Tuoba Mang put the bag of dried meat on his back on the ground, causing the old hen to cluck loudly.
He strode over and blocked the scholar's path.
The two thugs' legs went weak when they saw Tuoba Mang's size.
What are you doing?
Tuoba Mang's voice was muffled, like thunder.
The two thugs exchanged a glance, released Zhao Wuxu, and scrambled into the woods.
One of them looked back halfway through the run and met Tuoba Mang's gaze. He tripped over a tree root and fell down, but got up and ran even faster.
Zhao Wuxu was completely stunned.
That's not the plan.
His meticulously crafted script involved being bullied by local thugs, retreating step by step to a cliff by the stream, and then making a gesture of defiantly jumping into the river.
Seeing this from above, Yun Shuyue, knowing her nature, would surely rush to her rescue.
He had calculated the exact time.
The angle has been calculated.
He personally went into the water twice the night before last to find out which stone at the bottom of the stream he could stand on firmly and wouldn't be washed away.
The only thing they hadn't anticipated was that the thugs would be outmaneuvered.
What they didn't expect was that what they were up against was a walking mountain of flesh.
Zhao Wuxu withdrew from his preparatory stance to jump into the river, took a half step back, and maintained the aloofness of a down-on-his-luck scholar.
"I am but a passing scholar, and I have been harassed by someone for no reason..."
"Passing by?" Tuoba Mang took a step forward.
"You, who were just passing by, have been squatting on this mountain path for three days?"
Zhao Wuxu's eyelid twitched.
He did indeed stay in this area for three days.
The first two days were for scouting, the third day for planning, with the goal of "bumping into" Yun Shuyue being bullied when she went down the mountain to collect herbs.
"I... I'm lost."
Lost for three days?
Tuoba Mang stretched out his large, fan-like hand and patted him on the shoulder.
With that slap, Zhao Wuxu shrank three inches, almost falling into the grass.
Tuoba Mang stared at his face.
white.
Too pale.
Her hands were free of calluses, and her nails were neatly trimmed.
There was mud on his clothes, but the mud spots were all on his knees and elbows.
This was earned through kneeling and humiliation.
Those who truly travel far and wide, enduring wind and rain, should have mud on their shoes, trouser legs, and backs.
Tuoba Mang was not well-educated, but he pursued deserters in the Northern Territory.
Deserters also use this method to disguise themselves.
What a show-off!
Do you want to go up the mountain?
Zhao Wuxu's heart tightened.
How did this burly man manage to get to the heart of the matter with just one sentence?
"I don't have any."
"You don't want to? Bullshit!"
Tuoba Mang took another half step closer, his voice deafening.
"There are women on the mountain! What are you doing there, a pale-faced scholar? Which one have you taken a fancy to?"
Zhao Wuxu's lips twitched.
He wanted to go up the mountain, and his target was indeed the people on the mountain, but not those women.
It is Yun Shuyue.
The legitimate daughter of Yun Zhengze, the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner of Jiannan Circuit.
It took him a whole year to find this information.
At first, he only knew that there was a chivalrous thief in Yi Prefecture named " Moon-Chasing Wanderer," who was extremely skilled in light-footed martial arts and robbed the rich to help the poor in the surrounding counties.
Later, he bribed an old constable in a neighboring county who had been dismissed.
Following this lead, he investigated for another three months before piecing together the truth from an old woman who had washed clothes for the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner's Office.
The provincial inspector's eldest daughter ran away from home three years ago. The family claimed that she had been sent to her maternal grandparents' house to recuperate, but in reality, they had been searching for her throughout the city for a year.
The timing, age, and movement all match up perfectly.
The fact that the Yun Clan hasn't contacted her again in the past two years indicates that they already know what she's doing.
The daughter of a provincial inspector, who was a thief and had established a mountain stronghold, had never been shut down by the government, simply because her father was pretending to be blind and fooling her.
But Zhao Wuxu didn't care about any of that.
The things behind that girl: the layout of the Provincial Surveillance Bureau, the location of confidential documents, and all the connections her father had built up over ten years in Jiannan Circuit.
These are what he wants.
But he can't say these things right now.
Zhao Wuxu composed himself and forced a look of grievance on his face.
"Hero, I have never—"
Stop pretending.
The first slap.
The sound was extremely loud, like being slapped on a chopping board.
Zhao Wuxu tilted his head thirty degrees, and half of his face instantly turned red.
He covered his face, completely stunned for a moment.
The meticulously prepared drama of "preferring death to surrender and being forced to jump into the river" was simply shattered with a single slap?
"Aren't you going to behave?"
Tuoba Mang pressed for an answer.
Zhao Wuxu took a deep breath, using all his strength to suppress the murderous intent surging in his chest, his voice trembling slightly.
"You've misunderstood, sir... Never mind, I must... endure..."
Tuoba Mang's expression changed.
The accents from the north and south are very different, but he understood them!
audacious madman!
He turned and yelled at the two thugs who had already run far away in the direction of the woods.
"Did you two hear that? He confessed himself, he wanted to rape someone!"
Zhao Wuxu: "...?"
The second slap landed.
This one sank more than the first one.
Zhao Wuxu spun around halfway, and one of his shoes was knocked off, landing with a splash in the stream.
"I meant forbearance! Not..."
"You still dare to say that?"
The third slap.
Zhao Wuxu's hair ornament was askew, and the hairpin flew into the grass.
He staggered back two steps, slipped on the wet moss, and fell to his backside.
My lips were cracked, and the taste of rust lingered on my tongue.
Tuoba Mang looked down at him.
"Say it again, are you still being lewd?"
Zhao Wuxu propped himself up halfway from the ground, his hair disheveled and his face covered in mud.
His mind was racing.
It cannot be exposed.
You mustn't use your hands.
We've been planning this for so long, and we haven't even had a chance to use the self-inflicted injury strategy yet. We can't let it all be ruined by a barbarian.
He gritted his teeth and lowered his voice to its softest, most humble tone.
"I... I really am just passing by. I've heard that this mountain has rare medicinal herbs, and I'd like to go up and pick a few..."
Tuoba Mang tilted his head to look at him.
White flour, delicate skin, tender meat.
Her nails were even cleaner than those of her sisters-in-law.
With hands like that, you can't even pull out a blade of grass, let alone gather herbs.
"You're gathering herbs?"
"Yes..."
Do you know about herbs?
Zhao Wuxu gritted his teeth.
I know a little bit about it.
Tuoba Mang bent down, plucked a handful of wild grass from the ground, and shoved it in front of him.
"What's this?"
Zhao Wuxu glanced at it.
Common foxtail grass.
But he wasn't sure if Tuoba Mang was testing him.
"This... this should be..."
"Look, they don't even recognize grass."
Tuoba Mang threw down the grass, grabbed Zhao Wuxu, and lifted him up like a wet wildcat.
"Still collecting herbs? Keep making things up. Keep making things up."
The fourth slap.
This time it's the left cheek.
Zhao Wuxu tilted his head to the right, and just as he did, it was back to normal.
The fifth slap, on the right cheek.
His head tilted back again.
They alternated between left and right, with an almost unbelievable evenness.
Zhao Wuxu shook his whole body like a rattle drum.
His "down-on-his-luck scholar" persona has been largely shattered, and the sinister glint in his eyes is almost impossible to suppress.
His left hand gripped the hidden weapon tightly inside his sleeve.
It was a triangular dart, coated with anesthetic, and attached to the inside of the forearm, ready to be launched at any time.
Just one.
He could see the veins on the barbarian's neck very clearly.