Chapter 12: A game within a game, a mystery within a mystery

The shock of the boat against the shore made me almost fall asleep, but I regained consciousness again.

At this moment, I heard Zheng’s long sigh of relief, followed by some noisy voices. There were five or six people?

Jifeng and the others carried me out of the cabin. Then, in the haze, I felt myself being moved onto a stretcher. Then, I lost all sense of what was going on.

It was a long sleep. Many times I wanted to wake up, but I had no strength and could only fall asleep again.

In fact, because of my strong spiritual awareness, I am a dreamer. I dream almost every time I fall asleep, but this time I had no dreams at all. This is a rare occurrence.

I finally woke up from the excruciating pain in my body. The pain was even more intense than when I was shot before.

“You’re awake?” I opened my eyes and saw the face of a woman wearing a mask. Her eyes were very big, and her whole demeanor showed that she had an intellectual beauty, but there was also a hint of fatigue in her eyes. It was she who was speaking to me.

I didn’t answer, I didn’t have the strength to answer, I could only roll my eyes and look around!

The lights on the ceiling were bright and shining, as if they were some special lights that had been temporarily hung up, but the room had an old-fashioned smell, like a country house.

The whole room was filled with the smell of disinfectant, and I was lying on a boat covered with white cloth, with my neck and below covered.

I felt a sharp pain in my body, as if a needle was piercing my skin. I couldn’t help but let out a “sigh.” The woman’s voice came again: “The order came at the last minute, and we were in a hurry to prepare. The conditions were limited, and there wasn’t enough anesthetic. No, I should have expected you to wake up so quickly.”

What was she talking about? I was confused, and then I realized that she was operating on me? I didn’t return to Hucun? What about my companions? I…

Thinking of this, I was anxious, but I couldn’t move. The woman, who should be the doctor, sewed a few more stitches while talking to me, and I was sweating profusely in pain.

“Talking can distract you. You can also try to talk to me. To be honest, you real Taoist priests and monks have physical qualities that are beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Although these gunshot wounds avoided the fatal parts, it would be a miracle for an ordinary person to survive for that long, with blisters in the middle of the way. But you’re fine, you survived without even needing a blood transfusion. However, you’ll have to make up for it later.” While she was talking, she didn’t wait for me to talk, she was just working like a needle threading a needle, and I didn’t even have the strength to moan in pain.

With a ‘clang,’ the tweezers were thrown out of the tray. A nurse came to wipe the woman’s sweat, and also wiped my sweat. Then she hung a drip on me. During this process, the woman seemed very tired, took off her mask, sat down and watched quietly.

After waiting for the nurse to finish all this, she said to me, “The bullets have all been removed, and you are no longer in danger. Because each bullet has avoided the vital organs, you have to thank the person who fired the gun for his precise technique and profound understanding of the human body. Five shots, there is no such coincidence. If it weren’t for the precise technique, you would have to leave some disabilities and sequelae.”

Does that mean I should thank Jiang Yi? I looked at the woman and, despite the difficulty of speaking, asked in a hoarse voice with all my strength: “Are you someone related to Jiang Yi?”

“I’m not someone in Jiang Yi’s department. He’s the boss of the department, and I’m just a small doctor in a special department who occasionally treats injuries for special people. I did an overnight surgery yesterday, and I haven’t slept much during the day, but I was called to this countryside to treat your injuries.” The woman took a sip of water while she was talking, and then said, “However, your situation is a very easy gunshot wound to treat. It’s not those weird injuries that require special methods, so it’s not too difficult for me.”

After saying this, she put down her cup, sent the nurse away, and then walked up to me. Her expression suddenly became very serious, and she whispered to me, “In a month’s time, you’d better do your best to heal your wounds. You won’t be so easy in the future, at least you can’t use Chen Chengyi’s identity to operate openly, or there will be endless trouble.”

What does that mean? I widened my eyes and tried to ask why.

But the woman seemed very tired, yawned and said, “Including sending me to save you, it was also the department’s last help to you, at great risk. You just had surgery, so you shouldn’t get too excited. Someone asked me to tell you that your companions are still alive and safe now. Rest well.”

Hearing this, my heart began to beat violently. I wanted to stop her, but she had already left without giving me a chance to speak.

I was left with a tangled mess in my head.

A week later, I was barely able to get out of bed, and I knew where I was!

It was indeed a remote countryside, not far from the village by the lake.

Because of poverty, almost everyone here has gone to work elsewhere, and the remaining residents are all old, weak, women and children. Half of the houses in the village are empty.

I was in an empty house. The owner had rented it to a stranger who said he was going to study the geography of the area a month ago, but I knew very well that this was the department’s trick, and I felt as if they had prepared a way out for me a month ago.

The local people are relatively simple and unsophisticated, and there is no feeling of being surrounded by hostile people in a poor and dangerous environment. Moreover, the news is blocked, and people know too little. I am relatively safe here, of course, safe for a month, except for being a little lonely.

The young man who took care of me was a young man from the lake village, Zheng, and Grandma Yun would occasionally come to visit me. As for the female doctor, after I had recovered a little the next day, she gave me some instructions and then left.

The young man who took care of me didn’t like to talk, which made me feel lonely. This loneliness was caused by having something on my mind and having nowhere to talk about it.

I hadn’t been out of bed for a week, so when I finally got up, I walked outside and slowly walked for half an hour, feeling a little weak.

I didn’t want to go back to bed, but instead stood in the courtyard of the countryside and stared blankly, worrying about my current situation and my companions.

“Brother Cheng, why don’t you go back to bed? It’s already autumn, and it’s cold outside. If you catch a cold, it won’t be good for your recovery.” The young man had been silent while I was moving around before, but when he saw me standing in the courtyard, he couldn’t help but say something.

“It’s fine. I’ll stay outside for a while. It’s good to breathe some fresh air. You can help me move a chair here. I’ll sit for a while.” I said to him with a smile.

The young man hesitated for a moment, but still did as I said, bringing me a chair and even bringing me a jacket to wear.

I sat down, and the young man went inside to prepare the medicine for me. I don’t know what Zheng Da Ye thought of, or what he took out of the bottom of the box, but he came to see me several times and brought a lot of precious medicinal herbs for my body. He told the young man to get them for me according to strict dosage.

But I stopped the young man and said, “Hey, do you have a cigarette? If you don’t, I have one in my bag. Can you open one for me?” My luggage was in the one I was shot in, and the monsoon brought me all of it. It was on the boat at the time, and all of my precious magical artifacts were there.

“Smoking? That’s not a good idea,” the young man hesitated.

“It’s okay, just give it to me. I’m feeling a bit anxious and I just want to smoke a cigarette,” I said. The young man was helpless and finally brought me the cigarettes.

The familiar smell of cigarettes calmed me down a little, and after seven days, I was finally able to calm down and think about what had happened.

I don’t understand the specific purpose of Jiang Yi’s actions, but from what I know now, he should be helping me! But why is he helping me like this?

I couldn’t think of a reason for this, so I had to analyze the situation of my companions first. According to the information Zheng gave me, that night, less than ten minutes after I left the Jiangyi area, our companions, including Lushan, left in a hurry, carrying Tao Bai, who was in a coma.

When they left, there was one detail that made me wonder. Lu Shan asked Granny Yun to borrow a vehicle. After all, we had driven to Hucun, so why did Lu Shan ask Granny Yun to borrow a vehicle?

After a moment of thought, I was able to analyze the situation and come up with a possible reason. There are no cars in Hucun, so the only means of transportation is boats. Apart from the special boats that enter and exit the Great Array of Nature, there are many ordinary boats in Hucun.

If that is the case, the purpose of Lushan is also clear. They had already decided to take the water route, so they asked Grandmother Yun for transportation. To take the water route, someone must have given them directions.

The key is that 40 minutes after they left, Jiangyi and I had not yet entered the natural formation, and a group of people came from the village. The identity of this group of people was unknown, but Jiangyi’s remaining guards were very respectful of them. From the account of Yunpo, who was present at the time, I could tell that the group of people were all cultivators, and their power was very high, so high that Yunpo could not see the specifics.

Thinking about this, I broke into a cold sweat. If Lushan and the others had been delayed for some time, what would the consequences be? Would they be even more terrible than what I had experienced?

The cigarette was burnt out, but I was caught in a mystery. I couldn’t think of any clues, not to mention that there were even more difficult things waiting for me. That is, I can no longer be Chen Chengyi. My identity has become an embarrassment.