PFC Chapter 7 Blood Catalyst
Chapter 7 Blood Catalyst
The sound of footsteps on the withered grass was like someone tearing a piece of old, tattered cloth.
Li Qian walked at the front, his right hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. Instead of taking the official road that had been trampled to pieces by the refugees, he led the group into the thicket of mixed trees on the west side of the road.
In the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, the official roads were reserved for defeated soldiers, bandits, and those mad, starving ghosts. Walking on them was like washing yourself clean and laying yourself out on a chopping board.
"Boss, this detour...when will it ever end?"
Awang was panting like a broken bellows, his two stick-like legs trembling with every step. He clutched the small amount of raw millet he had just been given as if it were his ancestral grave, pressing it tightly with his hands. Due to extreme hunger, his face was a sickly bluish-purple, his eyes were sunken, and he looked less like a living person and more like a walking, dried-up corpse.
Li Qian didn't even turn his head, his voice as cold as the wind in the forest: "If you think it's too slow, you can go back and take the official road. It's faster there, and you might run into the Green Standard Army soldiers who are offering heads for rewards in half an hour. Then, your head will just be enough for them to add up to their 'suppression of the rebellion' merit."
Awang shrank his neck and immediately fell silent.
Old Zhao, leaning on his wooden cane, followed Li Qian with uneven steps, his cloudy eyes constantly scanning Li Qian's back. Having lived so long, he was an expert judge of character. This young man walked with firm steps and rhythmic breathing; most importantly, his eyes were always observing his surroundings, capable of stopping an instant if even a startled bird took flight.
This is no ordinary refugee; he is clearly a living Yama who has just emerged from purgatory.
"Brother Sun, move five steps to the left. There's a dead smell in that grass, don't step on the filth."
Li Qian suddenly stopped, his voice extremely low.
Sun Deshan, on the flank, suddenly tensed his spine, his eyes, honed by years of escorting goods, lowered, and he looked in the direction Li Qian pointed. There, amidst a patch of withered yellow grass, a few pale things perched precariously among the rocks.
Sun Deshan mustered his courage and went over, poking at it with a wooden stick. His face instantly turned ugly, and he turned back to shake it at the crowd.
There were three skeletons, reduced to mere frames. The bones were gnawed open by wild dogs, and most tragically, the three skeletons were tightly huddled together. Judging by the size of the skeletons, it was a man and a woman protecting a half-grown child. The man's hand bones were still firmly gripping the mud, as if he was still pulling at something before he died, but ultimately he couldn't climb out of this hell.
This scene caused Wang's wife, who was following behind, to let out a low sob, and she hugged the tattered swaddling clothes in her arms even tighter.
"Stop looking. In this place, the dead are more valuable than the living."
Li Qian stepped over the pile of bones expressionlessly. He knew the situation better than anyone else—Zhili was utterly rotten. The Anglo-French allied forces were burning, killing, and looting under the emperor's feet, Emperor Xianfeng was barely clinging to life in his palace in Rehe, and these countless lives were nothing more than dust stirred up by the collapse of this corrupt dynasty, something no one cared about.
As they walked, several sharp, distorted laughs echoed from the depths of the woods.
"Hey—! Where do you think you're going? If you run again, I'll rip your legs off and use them as a snack!"
Li Qian's pupils suddenly contracted, and he quickly squatted down, shoving Old Man Zhao behind him into a stinking pit of rotting leaves.
"Get down! Anyone who makes a sound will be sent on their way right now!"
Sun Deshan reacted quickly, pulling Awang behind a dead tree stump.
Several people held their breath and pressed themselves tightly against the ground.
A moment later, a series of chaotic and heavy footsteps came from the other end of the woods. Accompanying the footsteps were several men spewing vulgarities and the dull thud of a sharp blade piercing flesh.
Li Qian peeked out slightly, looking through the gaps in the withered leaves.
They were three Green Standard Army soldiers, wearing straw hats askew and their uniforms stained with black and red blood. They were holding rusty spears and chipped military knives, and were surrounding a lifeless refugee man.
The man's stomach was cut open, and his blood and urine were scattered all over the ground, still not cold.
"Damn it, this poor bastard doesn't even have a grain of rice on him. I wasted all my energy." A soldier with a face full of scars cursed and kicked the corpse hard in the face, flattening its nose.
"Alright, there's another one over there. Look at her figure, she's not starving yet." Another soldier chuckled, pointing to a disheveled woman huddled behind a tree not far away.
"Second Uncle..." Ah Wang trembled as if struck by lightning at the sight, his crotch instantly soaked, and the stench spread in the pit.
Old Zhao clenched his teeth so tightly that blood was seeping from the corners of his eyes. He had been a submissive subject of the Qing Dynasty his whole life, but seeing these people in prison uniforms skinning people alive, his last bit of awe for the emperor was finally swept away by the stench of blood.
Sun Deshan looked at Li Qian, his eyes revealing a struggle like that of a trapped beast. He used to be a镖师 (bodyguard/escort), and although he wasn't exactly a chivalrous person, he still had some semblance of humanity.
Li Qian stared at the three soldiers, the sharp knife in his hand creaking under his grip.
He couldn't save the people of the world, but he needed this small squad to become the steel blade in his hand. And these three wounded soldiers before him were the perfect "blood catalyst."
In the Qing Dynasty, if you wanted to be a decent human being, you first had to learn how to kill those who considered themselves officials.
"Brother Sun, can you shut up that guy on the left with the musket in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette?"
Li Qian's voice rang in Sun Deshan's ears, as light as a cold wind, yet carrying an irresistible sense of command.
Sun Deshan shuddered and looked at Li Qian. There was no pity in the young man's eyes, only an almost morbid rationality and cruelty.
"Yes. I've snapped the necks of these scumbags before." Sun Deshan gritted his teeth, his eyes gleaming with a deathly light.
"Awang, Lao Zhao, when I move, shout loudly. Shout as if hundreds of refugees are rushing over to steal our food, understand?"
As Li Qian spoke, he moved like a venomous scorpion poised to strike, inching closer and closer to the three unsuspecting soldiers, skimming along the damp, cold mud.
His every step was precisely timed to the creaking of the wind through the tree trunks.
At that moment, the leading soldier was unbuckling his belt and grinning as he walked toward the desperate woman, completely unaware that death had already crept up to him three steps behind.
"kill!"
Li Qian suddenly sprang up, his entire body like a black lightning bolt, instantly traversing a distance of several meters.
The Green Standard Army soldier had just felt a chill on the back of his neck when Li Qian's sharp knife had already precisely pierced into the crevice of his cervical vertebrae.
"Pfft!"
Before he could cry out, Li Qian covered his mouth tightly with his left hand and twisted the knife forcefully with his right. The cracking sound of bones breaking was chillingly clear in the quiet forest.
Blood splattered all over Li Qian's face, but he didn't even blink. Using the momentum of the falling corpse, he grabbed a sharp stone from the ground and smashed it heavily into the eye socket of the soldier who had just turned his head.
"Whoosh—!"
At the same time, Zhao Laohan and Awang roared hoarsely from the woods, as if countless wronged souls were calling for their lives at that moment.
Sun Deshan moved as well. Like a mad tiger descending the mountain, he took two steps forward, and before the soldier with the matchlock gun could pull the trigger, his large, fan-like hand grabbed the man's chin and twisted it sharply.
"Click!"
That was the sound of a neck being snapped.
In less than ten breaths, all three soldiers lay dead in pools of blood. The woman who had been surrounded collapsed to the ground, staring at Li Qian's blood-stained face, and fainted from fright.
Li Qian wiped the blood from his face; the warm liquid was so sticky it wouldn't dissolve on his fingertips. He didn't look at the woman, but instead turned to stare at Awang and Old Man Zhao.
"Awang, come here."
Awang shuffled over, looked at the corpse on the ground, and vomited with a loud gulp, emptying his stomach acid completely.
"Pick up the knife." Li Qian pointed to the blood-stained military knife on the ground, his voice so calm it sent chills down your spine. "In this damned world, to survive you have to kill. If you don't kill soldiers, they'll eat you. The clothes, boots, and odds and ends on these three corpses are all part of our fate on our journey south. Go, finish them off with another stab to the throat."
"Boss... I... I dare not..." Awang cried, his face covered in tears and snot.
"If you don't dare, then you stay here and keep them company." Li Qian pressed the tip of his knife directly against Awang's throat.
Awang shuddered. Looking into Li Qian's cold eyes, he knew that this man surnamed Li really would kill him. With trembling hands, he picked up the broken military knife and, with his eyes closed, plunged it into the already dead soldier.
Old Zhao watched from the side, sighed deeply, and silently bent down to remove the soldiers' uniforms.
"Brother Sun, take away their gunpowder and muskets. The laws of the Qing Dynasty are long gone, this stuff is our law."
Li Qian tucked the dagger back into his waistband and looked at the men. Their eyes changed; it was a complex expression that shifted from those of lowly beasts to those of desperate wolves.
"Clean up and let's continue south. Once we've seen the blood of the soldiers, no one will dare block our way."