"What happened? Has it still not been dealt with?"
The subordinate officer had taken rather a long time.
Captain Yang's already scant patience ran out. His horse's hooves trampled through puddles, splashing up muddy water. He rode forward, clad in a savage beast-headed suit of armor, and looked down from horseback at the old man with his hunched back. The immense pressure made the old man's shoulders tremble.
"These two?"
The subordinate officer answered truthfully.
Captain Yang gave the weathered old man and the shriveled, scrawny Shepherd Boy a cursory glance. The grandfather and grandson both had sunburn scars left by years of hard labor under the blazing sun, and their fingers had suffered chilblains. The old man wore a battered Bamboo Hat with one corner missing, while the Shepherd Boy was draped in an oversized, worn-out straw raincoat.
Viewed from any angle, they were nothing more than ordinary people—ordinary to the very marrow in this world. They were clearly not the bandits he had been worried about. The taut nerves in Captain Yang's body relaxed slightly, but the anger smoldering in his chest had yet to burn itself out.
"Why aren't you two home at this hour? What are you doing wandering around the mountain?"
The old man moved his lips and said, looking harried and aggrieved, "Officer, please judge fairly. It isn't that we're unwilling to go home. It's just that..."
He glanced in the direction from which Captain Yang and the others had come, wanting to speak yet stopping himself, then wanting to stop yet speaking again. Though he had not opened his mouth, his muddied eyes had already laid bare all his hardships and helplessness. Captain Yang's temper flared, and he snorted. "You old coot, are you accusing us of blocking your path?"
The old man