Chapter 340: Rain or Shine

I had prepared a lot of speeches, planning to deepen his fear in this situation, but it turned out completely unnecessary; I only said a few words, and he fell apart, utterly losing his nerve.

When fighting someone, attack their weakness directly.

Pan Ma's weakness was the fear in his heart. Without saying anything more, I psychologically destroyed him completely.

But things didn't go as smoothly as I thought, because he was so terrified that he almost broke down the door to flee. In fact, he might have preferred death to ever seeing those people again.

I persuaded him bit by bit, finally giving him the idea that he had to end this matter, or else his son and grandson would suffer, which forced him to comply. At that moment, he hardened his heart and went into the mountains with me, resigned to die. As for what we were going into the mountains to do, I didn't say anything, and he never asked.

Of course, nominally I was letting him follow me into the mountains, but in reality, I was following him. In the mountains, whether I walked in front or behind didn't matter.

Seeing him like this filled me with a deep sense of guilt. Originally, for my own benefit, scaring an old man like that was an act of injustice. Moreover, I had to force him to follow me into such dangerous mountains. This behavior disgusted me, and I suddenly realized that maybe I really did have the blood of my Third Uncle and the others flowing in my veins—that family instinct of ruthlessness and cunning.

To make a long story short, we packed up and set out after a while. When we left, I was in front and Pan Ma was behind. It looked like I was leading the way, but in truth, I had no idea where we were going.

The journey was almost non-stop, with torrential rain pouring down. The mountain paths were very difficult to traverse. Fortunately, I had built up enough strength in Fangchenggang to endure it. Pan Ma barely spoke the entire way, and I didn't really talk to him either; we just kept our heads down and marched hard.

Within a few days, we returned to the lakeside. Looking from afar, holy crap, the lake's water level had risen at least five or six meters, and the surface had suddenly become much larger. Compared to the shimmering waters when I left, now at Yangjiao Mountain, the rain was torrential, the slopes splashed with mud and water, and the landscape looked extremely fierce.

It was too dangerous on the mountain now. We hurriedly led the mules through the mud, taking a small path straight down to the stone beach by the lake.

The sound of rain hitting the leaves in the mountains was already deafening, let alone at the lakeside. The torrential rain striking the lake surface produced a uniform sound that almost filled the entire world, making it impossible to talk. Pan Ma's hunting dogs were very restless and wouldn't follow, so he had to let them take shelter under the trees at the edge of the stone beach.

Without the canopy of trees, the rain curtain hung straight down, and visibility was extremely low. We pulled the mules hard toward the rain shelter we had built earlier. Soon, through the rain curtain, I saw a blurry figure flash by—it looked like Fatty.

I knew calling out was useless; even face to face, it was impossible to speak in this weather. So I continued forward. Then, for some reason, the mules suddenly stopped. I turned back and saw Pan Ma holding the mules and looking at me. Apparently, he thought we had reached our destination and was waiting for my instructions.

After all these days, he seemed to have come to terms with things and wasn't as afraid as before. Moreover, looking at his eyes, he seemed to have made some kind of resolve. He was so grim that even I was a little scared. That's how people are—scared half to death the first day or two, but after being scared every day, they get used to it.

I didn't need to pretend anymore once we got here. In fact, I hadn't been pretending toward the end of the journey, because I was too tired. Instead, I started to think about how to explain to Pan Ma what he was about to see. If he found out I had been completely bluffing him, he might kill me. But continuing to deceive him was hard and too inhumane.

I didn't know how to tell Pan Ma that the moment Agui and the others showed up, the whole thing would fall apart. I figured I had to discuss it with Fatty first, or maybe I should just hide and come out after his anger subsided. So I told him to stop and stay put. I dropped the reins and went ahead to find Fatty and the others to discuss things, and also to tell them to help unload the cargo.

After a few steps, as I looked into the rain curtain ahead, I saw the figure from earlier appear again. This time, I noticed there was something strange about the silhouette. Before I could get a good look to see who it was, the back of my head suddenly ached, then everything went dark and I fell to the ground. At least I didn't pass out completely.

I rolled over and sat up, and saw Old Man Pan Ma standing behind me with a grim face. He had already drawn his hunting knife, his eyes full of killing intent.

"What are you doing?" I cursed. I saw him raise the knife and slash down at me.

Shit! Terrified, I rolled aside to dodge and got up. Pan Ma's knife cut a graceful arc through the rain, straight at my neck. My next stumble happened to avoid it, and I fell to the ground. I realized he was trying to kill me.

I looked at his eyes, thought about his unchanging expression along the way, and suddenly thought, oh no—damn it. This guy had come to terms with something on the road. What he'd come to terms with was that the best defense was a good offense—he was going to fight us, kill us all.

Damn, this was trouble. I immediately tried to run. After a few steps, Old Man Pan Ma had already circled in front of me and brandished his knife to strike. I yelled, "I was wrong! I lied to you! There's nothing wrong—they didn't come back, damn it!" He didn't listen at all.

After traveling all this way, I could hardly run. I dodged him in the rain for a short while and then headed for the rain shelter. But before I got far, I stepped into a crevice between rocks and fell. Pan Ma immediately closed in. I grabbed a rock and threw it at him, but he dodged it. He reversed his grip on the knife and was about to press in when he suddenly paused, as if he had noticed something, and looked in another direction.

I took the chance to get up and keep running. Suddenly I saw many figures appear in the rain curtain around us, surrounding us in the middle.