The Northern Route
The Northern Transit Station is located about three days' journey north of Spirit City, on an old post road nestled between two low mountains. The information Shen Mo received from the middleman was very specific— Ore Core Stone were shipped south from the transit station in batches every half month, with the next batch scheduled to be loaded and dispatched at dawn sixteen days later. The interception window was only the night before loading; during the period when the Ore Core Stone were transferred from the warehouse to the trucks, only two people were on night duty at the transit station.
After listening to Shen Mo's route description Long Tieshan turned the map on the table halfway around and drew a short horizontal line on one of the points with the tip of a burnt twig. "Take the shortcut through the mountains; it'll take three and a half days. Once we arrive, we'll scout the area for a day, observing the shift changes, and then make our move on the second night. Fifteen days isn't a lot of time, but it'll be enough."
"I'll go with you two." Shen Mo looked at Long Tian and Yu Jin. "Mu Shuang and Uncle Tie Shan stayed in the stone house. I've been to the transfer site a few times before when I was escorting goods; I know the way well."
Long Tieshan put down the firewood, glanced at Shen Mo, and said nothing more, only smoothing out the edges of the map. Mu Shuang sat on the threshold and looked up into the house without making a sound. The division of labor was decided in silence— Long Tian, Yu Jin, and Shen Mo would head north to intercept the Ore Core Stone, while the rest would stay in the stone house to move deeper into the mountains in case of any changes.
The departure was scheduled for the following morning. That night, Long Tian didn't practice Closed Circuit. Instead, he sat by the stove and checked everything he needed to bring. He carefully stored the crystal close to his body, and the Origin Return Pearl continued to rotate slowly in his dantian, its resonance with the crystal pulsating steadily in the quiet. Yu Jin retied his old cloth bundle, made sure the water bag and dry rations were packed tightly, and then touched the gray stone pendant around his neck before feeling at ease.
Before dawn, the three of them left the stone house. Long Tian walked in front and glanced back as he passed through the pine forest and morning mist. Long Tieshan stood in the open space outside the door, watching them go. It was still dark and his expression was not clear, but his posture was the one he had seen since childhood: feet slightly apart, shoulders slightly hunched, hands hanging at his sides, like seeing off an acquaintance at the entrance of town who was going to the market.
Long Tian withdrew his gaze and continued walking. The path in the pine forest was smoother than before; the moss and decaying leaves underfoot were covered with a layer of spring's new green, soft yet firm to the touch. Yu Jin walked beside him, his breathing even and his steps steady, the aura of his four Soul Ring maintaining a constant, understated flow in his dantian. Shen Mo followed behind them, keeping a distance of about ten steps, his footsteps light and silent.
On the evening of the third day, the three arrived at the hillside outside the transit station. Looking down from the top of the hill, a square courtyard built of bluestone was nestled in the valley, with walls about two zhang high and barbed wire strung on top. On the west side of the courtyard was a row of low warehouses with gray tiled roofs. In front of the warehouses was a heavy horse-drawn cart with a tin-covered cargo bed. In the center of the courtyard was a dimly lit guardhouse, with a shadow cast on the window paper.
Shen Mo crouched in the bushes at the top of the slope, observing for a long time with a short telescope. He put the telescope away and whispered, "There are two guards, one in the guard room and the other patrolling the east side of the courtyard wall, making a round every fifteen minutes. The warehouse door is locked with a simple iron padlock, without any additional restrictions. The Ore Core Stone are packed in wooden crates at the innermost part of the warehouse. When loading them onto the cart, they are dragged from the warehouse door to the cart, a distance of about twenty paces."
"Do the patrolmen have fixed stopping points?" Long Tian also lay down next to him, looking down at the courtyard.
"They would stop for about five breaths under the elm tree in the east corner, with their backs to the warehouse. At that time, the guards' view was blocked by the wall and the carriage, and the warehouse door was in their blind spot."
Long Tian mentally reviewed the layout of the courtyard: the patrol's blind spot was five breaths; the warehouse padlock could be opened in a second with hidden force; the round trip for carrying goods was forty steps for a twenty-step distance; and the noise from moving wooden crates should be minimized. He glanced at Yu Jin, Yu Jin also looking up at him, and the two exchanged a confirming look.
"We'll make our move after nightfall." Shen Mo put away his short-lensed scope and retreated deeper into the bushes. "Let's rest first, and start when the patrolmen stop under the elm tree. I'll carry the wooden crates; you two stay outside the wall to provide backup. If we make any noise, you take the crates and retreat first; I'll cover you from behind."
As night fell completely, the three men crept to the base of the west wall of the courtyard. The patrolmen's footsteps moved steadily from the east corner of the wall, exchanged a few whispered words with the guards in front of the guardhouse, and then continued eastward. Shen Mo counted the footsteps in the shadows at the base of the wall, and the moment the footsteps circled back from the east wall and reached the elm tree, he silently climbed over the wall and landed inside the courtyard.
Long Tian, perched on the wall, watched Shen Mo's figure move along the warehouse wall to the door. His right hand pressed on the padlock, a faint metallic sensation emanating from the lock cylinder, drowned out by the night wind. The sound of the spring snapping open was as light as a dry leaf being torn from a branch by the wind. Shen Mo squeezed through the warehouse door, and a moment later, he slid out, pushing a half-sized wooden crate. The crate, resting on a thick cloth, was dragged almost silently, the only sound the slight friction between the cloth and the ground. He dragged the crate to the base of the wall, where Long Tian and Yu Jin reached over the wall to catch the bottom of the crate, lifting it over the wall and placing it on the slope outside.
As Shen Mo returned to the warehouse to push the second box, the patrolman's footsteps began again from the direction of the east wall. The pace was slightly faster than expected, as if he hadn't stopped under the elm tree along the way. Shen Mo stopped inside the warehouse door. The figure behind the guardhouse window stood up, glanced into the courtyard through the paper window, and then sat back down. The footsteps had already rounded the east wall and were moving steadily towards the west wall.
Shen Mo didn't move. He leaned against the shadows inside the warehouse door, his breathing suppressed, his figure completely swallowed by the darkness within the warehouse. The patrolman's footsteps paused briefly at the base of the west wall—he had stopped somewhere outside the wall. Across the courtyard wall, Long Tian and Yu Jin lay prone on the slope, holding their breath, sensing that the man had stopped only a few steps from the wooden crate on the wall. The standoff lasted for a few breaths before the footsteps resumed, continuing towards the north wall.
Shen Mo waited until the footsteps had completely circled around to the north before emerging from the warehouse door. He pushed the second wooden crate along the wall and handed it over. When Yu Jin caught the crate, he felt a sudden heaviness; it was considerably heavier than the first one. As he carried it, the muscles in his shoulders tensed slightly before quickly relaxing, allowing him to smoothly pass the crate over the wall. Long Tian tied the two crates together with the prepared rope. As the three retreated along the predetermined route from the slope into the deeper bushes on the other side of the hill, the courtyard behind them remained silent. The light in the guardhouse was still on through the window paper, and the patrolmen continued their patrol around the wall, undeterred by the lack of anything.
The three of them carried the two wooden crates across the field for nearly an hour before stopping to rest. Shen Mo used a short blade to pry open the lid of one of the crates, revealing a dozen or so fist-sized grayish-white mineral stones inside. The surface of these stones had a faint, frosty sheen, similar in texture to crystals but lighter in color and with a thinner halo. He took out a Ore Core Stone, examined it for a moment in the moonlight, then put it back in the crate and nailed the lid back on.
"The purity is lower than that of crystal, but it's enough to support the core operation of the low-end Reverse Fusion Device." Shen Mo wiped the short blade clean and put it away. "These two boxes are enough for Meng Changyuan to conduct four to five rounds of testing. If this batch hadn't been intercepted, he could probably have reinstalled the equipment within a month. Now that this batch is gone, he'll have to wait at least two more months for the next batch to be shipped from the Northern Mine."
Long Tian squatted beside the two wooden crates piled together. The faint glow of the Ore Core Stone shone through the cracks in the crates, casting a pale grayish-white hue in the night. The crystal in his robes sensed the aura emanating from the same mineral, warming up slightly for a moment before returning to normal. Yu Jin also squatted beside them, touching the surface of the crates with his fingertips. His Power of Origin probed along the cracks in the wood grain for a moment, and when he withdrew his hand, his fingertips were covered with a thin layer of frost-white powder.
"The light and dark content of this Ore Core Stone is not evenly distributed." Yu Jin rubbed the powder between his fingertips and let it scatter in the wind. "Some parts are more light-emitting, some more dark. When they were mined, the light and dark were mixed together, but they weren't fully refined, so their purity isn't as good as crystal. If these Ore Core Stone were completely ground and recrystallized, perhaps something of the same quality as crystal could be made."
Long Tian stood up and tightened the ropes on the two wooden crates, glancing at the sky. The moon was setting in the west, and there was still a long way to go on the night journey back to the mountain, but the weight on his back was heavier than on the way there. He hoisted one of the crates onto his shoulder, while Yu Jin carried the other, and the two walked side by side ahead of Shen Mo, leading the way through the bushes and ditches of the wilderness. The weight of the crates on their shoulders and backs made their steps heavy and solid, each step leaving a deeper footprint in the ground than on the way there, stretching towards the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range, a grayish-white shadow illuminated by the moonlight.