Chapter 224: The Old Monster's Bone Age

Jiang Li smiled. "It wasn't as magical as you all think. As long as you find the right leverage points and practice your arm strength daily, you can do it too."

He said this while casually tossing the monster onto the ground. "Tie him up; take him back for a proper interrogation."

The monster's little face looked as ugly as if he had eaten excrement.

Inside, he was both terrified and hateful.

He was terrified because this man had clearly been struck by his 'Throat-Sealing Tear' poison, yet he acted as if nothing had happened.

He was hateful because he had been so close to escaping by jumping off the cliff, only to be intercepted by this man in mid-air. Now, he was truly going to die without a burial ground.

He struggled to crawl up, attempting to jump off the cliff again, but as soon as he moved, he was pinned down by the feet of two constables.

They bound him tightly, tying him up like a zongzi.

To prevent anyone else from being poisoned by the monster's tears, they wrapped his entire face tightly in cloth strips.

Only his two nostrils were left for breathing.

Afterward, they tied him to a thick tree branch and carried him down the mountain like a slaughtered pig.

Jiang Li prepared to report the sequence of events to Li Xianling, but the Magistrate waved him off. "You're exhausted, too. Go back first; your wife has been waiting for you over there. She's been scared to death these past two days, so go comfort her properly."

My wife is here?

Jiang Li's eyes brightened, as if he had been instantly electrified. His whole person became spirited, and he scanned his surroundings.

He quickly found the person he had been thinking of day and night.

He lifted his feet and walked toward Du Ruo.

Du Ruo also sprinted toward him.

But just as she was about to throw herself into his embrace, Jiang Li stopped her. "Don't come over."

Du Ruo froze: "???"

The joy and excitement filling her heart were instantly sealed within her body. Du Ruo angrily put her hands on her hips. "What is it? Do I look too ugly in this disguise? Are you disgusted?"

Jiang Li laughed. "Not at all, though you are quite ugly."

Du Ruo: "..."

Jiang Li took a step forward, looking down at his little wife with a smile in his eyes. "But in your husband's heart, no matter what you look like, as long as it's still you, it's the look I love."

*Aiya*, that was such a cheesy line; Du Ruo felt a bit dizzy.

"Hmph, easy to say. If I changed my appearance one day, I bet you wouldn't even recognize me."

"Impossible," Jiang Li said with a straight face, speaking like a rogue. "I've touched every part of my wife countless times; I even know the birthmark on your chest by heart. How could I not recognize you?"

Du Ruo's face turned beet red. She instinctively glanced around, and seeing that no one was paying attention to them, she let out a sigh of relief.

Then, she reached out to hammer him.

Jiang Li quickly stepped back two paces. "I'm too dirty; wait until I've washed clean, then you can hit me."

"I don't mind," Du Ruo muttered.

Jiang Li insisted, "That won't do."

He didn't want his wife to get any other man's blood on her.

The couple had just reunited after a long separation and had much to say, but this was not the right place.

Jiang Li asked Du Ruo to wait a moment while he went to speak with Li Xianling. There were still several hundred corpses in the bandits' lair that needed to be dealt with—some buried, some burned.

If they were left too long and began to rot, it might trigger a plague.

After giving clear instructions, Jiang Li took Du Ruo and began walking down the mountain.

On the way, under Du Ruo's persistent questioning, Jiang Li had to recount the process of the mission.

Last night, Jiang Li, Wang Bujiu, and Lin Ruonan had slipped into the mountain under the cover of darkness. Originally, they were only meant to scout the path and clear obstacles to prepare for the main force's ascent.

However, they discovered that the traps were not as formidable as they had imagined.

One could even say they were all tricks they had played with years ago.

You see, before becoming constables, Jiang Li and Wang Bujiu had been hunters; setting traps was as routine as eating a meal.

They saw through the mechanisms at a glance and, naturally, knew how to dismantle them.

The only danger was the poison needles occasionally fired from the shadows.

Especially in the pitch-black night, they were impossible to guard against.

Wang Bujiu and Lin Ruonan had both been struck by poison needles, and their lives had nearly been forfeit. Fortunately, Jiang Li carried the antidote pills Du Ruo had prepared, preventing a catastrophe.

The three of them spent the entire night clearing away all the traps.

Just as they were preparing to return secretly, they stumbled upon an extremely cruel scene.

Several hundred bandits, led by the bald man, had tied a heavily pregnant woman to a rock and were holding knives, intending to cut her open. They were saying that a half-cooked fetus was the most nourishing tonic.

The pregnant woman cried and begged those people not to harm her child.

But the more she cried, the more excited those beasts became.

Seeing that a mother and child were about to be killed, how could Jiang Li and the others stand by? They charged out immediately and began fighting the bandits.

Fortunately, the bandits were mostly all bark and no bite, looking fierce but possessing little real skill—except for the bald man.

It was just that there were many of them.

After fighting for over an hour, most of the bandits were killed or wounded, and Jiang Li and his men were exhausted and had suffered many injuries.

The three finally found an opportunity to release all the hostages held in the cages, having Wang Bujiu and Lin Ruonan escort them down the mountain.

Jiang Li remained behind to deal with the bald man and his hundred-plus brothers.

In the end, Jiang Li wiped them all out single-handedly.

And to save his own skin, the bald man had grabbed another hostage—that little boy...

"What little boy? That's an old monster," Du Ruo said irritably.

Jiang Li raised an eyebrow. "An old monster?"

Du Ruo sneered. "I've felt his bones; that guy's bone age is over forty, yet he looks like he's only seven or eight. If he's not an old monster, what is he?"

He was clearly cunning and treacherous, yet he pretended to be innocent and naive. It was disgusting.

More importantly, that monster wasn't a natural dwarf; he had been artificially transformed. According to the system's scan, it was the result of long-term immersion in medicinal baths during his childhood, which had stunted his growth.

But it had also strengthened his physical functions.

For example, his tears were inherently poisonous.

For another, his healing ability was incredibly strong; as long as his head and organs remained intact, he was basically unkillable.

These traits couldn't help but remind Du Ruo of someone.