From the moment they caught up with that woman, Lian Li had noticed that she was much like Ma Tie—the type who possessed Lightness Skill but mediocre martial arts, with some Internal Energy but not much of it.
She came from an unorthodox background.
If she wasn’t lying, it was likely that the Great Hero her father had saved had primarily taught her Lightness Skill to give her a better chance at survival.
“Great Hero Lian has arranged things very well,” Yun Huizhou said with a smile, propping his face up as he sat by the table.
Teased by him, Lian Li felt a bit annoyed. He grabbed his shoe and threw it at Yun Huizhou. “I’m talking about serious business, don’t be so flippant.”
Yun Huizhou tilted his head, dodging the flying shoe. Once the shoe hit the ground, he raised his hand and lightly curled his fingers toward it; the shoe flew back from the floor into his hand.
Holding the shoe, he walked to the bedside, placed it on the floor, and said, “I am being serious. Great Hero Lian really did arrange things well. When the time comes, I will follow Great Hero Lian’s orders.”
“You!” Lian Li felt a surge of irritation, but he wasn’t truly angry.
Finally, he raised his foot and gave Yun Huizhou’s thigh a kick, saying, “Aren’t you going to add some details for me? I’ve never suppressed bandits before. What if I missed something?”
“Just go ahead and do it with confidence,” Yun Huizhou said, catching Lian Li’s ankle and moving his leg aside. He continued, “If any problems arise, I’m here to cover for you. Do the job first, then reflect on what went wrong afterward. Just remember not to make the same mistake next time.”
Hearing these words, Lian Li withdrew his leg, feeling a bit embarrassed and thinking he shouldn’t have kicked Yun Huizhou.
He moved further into the bed and whispered, “Fine, let’s leave it at that for now. Get some rest; we move tonight.”
Lian Li slept very soundly. He only woke up when Yun Huizhou came to call him.
He felt his nose itching. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Yun Huizhou sitting by the bed, holding a lock of Lian Li’s own hair and using it to tickle his nose.
He turned his head to dodge and said with a sleepy, nasal voice, “Don’t… it tickles. I’m going to sneeze.”
Yun Huizhou let go of his hair, grabbed his hand, and pulled him up. “Get up quickly. It’s almost time. We’ll head out after eating something.”
Because they had an important mission that night, neither dared to eat anything too greasy. Lian Li felt full after a bowl of porridge and two meat pies.
Seeing that there were two meat pies left, Yun Huizhou took out a paper bag, wrapped them up, and tucked them into his robe.
He looked at Lian Li and said, “There will be a lot of activity tonight. We’ll have something to eat if we get hungry later.”
After packing their belongings, the two went downstairs, checked out of the inn, and led their horses toward Xiyang Mountain.
As they approached the vicinity of Xiyang Mountain, they noticed there weren’t many villages, and those they saw appeared desolate—a stark contrast to the bustle of the small town.
After traveling a bit further, they discovered a village where the people had surprisingly not yet returned home to rest. Even from a distance, they could see torchlight everywhere in the village.
The two exchanged a look, left their horses some distance away from the village, and then used Lightness Skill to fly over and investigate.
The villagers were all ordinary residents; even someone of Lian Li’s level would seem like a formidable martial arts master to them.
Consequently, when the two landed silently in a tree beside the square where the villagers were gathered, not one of the dozens of villagers noticed them.
Lian Li was extremely curious about why the villagers were gathered here so late at night. He originally wanted to go down and ask about the situation directly, and perhaps inquire about the bandits on Xiyang Mountain, but Yun Huizhou stopped him.
Yun Huizhou simply pulled him back and shook his head. He didn’t state the reason directly but signaled for Lian Li to eavesdrop first.
Lian Li suppressed his impatience and listened to the villagers below.
“Has Wang Er’s wife been found yet?” An elder who looked to be in his sixties sat on a stone bench and asked.
“No,” a sturdy man replied. “We went up the mountain to look, but we didn’t dare go too deep, fearing…”
The elder waved his hand and sighed. “I know. Those beasts! When will these days ever end?”
As he sat on the stone bench, his body seemed to hunch even more than before.
The sturdy man added, “Those plague-stricken bandits… if only someone would come to wipe them out. In just these past six months, how many people in our village have died?”
Once the conversation started, many previously silent villagers began to speak up one after another, recounting their experiences over the last six months and which family members had been harmed.
“Disperse now,” the elder spoke again after a long while. “I still have a good mat at my place. Bury Wang Er tomorrow. As for the other arrangements, you all handle them for him; keep it simple.”
“As for his boy… losing both parents at once… we’re all from the same village, so everyone should look out for him. If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll see if I can send him to his maternal grandfather’s house.”
Hearing this, Lian Li scanned the square. Sure enough, although the villagers were standing randomly, they had tacitly left the center space empty.
Only after the crowd began to thin out did he see clearly that the person surrounded by the villagers was a man who had long since died.
There were several wounds on his body inflicted by sharp weapons. The fatal blow was a gash on his chest so deep that the bone was visible.
Lian Li instinctively held his breath. This murdered villager named Wang Er, and his wife who had gone missing on the mountain… in an instant, he connected it to the bandits on Xiyang Mountain.
It also allowed him to roughly piece together what had happened.
Wang Er’s wife went missing; Wang Er went to find her and was killed by the bandits.
The villagers brought Wang Er’s body back. Although they organized a search party, they didn’t dare go too far for fear of running into the bandits.
As for why Wang Er ran into them, it was certainly because he had approached the area where the bandits were located.
Why did he go there… because he suspected his wife had been abducted by them.
It seemed that although these bandits were few in number, they had already exerted a terrible influence on the nearby villages.
In particular, when people occupy a mountain as bandits, it is very likely that some people from the persecuted villages might also want to go up the mountain to follow the leader and live a “good life.”
Many bandit groups that start with only a few dozen people grow by oppressing villages on one hand and recruiting able-bodied men, as well as local thugs and rogues, on the other.
Especially those who haven’t started families; they join as soon as they are offered a little incentive.
Of course, there are also those who abandon their wives and children, ignoring their parents, just to go up the mountain and live as bandits.
Regardless, bandit groups grow very quickly. Lian Li knew that if they didn’t take advantage of the fact that this nest of bandits was still small to wipe them out, within a year, their numbers would reach the hundreds, and these villages would essentially be emptied of people.
The two returned to their original spot to find their horses and continued toward Xiyang Mountain. Upon reaching the foot of the mountain, they dismounted, preparing to use Lightness Skill to slip up the mountain under the cover of darkness.
