Chapter 19
Chapter 19: Cooperation
Jin Sui’s gratitude didn’t erase her caution.
That bandit had chained them together, and Gu Chang Xiao hadn’t tried to stop it.
A man who’d attempted escape often enough to earn one hundred lashes didn’t simply give up.
If he didn’t object, then either he could break the chain later… or he planned to remove the problem another way.
Jin Sui glanced down at her ankle and swallowed hard.
In stories, fugitives sometimes freed themselves by doing terrible things.
If Gu Chang Xiao truly was a ruthless criminal, he might kill her to remove the chain.
Or cut off her foot.
She prayed he wasn’t that kind of man.
A gong rang out.
The overseer shouted, “Back! Everyone back!”
The commoners’ dead eyes lit with relief. They dropped their tools and hurried toward a cluster of caves.
So that was where they lived.
Jin Sui also watched where the bandits went.
Some headed for the caves.
Some went to wooden huts.
She and Gu Chang Xiao were marched back to the woodshed.
Grandpa Ling and Jin An still hadn’t returned.
A mute worker delivered food: two bamboo tubes of water and two gray flour cakes.
Jin Sui tried to ask when the Daoist would return.
The worker didn’t even look at her.
She turned and ran.
Gu Chang Xiao picked up his portion.
“She’s mute,” he said. “Any worker who can leave the stronghold to fetch supplies gets their voice taken.”
Jin Sui’s stomach turned.
This place wasn’t a random bandit nest.
It was a machine.
She ate the awful cake in silence.
Rain hammered down for so long she lost all sense of time. She and Gu Chang Xiao leaned back-to-back against the straw, both too exhausted to speak.
After a long while, Gu Chang Xiao broke the silence.
“Daoist Master Ji… do you have more of that medicine?”
Jin Sui blinked before she realized he was calling her by Grandpa Ling’s fake name.
She handed him another packet.
Then she saw him tearing filthy cloth from his clothes to wrap his ankle.
Her conscience kicked.
Infection would kill faster than a blade.
She pulled two strips of clean gauze from her pocket space and shoved them toward him.
“Use this.”
Gu Chang Xiao looked at the white gauze, then at Jin Sui—dirty, exhausted, shivering from cold and fear.
He accepted it with a quiet, “Thank you.”
His bandaging was rough but practiced.
Jin Sui couldn’t help guessing: either he’d lived with injury long enough to learn, or he’d once helped a physician.
She tried again, cautiously.
“How did you get caught?”
Gu Chang Xiao didn’t lift his eyes.
“Same as you. Fell into a trap in the mountains.”
“And the escape routes?” Jin Sui pressed softly. “You’ve tried before. Did you find anything?”
Gu Chang Xiao’s brows tightened.
“No. If I had, I would’ve left long ago.”
Then he warned her, calm and blunt.
“This valley is full of eyes. You won’t escape. Give up that thought.”
Before Jin Sui could reply, the woodshed door cracked open.
Jin An slipped inside, soaked from head to toe.
He thrust a white flour cake stuffed with greens into Jin Sui’s hands.
“Grandpa is staying at the bandit chief’s place,” he whispered quickly. “He told me to report to you. Tomorrow he’ll beg again and try to bring me there too.”
Jin Sui’s chest loosened with relief.
So Grandpa Ling had truly fooled the bandit chief.
Even if they couldn’t escape, if she didn’t have to go back to the mine, it was already a blessing.
And if she reached the bandit chief’s quarters, maybe an escape would be easier.
She grabbed Jin An’s sleeve and whispered urgently, “Find that dark bandit. Ask for the key to my shackle.”
Jin An nodded and slipped out again.
When the door shut, Jin Sui felt awkward facing Gu Chang Xiao.
Today, he’d helped her survive the mine.
Tomorrow, she might be spared while he suffered alone.
She lay down behind the straw and tried to sleep.
It was impossible.
Rain dripped through holes in the roof. She kept scooting to avoid being soaked.
Gu Chang Xiao didn’t move at all after applying medicine.
Jin Sui couldn’t tell if he slept.
She shifted carefully, trying not to make the chain clink.
Near midnight, dogs started barking outside.
Footsteps pounded.
Bandits shouted.
“Up! Out!”
Gu Chang Xiao snapped awake and leapt to the door crack—then forgot the chain still tied him to another person.
Jin Sui’s leg was yanked painfully.
“Hey—slow down!”
She crawled to look through the crack too.
The rain had eased.
Bandits with torches were pounding doors, yelling toward the caves.
Two faces punched Jin Sui straight in the gut with recognition.
The yamen runners from that small town—the ones who demanded a travel permit and cost her the big donkey.
And with them were constables she’d seen at the ruined temple—the ones who fought bandits before.
Damn it.
For a travel permit, you chased me this far?
No.
That didn’t make sense.
She wasn’t important enough.
Her eyes slid to Gu Chang Xiao.
They were here for him.
The chain at her ankle suddenly felt like a noose.
Jin Sui’s blood turned to ice.
“I helped you! I have no grudge with you—why are you doing this?”
Gu Chang Xiao’s lips hovered near her ear, voice colder than rainwater.
“You enter the stronghold, and the constables arrive. You didn’t bring them?”
Jin Sui wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it.
“If we had that kind of power, would we be chained in a mine? Listen—we’re wanted too.”
Gu Chang Xiao snorted.
“So you have seen my portrait.”
“Now isn’t the time!” Jin Sui hissed. “You kill me and you still won’t escape. Work with me. We can both get out.”
Gu Chang Xiao tightened the chain, dragging it up enough that it bit into her throat.
“Two choices. Escape with me. Or I cut off your foot.”
Jin Sui cursed him silently.
What kind of choice was that?
If she let him cut her foot, he’d silence her afterward anyway.
She forced the only answer that kept her alive.
“Fine. I’ll go with you.”
Gu Chang Xiao loosened the chain.
“Behave. If you betray me, I’ll kill you.”
Jin Sui nodded fast, obedient on the outside.
Inside, her hand pressed against her palm, ready to slip into her pocket space for sleeping powder the second he moved wrong.
Gu Chang Xiao shoved aside the straw against the wall.
A hole yawned beneath—just big enough for one person to crawl through.
No wonder he’d been leaning there all night.
He’d been guarding it.