I had originally prepared a lot of arguments, intending to deepen his fear in this situation, but it turned out to be completely unnecessary. I only said a few words, and he collapsed, completely losing his composure.

When dealing with others, one should strike at their weaknesses. For Pan Ma, his weakness was the fear in his heart. I didn’t need to say much; I had psychologically destroyed him.

However, things did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. He was so terrified that he almost broke down and fled. In fact, he might have preferred to die rather than face those people again.

I slowly persuaded him, and in the end, the concept I instilled in him was that he had to resolve this matter; otherwise, his son and grandson would suffer. This forced him to comply. At that moment, he steeled himself, entering the mountains with a mindset of certain death. As for what we would do in the mountains, I said nothing, and he didn’t ask.

Of course, nominally it was to have him accompany me into the mountains, but in reality, I was following him. It didn’t matter that I was walking behind him; I didn’t know the way at all.

Seeing him like this filled me with deep guilt. Originally, to frighten an old man like this for my own benefit was an unjust act. Moreover, I was forcing him to come with me to such a dangerous place, which made me feel sick. I suddenly realized that I might really have the blood of my uncles flowing in my veins, that kind of fierce and cunning family instinct.

To cut a long story short, after a long time of organizing, we set off. When we departed, I was in front and Pan Ma was behind, making it seem like I was leading the way, but I was completely lost.

We hardly stopped along the way, and it poured rain. The mountain paths were very difficult to navigate, but fortunately, I had rested well in Fangchenggang, so I was able to endure. Pan Ma didn’t say a word the entire way, and I barely spoke to him either; we just trudged on in silence.

Before long, we returned to the lakeside. From a distance, I was shocked to see that the water level of the lake had risen at least five or six meters. The surface area of the lake had dramatically increased. Compared to the shimmering waters when I left, the current scene at Yangjiao Mountain was one of torrential rain, with mud and water splashing down the slopes, looking extremely fierce.

It was too dangerous on the mountain now. We hurried the mules through the muddy waters, taking a small path straight down to the stony beach by the lake.

In the mountains, the sound of rain hitting the leaves was deafening. By the time we reached the lakeside, the heavy rain pounding on the surface of the lake produced a consistent sound that filled the entire area, making conversation impossible. Pan Ma’s hunting dogs were extremely restless and did not follow us, so Pan Ma had to let them hide under the trees at the edge of the rocky beach.

Without the canopy of trees for cover, the rain poured down, and visibility was extremely low. We dragged the mules toward the rain shelter we had set up earlier. Soon, we saw a blurred figure flash by in the rain, which looked like the Fatty.

I knew calling out would be useless; even if we were face to face, we couldn’t talk in this situation, so I continued forward. At that moment, for some reason, the mules suddenly stopped. I turned around to see Pan Ma holding the mules, looking at me, clearly believing we had reached our destination and waiting for my instructions.

After so many days, I could see that he seemed to have come to terms with things and was not as frightened as before. Moreover, from his expression, he seemed to have made some kind of resolution, and he looked extremely grim, which made me a bit scared.

That’s how people are; they can be terrified for a day or two, but if the fear continues day after day, they become desensitized.

Here, I no longer need to pretend. In fact, by the end of the journey, I had stopped pretending because I was too exhausted. Instead, I began to think about how to explain the situation to Pan Ma. If he found out that I had been deceiving him all along, he might very well kill me. However, continuing to lie was difficult and inhumane.

I didn’t know how to tell Pan Ma that this whole thing would be exposed the moment Ah Gui and the others showed up. I thought I should first discuss it with the Fatty, or perhaps I should just hide until his anger subsided, so I told him to stay put, put down the reins, and went ahead to find Fatty and discuss things with him, while also notifying them to help with unloading the cargo.

After just a few steps, I looked ahead through the curtain of rain and noticed the shadow I had seen earlier reappearing. At that moment, I realized something was off about that shadow. Before I could discern who it was, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, and then everything went black as I fell to the ground, though I managed to stay conscious.

I rolled over and sat up, and I saw Pan Ma’s father standing behind me, his face ashen, with a hunting knife drawn in one hand, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

“What are you doing?” I shouted, just as I saw him raise the knife and swing it down at me.

I was startled and immediately rolled away to dodge, then got back on my feet. I saw Pan Ma’s knife slicing through the rain, aiming straight for my neck. My next stumble just barely allowed me to avoid it, and I fell to the ground, realizing he was serious about killing me.

Looking at his expression, I recalled his unchanging demeanor on the road, and suddenly I thought, oh no. Damn it, this guy has figured it out; he must have concluded that the best defense is a good offense. He wants to fight us and kill us all.

Damn, this is troublesome. I immediately thought about escaping. After a few steps, Pan Ma’s father had already circled in front of me, swinging his knife down. I shouted, “I was wrong, I was lying to you! It’s nothing, they haven’t come back!” But the bastard didn’t listen at all.

I had been running around and was already exhausted. It didn’t take long before I was backpedaling towards the rain shelter, but unexpectedly, I slipped into a crevice between some stones and fell down. Pan Ma immediately closed in on me, and I frantically grabbed a stone and threw it at him, but he dodged effortlessly. As he raised his knife to come down on me, he suddenly paused, as if he had noticed something, and looked towards the other side.

Seizing the opportunity, I got up and continued to run, only to discover that there were many figures appearing through the curtain of rain, surrounding us in the middle.