The middle-aged man led the way while the other two young men followed far behind, not daring to come any closer.
Ying Gou and Qianqian walked behind us with Yuan Jiang.
I asked the middle-aged man, "You're Zeng Dajiang's people, aren't you?"
The middle-aged man's expression changed slightly. He glanced at me and nodded. "That's right. We're Boss Zeng's men, but..."
He seemed unsure how to put it. After thinking for a moment, he said, "But our current boss captured us and assigned us this task."
"What means does your current boss use to control you? If he has no way of controlling you, shouldn't you run as far away as possible once you're free of him?"
The middle-aged man seemed stunned, even stopping in his tracks. He looked at his two subordinates in the distance, then said, "Yeah, then why didn't we run? Why did we come all this way looking for you? Shouldn't we have run as far as we could?" Clearly, the thought had never occurred to him, nor to his two subordinates.
He continued, "There was only one thought in my mind: take you to see him." As he spoke, he slapped his own forehead, seemingly regretting his stupidity.
"The person controlling you—your current boss—you may not know who he is, but you can tell us what he looks like, right?" I asked again.
He nodded, but just as he was about to speak, it was as though something had plugged his mouth.
I patted his back. "Come on, talk as we walk."
He swallowed and looked at me. "It's not that I don't want to say it, but I suddenly can't remember what he looks like at all." Then he called the two young men behind him over. They jogged up to us, looked at