Chapter 1298: Waiting

Hei Yang lay on the ground, struggling to lift his head.

Amidst the sounds of the Lou Yi tearing at Tian Hu's body, he looked toward Pei Qian Hu.

"Hey..."

He called out weakly, but Pei Qian Hu didn't respond.

"Hey... damn it..."

He never imagined that one day, shouting at this fool would get no reply.

"Hey!!"

Hei Yang shouted almost tearfully, "I haven't killed you yet... how dare you die on me...?!"

The enormous echoes filled the room, and amidst Hei Yang's tearful curses, even Tian Hu's frantic struggles fell silent.

It was being invaded by countless hands, its internal organs crushed and deformed.

After a short while, a faint cough came from Pei Qian Hu:

"Cough..."

"Huh?!" Hei Yang was overjoyed in an instant. "Pei Qian Hu..."

"Old Hei... why are you yelling like that..."

"You... you bastard...!"

"Heh heh..." Pei Qian Hu opened his eyes and gazed weakly at the ceiling with a smile. "What a joke... talking about family and all that... we're just a bunch of tough guys... have you no shame?"

"Aaaahhh damn it!!!" Hei Yang finally relaxed, lying back on the ground with a smile, his long-held tension easing at last. "Thank goodness... thank goodness... I'll kill you someday, you son of a gun...!! Ah... you pissed me off so much..."

"You still want to kill me, you thief..." Pei Qian Hu let out a dry laugh. "I told you 'no rush'... and you really weren't in a rush... why didn't you wait until after you'd eaten my toes... or just bring some paper money and burn it for me directly..."

"Still talking back—I shouldn't have come at all." Hei Yang said from the ground. "I deliberately dragged this out, and you still didn't die. What a shame. A little kid could beat you like this—what's the point of you? Where's all that skill you had against Di Long?"

Pei Qian Hu coughed helplessly: "Old Hei... if you're going to nag like this, I'll say it upfront—the Dao isn't paid off yet... after all, that was Yang Ge who lent it to me... with interest... you owe me a total of..."

"Keep track of it." Hei Yang snorted coldly. "On the day you die, I'll burn it all for you."

"Hey... why get so worked up... it's just letting the kid eat a bit of my arm... heh heh..." Pei Qian Hu coughed a few more times. "If the kid wants to eat, let him. I'm built tough... not that easy to kill..."

As the two were talking, a Di Hou slowly approached the doorway. He glanced at the scene inside, sighed, and walked in.

He saw the room swarming with Lou Yi, which made him feel irritated. He pulled a Dao from his pocket, and the Lou Yi all lifted their heads as if sensing something, but none moved.

Di Hou opened the door and tossed the Dao into the hallway. The Lou Yi sensed it was unclaimed and rushed out to scramble for it.

Then Di Hou closed the door, restoring peace to the room.

"Damn..." Pei Qian Hu struggled to turn his head and, seeing the person, was shocked. "Old Hei... get up quick... we barely took down Tian Hu, and it'd be a total loss if we go down to this monkey..."

Hei Yang looked up at Di Hou after hearing this and lay on the ground, saying impatiently, "I can't get up. You go ahead and die."

"Ah... hell... you're cold-blooded again... cough cough..." Pei Qian Hu shifted a bit, trying to stand, but he was too weak from blood loss. "Old Hei... how about I hold him off... you get out first..."

"I'm not leaving. I'm just here to watch you die."

"Ah?! Don't!"

Di Hou watched the two bantering and had no idea what they were up to. He went to the center of the room, took off his suit, and tore it into long strips.

"Hah..." Pei Qian Hu snapped angrily, "Trying to strangle me, huh? I fear nothing under heaven... go ahead and try to kill me... I'll leave a few holes in you for sure..."

Di Hou glanced at Pei Qian Hu, rolled his eyes, and tossed the torn suit onto his face. "No need. Your friend already left enough holes in me. Tie yourself up—your shoulder's spraying blood."

"Huh?" Pei Qian Hu reached out and took the cloth strip. He hadn't expected this Di Hou, whom he was meeting for the first time, to be on their side. "Which side are you with, kid..."

"I don't even know which side I'm on." Di Hou shook his head and threw the other half to Hei Yang. "You two are lucky to be alive after all that..."

Hei Yang took the cloth strip, struggled to sit up, and leaned against the wall to wrap his wounds. But most of his injuries from fighting Tian Niu were internal, so bandaging the surface wouldn't help much.

He took a few deep breaths and asked Di Hou, "Is everything sorted? Those Ren Ji..."

"Ren Ji are no big deal..." Di Hou picked up a chair from the ground, sat down, and started tending to his own wounds. "So I stumbled into this mess without anyone explaining it. What are you all even planning?"

Hei Yang didn't reply. He quickly wrapped his messy wounds, propped himself against the wall to stand, and went over to Pei Qian Hu to bandage his severed arm.

Di Hou watched the two and felt ignored. "Hey... Hei Yang, you're not going to trust me? If I wanted to harm you, I could've done it by now."

After saying that, he noticed the expressions on Hei Yang and Pei Qian Hu—they both looked confused.

Hei Yang sighed: "It's not that we don't trust you... it's that we don't know the plan ourselves."

"Huh...?" Di Hou was stunned. "Tian Ji are starting to die, Yuan Zhu Min are on board, Can Yu Zhe are on board, and now even Lou Yi are scurrying around the hallway... and you have no idea what to do next?!"

"Yeah." Hei Yang nodded. "The ones killing Tian Ji don't know what to do, the ones on board don't know what to do, and even the Lou Yi don't know what's coming next. That's our situation."

"You're all crazy..." Di Hou slowly stood up. "Stirring up this much chaos without knowing what's next..."

"This is a good thing." Hei Yang said. "Everyone only knows their own part, so the plan stayed hidden until now."

"What about me?!" Di Hou said, puzzled. "I'm joining this plan from now on... so I have no idea what to do?"

"From what I know, everything that needed to be done is done." Hei Yang looked up at Di Hou. "All that's left is to wait."

"Just... wait like this?" Di Hou asked.

"Yes, wait for the final success..." Hei Yang paused. "There's nothing else we can do."

"I can't wait that long..." Pei Qian Hu grimaced and grabbed the bandage on his body. "Probably a lot of our guys are badly hurt right now... we should go out and find them... save whoever we can..."

"You're barely able to walk—don't push yourself." Hei Yang said. "Injuries from fighting Tian Ji won't heal quickly. Even you and I are the same—we're alive now, but we'll soon face shortages of medicine and infected wounds. If this rebellion doesn't win, we're dead no matter what."

Di Hou was about to speak when he suddenly noticed the cracks in the wall. He walked over slowly and stared in disbelief at the endless starry sky beyond.

"What... is that...?"