"...This is very strange," the leader said.
One of his subordinates asked, "Boss, what's strange about it?"
The leader glared at his subordinate, who clearly hadn't learned a thing, and snapped, "What's that thing on your neck for, decoration? You fought them during the day and took a good chunk out of them. They're trapped in the mountains in the middle of the night and can't get down. Never mind that we might come back to kill them—if we don't, the wild beasts and birds of prey will still give them plenty to worry about. You think it's normal for them to be sleeping so soundly?"
The subordinate had to admit that made sense.
The leader glanced toward Shen Tang's camp and guessed, "There must be an ambush nearby, waiting for us to walk into a trap and get ourselves killed."
The subordinate hesitated. "So, are we attacking or not?"
A snort of laughter escaped the leader's nose.
"Since we're already here, we can't go back empty-handed. An ambush only counts as one if it catches them by surprise. If they see through it, it's a joke. You—take six men and go this way. You two—take ten men and go up that way... Ninth and Old Ma, take some men... Everyone else, follow from behind!"
He didn't send everyone charging in. Instead, he chose to surround the camp from several directions. According to the reports from his men, this caravan's guards had only forty or fifty people left, and every one of them was wounded.
At such a disadvantage, they could only choose to gather their limited forces and use the terrain to determine where to strike. That meant setting an ambush on the mountain path beside the camp.
A small group would pretend to sleep, snoring like thunder to