Chapter 72 Catch the Two Thieves

Shen Yuexi held Yang Cong's wrist and finally stood on the huge rock at the top of the mountain.

She took a breath and stood up, holding her waist.

Climbing the mountain is so tiring. If I had known it would be so hard, I would have stayed in the village and worked on the farm with everyone.

Now that the village had a well, everyone rushed to cultivate the land at the end of August. They went to the town to buy some seeds and planted cabbage, radishes, leeks, and other crops suitable for autumn planting. Meanwhile, Xiao Zhuo was instructing the villagers in martial arts in the village square.

The entire Xiaogang Village is busy and thriving.

Shen Yuexi remembered that she had previously planned to go into the mountains to look for iron ore, and she mentioned it to Xiao Zhuo eagerly.

I thought Xiao Zhuo would be worried about letting her go, but he agreed without blinking an eye. He was completely different from before.

He was probably too busy training the villagers to take care of her.

She didn't act pretentiously and just took Yang Cong with her and left. Yang Cong was a local and knew everything. He could tell her a lot about the local situation.

There is a mountain two miles east of Xiaogang Village. A road goes around the mountain and extends eastward to Dongji Town.

Now the two of them are standing on the top of the mountain.

"Look, Madam Pei," Yang Cong raised his hand and pointed to the north, "If you go out between those two mountains, you will enter the territory of the Xirong people."

Shen Yuexi took a breath and looked towards the north.

Although they are called two mountains, they should actually be a continuous and undulating mountain range. A gap is located just north of Xiaogang Village, as if a tooth is missing from the entire row.

"Master Pei, lead everyone to block the mountain pass with stones and wood, so that the Western Rong people can't get through."

"What if they have to climb the mountain to get here?" Shen Yuexi was a little worried.

Yang Cong laughed and said, "The mountain roads are very rocky and can easily injure the horses' hooves. People from Xirong wouldn't do such a stupid thing."

Shen Yuexi felt relieved, squatted down, supported herself on the edge of the boulder with both hands, and jumped down.

"Madam Pei, what on earth are we doing here?" Yang Cong jumped down. "It's almost noon, and there's nothing on this mountain."

After three months of drought, much of the vegetation on the mountain had withered, and there were few wild animals to hunt.

Of course, Shen Yuexi wouldn't tell her that she was looking for iron ore. She just made up a story, "The garlic... capsules I made require something special. They might be available in the mountains."

She said as she walked down.

Yang Cong followed her and said with great joy, "Madam Pei, does that garlic sac you made really cure all diseases?"

"I didn't say it was a cure-all."

"Ah... That's what I told them when I went to the pharmacy in Dongji Town to deliver medicine."

Shen Yuexi shook her head upon hearing this.

It seemed that Yang Cong couldn't be asked to deliver the medicine. She didn't understand the situation and was just talking nonsense, acting like a charlatan. If this continued, no one, whether from Xirong or Dayan, would believe in the efficacy of this medicine.

She talked to the Universal Fabricator as she walked.

"Big Bear, build a cannon."

"Dear Master, we are collecting the raw materials needed for the cannon. The progress is 0.8%... 1.2%... 1.7%..."

The universal fabricator's search range is not large, so she has to walk around to look for possible iron ore.

She had a strong premonition that there must be iron ore in this mountain.

But from Yang Cong's perspective, Madam Pei was just like a headless fly, wandering around aimlessly. Sometimes she'd stand there lost in thought, sometimes she'd walk off in another direction. It was unclear what she was looking for.

But she had an immense admiration for Madam Pei. She was completely impressed by a well drilling machine.

More importantly, even Master Pei, the god of war in her mind, had a look of admiration written all over his face when he looked at Madam Pei!

So no matter what Madam Pei is doing, there must be a reason.

She just had to follow behind. When she was hungry, she would take a pancake from her pocket, eat a bite of the pancake, and drink a sip of water from the water bag.

The two of them walked all the way to a huge rock as big as a house, half of it exposed from the soil. Shen Yuexi suddenly cried out in surprise.

“It’s right here!”

Yang Cong's cheeks stopped moving suddenly, and his head was full of question marks.

Shen Yuexi excitedly turned around and took the stone pick off Yang Cong's back, raised the pick with both hands, and dug into the rock. With a "clang", sparks flew from the rock, but the shock made her hands numb, and she even let go of the pick.

This made her head buzz as if a swarm of bees were flying around her.

Yang Cong smiled and bent down to pick up the pickaxe: "Madam Pei, please move aside. I'll do this kind of work."

Shen Yuexi stood aside, rubbing her hands.

The progress of the universal manufacturing machine suddenly increased by five percentage points here. This level of improvement could only be due to iron ore. This must be the part where the iron ore is exposed above the ground.

Now we need to dig up this rock and see what's inside.

Yang Cong was different. He swung his pickaxe with both hands, knocking off a large chunk of rock with one blow. In the broken part, Shen Yuexi didn't see any of the characteristics of iron ore.

Is this an illusion? Big Bear clearly collected 5% of the iron.

Feeling a little disappointed, she felt her waist and legs ache, so she found a clean place to sit down and asked Big Bear to stop making it. She said to Yang Cong, "Onion, give me the water bag."

Yang Cong put the stone pickaxe back on his shoulder, untied the water bag and handed it to him: "Madam Pei, why do you look so unhappy?"

Shen Yuexi was about to reach out to take the water bag when she saw two figures appear from behind the boulder.

Two Xirong soldiers, one tall and one short, carried longbows on their backs, with scabbards and quivers of all kinds at their waists.

The two soldiers were scouts from the Western Rong, sent to secretly investigate Xiaogang Village. They had crossed the mountain overnight and arrived at the hill east of Xiaogang Village, where they were trying to catch up on some sleep behind a large rock. Suddenly, the blow from Shen Yuexi's pickaxe jolted them both awake.

Shen Yuexi's hands were numb from the shock, and the two of them were also quite shaken. Unable to tell what was happening, they hid behind a boulder and observed.

After making sure that there were only two young women nearby, the two Xirong soldiers walked out with a swagger.

"So you two are from Dayan," the tall Xirong soldier squinted his eyes at Shen Yuexi, "Now that you know of our presence, you two can forget about running away."

As he spoke, he reached out to draw his knife.

Unexpectedly, he grabbed nothing. The tall Xirong soldier looked down and saw that the cowhide scabbard at his waist was empty.

Where did the knife go?

He looked at his companion and found that his knife was missing just like his. He was completely stunned.

By this time, the two Dayan women had already run away like the wind, the prettier one still shouting for help as she ran.

The short Xirong sergeant shouted, "We can't let them get away. If they report it, we'll be in trouble."

After saying that, the short Xirong soldier took off the bow on his back, pulled out an arrow, and before he could put it on the string, he suddenly cursed, threw the bow and arrow to the ground, and chased forward with his bare hands.

The tall man was confused and quickly stepped forward to pick up the arrow. It was noticeably lighter, and after a closer look, he realized the arrowhead was missing.

Without the arrowhead, it's just a thin wooden pole, useless for shooting at anyone.

He threw away the arrow and pulled out an arrow from his quiver, but there was no arrowhead. He threw it away and pulled out again, but there was still no arrowhead.

Could it be that these two girls stole their weapons while they were sleeping, and then stole all the arrowheads?

The Xirong warriors actually encountered two thieves from Dayan!

He looked angrily at the two women fleeing in the distance, and habitually reached out to touch his ears.

Sure enough, the pair of iron earrings were also missing.

This... this is such a great humiliation.

"Catch those two thieves!" the tall man roared and chased after them.