Whether or not they had truly come to put down a rebellion, that was at least why they had come. Seeing a crowd charge out of the cave, they immediately drew their weapons in a clattering rush.
When those charging out of the cave saw the newcomers drawing weapons on them, anyone armed immediately raised his own to fight back. The tension on the miners' faces was plain to see; they had no idea what was happening.
Those arriving from outside shouted, "Drop your weapons!"
Their companions joined in with threats.
Those coming out of the cave roared, "What do you want?"
The crowd parted, and Shen Youkun emerged. Pointing at the group rushing toward them, he barked, "What do you want? Are you tired of living?"
Despite losing his cultivation, he remained as overbearing as ever before those coldly gleaming blades. Clearly, he thought nothing of these natives. It was a bad habit they had indulged, too; the chief of the Eastern Nine Plains, for instance, refused to indulge him, and Shen Youkun was somewhat afraid of him.
At the sight of him, the newcomers lowered their blades one after another. The man in front asked in bewilderment, "Mr. Shen, you're all right?"
"What could have happened to me? Why did you come in instead of guarding outside?" Shen Youkun snapped. He had been counting on these fellows to stop anyone escaping.
Once the two sides compared accounts, the situation was obvious. Shen Youkun flew into a towering rage and cursed, "A pack of fools!"
After they confirmed there was no danger, Qi Ziru was carried forward as well. His measured voice overrode the agitated Shen Youkun. "Was there only one person who broke out?"
He wanted to make sure. If it really had been one man, someone who dared to brave danger alone and play them all for fools, he would have to regard him more highly.
"Yes, just one."
"We only saw one."
"No, there was also a miner lying not far from the entrance. He looked badly injured and unconscious, but that could have been an act too."
"Oh, right. If the miners' rebellion was fake, that supposedly badly injured, unconscious miner could have been faking too."
Amid the replies, a guard who had originally been stationed at the entrance added, "That miner was the tallest one, that big fellow. He really stood out. I remember him going in and out several times."
At those words, Shen Youkun suddenly muttered blankly, "The big fellow, two people..."
At the same time, the moment when he had nearly collided with a tall man at the entrance flashed through his mind. With a sharp smack, he slapped himself hard across the face, then said in mounting fury, "It was them! Uncle, it was..."
Qi Ziru cut him off decisively. "Shut up. Seal off the entrance first."
Shen Youkun said urgently, "Uncle, I know who it was. It was..."
Qi Ziru suddenly snapped, "I told you to shut up!"
"..." Shen Youkun immediately fell silent. His uncle was genuinely angry, and he could only obediently hold his tongue.
Under Qi Ziru's direction, everyone swiftly chased outside.
By the time the crowd poured out of the mine, dusk had fallen. Not a single soul was anywhere to be seen.
Qi Ziru did not let them scatter to pursue or search. Instead, he said openly before everyone: who could guarantee the culprit had not laid a false trail and was actually still hiding inside the cave? Who could guarantee the culprit had not slipped among them in the confusion?
They counted everyone present and found five overseers missing.
Nor did Qi Ziru remove the masked men's coverings to inspect them one by one.
Some of those earning this pay had reputations of one sort or another. They were willing to let Shen Youkun know who they were, but not to reveal their true faces before everyone. That, however, was not why Qi Ziru refrained from checking.
Qi Ziru did not send the guards who had been secretly stationed around the area back to their posts either. He left only a few men to seal off the entrance and put all the remaining manpower into the excavation teams, ordering them to uncover every remaining part of the skeleton inside the mine as quickly as possible.
He accepted the two overseers' suggestion: there was no need to carry the earth and rubble outside. They could dump it into nearby tunnels. In short, speed was everything.
Only after arranging all this did Qi Ziru laboriously rise from his reclining chair. He raised a hand to stop the chair bearers from accompanying him and strolled through the valley, with Shen Youkun alone following.
Shen Youkun looked around with obvious nervousness. Now that he knew who was causing trouble, leaving the circle of protection truly made him a little afraid the culprit might suddenly spring out.
Once no one else was nearby, Qi Ziru stopped. He glanced at his nephew, then gazed toward the darkening horizon. "No need to be nervous. They already have what they came for. They're busy fleeing for their lives."
Those words did reassure Shen Youkun. He looked back at the entrance, pondering his uncle's intentions. If he was certain the culprits had fled, why had he said they might still be inside and sealed off the cave?
Qi Ziru's voice broke into his thoughts. "Did that chief pay us a visit?"
Shen Youkun immediately perked up. "Exactly. 'Spring Fever' and 'No Weight' came. Only after the entrance guard reminded me did I remember that I must have come face-to-face with Wu Jinliang there. I was so focused on finding you earlier that I overlooked him."
Qi Ziru clicked his tongue and sighed. "So it really was them! A mere two men dared brazenly slip among so many people and do as they pleased. They even dared bring in that conspicuously tall fellow. They treated us as though we didn't exist. What nerve! Not only did they run circles around us, they took the treasure as easily as reaching into a pocket. He truly is someone to be reckoned with!
"No wonder you preferred to spare no expense getting them sent away rather than confront them head-on. You had already learned your lesson thoroughly, yet you refused to tell me beforehand. Had I known he was a man with such abilities, how could I have left you to handle things so casually? How could I have let him succeed so easily?"
Shen Youkun muttered somewhat guiltily, "Back in the mine, I'd already guessed it was them and wanted to tell you. But you scolded me and wouldn't let me speak."
What he meant was: See? When I want to tell you something, you won't let me. When I don't want to tell you, you blame me for not saying it. How am I supposed to get it right?
Physically and mentally unwell, Qi Ziru had not wanted to lose his temper, but now his expression changed despite himself, and he cursed, "Fool! Haven't you said enough already? With what you've said, anyone who takes the trouble to investigate could guess who took the treasure.
"Until we catch them, no outsider must learn who stole it. Only our own people can pursue them, or neither of us will be able to answer to the Lineage. Do you want to draw other powers into the fight for the treasure? Not one person who heard you today can be left alive!"
Speechless, Shen Youkun choked back words several times before finally realizing his brain had been missing a string.
Guiltily, he changed the subject. "Uncle, that bastard is cunning. Now that he's escaped with the treasure, I'm afraid catching him won't be easy."
Qi Ziru shot him an irritated glance, then clasped his hands behind his back and gazed into the distance, saying slowly, "Unless something unexpected happens, he shouldn't get away."
Shen Youkun froze. "He won't get away?"
He did not know whether his uncle meant right now or that the man would eventually be caught. Judging by his leisurely composure, it seemed to be the former. Vaguely realizing something, Shen Youkun could not help looking around.
Qi Ziru snorted. "With such an important task entrusted to us by the Lineage, did you think I would pin all my hopes on you? While you were recruiting men, I contacted another force here as a backup. If you proved capable, fine. If not, someone could take over at any time.
"When I received your message confirming you had found the object and came here, I surveyed the surrounding terrain along the way. I stationed men in ambush along several likely routes they would have to take. I gave the order long ago: anyone discovered leaving this place without my permission is not to be allowed through!"
Shen Youkun could understand such arrangements, meant to catch any fish that slipped through the net and secretly fled. Still, he asked doubtfully, "How many men did you station? The surrounding area is so large, and there are too many routes to escape by."
Qi Ziru said, "He fears pursuit. Over the short term, he'll be in a hurry to get as far away as possible, so he should take the easiest escape routes. The chances of his running into them should be quite high."
Shen Youkun remained worried. "Uncle, that bastard isn't just crafty. He's a capable fighter by the standards here. If the men blocking him are too thinly spread, they might not be able to stop him."
Over such a large area, he did not believe his uncle could have stationed large groups everywhere, nor could he have assembled such an extravagant force in this land of exile.
"He won't get away unless he slips through a gap. Once he's spotted, even if he's at the advanced martial realm, he won't escape!" Confidence lay beneath Qi Ziru's calm reply.
The eyes in Shen Youkun's brutish face blinked again and again. He understood now: his uncle had prepared his backup thoroughly. He immediately grew excited, eagerly imagining what would happen once that scoundrel Shi Chun fell into his hands. He could not help grinding his molars.
Qi Ziru paid no attention to his reaction. Lowering his head, he began pacing and murmuring thoughtfully to himself, "What exactly was that purple-glittering nebula? Does the Lineage know about it or not? They probably don't. Otherwise, with something so important, they couldn't possibly have failed to inform us beforehand..."
What he was considering now was whether to conceal this from the Lineage if they failed to stop the chief and let him escape. After all, everyone who knew anything about it would be silenced afterward.
People readily harbored selfish motives and considered their own interests. He worried that this blunder would incur the Lineage's displeasure and jeopardize his early departure from this place. After all, he had already found what the Lineage wanted, and he truly did not want fresh branches growing from the trunk.
Despite his brimming confidence before his nephew, the ability that chief had shown while running rings around them still rankled. Deep down, he was not entirely sure...
Having hurried to a spot among the mountains, Shi Chun and Wu Jinliang moved aside a large boulder and pulled out two bundles of clothes. They normally had clothes to wear when they went out, too; after all, they represented the face of the Eastern Nine Plains.
They also retrieved two weapons from the pit: two sabers, one large and one small.
The small one was not actually small. It was the size of an ordinary saber, only looking small beside the larger one, and had a scabbard wrapped all over with strips of cloth.
The large saber had no scabbard. Black from end to end, it was nearly five feet long and almost a foot wide, with a spine as thick as a fist. It was an enormous, heavy thing, yet Wu Jinliang swung it up with one hand and rested it on his shoulder.
The saber had no special origin. He had forged it himself at a blacksmith's shop, simply because the blacksmith had told him to use as much material as he liked. Following the principle that only a fool passed up a bargain, he had used a generous amount to forge one himself. Later, he discovered that such a big weapon had its own advantages in a fight, and with repeated use, he grew accustomed to it.
Ordinarily, when Shi Chun wanted to cut a dashing figure, he let Wu Jinliang carry his saber too. Now that they needed to protect themselves while fleeing for their lives, there was naturally no need for that.
After putting the boulder back, the two grabbed their sabers and bundles and swiftly fled again.
All along the way, they followed gullies and other low-lying terrain, not daring to head for higher ground where they could easily be spotted. Only when they occasionally wanted to check behind them did they detour up a nearby hill to look for pursuers.
After running for another stretch and doing the same again, Shi Chun glanced back several times and was about to plunge into a gully when he suddenly reached out and pressed down on Wu Jinliang's shoulder. Both came to an abrupt halt halfway down the slope.
Wu Jinliang was about to ask what was wrong, but before he could speak, Shi Chun was already scanning their surroundings warily. "Something's wrong!"
He immediately turned back, crept to the summit again, and lay prone, looking back over their route.
Wu Jinliang crept up beside him and finally asked, "What's wrong?"
Shi Chun said gravely, "It's too quiet. We haven't seen anyone chasing us this whole way. Do you think it's normal for them to just let us escape like this?"