114. The Two Brothers

If Zhang Xuan had known that the person pursuing the two children thought he looked rather dim-witted, he would have wondered how to respond. He had once used a nickname in “Honor of Kings” that was more or less equivalent to “Dum-Dum,” but being thought of as an idiot in real life was still unpleasant.

Zhang Xuan also noticed that the pursuer seemed to have changed course and was now heading toward him. The two being chased had not noticed the change at all and were still running “frantically” ahead.

When the man drew a little closer, Zhang Xuan raised a hand and greeted him out of politeness. “Hi.” Whether the other man understood him was his own concern.

“What are you doing here, boy?” the pursuer asked. Only after speaking did he notice the plucked wild chicken in Zhang Xuan’s hand. It had been plucked rather poorly, with quite a few fine feathers left behind. Plucking feathers was a painstaking task, after all, and since the chicken was only going to be roasted, Zhang Xuan had merely removed the feathers in a perfunctory fashion, leaving all the fine ones behind. If the chicken had been intended for braising or some other method of cooking, anyone with a cleanliness obsession would certainly have refused it, no matter how delicious it looked, simply because of the hairs remaining on the skin.

“What are you doing with that chicken, boy? Are you alone?”

Although Zhang Xuan could not understand why the man was questioning him, he answered out of politeness. In the past, whenever he had received petitioners, he had always done his best to answer their questions whenever he could. Only when something lay beyond his knowledge would he direct them to someone else.

“You’ve asked three questions in total, but to save time, I’ll answer them all at once. My friends and I just caught this wild chicken. According to our division of labor, I’m responsible for cleaning it. I’m about to head back and meet up with them. That’s all there is to it.”

The pursuer thought back over the route he had taken and realized that he had not seen anyone else along the way. Suspicion began to creep into his mind.

“Who are you trying to fool, boy? I searched all the way here and only saw the two people I was chasing just now. I didn’t see anyone else. Where are your friends? Call them out and let me take a look!”

Zhang Xuan found the man utterly baffling. He had told him the truth, yet the man still refused to believe him. Fine, if he did not believe him, so be it. Zhang Xuan had no interest in pleasing him anyway. Still, thinking of the two people the man had been chasing, he could not help asking, “I just saw you pursuing two people. Why were you chasing them?”

“Uh, they took something from us... Boy, don’t ask questions you shouldn’t!”

The man had nearly let something slip, but fortunately caught himself in time. Zhang Xuan had been listening attentively to the rest of his answer, but after hearing this, he could not help curling his lips. If the man did not want to say, then so be it.

Zhang Xuan lifted the chicken’s head and waved it at him. “Goodbye.”

Then he turned and walked away. He had no particular interest in the man before him, but he was quite interested in the two people the man had been chasing.

As for those two, after running for some distance, they realized that their pursuer had disappeared. They guessed that he might have gone toward the place where they had just encountered Zhang Xuan.

“Big brother, he’s not chasing us anymore. Do you think he went after the person we saw earlier? Will he be captured?” The younger of the two looked back toward the direction from which they had come.

“Probably. That man really has terrible luck. How could he have happened to show up there at exactly that moment? When we saw him catching the chicken just now, we thought he seemed pretty clever. Hopefully, he’ll notice that something is wrong and run away,” the older boy said, also glancing back toward the general direction in which Zhang Xuan was.

“Big brother, should we go back and take a look? And I don’t think he came alone. If he really has been captured, we can look for his companions and ask them to rescue him. If possible, they could rescue the others too!”

The younger brother imagined the idea with great enthusiasm, as if he had already found Zhang Xuan’s companions and, under his own leadership, successfully rescued all the other children who had previously been trapped alongside them.

The boy called Big Brother thought for a while, hesitating. This was a perfect opportunity to free himself and his brother completely from those people’s control. Yet when he considered that their freedom would come at the cost of leaving others trapped, he felt reluctant to abandon them.

“Little brother, I’ll sneak back and take a look. You hide somewhere nearby. If I see that things are going badly, I’ll run back immediately. If you notice anything wrong, run in the direction I take. Do you understand?”

His younger brother shook his head.

“Big brother, we should go together. That way we can look after each other. Stop treating me like a child all the time. After all, escaping from that place was my idea in the first place. Don’t worry. If anything goes wrong, I’ll run.”

The older brother looked at him. He was not comfortable leaving his brother hidden there, and in the end, he agreed to let him quietly approach the place together with him so they could see what had happened.

However, just as the brothers were about to reach the place where they had encountered Zhang Xuan, they heard a single scream. After that, there was no sound at all.

The scream startled the brothers into swiftly finding a place to hide. Only after waiting for quite some time and confirming that there was no movement anywhere around them did they continue toward their destination.