CHAPTER 17 THE BLOOD

I woke up when the sun was almost gone, only a stream of twilight left over on the far end of horizon.

Then I got up and made my way to the window, where I could have a view of the entire landscape in west. The sands went brazen under the blurred sky and flickering sunlight that would soon fade away.

I was always obsessed with the sunset in wild west, which reminded me so much of the earlier days when I tried to get away from my past, travelling alone and going far deep into the wilderness.

And now I was back again. After all those years life in peace, I started to run again. But this time, I was running to the very core of power in immortal world, facing it instead of staying away.

I cut off the thoughts and turned away from the window, packing up myself and out for the other guys.

I came to Qiushui’s room first and knocked. But I didn’t wait till the door opened. Instead, I quickly moved on to the other two doors and knocked over and over again.

Pinks responded with a groan, while Aezo was completely quiet, which was unusual. So, I decided to break in with no hesitation. I extended my index finger to the keyhole and released a little sparkle which was fierce enough to break the lock instantly.

Then I walked in. The room smelled like ass, and Aezo was on the bed with his upper body uncovered, sleeping like a big giant hamster.

The picture was quite unpleasant. He seemed having a fight with someone before he fell completely asleep because the bed was totally a mess with every piece of linens not in the right way of tidiness.

“You smelly hog…” I muttered as my anger rose. This room made me totally sick. Then I quickly pointed at the window and shot a lightning bolt to break it all in a blast of boom.

BOOM!

The blast was loud enough to knock up every single man on the floor and even startle the people downstairs who were just about to have a drink.

Aezo was startled too. He suddenly woke up and rolled his body over to fall off the bed without attention.

“Ouch!” He yelled as he hit the ground with his head, and then crouched.

“Get up, kid. Time for dinner.” I briefly said and turned around, walking out of the room.

“Did you just shoot the window?” Pinks was already out and stood by the door, leaning over to have a look inside.

“No, I just wanna have some fresh air in and out.” I said as I passed, hearing her groan:

“What the smell? Aezo, you stink!”

But just when one of my feet stepped outside and half of my body already passed the doorway, at the door next, Qiushui also came out. We had an instant eye contact with each other, and I paused for a second. But she didn’t say anything and apparently refused to talk. She totally ignored me and just passed by, making her way straight forward to downstairs.

I felt like a jerk standing out there again, while Pinks sensed the tension between her and me. “What happened?” She asked.

“What what?” I disregarded her question and drove her downstairs.

The dinner was fine, but not with much fun since we all just ate and no talk. Aezo finally came down to join us with his body covered again. We had some roast lamb and a couple of beers. The lamb was mainly from ribs and legs, which actually tasted pretty good with some spicy sauce.

But the beer was not that good as I hoped, probably because I was never fond of beers. I would like to have a little wine instead if the wine sold in town were not that expensive. Anyway, I doubted they had good-value wine in the same good quality so far away in west.

“So, what’s the plan? How long are we gonna stay here?” Pinks asked after she finished the last piece of lamb ribs.

“We’re going to head east to Shihe after tomorrow. I’m gonna meet someone I can trust and he will help me to figure out what the hell going on with you.” I confessed it all with nothing undercover.

Shihe meant stone river, which was the second biggest town in Rouland and where Jia Gu usually stayed with his business to operate.

Pinks paused for a second and then she doubted: “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

“I need to figure out who you are.” I said without any thinking, after which I had a glance at Qiushui, just checking how she would react.

But Qiushui seemed careless. She remained in silence, eating, and even refused to have an eye contact with me.

“Okay, so…you just don’t trust me, do you?” Pinks tentatively asked.

“No, I didn’t say that. I just want to find out who you are and why you’re chased by people from this world to that world.” I explained.

Then she looked a little bit confused and soon frowned as if being offended.

“But…you could ask me straightforward. I wouldn’t lie or something. Why don’t you just ask?” She sounded frustrated.

I sighed and crossed my arms, leaning backward against the chair. “Well…because there…there is a rumor about you.”

“A rumor? Me? But we only met like 24 hours ago. What’ve you heard?” She wondered.

I paused for a second, not sure if this was about the right time to tell her what I had heard from Jia Gu. I tried to convince myself to do this, but I needed to know if it was right. So, I glanced at Qiushui again. I knew she could read my mind and she must give me a hint to do this.

This time, Qiushui did not let me down. She raised a voice for me: “I think what the Doctor means is that you should at least tell him your real name and where you come from.”

Then she looked at Pinks, giving her a peaceful look with much heart.

But I thought that maybe just made her even more confused. “Since when you two become like…mates?” Pinks wondered.

“What mates? Like a soulmate?” I joked. But then I found Qiushui turning her face in cold solemn, so I quickly changed my mind.

“Okay, fine. Actually, what she just said was…you know…we should be more open to each other, because this world is much crazy and dangerous. Since we still have to keep together with everyone and we get a long journey before I meet up with my friend…”

“Who’s the guy you said you could trust?” Pinks asked with a lot doubts.

“His name is Jia Gu, a merchant like all the other merchants you saw out there. But he is much richer than anybody here in Rouland. I bet he is probably the richest guy in this state. And he is the one I can trust.”

“Why? Does he owe you money?” Aezo just popped with the most absurd question I had ever heard tonight.

Then he went back to work with the lamb legs, trying to tear off every little bit meat on the bones. I doubted that he was even actually following but only to make a sound randomly.

I was interrupted by Aezo and when I resumed my talk, I found Pinks not interested anymore. She laughed at Aezo and then said:

“If the guy you call friend and you trust is the richest man we can find, does it mean that we don’t have to run and run over and over again?”

I nodded: “Yes, you don’t have to run. And I trust him because once he saved my life.” Anyway, I thought I should tell them about this kind of history between Jia Gu and me.

Pinks was totally surprised. Her wide open eyes seemed to say: “Even a crazy laser shooter like you needs to be saved?”

I nodded with an embarrassed smile. But deep down in my heart, I sighed: “There are a lot more you don’t know yet but you will be surprised and even scared about me…Who doesn’t have some dark dirty shit in his past life? I am not completely open to Pinks and Aezo, and I call myself a Doctor instead of the name that I once claimed…I don’t even tell them about my real name…”

When I was totally involved in my thoughts, the front gate of the tavern was suddenly pushed open and someone just broke in. Everyone sitting in the lobby was startled and turned to look.

We were sitting at the table close to the back corner of stairs so that I didn’t see anything at the first place. But soon I heard a voice which sounded familiar to me yelling over the hallway:

“Please! Please help me, master! Master!? Please! Help! Help!”

It was the robber that we met in the wilderness during the day. I quickly got up and made my way through the tables to the hallway.

Others in the lobby also got up. But they stood still instead of taking an action. Perhaps it was because the robber now looked somehow terrifying to scare them off.

The robber was drenched in blood. When I found him, he was trembling to stumble, hardly to move on. His clothes were bloody and he was injured.

I realized that there was something going wrong as I got hurried up to came to him. But before I could do anything, he grasped my both arms so tight that I could feel him shivering while he muttered:

“P…please…my men…my men…are all dead…please…”

He seemed in great terror about something, and I found the blood on his face was not his, because there wasn’t any wound visible on his face while the blood already dried up. Then I double checked the blood covered on him and surprisingly found no wound anywhere in front. The fresh blood painted allover his clothes was probably from others. He was more like a witness of a brutal murder instead of victim.

However, the robber was still bleeding somewhere on his body. I saw the blood drops left over on the floor all the way from the entrance to where we stood.

“Check his back.” I heard Qiushui when she came up to me. Aezo and Pinks also followed up in a hurry.

“Okay, but you see…” I tried to turn this man around but he seemed too scared to let me go as if the one last thing he could do was to grasp my arms tight and firmly. And he kept muttering:

“They…they’re coming…please…plea…I…I…”

“Oh, damn…” I had to do a crisscross with my arms so that I could catch his both wrists and instantly released some lightning force by my hands, to shock him off.

“I…” He suddenly stopped, mouth wide open while whole body stiff from the shock and soon he passed out.

I caught him before he fell down. Then I turned to speak to Qiushui: “Give me a hand, I’m gonna go out to see what happened.”

Then I handed the robber to her and looked at the kids: “You two stay here, be wise.”

I didn’t bother to listen to their reply. But Qiushui stopped me before I went too far away. “Doctor!” She called.

I turned around to look. From where I stood, I could clearly see the robber’s back and that was when I found how badly injured he was on his back.

His clothes were totally teared up on the back and the wound looked like some bloody stripes engraved on his back by…I didn’t know. But it seemed unlike damage inflicted by blade.

Things were getting severe. I turned to move on, faster and faster, making my way through the crowd. I knew there would be a bloody fight waiting for me to catch up.

(To be continued…)