Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It was Dashun!

I knew his voice too well.

It had come from behind the wooden cabin, filtering in through the planks.

In a panic, I rushed out of the cabin and circled around to the back.

There was an old tree there, its trunk thick and gnarled. Beneath it, I could just make out a person standing in the shadows.

“Dashun!”

I ran toward the tree, but the figure flickered and vanished without warning.

“Brother Long, avenge me…”

That barely audible voice drifted past my ear. By the time I reached the foot of the tree, all I saw was a pool of dark red blood.

The blood had stained the entire spread of roots crimson. I looked up and saw broken branches overhead, and glaring claw marks gouged into the trunk.

Dashun’s scream rang in my ears. It was as if I could see him with his ankles bound, hanging upside down from the tree.

Someone had slit his throat. He had struggled with everything he had, spraying blood everywhere.

A savage fury pounded in my chest. When Dashun first came to my side, he had still been a kid.

I was the one who taught him how to drive. I was the one who took him on long-haul runs.

Back when I ran my own logistics company, he worked hard without complaint. He was the subordinate I trusted most.

After I went bankrupt, he still refused to leave me. Every day, he helped me with everything he could.

Dashun had once told me that when he was born, his family had hired someone to read his fate.

They said his life would be full of hardship, that nothing would ever go smoothly for him. But fortunately, he would always meet benefactors who helped him survive each crisis.

Dashun was always saying that I was his benefactor, that I could always save him at the most critical moment.

But this time? Was I too late?

The soft red earth under my feet seemed soaked through with Dashun’s blood. When my gaze dropped to the ground, I suddenly saw something glinting.

I picked it up. It was a white button stained with blood.

I clenched that button tightly in my fist. No matter who had harmed Dashun, I would never let them get away with it.

When I returned to the cabin, Ren Meng and Shi Yuhan had also come back.

The couple had once again returned empty-handed. They sat in separate corners of the room, neither one paying any attention to the other.

Zuo Hao seemed ready to give up just like Yi Jingchen. He no longer even mentioned looking for the sheep.

Ever since Ba Wuyue brought the sheep back, she had been sitting in front of the stump, staring at that sheep. I had no idea what she was thinking.

I looked over everyone inside and outside the cabin. Every single person here was a suspect.

That white button was far too common. Almost anyone could have one on their clothes.

Just then, Yi Jingchen walked over to me. His gaze moved slowly from my feet to my face. “Where did you go? The soles of your shoes are covered in red dirt.”

I turned and glanced at the footprints I had left behind. They were indeed red. But that wasn’t red dirt. That was my brother’s blood.

My temples throbbed and pounded. My sanity was teetering on the verge of collapse.

I had to find the real killer first. I couldn’t hurt innocent people. I warned myself over and over in my heart.

I forced myself to turn away and stop looking at Yi Jingchen’s fragile throat.

For someone like me, killing ordinary people with no ability to fight back would be far too easy.

I didn’t answer Yi Jingchen. I turned and went to find Ba Wuyue.

Ba Wuyue had promised to help me find Dashun. I had only seen that pool of blood. Whether Dashun was dead or alive, I still couldn’t be sure.