Kind or Cunning?

No one paid any attention to Wang Qi's polite calls at the door, no matter how sincere he tried to sound.

Ran Jiao finally lost patience. She briskly kicked the door, sending its wooden planks flying and revealing a trembling elderly couple inside...

"We ask, you answer. Understood?" Ran Jiao said, her voice cold and sharp.

The elderly couple, gray-haired, withered, and stooped, nodded repeatedly, their terror plain on their faces.

Ran Jiao's large hood concealed her expression, but she tilted her head toward Wang Qi... Was that his cue to start questioning them?

Wang Qi: "..."

That really was simple and brutal.

His gaze swept swiftly over the little wooden hut. It truly deserved the description "a home with nothing but four bare walls"... The only slightly better sign was that something seemed to have been stewing over the hearth by the door, though that too had been overturned by her kick.

He looked at what had spilled across the ground, and his heart suddenly grew heavy... It was a pot of wild greens soup.

Of course. They were dirt-poor commoners living beside the mountain wilderness. When there was nothing to eat in winter, what else could they do but dig up wild greens and roots? If they were lucky, they would hold out until next autumn's harvest. If they were unlucky...

With a heavy heart, Wang Qi suddenly asked, "What happened to the grain you grew yourselves?"

That was what puzzled him. This year's harvest had clearly been decent, so why were the elderly in these two villages reduced to eating wild greens?

He pressed further. "Were you plundered by bandits?"

The two elders shook their heads repeatedly.

He asked again, "Where did the villagers go?"

The two elders still shook their heads.

Ran Jiao's expression chilled at this. She reached to draw her weapon and intimidate them...

But Wang Qi pressed down on her hand and said, "Forget it. We should have a pretty good idea of what happened by now."

Ran Jiao was slightly taken aback, but she respected his wishes enough to say nothing more.

Wang Qi had turned his back to the couple to face her, however, and failed to notice their movements behind him...

Startled, he felt a rush of air behind his head. The time he had spent training his Internal Qi's reaction speed with mosquitoes and other insects now paid off... His Internal Qi gathered directly at the back of his head, then generated force!

Thump!

He felt something strike the back of his head, but barely felt the impact.

Turning to look, he saw that the old man had already stumbled backward, a broken rattan cane still in his hand.

The old man and woman were deathly pale, their terror obvious, yet they stared stubbornly at Wang Qi and Ran Jiao without attempting to defend themselves.

Without another word, Wang Qi abruptly grabbed the hand of Ran Jiao, who was already preparing to draw her blade, and pulled her outside.

"Let go of me!"

Once they were outside the hut, Ran Jiao issued her warning in an icy voice.

Wang Qi did not let go, but said evenly, with a hint of pleading, "They don't look as though they'll survive this winter anyway. Can't we just leave them to their fate?"

"You want me to spare people who side with bandits?!" Ran Jiao could not understand him at all.

"Don't forget the purpose of this operation," Wang Qi said. "The whole point is to reduce the killing!"

She asked coldly, "Do you know where all the able-bodied villagers went? And where all their grain went?"

"I know. They all joined the bandits," Wang Qi said as he walked toward the edge of the village. "But since the higher-ups have decided to execute only the ringleaders, these people will still return to their fields afterward and keep scraping by... As long as we move quickly enough that they don't miss the spring planting."

Although Ran Jiao continued to criticize Wang Qi, she made no further move to attack and followed him out of the village.

Instead, she began disparaging him from another angle. "You're too softhearted. You don't seem suited to our line of work."

Wang Qi shook his head. "I just think ordinary people's lives are already hard enough. There's no need to keep hunting them down to the last soul."

Ran Jiao still sneered at his words. "Naive. They won't remember your kindness."

Wang Qi pointed to his chest. "I know. But my heart is steady right now. I don't think I did anything wrong."

Ran Jiao seemed to have had enough of his naivety. Folding her arms across her chest, she said, "You're still a sixteen-year-old child who hasn't seen how cruel this world can be... You think you did nothing wrong? Then let's wait and see."

With that, she stopped arguing and silently moved to pass Wang Qi and leave the village...

But Wang Qi called her back. "Where are you going?"

"Leaving, of course," Ran Jiao answered irritably. "Our whereabouts have been exposed. Surely you don't think those two old fools won't report us just because you showed them a moment's kindness?"

Wang Qi nodded confidently. "All the able-bodied villagers were dragged off to join the bandits, so those elders must be on their side too... But we're looking for those bandits' trail in the first place. Isn't it better to have someone lead the way?"

"Let's hide around the village and watch for a while. I'm sure we'll have results soon."

This time, Ran Jiao was truly dumbfounded. She had just called Wang Qi naive, yet now, with a mere change of angle, his earlier "naive kindness" had become "insidious cunning."

For some reason, Ran Jiao, who had been mocking him moments earlier, now felt as uncomfortable as if she had swallowed a fly. "Did you plan from the start to use them reporting us to find the bandits' trail?"

"Wanting to spare their lives and wanting to find the bandits' trail don't contradict each other," Wang Qi replied. "If I can accomplish both, why wouldn't I?"

He pointed to his chest again and told the young woman beside him, "Like I said, everything here is perfectly steady. So there's really no need to worry, all right?"

Ran Jiao said nothing more, partly out of pique and partly because Wang Qi's way of thinking had genuinely startled her...

Just then, she had vaguely begun to understand his thinking: he had spared those two elders out of the kindness in his heart, and his conscience was clear.

Yet that did not stop him from believing in the darkness-or rather, the complexity-of human hearts, then using the opportunity to achieve their objective.

Neither spoke further. They hid at opposite ends of the village, waiting for any action the "elders left behind" might take...

Sure enough, after only two hours, they saw the old man from earlier emerge from the back of the village on his unsteady legs, then hobble toward the mountains farther west.

Only after the old man's retreating figure had gone some distance did Wang Qi and Ran Jiao emerge behind him... He was moving slowly enough that there was no danger of losing him.

"What do we do next?" Wang Qi asked. "Follow him ourselves first, or contact the others first?"

Ran Jiao countered, "Don't you want to keep all the credit for yourself?"

"I just want to save myself some effort," Wang Qi said frankly. "Besides, for our Scout Battalion, being the first to find the target's trail is already the foremost contribution. There's nothing wrong with sharing some of the credit with our fellow soldiers."

Ran Jiao could not help rolling her eyes. "You really don't think like someone your age."

But then she added, "We'll send word once we've fully confirmed their location. There's no rush now."

"Sure," Wang Qi readily agreed.

Overall, partnering with Ran Jiao was quite pleasant. He silently counted himself lucky, feeling that another partner probably would not have accepted his suggestions so easily.