Chapter 242: Bandits Fighting Bandits

But if he didn’t take it off, he was sweltering.

Taking the water skin from his waist, he took a large gulp of water. Then, he walked over to Yun Huizhou’s side, threw his arms around him, and rubbed against him vigorously.

Yun Huizhou smiled and asked him, “What are you doing?”

Lian Li held him tight and wouldn’t let go. “My internal energy is almost depleted, and it’s too hot. Holding you is cooler.”

Yun Huizhou hugged him back, channeling internal energy into his body so he could feel even cooler.

After the two of them embraced for a while, Lian Li felt somewhat recovered and finally released Yun Huizhou.

“Is this nest of horse bandits considered completely wiped out?” Lian Li asked.

To his surprise, Yun Huizhou shook his head and said, “This is only a very small portion. The large-scale bandit groups in this region can have several thousand people, and even the small ones have around five hundred. That’s why I insisted on dragging you along to make sure none of them escaped when they tried to flee.”

“You wouldn’t want us to be surrounded by anywhere from several hundred to over a thousand horse bandits one day when we’re out, would you?”

Lian Li imagined such a scene.

To be honest, provided the South Island Master didn’t intervene, he and Yun Huizhou could still handle a few hundred horse bandits together. But if it were thousands…

He could only say: Yun Huizhou, you work hard; I’ll take my leave into the afterlife first.

The forty-odd bandits sent out to rob them were dead, but since they had been out on a raid, they didn’t carry many valuables on their persons.

The most valuable things were their weapons and horses.

Although Yun Huizhou and Lian Li had consciously avoided killing the horses, hoping to keep them alive to sell, many had still died.

Among the surviving horses, many had lost their riders and bolted, their whereabouts now unknown.

By now, the two of them could only find and lead back fewer than ten horses.

The weapons, at least, wouldn’t run away, but since they had been chasing and killing the bandits all along the way, it would take quite some time to collect them all.

Thinking of this, Lian Li couldn’t help but sigh, feeling like they were coming up short.

Yun Huizhou, however, was accustomed to this; it was impossible to get everything.

The two of them gathered all the nearby weapons. Excluding those that had been snapped during the exchange, there were over twenty heavy iron sabers in total.

When Lian Li picked them up, he couldn’t help but grumble inwardly. These horse bandits were truly wealthy; while these weapons couldn’t compare to the army’s, the fact that every bandit had one was impressive.

These horse bandits were likely only inferior to the army in terms of scale. If they were ever suddenly integrated, they would pose a massive threat.

However, the living environment in this area was harsh, making it difficult for such a massive scale to form.

But once horse bandits did form a massive scale, there was basically no choice but to send the army to suppress them.

And that involved another issue: this place was a lawless borderland beyond the jurisdiction of any side.

Exactly which side’s army would be sent to manage it?

While Lian Li helped Yun Huizhou wrap the weapons in the bandits’ clothes, he pondered these matters that had absolutely nothing to do with a man of the martial world like himself.

After securing the weapons onto the horses’ backs, Yun Huizhou and Lian Li each chose a horse, preparing to return to the small border town to dispose of the goods.

There were also the people who had been watching them in the town; they needed to deal with them as well.

This was to prevent those people from seeing them return safely with the bandits’ belongings and then reporting back to the bandit nest.

Though, in truth, if it were a small-scale bandit nest, it wouldn’t matter if they reported back.

Having the bandits come looking for trouble was safer than them going to raid a bandit nest themselves.

Yun Huizhou calculated in his mind whether he should let one person go and then follow them to see if it was a large or small bandit group.

The two of them slowly made their way back along the path they had come.

Lian Li sat on his horse with his eyes closed, recovering his internal energy.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked in a certain direction. “Yun Huizhou, did you hear that?”

Yun Huizhou nodded. “I heard it. There’s the sound of fighting. It sounds like more horse bandits are active.”

Lian Li felt that the internal energy in his body had mostly recovered, so he said, “Should we go take a look?”

Yun Huizhou turned his horse’s head. “Let’s go. If it’s bandits fighting each other, we’ll look for a chance to scavenge. If the bandits are raiding a merchant caravan, these horses and weapons can be sold directly, and we might even net a reward fee.”

In the past, Yun Huizhou didn’t care much for money, but after meeting Lian Li, he realized the boy loved wealth dearly. Subconsciously, he had begun to develop an awareness of making money.

Especially after they had pledged their hearts to each other, he felt an even stronger urge to earn more money to support Lian Li.

The two of them found a massive rock. They took out a bandit’s saber, used internal energy to drive it into the rock, and then tethered the horses to the saber.

These horses had already been calmed down. As long as they weren’t startled into pulling violently, the ropes wouldn’t be cut by the blade.

After arranging for this “little bit of money,” the two of them sped toward the direction of the fighting at their fastest pace.

To Yun Huizhou’s slight disappointment, it was two groups of horse bandits fighting each other, not bandits raiding a caravan.

Lian Li didn’t think that way. He felt it was fortunate that it was two groups of bandits fighting; if a caravan had encountered bandits, there would surely be casualties even if they came to help.

Since it was two groups of bandits fighting, the two were in no hurry to reveal themselves. they planned to wait until the fight was nearly over before making a move.

The two lay prone on a sand dune, looking down.

These two groups of bandits were roughly equal in number, totaling over two hundred people.

When horse bandits went out to patrol or raid, they usually moved in groups of forty or fifty. Such a number, combined with their horses, equipment, and the fact that everyone knew a bit of martial arts, was already a terrifying force.

It was more than enough to raid an average merchant caravan. If they encountered a particularly powerful caravan with over a hundred guards and high-level martial artists, they wouldn’t attack directly.

Instead, they would keep watch and call for reinforcements before moving in.

Seeing two groups of over a hundred wandering about at once was truly a rare occurrence.

These two groups must have been fighting for a while. Many corpses of horses and bandits already littered the ground. Some of the horses’ legs had been hacked off and they lay on the ground struggling in agony, not yet dead.

It was already afternoon when Lian Li and Yun Huizhou had set out, and by the time they finished off the first batch of bandits, it was getting late.

Now, after crouching on the sand dune for a while, they felt the sun beginning to dip toward the west.

More than half of these two groups of bandits were dead or wounded, yet they showed no intention of stopping or retreating.

Logically speaking, even if there were grudges between bandits, they would never fight a battle where they “killed a thousand enemies at the cost of eight hundred of their own.”

They usually looked for opportunities to use superior numbers against a few, annihilating the opponent with the smallest possible cost.

Furthermore, different bandit groups had their own territories; under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t fight each other.

The current situation between these two groups was quite abnormal.

“Something’s wrong,” Yun Huizhou suddenly spoke up. “There should be three groups of horse bandits here.”