Luo Yang pulled Xiao Ba and fled, hurrying back to his little den.

He firmly closed the courtyard gate.

The two of them gasped for breath continuously.

Luo Yang collapsed directly onto that wooden plank under the shed.

Xiao Ba leaned against a pillar, panting non-stop, his face completely flushed.

Thinking about it now, they still felt extremely frightened!

He said: “Brother, fortunately… fortunately my mind works fast and I hugged his thigh, otherwise we… we would have been beaten to death.”

Indeed!

Luo Yang said: “You actually got smart for once.”

“I’m always smart.”

“Don’t climb up just because I give you a pole.”

Xiao Ba: “…”

After resting for a bit, Luo Yang sat up from the wooden plank, lifting his torn and filthy sleeve, saying: “Really unlucky. To think he could still recognize me like that—are his eyeballs owl eyes or something? So sharp?”

Xiao Ba asked trembling: “So what do we do now? Will they find their way here?”

“Don’t worry, they won’t find this place.”

“Why not?”

“You think finding someone is that easy?”

“Oh, right.”

Luo Yang rubbed his stomach where Master Hu had punched him, his brow tightly furrowed: “Lucky I had that flash of inspiration, otherwise right now we’d be two corpses lying in Zhu New City.”

Xiao Ba nodded vigorously and asked: “Is your stomach okay?”

“Won’t kill me.”

“Oh my!” Xiao Ba exclaimed. “Brother, where did you hide the dagger?”

“Right! The dagger!” Only then did Luo Yang react.

Suddenly someone knocked on the door.

Xiao Ba immediately shrank into a ball and slipped behind Luo Yang, his round eyes staring at the door crack, asking: “Could they… could they have found this place so quickly? What do we do? Should we slip out through the back door?”

Luo Yang knocked hard on his forehead, saying: “If that group really found this place, why would they knock? They’d just smash the door down and come in.”

That little door panel—even a small child pushing it could probably knock it over.

If Master Hu’s people really found this place, would they knock?

It would already be pretty good if they didn’t use an axe to chop it down.

“Oh, right! Then who could it be?” Xiao Ba scratched his head.

Luo Yang went to open the door.

He saw Ji Yunshu standing at the entrance.

“It’s you?”

Luo Yang stuck his head out and vigilantly looked outside the door several times.

Ji Yunshu told him: “Don’t worry, they didn’t come.”

“Then what are you here for?”

“I have something to ask you!”

“Something to ask?” Luo Yang remembered the matter of that crown pearl, his eyelid twitching.

Ji Yunshu walked right in.

“Hey, hey, hey, who said you could trespass into someone’s home?” Luo Yang put his hands on his hips.

Ji Yunshu didn’t want to beat around the bush with him and waste words. She directly took out that crown pearl strung on a red cord and asked him: “I came to ask you about this crown pearl.”

“Didn’t I already tell you? It’s mine.”

“This isn’t yours at all.”

“It is mine. You’re the one who tore it from my neck. Did you forget already? Hurry up and give it back to me.” Luo Yang reached out to snatch it.

Ji Yunshu immediately closed her palm, one step faster than him. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, her gaze sharp: “Even now you still refuse to tell the truth?”

Luo Yang closed the door behind him with his other hand, looking at her and saying: “Why are you so strange? Last night entering the city in the middle of the night was one thing, but you even pretended to be mute! Today, to save you, I got caught and nearly lost my life, and now you’re running here asking these weird questions.”

He waved his hand, somewhat impatient.

He plopped down on the wooden plank and lifted his leg, shaking it.

Xiao Ba stood to the side watching dumbly, not saying a word.

He wouldn’t take the hard approach.

But surely he’d take the soft approach?

Ji Yunshu took a breath, walked before him, her fingertips tightly gripping the red cord holding the crown pearl. Her tone softened as she said: “The person who owns this crown pearl is very important to me. I hope you can tell me where exactly he is. I just want to find him, that’s all. Please tell me.”

Luo Yang saw the woman’s eyes reddening before him. He had always been soft-eared.

Moreover, he only took the soft approach, not the hard one.

After thinking about it, he waved both hands and said: “Fine, fine, I’ll tell you. This pearl really isn’t mine—I picked it up.”

Ji Yunshu pressed on: “Where did you pick it up?”

“Someone from a merchant caravan dropped it. I saw this thing wasn’t worth much money, but it would be a pity to throw it away, so I wore it around my neck.”

“When was this? Where did that merchant caravan go?”

Luo Yang thought about it and said: “Three years ago, I think… that merchant caravan seemed to be from Qujiang. They came here to trade. After they sold all their goods, they left. That’s all I know.”

“Three years ago? Qujiang?”

“Yeah, they were people from Qujiang.”

“Can you recognize the person who lost this crown pearl?”

“I sort of know him, but I only saw him once. Anyway, he looked like that! Oh right, others called him Shatuo, but after that I never saw him again.” Luo Yang told her everything he knew.

He dealt in moving goods—he knew most of the people who came and went through Zhu New City.

But he wasn’t close with any of them!

Just familiar faces.

Ji Yunshu remained silent for a long while, pondering in her heart.

Three years ago?

Qujiang?

Shatuo?

She suddenly made a decision, grabbing Luo Yang’s arm and saying: “I need you to come with me to Qujiang to find that person.”

Huh?

Luo Yang was stunned for a moment, finding it laughable. He shook off her hand and stood up, saying: “Are you crazy? You want me to go to Qujiang with you? I think if I went with you, I’d be the one who’s crazy!”

“You…” Ji Yunshu pulled out a dagger from her sleeve and held it before him: “If you agree to go to Qujiang with me, I’ll return this dagger to you.”

It was the dagger Luo Yang had stolen from Master Hu.

“How is it with you?” He reached behind him to take it.

Ji Yunshu hid it behind her back and pressed forward step by step: “As long as you agree, I’ll give you the dagger. But if you refuse, I’ll take this dagger to Master Hu and tell him the address of this place.”

“You… you’re really something!” Luo Yang’s face turned livid.

“So will you agree? Or not?”

Luo Yang coveted that dagger but had his difficulties: “Besides, even if I agreed, it wouldn’t help.”

“Why not?”

“Listen, miss, don’t you know that to get from Zhu New City to Qujiang you have to cross the Southern Frontier Desert? The sandstorms in the Southern Frontier Desert are far more vicious than those in this Northern Frontier Desert. People who don’t regularly travel through the desert simply don’t dare cross it! Even if I wanted to help, I couldn’t.”

From Zhu New City to Qujiang, crossing the Southern Frontier Desert, even the most capable merchant caravans would take a month and a half.

No matter how shrewd Luo Yang was, he couldn’t withstand the sandstorms.

Agreeing would be equivalent to going to his death!

He wouldn’t do this losing deal.

However—

Ji Yunshu thought of someone: “I know someone who can. He can lead us through the desert.”

“Who?”

“Master Hu.”

“What?” Luo Yang exclaimed, thinking he had heard wrong.