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"Hmm, do you know Brother Ji Tong?"

When Li Jitong said that he was not dead, Song Jin'ao was very surprised. Logically speaking, Li Jitong should not know this person.

The hooded man was also surprised. He then revealed a middle-aged face and looked at Li Jitong, saying, "You know me?"

Li Jitong nodded and said, "Although I don't know your name, your photo has already been sent to the body retrieval team. Those foreigners have ordered that they want to see you alive or dead!"

Upon hearing this, the hooded man sneered, "Those beasts really think highly of me!"

Upon hearing this, Li Jitong asked, "What exactly did you do? Why are those foreign devils wanted you? And what about your child?!"

"You mean Erdan?"

Upon hearing this, Wen Mofang looked at Li Jitong, who nodded and said, "That child is dead. I have found the body."

"Ah~"

Wen Mofang was startled by these words, and it took him a while to recover before he sighed and said, "In the end, I couldn't save him!"

"Uncle Wen!"

Inside the room, Wen Mo was completely distraught. Outside, a sound came from the water gourd at Zheng Xuan's waist. Upon hearing this, Zheng Xuan opened the water gourd, and by the moonlight, a splash of water rose from the gourd's mouth.

The water droplets appeared and condensed at the mouth of the gourd into the shape of a small water figure, which was Erdan.

Erdan looked through the crack in the window and saw that the person inside was Wen Mofang, his Uncle Wen. He was just about to make some noise so that they could recognize each other.

Zheng Xuan then reached out and put the gourd away, saying, "Shh, you two are now separated by life and death, you must not see each other again. If you don't make a sound, I'll let you take a few more glances; if you make a sound, I'll put you away."

Upon hearing this, Erdan immediately stopped struggling.

Inside the house, Wen Mofang also came to his senses and looked at Li Jitong, asking, "Where is Erdan's body?"

Li Jitong replied, "Bury it!"

"Buried? Good, good!" Wen Mofang nodded repeatedly. Seeing this, Li Jitong couldn't hold back any longer and asked, "What exactly did you and that child do to offend those foreign devils that they're so determined to find you?"

Upon hearing this, Wen Mofang's face contorted with rage: "Those beasts, they're not even human! They... they're using the lives of us Chinese people for human experimentation!"

……

Wen Mofang didn't hide anything and told the whole story from beginning to end. The general content was the same as what Erdan said: they had all been captured by foreigners and imprisoned in a foreign church. These foreigners used them as experimental subjects and injected them with a kind of monster serum.

Most of those who received the injection did not survive, and Wenmo Fang was the eighth in the medical profession: sitting in the clinic.

He has two skills in total, the skill given by the ninth level of the Healer Sequence (Walking): Pharmacology.

And the skill given by Healer Sequence 8 (Sitting in the Clinic): Feign Death!

He was able to escape from the foreigners' church thanks to his feigned death skill.

Feigning death allows the target to enter a state of suspended animation, while suppressing all negative effects on the target during this process. The suspended animation lasts for one hour.

This skill may seem ordinary, but it's actually quite overpowered. You could say that as long as you're in good health, even if you drink the most potent poison, you can use the "Feign Death" skill to suppress your condition for an hour. This hour can be considered as being snatched from the jaws of death.

It was enough time to buy him a chance to survive, and it was with this skill that he fooled the foreigners, opened the dungeon door, and escaped.

Upon hearing Wen Mofang's account, Li Jitong's eyebrows shot up, and he roared, "These foreign bastards deserve to die a horrible death!"

Song Jin'ao was so angry that he gritted his teeth. If he didn't have other important matters to attend to, he would have loved to grab his golden spear and rush to the foreign church to kill these beasts who were worse than pigs and dogs.

However, Song Jin'ao quickly regained his composure and looked at Li Jitong, saying, "Brother Jitong, you know more or less about what happened. I've come here today to ask you for help in escaping Tianjin and heading to Shandong."

"Going to Shandong?"

Li Jitong looked at Song Jin'ao with puzzlement and asked, "Why go to Shandong?"

Wen Mofang said, "My senior brother is in Shandong. He is a seventh-rank physician. I have a monster serum injected by foreigners in my body. I must find my senior brother so that he can help me remove the toxins and develop an antidote. If I encounter any living victims in the future, he can also save their lives!"

Upon hearing this, Li Jitong said, "I see. But if you want to go to Shandong, why not take the land route directly?"

Song Jin'ao said, "The land route takes too long, at least ten days to half a month. The water route can be faster, and if we travel day and night, we can arrive in three or four days. But Wen Langzhong's body can't hold on much longer."

Li Jitong took a deep breath and said, "This matter is not simple."

Seeing Li Jitong's predicament, Song Jin'ao pulled him aside and said, "Brother Jitong, you must help Wen Langzhong this time, no matter what. He is also a member of the Baoguo Society."

Upon hearing this, Li Jitong's gaze sharpened, and he asked, "Is he also from the Baoguo Society?"

Song Jin'ao nodded slightly.

The Protect the Nation Society was a non-governmental organization, but it also had official backing. Its initiators were reformists within the imperial court, and there were six leaders in total, known as the Six Gentlemen.

They not only spread the word in the imperial court, wanting to change the impoverished and weak state of the Great Jing, but also gathered virtuous and righteous people and those who cared about the country among the common people to establish the Protect the Nation Society. Its motto was: Protect the country, protect the race, and protect the religion!

Protect the nation: Preserve the territory; Preserve the race: Preserve the Chinese race; Preserve the religion: Preserve Confucianism and its rites and laws.

It is precisely because of this noble banner of protecting the nation and the race that many martial arts masters from all walks of life come to join them, with the aim of driving out the foreigners and revitalizing China.

Li Jitong and Song Jin'ao are both members of the Protect the Nation Society, and now Wen Mofang is also a member of the Protect the Nation Society, so there is no reason to refuse.

Li Jitong then looked at Song Jin'ao and said, "Tianjin is now completely blocked. There are patrol battalions and foreign ironclad ships on the Haihe River. It will be very difficult to travel by water, especially to go south to Shandong. You have to cross the Dahong Bridge in Duliu Town, which is sure to be full of checkpoints. It won't be easy to get through."

Upon hearing this, Song Jin'ao said, "That's precisely why I'm asking you, brother. Please think of a solution."

Li Jitong said, "It takes three or four days to get to Shandong, and I cannot escort you there."

"Once we cross the Rainbow Bridge in Duliu Town, everything else will be easy. We have brothers from Shandong waiting for us in Chenguantun."

"The only problem now is how to cross the Rainbow Bridge in Duliu Town."

Song Jin'ao pointed out the crux of the problem. After hearing the question, Li Jitong thought for a moment, took out his pipe, lit it, took a few puffs, and said, "Does Doctor Wen know how to hold his breath?"

Wen Mofang said, "I'm not good at holding my breath."

Li Jitong exhaled a smoke ring and said, "If you can hold your breath for more than half an hour, you can try to tie yourself to the bottom of the boat and sneak out of the pass. But since you can't hold your breath, this method won't work."

Upon hearing this, Wenmo finally spoke up, saying, "Tying it to the bottom of the boat—that method is feasible!"

Li Jitong said, "If you can't hold your breath and are tied to the bottom of the boat, won't you die after a while?"

Wen Mofang said, "I can fake my death once more. In this state, as long as it's not a beheading or heart-ripping injury, I won't die. Even soaking in water for an hour won't hurt me!"

"Master Li, I think this 'bottom-of-the-boat' method is usable!"