Crack!
The iron bars, as thick as a child's arm, were forcibly torn apart, twisted into a spiral, and thrown onto the ground.
The cell doors opened, and the prisoners inside erupted in cheers as one. Quite a few wept tears of joy!
Bandits were the cruelest of all. They had all believed there was no escaping this calamity, never expecting a savior to descend from the heavens.
They were therefore immeasurably grateful to Wang Chen.
When faced with Wang Chen's questions, every one of them told him all they knew without holding anything back.
Wang Chen thus learned that all the people captured by the bandits were from nearby villages. Like the two villagers from Datian Village, they had all been attacked in the mountains.
The earliest among them had been captured just two days ago!
As for anything more, they knew nothing. Having been imprisoned here for the past two days, they had lived in constant fear.
This left Wang Chen deeply puzzled.
The prison the bandits had built was quite large. Its dozen-odd cells could hold several hundred people.
These villagers certainly were not the first batch to be captured, so where had all the earlier ones gone?
There was another question as well.
After the group of bandits had seized Xu Lao Si and the other man, they had not immediately returned to their lair. They had only sent men to escort the two back, while everyone else, including their leader, had waited in the mountain forest for Wang Chen to appear.
It was clearly premeditated!
After giving it some thought, Wang Chen turned and went out, then brought someone back.
This was a bandit with a scar on his face. His eyes were tightly shut as he lay unconscious, blood seeping from his mouth, nose,