Not long after, Han Wubing, his shoulder bound in bandages, walked in uncaptured and appeared astounded upon seeing the situation.
His appearance didn’t seem that of a captive; rather, he seemed to have been healing inside. Moreover, his injuries didn’t look serious; his demeanor was still composed, showing no signs of weakness.
Upon seeing the scene inside the room, Han Wubing, in surprise, asked, "Brother Qi? Who is this dark-faced man..."
Sha Qi, still being choked, started to laugh, and his subordinates joined in.
Zhao Changhe, with a stern face, said, "You look well?"
Han Wubing immediately recognized his voice, extremely delighted, "Brother Zhao! It’s you! Uh, this..."
Zhao Changhe said, "This situation, did I misunderstand? Did they treat you well with food and drink?"
Han Wubing replied, "Indeed, they took me in."
Zhao Changhe said, "But you’ve been deceived."
Han Wubing paused, his gaze toward Sha Qi quickly turning suspicious.
Clearly, he trusted Zhao Changhe far more than Sha Qi.
Sha Qi just grinned, seemingly unconcerned that he was still being choked, nor did he care that Zhao Changhe seemed about to expose something, instead he appeared quite intrigued.
Zhao Changhe said, "For instance, when I arrived here, they knew; did they tell you?"
"I knew they didn’t, otherwise you definitely would have come to meet me."
This feeling of trust and understanding was truly great.
Zhao Changhe continued, "Their not telling you indicates that their harboring you did not come from good intentions; it seems I wasn’t too wrong in considering you captive."
Han Wubing said, "Indeed. Blinding me to the information was no different from being captive."
Quickly, he drew his longsword, guarding beside Zhao Changhe, pointing it towards the Kangle Gambling House gang member who held a knife to Zhao Changhe’s neck.
Sha Qi sighed, "After all, I did take you in, and yet, you turn on me quite directly."
Han Wubing said, "I had already run away, but you coaxed me into staying here to heal, saying the environment was relaxed and didn’t seem suspicious, so I settled temporarily. But it turns out you were isolating information, using me?"
Sha Qi didn’t answer that, instead asking Zhao Changhe, "Young Zhao, how did you guess?"
"Didn’t Brother Qi tell me himself?"
Zhao Changhe said, "Walking down the street buying a pancake, I got robbed—the robbery aside, it bizarrely leaked that Han Wubing was being hunted. That aside, it bizarrely mentioned Brother Qi. Then, I started wondering, whose young master this Qi was, the manner of leaking this info was just too abstract."
Sha Qi asked, "What do you mean by abstract? Couldn’t it just be some lackey spouting nonsense..."
Zhao Changhe, tired of arguing this, continued, "In any case, all the information I knew did not mention Han Wubing being injured, which means even if he was, it wouldn’t be severe. His character isn’t that of a good sort; if he weren’t seriously hurt, he wouldn’t just flee far. He must be hiding somewhere in the city waiting for an opportunity to retaliate."
Han Wubing smiled again.
Zhao Changhe continued, "Assuming Han Wubing didn’t leave, and I entered the city with Big Broadsword on my back and even fought a bit, no matter what mask I wore, he should’ve known his brother had arrived, why didn’t he find me? It was very likely he had been captured. But from various information I gathered, it wasn’t the Ji Family or Yan Lianping who captured him. If captured, it would likely be a third party—who could it be? The abstract words spoken by the small fry I met then became clear, obviously, Brother Qi was hinting that Han Wubing was in his hands, asking me to find him."
Sha Qi laughed, "That’s right. But why didn’t you come directly to me? Instead, you changed your appearance and didn’t even bring a knife. At first, I really didn’t recognize that Ji Bochang was you, Zhao Changhe, until you made your move and I realized it."
"Big brother," Zhao Changhe sighed helplessly, "you think Han Wubing is not involved in any trouble, but from my point of view, I thought Brother Han had been captured by you. Should I have just come to talk to you? Just surrender myself? Of course, I had to change my identity first to investigate, and I didn’t plan to take action right away; I just came to see..."
"Did you use your Inner Strength on my dice to confirm my strength?"
"Yes, I infiltrated your dice with my Inner Strength without you noticing, which shows your strength is quite ordinary. The problem is, you have many followers, and some of them might actually be strong. I couldn’t rescue anyone by force, but a surprise attack to capture you was a gamble I could take, and it was the simplest and clearest choice. So I acted on impulse. Otherwise, I have a companion whose power I didn’t use, and that would have been a waste..."
Sha Qi: "... If you want to say I’m weak, just say it; I can take it."
"You’re not weak; you just underestimated me," Zhao Changhe chuckled. "But I can guess what you want to talk about."
"Oh?" Sha Qi responded despondently, "Let’s hear it."
"Han Wubing fought over rumors about me in front of the Kangle Gambling House. This has revealed his secret mastery of a new Swordsmanship. Ji Yinan and Yan Lianping have approached him; there’s no way this happened right at your doorstep and you didn’t know, right?" Zhao Changhe smiled, "You ’kindly’ took in Han Wubing, merely to lure information out of him about the Ancient Sword’s secret."
"Why wouldn’t I force the information out of him if I wanted to be a ’good guy’?"
"How would I know? I always thought Brother Han had been captured by you..."
"Perhaps because Brother Han is not easy to mess with. If direct confrontation could backfire, why not play nice and coax the information out? Unless after a prolonged failure to extract the information, patience wore thin. But clearly, three days wasn’t enough... During this process, when you discovered Zhao Changhe entering the city, you remembered that not only Han Wubing could benefit from the secret of the Ancient Sword, but Zhao Changhe could too. So you sent a message, trying to capture me as well."
Finally, Sha Qi shook his head, amused, "This is really peculiar. In all this commotion involving the Pinghu Association and Xingyi Gang creating a mess, everyone focused on them. How did you figure out that Han Wubing’s whereabouts had absolutely nothing to do with them and were a separate issue?"
"Because I have no interest in their gang conflicts; from the start, my sole aim was to find my friend."
The air grew still for a moment, and the expressions of the gang members holding knives to Zhao Changhe’s throat seemed to change.
After a moment of silence, Sha Qi slowly said, "What are you all doing still holding the knives? Put them down."
Someone replied, "Young master, your neck is still being held!"
"If you put down the knives, he will naturally let go of my neck. A man who came looking for his friend, whose friend is unharmed, why would he kill me?"
The gang members looked at each other, but indeed gradually lowered their knives.
Yet Zhao Changhe did not release Sha Qi’s neck, but instead held him by the throat and dragged him outside, "Mr. Qi is right, but I can’t let go of you now, not until we’re outside."
Sha Qi grimaced, "Damn it..."
Once outside, Zhao Changhe stopped abruptly, "Mr. Qi, is the area cleared?"
"You don’t say!" Sha Qi said irritably. "Of course, the area had to be cleared. I can’t let people see someone choking me; how would I ever show my face in Sword Lake City otherwise?"
"So, there are no outsiders now?"
"Uh..." Zhao Changhe suddenly said, "Then Mr. Qi, what about discussing a real cooperation?" Follow current novels on novel-fire.net
Sha Qi almost laughed, "With the situation we are in now, how can you think of ’cooperation’?"
"Why not?" Zhao Changhe replied calmly. "Do we have any unresolved grievances?"
Sha Qi answered, "It seems not. So, you want to share the Ancient Sword secret with me now?"
"I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Qi, do you want to dominate Sword Lake City? I guess Ying Wu sent you to Sword Lake City not just for the Ancient Sword, right?"
Sha Qi narrowed his eyes, pausing before saying, "How so? Suddenly finding my cooperation trustworthy in this matter?"
"Just as you just said, those two gang conflicts have nothing to do with your affairs. Whichever family spreading rumors about me they belong to, they surely aren’t yours. Thinking it over, if I want to find a partner, it can only be you."
Sha Qi sighed, "Whoever dares to tell me again that Zhao Changhe is a mere bandit, I’ll slap him so hard his own mother won’t recognize him!"