Chapter 158
Chapter 158
Friendship was a marvelous thing.
Take Qin Ying and her new friend, Qiu Zhang, for example.
One moment, Qiu Zhang had been furious that Qin Ying had come wandering around for no good reason, and even more furious that she had exposed Hei Gong’s embezzlement.
He had also been worried he would be dragged into the fallout.
But his friendship with Qin Ying was very quickly restored to its former state after Qin Ying said she wanted to buy the injured one of the Gutless People.
The Jade Balance Army did not forbid buying and selling. Sometimes, after hunting down a giant Monstrous Beast, they would dispose of the parts that were difficult to store or transport on the spot, selling them off to the local clans.
Merchants often trailed after the army, waiting to do business.
So when Qin Ying offered to buy the Gutless People, Qiu Zhang’s first reaction was delight.
“Are you sure?” He knew Qin Ying was a Shaman of the Sand People, so she ought to have some money.
But spending money on a Gutless People who was about to die?
Qiu Zhang looked at Han Lie again.
Seeing that Han Lie had no intention of objecting, he spread his hands. “If you buy him and he dies, don’t blame me.”
Afraid Qin Ying would change her mind, he hurriedly ordered, “Later, have Squad Leader Han go inform the Camp Commandant.”
After this incident, Qin Ying’s tour was cut short halfway through.
The Gutless People had a random handful of sand smeared over his lower body, then was dragged off and handed over to a bewildered Aman.
Another gold bracelet vanished from Qin Ying’s wrist.
Aman stared at the Gutless People and frowned again and again.
His reaction was perfectly normal. After all, Gutless People gave others far too strong a sense of wrongness.
The relatively conservative Sand People were deeply repulsed by this kind of abnormality.
Not to mention the whip wound between the Gutless People’s legs, the sort that made any man go pale at the mere mention of it.
Standing downwind to air out the latrine stench clinging to her, Qin Ying scuffed the soles of her shoes against the sand.
Even her hair smelled foul now, and the stench simply would not disperse.
She lifted her sleeve to sniff it as she said, “First, see if he can be saved.”
If he could be saved, all the better. If he couldn’t, Qin Ying was considering taking him out of the Box and turning him into a specimen.
Aman, who had no idea her head was full of such deranged thoughts, steeled himself and went to treat the man.
The moment he untied the Gutless People’s battered leather pouch, he sucked in a sharp breath.
Qin Ying stood beside him and watched.
Amid the mangled flesh and blood, it could be confirmed that the Gutless People did have sexes.
But the position of the waste opening was very different from that of a human. There was a pitch-black tube running straight up and down.
It did not even look as though it was made of flesh and blood.
Aman swallowed in disgust.
Seeing that he did not seem quite up to it, Qin Ying reached out to take the wound medicine from his hand. “I’ll do it.”
Before Aman could refuse, Han Lie, who had arrived after them, had already taken the medicine first. “I’ll do it.”
He had left for a while to buy this Gutless People from the baggage camp. When he returned, he had brought back a coarse clay bottle.
Inside the bottle was a gray powder, like plant ash.
Han Lie sprinkled some of the powder on himself and Qin Ying.
The foul smell of Tuocui Beast dung clinging to their skin immediately dispersed and faded.
In the blink of an eye, when Qin Ying sniffed her sleeve again, she could no longer smell the stink.
“This is Shadowgrass Powder, used to conceal one’s presence and mask odors.”
Han Lie was always attentive and efficient when handling matters.
Qin Ying had only just asked him whether there was anything that could hide one’s presence, something for the little ones at home to use.
When he went to buy the Gutless People, he had brought back Shadowgrass Powder as well.
“Shadowgrass Powder can conceal presence.”
When hunting Monstrous Beasts, the scent on a person’s body was a major obstacle.
For that reason, Shadowgrass Powder, which could mask one’s presence, was practically an essential item for soldiers of the Jade Balance Army.
Han Lie handed the jar of Shadowgrass Powder to Qin Ying and told Aman to move aside. Then he crouched down and rinsed the sand and debris from the wounds of one of the Gutless People lying on the straw mat with clean water.
He did not simply sprinkle on some medicinal powder and call it done. Instead, he examined the injuries carefully for a while.
At last, he removed a small knife from the utility belt at the side of his lower back and said, “It’s completely smashed. It has to be cut away before we apply medicine. Otherwise it’ll just rot while still attached, and he won’t survive.”
Seeing that he was about to start, Qin Ying and Aman both cried out for him to stop.
“Wait!”
“Hold on.”
Compared to Aman’s more restrained reaction, Qin Ying simply turned her back before saying, “Wait until I’m far away before you do it.”
If she could avoid watching a castration in progress, she had no desire to see it.
Clutching the Shadowgrass Powder, she quickly left. Before entering the tent, she even reminded him, “When you’re done, remember to throw away that little knife of yours!”
Han Lie, who had already been preparing to make the cut, paused at her words.
He looked down at the Wrist Blade in his hand and could not quite bring himself to part with it.
Then his gaze shifted to the meat-cutting knife at Aman’s waist.
Aman was practically terrified of him. Before Han Lie could even speak, he tossed the knife over. “Take it. And wait until I’m farther away too!”
He would just treat it as paying to ward off disaster.
Having sacrificed his small knife, Aman hunched his shoulders and ran off.
Han Lie called a word of thanks after him.
As he drew the knife from its sheath, he silently recalled the pig-gelding technique he had once seen someone perform back when he had worked illegally at a butcher’s shop.
Though the part being cut was different, it was close enough!
The small knife flashed in his hand, then swept downward in a quick turn.
His blade was fast, and so was his hand. The member of the Gutless People, now separated from a lump of mangled flesh, twitched twice.
Before a large amount of blood could gush out, Han Lie pressed a handful of wound medicine over the injury.
For the moment, this member of the Gutless People still clung to life.
Qin Ying had a tiny bit of pity in her heart and gave Han Lie one of the vermilion fruits that grew on the Yao Grass.
Only, when they tried to feed it to him, there was a problem.
The Gutless People were truly “straight-through” people. They pried open his mouth and fed it in from above, only for it to slip right out from below.
They tried twice, and that tiny fruit slid out exactly the way it had gone in.
Even Aman felt sorry for the fruit.
In the end, seeing that it would not work, Han Lie crushed it and pressed it under the member of the Gutless People’s tongue.
Whether he lived after that would depend entirely on his own fate.
Han Lie would set out first thing tomorrow morning to return to Golden Saddle Mountain, so before the evening meal, he escorted Qin Ying out of the Fengshan Elite Cavalry Main Camp.
He brought her to the Kuxi Tribe behind the main camp.
…
That night, in the baggage camp.
Inside a tent stacked with military gear, Hei Gong, who had received ten strokes of the military cane, lay on his stomach, groaning in pain.
The tent was piled with heavy wooden tower shields. Laid flat, they could serve as makeshift beds.
Hei Gong cursed as he groaned.
He blamed the entire reason he had been beaten on Qin Ying, who had been dressed like one of the Sand People.
The filth pouring from his mouth was unbearable to hear.
Just as he was wondering whether he might get a chance to take revenge, he suddenly heard a sound above his head.
He lifted his head in confusion, and in the darkness, his gaze met a pair of droplet-shaped gray eyes.
Hei Gong started in alarm, before his mind even had time to think.
The stacked tower shields beside him collapsed one after another.
The first one struck him squarely on the forehead.
In an instant, blood burst forth. The faint breathy sound that escaped his throat was swallowed by the crash of the tower shields falling down.
The people in the baggage camp were startled awake in the night, but they only thought it was an accident.
They reported that Hei Gong had died from the severity of his caning injuries, then dragged him out and buried him.