The Rejected Disciple, Successor to The Demonic Path

The Hadarac Desert

Rong Tian tried to move his hands and immediately realized that he could not. Coarse ropes bound his wrists and ankles tightly enough to cut off circulation if he struggled too much.

He was inside a swaying carriage, being taken somewhere unknown.

“Good. You are awake.”

The hoarse voice came from the corner of the carriage.

Three men dressed entirely in black sat facing him. This time, they wore no masks. Their hard faces showed no concern over whether he saw them, because they clearly had no intention of allowing anyone who had seen their faces to leave with those memories.

Rong Tian counted silently. Three men inside. One driver outside, judging by the sound of the reins. Four in total. His hands were bound. His feet were bound. His chance of escaping from a moving carriage in this condition was nearly zero.

“I have been kidnapped,” he thought. Instead of panicking, his mind moved to the next question faster than he had ever realized it could. “By whom? And why? I have no wealth. I am not the son of a noble. The only reason for this must be Zhao Hua.”

He drew a slow breath and chose his words carefully.

“Sir, I do not understand why I am here,” Rong Tian said. His voice was calmer than the four men expected. “I am only a carriage driver’s son who failed the imperial examination. You will gain nothing by holding me captive. Please release me, and I will tell no one.”

The man with a long scar across his face turned toward him. His eyes held no reaction, only the weary reflex of someone who had heard the same plea from too many mouths.

He rose and slapped Rong Tian hard.

Rong Tian’s head snapped to the side. Heat spread across his cheek, followed by the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. One of his teeth felt loose.

“You ungrateful brat!” Scarface spat toward him. “You should be grateful we were not ordered to kill you on the spot. Yet you still dare to talk.”

Rong Tian stopped himself from reacting physically. His hands were tied, and this was not the time to lose control. Still, he did not lower his eyes.

“You hit me because you cannot answer my question,” Rong Tian said, his voice flatter than it should have been for someone who had just been struck. “If you had a reasonable answer, you would not need to hit me.”

The second slap came harder.

His head snapped in the opposite direction. A sharp ringing filled his ears, and the world spun for a moment before settling again.

“You still dare to speak?” Scarface grabbed Rong Tian by the collar and pulled him close until their faces were only inches apart. His breath smelled of liquor and something fouler. “Do you think this is a literary debate? This is not an examination hall, brat!”

“No,” Rong Tian replied. Though one of his eyes had begun to swell, his gaze did not retreat. “But even in the crudest interrogation, the person asking questions usually has a purpose. You strike without purpose. That means you are only following orders, and you know no more than you need to know.”

Scarface’s face reddened.

“You little bastard...” He pulled a dagger from his waist. Its blade glinted beneath the sunlight entering through the cracks in the carriage.

The group leader reached over and touched his arm. It was a small gesture that required no words.

Scarface lowered the dagger, but his eyes never left Rong Tian.

“Put it away,” the leader said in the detached tone of someone completing a task exactly as instructed and nothing more. “Let the Hadarac Desert finish him.”

“So I will be abandoned in the Hadarac Desert.” Rong Tian did not say it as a question. He stated it as confirmation of a conclusion that had already formed in his mind. He looked directly at the leader. “Who ordered this?”

For the first time since the journey began, the leader turned toward him. His eyes contained none of Scarface’s cruelty. They held only indifference, which was far more frightening.

“Someone troubled by your existence,” he answered briefly.

“The Lord of Biratama City,” Rong Tian said.

No one answered. No one denied it either.

“So this is because of Zhao Hua.” Rong Tian lowered his head slightly, not in surrender, but as if storing something somewhere no one inside the carriage could take from him. “Fine. I will remember this.”

Scarface gave a rough, humorless laugh.

“Remember? What will you remember? The desert sand?”

The leader snorted and looked at Rong Tian as if he were something unworthy of attention. “Why are you surprised? A poor boy like you dared to become involved with a noble young lady. The Hadarac Desert is exactly where commoners who do not know their limits belong.”

Rong Tian did not answer. He bit the inside of his cheek, enduring the pain still pulsing through his face, and kept his next words locked behind his teeth.

The journey to the Hadarac Desert lasted more than a week. During that time, Rong Tian learned that there were things more agonizing than hunger and thirst, such as listening to people laugh and joke while carrying you toward death as though it were an enjoyable assignment.

Whenever he tried to speak, he received more than slaps.

By the end of the journey, Rong Tian’s face was swollen in three places. His left eye could barely open. Bruises covered his body, shifting from red to purple, then black as the days passed.

Yet every night, when the men inside the carriage slept and only the sound of hooves remained, Rong Tian stayed awake. He counted. He remembered. He arranged every detail in his mind.

Scarface’s face. The leader’s movements. The driver’s laughter from outside. Every small thing was stored where no pen or paper was needed.

“Sir, I am hungry,” Rong Tian finally said. He kept the sentence as short as possible, his voice hoarse from a throat that had not received enough water for far too long.

Scarface laughed, and the sound struck the wooden walls of the carriage.

“Hungry? A lowly dog like you does not deserve decent food.”

He threw a hardened steamed bun toward Rong Tian. His companions burst into laughter as they watched Rong Tian bend down and bite the bun directly from the carriage floor because his hands were tied behind his back.

The bun was nearly stale, dry, and difficult to swallow without water. Every bite felt like swallowing coarse sand.

Still, Rong Tian chewed until he had finished every piece. He kept his eyes fixed on the carriage wall before him, and every bite was his body’s answer that he was still alive and intended to remain that way.

To be continued.