Chapter 194: A Youth from a Different Clan

Chapter 194: The Foreign Youth

Qin Jiao was "awakened" by the sound of wind.

The fierce north wind stirred up endless yellow sand. The bleak and imposing Mengqin Tribe stretched out before him—clusters of felt tents, herds of horses thundering by. The fierce wind whipped the ancient divine tree with gnarled, rugged branches into dark green waves of leaves, while the grim skulls beneath it and the pitch-black crow feathers swayed along with the breeze.

The murmuring river bore the molten gold of the setting sun. At dusk, Mengqin was raucous and feverish, unrestrained and savage.

A soft feather swept across his face, neither too light nor too heavy. Qin Jiao gradually woke up in a daze, and when he opened his eyes, he saw an outlander youth of thirteen or fourteen smiling at him.

The youth wore a dun-green Mengqin robe, with a high-bridged nose and deep-set eyes holding the same lake-green irises as Wu Tuyin's.

"You're awake?"

Seeing Qin Jiao awake, the boy lit up with joy. He flung the crow feather away and ran forward, shouting, "Mama, that person is awake!" The boy's cheerful voice rang out across the camp.

Before long, a radiant outlander woman appeared. Qin Jiao judged her to be in her early forties, with agate and turquoise beads woven into her jet-black hair and unusually fair wheat-toned skin. Her eyes held a deep, unreadable complexity that Qin Jiao couldn't decipher.

"Why aren't you talking?"

After calling the woman over, the boy curiously crouched back down beside Qin Jiao and even poked him with a finger. "Can you not talk?"

Qin Jiao eyed the boy and the woman warily but remained silent.

While the boy had gone to fetch the woman, Qin Jiao had already scrambled to his feet and scanned his surroundings.

He was in a vast open space, with rows of felt tents behind him. Patrolling soldiers and the occasional child darting by all spoke an outlander tongue Qin Jiao couldn't follow... Qin Jiao wasn't slow on the uptake—clearly, he was no longer within Tianyuan Dynasty territory.

Wu Tuyin had brought him to Mengqin.

As for these two before him—their intentions unknown, their allegiance unclear—Qin Jiao didn't dare drop his guard even a little.

Because Qin Jiao remained silent, the boy's brow slowly knitted. "No way, you really can't talk?" The boy reached out as if to turn Qin Jiao's head, but the woman beside him gently called out, "Wuliel, stop fooling around."

"Oh, fine." The boy named Wuliel gave Qin Jiao a disappointed look, then thought for a moment and said, "Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you. My name is Wuliel, and she's my mother, Qilan." The boy looked at Qin Jiao, his chiseled features radiating a reckless, dashing charm.

Qin Jiao still said nothing.

Qilan looked at the refined young lord before her—so delicate it seemed one hand could snap him in two—and felt deeply conflicted. Looking at him, she could almost imagine his mother must have been just as delicate and helpless, stirring pity.

No wonder that old bastard had...

"Why's she looking at me like that?" Qilan's gaze was too direct for Qin Jiao to ignore. Just as he was wondering about it, Wu Fei's cold voice came from behind him: "Khatun, the Chieftain wants to see Qin Jiao."

"I'm coming too! I haven't gone riding with big brother in forever!" Wuliel said happily, hopping forward.

"Get back here, don't pester your brother." Qilan stopped Wuliel again and said to Wu Fei, "Take him along."

Wu Fei: "Yes."

Qin Jiao was still slumped on the ground. The moment Wu Fei spoke, two men grabbed him. "Get up!"

Qin Jiao was hauled up roughly, staggering as he found his footing. And in that moment, he noticed that one of the two men had bare sides to his head—as if his ears had been sheared off by a sharp blade.

This man...

Qin Jiao's heart jolted. He lowered his gaze and indeed saw a big scar on the back of the man's hand, clearly from an arrow punching clean through.

Confirmed!

Qin Jiao's eyes flew wide in horror. This man was unmistakably one of the men who'd snatched him as a kid!

Back when Xie Nai, as a teen, had rescued the kidnapped Qin Jiao, he'd shot off both ears of one of the kidnappers with an arrow. Qin Jiao had always had a vague memory of that man's face, and now looking closely—it was definitely him!

So... Tuyin had been plotting to kidnap him that far back?

Qin Jiao had always thought his kidnapping at seven was just a fluke. But now it seemed Wu Tuyin had masterminded the whole thing?

And he'd been poisoning him for a decade, starting ten years ago!

The Blood Withering poison in Qin Jiao's body—he'd suspected plenty of people: Yu Shuhan, Qin Yuanshan, even the Second Prince... He'd run through just about everyone in the Qin estate as a suspect. But in the end, the poisoner was a total stranger he'd never met in all his seventeen years.

Wu Tuyin, Wu Tuyin...

Why? Why would he hate him this much?

Qin Jiao couldn't wrap his head around it. He and Wu Tuyin shouldn't have been enemies in the first place.

His head buzzing with questions, Qin Jiao was brought to the royal court. "Go on in. The Chieftain wants to see you by yourself." With that, Wu Fei shoved Qin Jiao through the tent flap.

"Cough, cough, cough—!"

The second Qin Jiao stepped inside, a thick smell of medicine hit him, along with the harsh, strained coughing of a man.

The tent was dark and shadowy. At first, Qin Jiao could only vaguely discern the tent's layout, and it took a long moment for his eyes to adjust.

He stood at the tent's entrance. A short distance away, Wu Tuyin sat in a chair, his expression unreadable. Behind Wu Tuyin was a large bed. Even though it was late summer, the bed was still piled with thick wool blankets, and half-reclining in the middle of those wool blankets was a withered old man.

His lake-green eyes had turned murky, and he looked utterly wasted by sickness. A weak shaft of daylight fell across his face, showing his pallid lips and slack, sagging skin.

At death's door, not long for this world.

That was Qin Jiao's initial read on the old man.

"Cough, cough... Is that you, Qin Jiao?"

The man's eyesight seemed poor. Hearing the noise, he stretched out a trembling hand, as if reaching for something.

Qin Jiao was startled the man knew his name, but he stayed put and said nothing.

Wu Tuyin, watching, frowned in irritation. "Qin Jiao? *cough*... Tuyin, where's Qin Jiao?" Receiving no response, the man got so anxious he broke into a violent coughing fit. The man, already looking like he was on his last legs, now seemed about to cough himself to death.

"So damn annoying!"

Wu Tuyin, fed up with the noise, muttered a curse and walked straight over to Qin Jiao. And before Qin Jiao could react, he grabbed him and hurled him in front of the old man.

"Bang—!"

Wu Tuyin hadn't pulled his punch. Qin Jiao's knee cracked hard against the bedpost with a loud thud. But before he could even yelp in pain, the dying man got even more worked up than he did. "Huh? How'd you fall? Does it hurt?"

The man fumbled, trying to reach out and help Qin Jiao up, but Qin Jiao shoved his hand away stiffly. His eyes fixed on the yellow, tree-shaped mark on the man's wrist, and he stayed silent for a long while.

That confirmed it again!

Every doubt Qin Jiao had carried was answered in that instant.

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