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Inside a house in the northern district of Mingxiang Village.

Smoke hung in the air, refusing to clear. The mood was grim, and no one spoke.

Three burly men in coarse linen clothes sat with lit cigarettes between their lips, drawing in smoke and blowing it out. Each time one burned down, they lit another.

All three were members of a bandit gang that could no longer survive in the wilderness outside the city after the war in the west began.

Suddenly, someone hurried in.

"Boss, that couple from Red Moon Stronghold has been caught!"

Ye Changrong's face was full of fear. His legs felt weak, and even his voice trembled.

"How many times do I have to tell you? What good does panicking do? Make a racket like that, and if they find us, none of us will get away."

Lu Jinyi glared at Ye Changrong, took a hard drag on his cigarette, and cursed under his breath.

As their leader, he had to maintain an air of authority in front of his men at all times. Smoking was the only way he could hide his own anxiety.

"Fourth Brother, have a cigarette and calm down. Then tell us what you saw."

Han Jingfei, the third brother, took a cigarette from a pack on the nearby table, stood up, and handed it to Ye Changrong.

Ye Changrong accepted it and pulled his lighter from his pocket. But after several tries, his thumb kept slipping, and he even dropped the cigarette from between his fingers.

Han Jingfei could only step forward and light it for him, looking helpless.

"Boss, this looks bad. Should we get out through the tunnel now?"

Jiang Yisheng, the second brother, watched Ye Changrong lose his composure. Afraid they might soon be too late to escape, he made the suggestion.

Lu Jinyi glanced at him, thought for a few seconds, then said:

"It's not the City Patrol's first time checking households here. They don't move that fast. Let's hear what Fourth Brother has to say first."

He was deeply unhappy with the second brother. Jiang Yisheng was the second strongest of the four, yet his first thought when things looked bad was to run. How could Lu Jinyi rely on a man like that?

Phew!

Half a cigarette later, Ye Changrong finally stopped trembling.

"Five people came with the City Patrol today. Two blocked off either end of the road, and the other three handled the checks."

Ye Changrong carefully went over what he had seen and told them.

"They can't seal off all of Mingxiang Village with so few people, can they?"

Lu Jinyi breathed a sigh of relief. More than half his worry vanished.

"No. Today they only blocked the road from the northern entrance to the village center. I checked the other two exits from a distance and didn't see anyone from the City Patrol."

"Forget all that. Get to the point. How strong are the people in this patrol?"

Lu Jinyi had lost the patience to hear Ye Changrong tell the story from the beginning.

"Oh. I saw a young man send Zhao Baolong flying with one punch. He knocked down half a courtyard wall. I don't know what happened after that."

At the question, Ye Changrong immediately told them what he had seen of the fight.

Lu Jinyi sucked in a sharp breath. The worry he had just put aside came rushing back.

Right then, he wanted to give Ye Changrong a beating.

"What was the point of rushing back so soon? You didn't see what happened next or even which side won! What use are you?"

Lu Jinyi let loose a stream of abuse, but partway through, a thought struck him, and his voice gradually faded.

His face was flushed with anger. Ye Changrong had failed to check the most important thing, making the news he brought back little better than no news at all.

"I..."

Startled by Lu Jinyi's expression, Ye Changrong stammered, unable to answer.

"There's nothing left to think about, Boss. Let's take the tunnel out and hide for a while."

Jiang Yisheng made the suggestion again.

"That's all we can do. Next time, Ye Changrong, you're not gathering information. Han Jingfei, you do it."

Lu Jinyi left them with that, then got up and went into the room for his luggage without another glance.

There was not much to carry, just two bundles containing their more valuable possessions.

"Come on, Boss. If Fourth Brother isn't gathering information, what good is he?"

Han Jingfei immediately tried to get out of it. The concern he had shown Ye Changrong when lighting his cigarette was nowhere to be seen.

The four brothers quickly packed and left through a tunnel they had dug in advance beneath the kitchen floor.

The tunnel emerged in a patch of weeds east of the village. They had deliberately scattered junk over the exit, using it and the half-meter-high weeds as cover.

In the courtyard where half the wall had collapsed.

Zhao Baolong still lay on the ground. Dong Fen crouched beside him, quietly comforting her dejected husband.

Chen Shaojie and He Chunping laid out everything they had found on the couple so Chen Yiming could examine it piece by piece.

"Did you search the rooms thoroughly?"

Chen Yiming gave the items on the ground a quick look, then asked Chen Shaojie and He Chunping.

He had never studied how to conduct a search himself and might not do a better job than either of them. He could only trust them.

"Advisor Chen, Chen Shaojie and I searched three times. We checked every corner. Everything we could find is here."

He Chunping answered earnestly, relieved that she had not spent the entire job standing around doing nothing.

"The woman hasn't been completely searched, though."

Chen Shaojie added this quietly from the side.

Both of his colleagues at the scene held proper jobs. He Chunping had been too embarrassed to search Dong Fen too thoroughly in front of everyone, yet lacked the courage to take her into a room alone to check. She had only given her a cursory search on the spot.

At those words, Zhao Baolong's breath caught. Phlegm lodged in his throat, and his bloodshot eyes filled with a fury that was almost tangible.

Dong Fen hurriedly helped him sit halfway up, patting his back until he coughed up the phlegm.

"Cousin, why don't you take the woman into a room and check her? He Chunping and I can wait outside."

Chen Shaojie knew the two sides had already made enemies of each other. Remembering how the woman had looked at him as if she wanted him dead, he let a wicked idea take hold.

Zhao Baolong was already furious. Now he could no longer hold it in and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Dong Fen's face flushed with shame and anger at those words. She froze, completely forgetting that Zhao Baolong was coughing up blood beside her.

In wilderness bandit gangs like Red Moon Stronghold, strength ruled everything. When a woman's husband died, another powerful man usually took her for himself soon after.

There were exceptions. Sometimes a man stronger than her husband simply abducted her.

Chen Yiming, without question, surpassed every standard she had for a partner.

Deep down, she had already begun to waver. Should she abandon Zhao Baolong? Even if she could only be Chen Yiming's lover, at least she might escape being sent to the front lines to work as a prisoner.

She knew full well how dangerous the wilderness was.

After the leader of Red Moon Stronghold, who had undergone three bodily transformations, died unexpectedly, the entire bandit gang had been forced to disband on the spot. Each member had to find a way back to the city.

The battlefield where they fought creatures from Otherworld would be even more dangerous. With only two bodily transformations, she probably did not even qualify as cannon fodder. Her chances of surviving were almost nonexistent.