Chapter Sixty-One: Father and the Peanuts

A surge of anger rose in my heart. “Let go of my father!” I shouted, ready to rush forward.

But suddenly, my father extended a hand toward me, as if signaling me not to move. I hesitated, and then heard him begin to laugh hoarsely.

“Heh… heh… so, it’s you.” After drinking a few sips of water, though he remained desperately weak, his voice grew much clearer.

The blood-soaked figure holding my father finally spoke. “Yuan Long, what kind of trick are you playing now?”

That voice sent a chill through me. It was Peanut’s voice. My mind went blank, unable to distinguish memory from reality.

Peanut wasn't dead? He was really alive? It was almost too good to be true…

I should have felt happy, but watching the two confront each other, I sensed a relationship between my father and Peanut that I couldn’t begin to fathom.

My father laughed a few more times, then finally said, “Playing tricks? That’s more your specialty… We’re merely the ones being played.”

“Where’s the bamboo slip?” Peanut seemed agitated, his grip on my father trembling.

My father stared at Peanut in silence for a long time, then opened his mouth, waited a moment, and said, “There’s a kind of trap… called a cornered dog’s desperate leap. Right now, I’m the dog, so don’t push me.”

Peanut appeared to be interrogating my father, growing increasingly impatient. “Whatever games you’re playing, the ending won’t change. You might as well give up hope.”

My father looked at Peanut and slowly shook his head. “Us? There are no more of us…”

“What did you say?”

“All dead… The others are all dead.”

“What?” Peanut suddenly stepped back. “Impossible, impossible… Who did this?”

Father shook his head. “No one. It was… those people… their own choice. That’s why this trap is called a cornered dog’s leap.”

Peanut’s grip loosened, and I quickly rushed over to support my father. “Dad, are you alright?” He shook his head, smiled at me.

“We won’t die, not with him here. For now, death is out of reach,” he said, glancing again at Peanut.

At that moment, I finally saw Peanut’s face clearly. Though streaked with blood, his eyes remained piercingly lucid. He wasn’t looking at me now—his gaze was locked onto my father. After a long silence, he finally asked, “Where else have you been?”

“Are you ever finished?” Anger flared in me. “Don’t you see my father is barely hanging on?”

Peanut ignored me, continuing to stare at my father.

“Yuanzi, don’t be angry. Rage… won’t help you,” Father patted me, then looked at Peanut. “That’s my condition for you: get us all out alive, and I’ll tell you.”

He then turned his gaze to Qin Feng and Fatty. My heart jolted; I remembered their predicament. Fatty’s struggles were now barely noticeable, and Qin Feng kept stumbling, even though he held a torch and fire sticks. Still, his shattered body couldn’t last much longer.

Peanut said nothing, suddenly turned, and rushed toward Fatty and Qin Feng. I didn’t know what he could do bare-handed, yet strangely, his presence made me feel as if everything was already settled. My trust in his strength was evidently deep-rooted.

I expected a fierce battle. But unexpectedly, as Peanut, bloodied from head to toe, approached, the giant spider actually retreated. I found it strange; the last time we encountered this creature, Peanut had faced it, but it hadn’t reacted this way.

“You think this man is formidable, don’t you?” Father suddenly asked.

I turned, unsure how to reply.

He smiled, coughed, and said, “He… isn’t human.”

My heart skipped. “Not human? Dad, why do you say that?” I wondered if my father’s conflict with Peanut was so deep he wanted to warn me Peanut was some kind of bastard.

But he only answered softly, “Have you ever met anyone else like him?”

I sensed this wasn’t what Father meant to say, but couldn’t find words. Meanwhile, the scene before me drew my attention: as Peanut approached, the giant spider shrieked in agony. Peanut snatched the torch from Qin Feng, then leaped onto the creature’s head. When I looked up again, the torch was already driven into the spider’s skull.

The giant spider howled, its brood of smaller spiders frantically scurrying into the darkness. The monstrous creature thrashed wildly, tossing Fatty aside and forcing Qin Feng to retreat. I couldn’t understand what Peanut had done, but the giant beast seemed to have lost all ability to resist, left only to scream in place.

After a while, Peanut jumped down from its head. As the spider shrieked, it collapsed to the ground. Watching that scene, I felt the giant monster was bowing to Peanut.

Peanut stared coldly, and soon the enormous creature slowly retreated into the darkness, vanishing without a trace.

I was nearly stunned, gazing at that blood-soaked figure, feeling a fear that kept me from approaching. Qin Feng, seated in the distance, stared at Peanut in a daze, but quickly collected himself and went to help Fatty.

“Go… over there,” Father whispered in my ear.

I snapped out of it, then helped him over.

Fatty was half-conscious. Qin Feng asked how he was, and Fatty looked at him, then suddenly vomited. The bile was full of living baby spiders, making anyone’s skin crawl.

Qin Feng gave a wry smile, panting, “Damn, even you think I’m disgusting, huh?”

I could tell Qin Feng was overjoyed. Finding my father seemed to make him happier than I was, despite his wounds, grinning like a big kid.

Looking at the four of us, three barely clinging to life, I quickly led them over to the altar and had them sit. I pulled food and water from Fatty’s pack. Qin Feng took the supplies but didn’t eat, instead supporting my father, tending to him with such care it made me feel oddly ashamed. But with him taking care of Father, I could focus on Fatty.

After vomiting the spiders, Fatty improved markedly. I gave him a few sips of water and he drifted into sleep. Seeing his disheveled sleeping pose, I felt reassured and stood up.

At this moment, I spotted Peanut standing not far away, his back to us. I sighed, thinking he must be lost in thought, and going over would be pointless. Yet, after a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed some food and water and walked up behind him.

“Hey, eat something,” I nudged him with the water flask.

Peanut turned, his blood-streaked face fierce. He glanced at me, then took only the flask.

While he drank, I asked lightly, “Did you deal with whatever was behind the iron door too?”

“Hmph…” Peanut suddenly chuckled into the darkness.

“What’s so funny?”

“You don’t find yourself ridiculous?” Peanut looked at me. “All these endless questions… What good does it do to know so much?”

Well, if I don’t know, I’m bound to ask, damn it. Who talks like that? But I couldn’t get angry; after he spoke, his expression grew strange, as if my words and his thoughts were on completely different levels. He shook his head at me. Maybe after running into my father’s resistance, he was feeling irritated.

“If you won’t tell me, fine.” I tried to act nonchalant, but couldn’t help sighing, “After all, I’m just an outsider.”

Suddenly, an urgent wish grew in me—to escape this tomb and forget everything that had happened these past days.

“There are no outsiders here.”

As he said this, Peanut’s expression was blank, quietly gazing into the unfathomable darkness ahead.

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(Nearly seven hundred bookmarks now, brothers—can we break a thousand this week? Old North is shouting!)