novelraw Chapter 143 Hatter
Chapter 143 Hatter
The sudden clash of metal shattered the quiet of the mountain wind.
A sharp clang exploded through the air, bright enough it felt like cold light cut straight into my eyes. I turned and saw several soldiers in gold armor charging around the bend, blades lifted, edges pointed directly at us.
“Identify yourselves!” the leader thundered. The shout rang through my skull.
Trouble.
My heart lurched. Instinctively, I took half a step back.
I was about to ask Lian what to do, but he was calmer than I was.
His gaze flicked toward me as he murmured four words, low and even: “Surrender quietly.”
“What—?” I thought I had misheard.
“Surrender quietly,” Lian repeated, as if discussing something mundane.
Before I could react, he reached out and pushed me. It was barely a touch, yet it sent me stumbling straight into the group of mountain folk. A heartbeat later, three armored soldiers darted forward like hawks. Cold steel flashed; a blade pressed against my neck.
The chill was sharp enough to freeze my breath.
In the blink of an eye, all of us were captured.
There were only three of them, but their weapons were real—the metal darkened with old oil and a faint stench of blood. The peasants traveling with us went ashen. Two younger men clenched their fists, but the sight of those blades drained whatever courage they had; their eyes dulled with hopelessness.
One soldier twisted my arms behind my back and shoved me forward. I couldn’t help protesting, “Easy—easy! Sirs, this is all a misunderstanding. We’re not rebels. We came into the mountains to pick herbs. Got lost for days. We were just trying to find a way down!”
The soldier snorted, his eyes drifting between me and Lian.
To be fair, we were both covered in dust and mud, hardly the type to stage an ambush or build some supernatural battle array. And the peasants looked even more harmless.
But the soldiers didn’t relax. The leader asked, “Where do we take them?”
The other considered a moment. “The cliff caverns. Closest place.”
Cliff caverns?
My stomach dropped. The round-faced woman had mentioned them earlier—rumor said the so-called North Ridge Formation lay there, guarded heavily, a place no outsider could approach.
I was startled, but a sliver of dark satisfaction crept in anyway.
Still, I kept pleading loudly, “Sirs, you can’t take us there! Folks say that place is full of gloomy wind and ghosts. No one ever comes back—”
The more I spoke, the more suspicious they became, gripping us tighter.
They drove us westward at blade-point. The path jolted beneath our feet as the mountain wind howled through our sleeves.
Eventually, the soldier in front halted.
I looked up.
We had reached a cliff edge.
Far below, a circle of red banners flapped in the rising light, surrounding the drop like a ritual boundary. Outside the ring, rows of armored guards stood shoulder to shoulder. Their gold armor caught the dawn and burned like fire.
The sight was suffocating—strange, oppressive, wrong.
I swallowed hard. “Formation or not, this place looks bad.”
Lian said nothing, only glanced once at the red banners.
As we were dragged forward, a eunuch in dark violet robes strode toward us. His frame was thin, back hunched like a crane, his face pale as paper and eyes bulging slightly. One look told me he was trouble.
After listening to the soldiers’ report, he said lightly, “Just in time. We’re short of hands.”
Then he flicked his fingers.
“Take them down.”
We were shoved into a tattered camp tent.
The air inside was humid, the stink thick as wet burlap. Around twenty people huddled within—men, women, children. All thin, hollow-eyed.
An elder muttered in the corner. A woman clutched her child and sobbed soundlessly. A boy of maybe fourteen sat with hair tangled around his face, laughing to himself.
His laugh was unsettling—broken at the edges, rasping as if his throat had been scraped raw. Sometimes he fell silent all at once, staring blankly at the tent roof.
A chill crawled up my spine.
No one dared speak at first. Finally, a young man whispered, “Maybe… we wait until midnight and try to slip out?”
The round-faced woman hissed, “Are you mad? This isn’t the mountain pass. These guards would kill us first and ask questions later.”
As the sentries drifted back outside, I edged toward Lian and whispered, “Why didn’t you fight earlier? Three men—one swing from you and they’d drop like flies.”
Lian leaned lazily against a wooden stake, eyes half-lowered. “We needed a way in.”
I froze. “You’re saying… you let them take us on purpose?”
“Otherwise,” he said, slow and bland, “how would we get close to the formation?”
My mouth twitched.
True—this saved us effort. But whatever this “formation” was, it might just be the entrance to hell itself.
Metal clanged faintly outside. The atmosphere thickened.
I was still wondering what exactly lay inside those cliff caverns when I sensed Lian watching me again.
He gave a faint, crooked smile. “If you want answers, start with someone close.”
“Close?” I blinked.
He lifted his chin toward the mad boy in the corner.
“Him.”
I recoiled. “You’re joking. He’s clearly lost his mind.”
Lian arched a brow, voice dropping lower. “Madmen tend to tell the truth by accident.”
My chest tightened. I opened my mouth to argue—but Lian suddenly leaned in.
Too close. I could feel the warmth of his breath.
“Go on,” he murmured. “Get something out of him.”
His tone was soft, but it slid straight into my ears, sharp and unsettling.
Heat shot up the back of my neck.
“S-stop that,” I muttered. His quiet laugh followed, careless yet edged with danger.
The tent fell silent again.
I had no choice but to walk toward the mad boy.
He crouched on the ground, dragging a broken bamboo stick through the dirt, drawing circles. He was humming something—part children’s rhyme, part spell.
“Hey,” I whispered. “What’re you drawing?”
“Drawing the sun,” he said without looking up. “Drawing the sun…”
“The sun?” I leaned closer.
Suddenly he lifted his head. His pitch-black eyes flickered—clear, for just an instant.
“The sun went down,” he whispered, grinning wide enough to show all his teeth. “They’re all going down.”
A chill crawled along my spine.
“Who’s going down?”
He only giggled again, muttering, “All going down… red light, red light…”
Red light.
I remembered the flicker beneath the swamp, and cold sweat prickled down my back.
I glanced at Lian. He wasn’t looking at me—he was studying the markings the boy had scratched into the mud. The looping lines curled like the outline of a formation pattern.
Lian’s eyes narrowed. A slow smile curved his lips.
“Seems,” he said, “getting captured wasn’t a waste after all.”
Footsteps approached outside.
The tent flap was yanked open. A gold-armored soldier barked, “You there. Out. Picking a few strong ones. Move!”
Everyone startled.
Lian’s expression didn’t shift. He only turned his head slightly and gave me a look.