadn't dared eat the chicken leg with something added to it, and had needed his father to get him out of it.
"What do you say? Shall we make our move now?"
Zhou Qingmei asked.
But Fang Shuwen shook his head.
"There's no rush. We've been worn out for so long; let's get a little rest.
"I also want to see exactly what this family plans to do."
Zhou Qingmei glanced at him.
"Why are you so curious? Forget it, have it your way."
"Aren't you curious?"
"I am!"
The two smiled at each other. After sharing joys and hardships along the way, they really did have some understanding of each other.
Before coming here, Zhou Qingmei had considered asking for some water to bathe.
After all that time in the deep mountains and old forests, the smell on her body was truly nothing to praise.
Now she gave up on the idea. She leaned back and fell asleep before long.
Fang Shuwen glanced at her, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
As the night grew darker, footsteps came from outside the door.
Fang Shuwen gently patted Zhou Qingmei on the shoulder, and she sat up at once.
Someone outside spoke in a low voice.
"The woman didn't eat it. What do we do? She has a sword; she probably knows martial arts."
The speaker was the boy.
Brother Sun's voice rang out.
"Don't worry. It's not as if people who know martial arts haven't fallen into our hands before. Your mother knows martial arts too, and look at her now.
"Look how bedraggled they are. They must have come out of the woods and suffered plenty.
"By now, they'll probably fall asleep the moment their heads touch the pillow. I still have some knockout smoke here. I'll blow a tube of it inside in a moment, and I guarantee even thunder won't wake him."
"Dad, you always have a way."
There was delight in the boy's voice.
Old Master Sun's voice reached the two inside as well.
"You've still got a lot to learn. You need to learn more from your dad.
"That girl is quite a looker. We could keep her here as a wife for my grandson."
"No."
Brother Sun said:
"A pretty woman won't stay put. She'll cause trouble.
"We'll do it the usual way. Slaughter the man, skin him, pull out his tendons, carve off his flesh and strip his bones, then sell the meat in the city as wild boar.
"Sell the woman to a human trafficker. Someone like her will fetch plenty of silver. Then we can buy the boy a wife, can't we?
"Or do you want him to end up like me, disfiguring his own wife's face and breaking one of her legs and her collarbone?
"If she weren't reasonably obedient, I'd have killed her long ago. What kind of life is this?"
His words were full of resentment. As he spoke, the window paper bulged slightly, and a bamboo tube poked through.
The faces of the two inside had long since darkened as they listened to the conversation.
Fang Shuwen motioned for Zhou Qingmei to be quiet, then reached out and gently pinched the bamboo tube shut, blocking its opening before the knockout smoke could enter.
They distinctly heard Brother Sun draw a breath. Just as he was about to blow, a sudden banging came from the gate outside the courtyard.
The sound came so abruptly that the three generations of the family, caught in the midst of their guilty business, all broke out in a cold sweat.
Brother Sun hurriedly pulled the bamboo tube out, and all three looked toward the gate.
The knocking was unhurried and steady, but it had a sense of if you don't open the door, I'll just keep knocking.
The three looked at each other. Who was knocking at the door in the dead of night—a ghost?
Brother Sun gritted his teeth, took a few steps forward, and shouted:
"Who's there?"
At the same time, he waved for the other two to hurry over and stop standing beneath Zhou Qingmei's window.
Someone had suddenly come in the middle of the night, and he felt uneasy.
He didn't know who it was. Judging by the way they were knocking, they didn't seem like a normal person.
So he pretended that the knocking had woken him, deliberately shouting loudly to wake Zhou Qingmei.
Though they harbored wicked intentions, they wanted to use Zhou Qingmei's martial arts as a safeguard for themselves.
But to his surprise, after he shouted, the knocking at the gate continued.
There was no sound at all from the room where Zhou Qingmei and Fang Shuwen were staying.
Are they really sleeping that deeply?
Brother Sun felt some regret. If he had known, why would he have bothered preparing the knockout smoke?
He had bought the stuff from a gang in the city, and it was very precious.
As he was wondering what to do, there was a boom.
The door had been knocked open.
Two people stood outside, both dressed in black robes, their faces ashen and their eyes tinged red. Each held a grappling claw, gleaming coldly in the night.
The instant the three generations of the Sun family saw them, their scalps went numb, and they were frightened out of their wits.
They thought they had committed so many wicked deeds that vengeful ghosts had come to claim their souls and lives.
Brother Sun cried, "Mama!" and turned to run into the room.
But there was a whoosh, and a grappling claw trailed an iron chain through the air, clamping tightly around his neck.
In the next instant, he was yanked clean off his feet and dragged into the hands of one of the people at the gate.
The person spoke in a sinister voice.
"Why didn't you open the door?"