get-shopping Chapter 148 Settling everyone in and taking stock of the spoils
Chapter 148 Settling everyone in and taking stock of the spoils
Chapter 148 Settling everyone in and taking stock of the spoils
At the foot of Mount Daze, in the dim, dense forest, Sun Biao, along with the few remaining bodyguards and the caravan survivors, sat around a campfire, silent and staring blankly at the leaping flames.
They stared at the flames, while the able-bodied young refugees stared back at them.
Holding the scimitar dropped by the bandits, Lin Yuanping rubbed his dry eyes with his free hand, picked out a piece of yellowish-green secretion, and pointed it at the tree bark.
Looking up at the sky, he was surprised to find that a whole night had passed without his noticing, and the sky was beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn.
Fan Jin yawned, walked over, and leaned against the tree trunk. "It's been almost a night, and the Taoist priest still hasn't returned. Could it be...?"
"Shut your mouth! The Daoist is blessed with good fortune, how could he... how could he do such a thing?" Lin Yuanping frowned, forgetting to remind Fan Jin that there was his eye boogers on that piece of bark.
"You're right. The Taoist priest is incredibly powerful; surely a small den of thieves wouldn't be a problem for him."
Fan Jin also prayed in his heart that the red-robed Taoist would be safe and sound.
"By the way, how are those three girls doing now?" Lin Yuanping casually mentioned it when he remembered it.
"He's awake now, although we scared him quite a bit, but thankfully we managed to calm him down."
He pointed to the area where refugees were gathered, where three girls were huddled together, shivering.
These three sheltered young ladies were probably seeing so many skinny refugees for the first time, and they were quite frightened.
Lin Yuanping sighed and said something like, "Back then, I was also a young swordsman in white," but Fan Jin ignored him and looked at the path leading up the mountain behind him, his eyes lighting up.
A figure dressed in red crane robes appeared abruptly, without warning, just as he had left.
His lips moved, and Fan Jin's attitude clearly became respectful. He uttered two words: "Daoist Master!"
"Taoist Master?" Lin Yuanping's vision blurred, and the next moment, he saw a red figure appear before him.
Compared to when he left, the Taoist priest hadn't changed much; there wasn't even a trace of blood on him, as if he hadn't gone to kill anyone but had just taken a stroll in the woods.
If it weren't for the strong smell of blood emanating from him, as if he had been bathed in blood, the two of them might have thought that way.
"I have cleared out Zeshan Village, leaving only innocent civilians who were captured there. Pack your things and take your men to Zeshan Village."
After a pause, Modi added, "From now on, that place is our territory."
Upon learning of this, the two were initially taken aback, but then their joy was visibly evident.
Overwhelmed with excitement and agitation, the news acted like an adrenaline rush, dispelling their sleeplessness from a sleepless night.
Only by becoming a homeless person and experiencing the pain of homelessness can one truly understand how precious home is.
When the two men told the news to all the refugees, the numbness in their eyes gradually melted away, and hope shone in their pupils.
Some of them began to sob softly, their eyes, which had not shed tears for a long time, becoming moist again.
"Sister Qiao'er, what's wrong with them?" The youngest and most lively of the three girls asked curiously.
The person she was questioning was the most mature and oldest of the three.
"This... I'm not sure either." Su Qiao'er shook her head, hesitatingly saying, "Perhaps it's tears of joy?"
"Really? It's just letting them stay in the bandit camp, why are they so happy?" another girl asked, puzzled.
"Exactly, if I had to stay in a bandit camp, I don't know if I could even survive a day." The lively girl looked troubled. "By the way, are we going to have to stay in a bandit camp too?"
Su Qiao'er pursed her lips, still shaking her head, and advised, "You shouldn't be so talkative, don't say things you shouldn't say... You should know that whether we can go home depends on whether that Taoist priest agrees."
She looked towards the other side of the woods, her gaze falling on the red-robed Taoist priest, her beautiful eyes sparkling with curiosity, nervousness, and a hint of anticipation.
From the refugees, she learned that this Taoist priest was their leader, and that he had killed all the mountain bandits and even stormed Zeshan Village to eliminate the Zeshan thieves who had been entrenched there.
Unlike the other two, Su Qiao'er had a family member who had joined the Hidden Sword Peak, and she had been fond of martial arts since childhood, and also had some knowledge of the Zeshan bandits.
Therefore, she was both curious and admiring of the Taoist priest who had solved a major problem for Tianyong City.
With the intention of asking the Taoist priest some questions, she started walking towards the edge of the woods.
"Master, I've heard that you're going to Tianyong City to watch the Five Sects Grand Competition. Coincidentally, we're also heading back to Tianyong City. Would you do us the honor of accompanying us?"
Sun Biao fawned over him, his face full of obsequiousness, his attitude as humble as could be.
He was truly terrified, not only of the potential accidents on the road, but also of the Zhao family behind the Fufeng Chamber of Commerce targeting him.
If he could cling to the Taoist's powerful backer, he would feel much safer. After glancing at him, Mo Di did not refuse, but said, "I have to wait until I settle the others first, which may take a few days."
"No problem, you can wait as long as you want." Sun Biao was overjoyed. Su Qiao'er happened to overhear their conversation. After hesitating for a moment, she stepped forward and said, "Su Qiao'er greets the Daoist Master."
After bowing, she sincerely thanked him, saying, "Thank you so much for saving us, Daoist Master. If it weren't for you, the three of us would probably have been captured and taken to Daze Mountain. Even if we had a chance to escape, we wouldn't have had the face to live on..."
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As she said this, a hint of lingering fear flashed across her face, making her look pitiful.
But her gesture was undoubtedly a flirtatious act directed at a blind man.
Modi remained unmoved. His heart was small, and he could not accommodate anyone except a certain flaxen-colored girl with a candy-smiling face.
"It's true that I might not have the face to live on, since I've already been eaten..." Thinking of Zeshan Dao's character, he nodded and muttered to himself.
"Eaten?" Su Qiao'er looked puzzled. She didn't know the deeper secrets of the Zeshan bandits and only thought they were an ordinary group of mountain bandits.
"Nothing much. What brings you here?"
To stop the girl from having nightmares, Modi changed the subject.
Su Qiao'er had no choice but to reveal her purpose: "Daoist Master, to be honest, I am from Tianyong City. I heard that you intend to go to Tianyong City. If you don't mind, I would like to be your guide."
"If only you could take the three of us sisters back to the city with you."
She looked at the two girls on the other side of the woods.
Modi nodded slightly. "It's fine to bring you along, it's just a small favor. As for Director Xiang, there's no need for that."
This girl clearly has connections and is very troublesome. He doesn't want to have anything to do with her or her family.
Moreover, when he saves people, he does it on a whim, not out of a desire for repayment, so there's no need to maintain a relationship with him.
We met by chance, our acquaintances ended with a nod, and there was no need for anything more.
A hint of disappointment flashed in Su Qiao'er's eyes, but she maintained her smile and said, "This humble woman thanks the Daoist Master."
During the conversation, the refugees had already packed their belongings; in fact, they hadn't brought much with them.
A bowl handed down by Modi, a wooden stick or a stone for self-defense, plus wild vegetables and mushrooms picked at random—that was all their luggage.
What really needs to be packed up are the boxes belonging to the Fufeng Chamber of Commerce.
Bathed in the dawn sunlight, hundreds of people followed the red-robed Taoist through the mountains and forests, heading straight for Zeshan Village deep in Dazeshan.
As the sun rose and a thin layer of morning mist appeared in the mountains and forests, they arrived at their destination, Zeshan Village.
A gentle breeze wafted by, carrying a faint smell of blood into his nostrils. Fan Jin looked through the large hole in the bandit stronghold's gate into the village, only to find it completely empty, without a single person in sight.
Passing through the gate, he saw a large crater in the open space, which looked like it had been deliberately smashed out, appearing unusually abrupt.
Looking around, the entire mountain stronghold was clean and tidy, with no dismembered bodies or pools of blood. It seemed that the bandits here had a completely different fate from those below the mountain.
At least they weren't beaten up everywhere.
Unlike Fan Jin, Lin Yuanping, who had practiced martial arts, easily noticed the clues.
"This bloody smell, though very faint, can still linger even after all the corpses and bloodstains have disappeared. It must have taken a lot of people dying in a short period of time to form it."
He swallowed hard, silently estimating how many bandits a bandit stronghold as large as Zeshan Village would have.
"Several hundred? Thousands?"
Thinking of this, his gaze toward the red-robed Taoist priest held not only respect but also a touch of admiration.
What kind of power is needed to slaughter a bandit stronghold of a thousand people in one night?
Filled with reverence, for a moment, he felt that the smell of blood in the wind was no longer pungent.
"Fan Jin, Lin Yuanping, you two, assign them housing and work. If they need food or tools, they can take them from the warehouse."
"Some of the civilians captured by the Zeshan bandits are willing to stay. We should treat them equally. Can you do the above?"
Modi glanced at them and, seeing that they all nodded in agreement, flicked his sleeves and walked toward a solitary house at the back of the village.
He reaped considerable rewards from annihilating the Zeshan bandits and planned to use these few days to study the lineage of the Feast Cult.
He casually found a tiger-skin cushion, sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and let his consciousness sink into his dantian, his mind sweeping through all the cultivation techniques and scriptures he had obtained.
The Four Qi and Four Seasons Chapter, the Five Flavors and Five Organs Theory, the Theory of the Prosperity of Qi, Blood and Nutrition, and the Sword Manual for Exorcising Evil—these belong to internal cultivation and are the fundamental methods.
Techniques such as the Carp Flying Knife, the Spicy and Hot Qi Explosion Technique, and the Sour and Sweet Poisonous Cloud Miasma belong to external martial arts and are protective martial arts.
"The technique of pungent and hot gas explosion is probably the self-destruction technique that Wei Dailiang used before his death. It involves modifying the structure of the stomach to store a large amount of flammable and explosive gas, which is then ignited by pungent and hot gas or suppressed by bitter and cold gas."
"I've never seen anyone use the Acid-Sweet Poisonous Cloud Miasma. It also requires modifying the body's structure to store the Acid-Sweet Poisonous Cloud Miasma, which is then spat out when encountering an enemy. It can even corrode steel."
"And then there's this Salty Cooling and Dampness-Dispelling Palm, which can absorb all the moisture from a person's body with a single strike, turning them into a dried-up corpse... Speaking of which, most of my martial arts skills came from the Feasting Sect, so doesn't that make me a half-disciple of the Feasting Sect?"
Modi thought for a moment, then slapped his forehead and suddenly realized.
What kind of disciples are these? They are clearly the ones who inherited the will of the first leader, You Qingnang, and were determined to carry forward the original doctrines.
He was simply reclaiming the inheritance he had entrusted to others, just as he had temporarily entrusted the throne of the Great Qian Dynasty to the reigning emperor.