Lanzi frowned as she glanced at Luan Fujin's mournful face and said coldly, "If you were really afraid of having your hand chopped off, you should have said these things earlier. Is it worth it to wait for people to trample on your heels and drag us all down with you?"

“I…I didn’t believe they would actually do it…” Luan Fujin’s lips trembled, his voice hoarse. “They told me to set off a signal flare at night so they could come and seize the documents. I thought I could just fool them if I could, so I didn’t dare to do it for real…”

"You dare not order?" Du Jianshan glared at him coldly. "If you order, they'll come. If we hadn't set up camp so tightly tonight, we'd probably be rolling around in the woods with some people right now."

Lanzi glanced at the sky; it was almost midnight. The mountain wind was getting colder and colder, and even though she was wrapped in a cloak, she felt a chill down her spine.

“We need to find another place,” she said. “The edge of this woods is too conspicuous. If those people really come, they can find us in less than two hours.”

“We’ve already planned this.” Du Jianshan replied, pulling a rough linen map from his backpack. “There’s an old cliff cave three miles to the south. I passed by it last time I was chasing badgers. We won’t rest tonight; we’ll take a shortcut there and bury the man inside the cliff mouth before dawn.”

Lanzi nodded, picked up the remaining charcoal from the firewood pile, and smothered the fire little by little: "I'll cover your retreat, you hold him off."

Luan Fujin cried out pitifully, "Brother... I really didn't mean to..."

"Don't call me brother," Du Jianshan said coldly. "My brother died at the hands of the people in this forest. Your conscience isn't worth a few words."

The mountains and forests fell silent.

They traveled south, the path intermittent, with birds occasionally startled in the woods, fluttering a few times before falling silent again. Luan Fujin trembled all over from walking and nearly fell several times, so Du Jianshan simply picked up a dry branch, tied a rope around it, secured one end to Luan Fujin's waist, and pulled him forward.

When we arrived at the old cliff pass, it was already past midnight.

This cave was once a temporary granary for bandits. The entrance was partially hidden by bushes, making it difficult for outsiders to find. Lanzi entered with practiced ease, and after a few steps, she lit a kerosene lamp. The lamplight illuminated the mottled rock walls inside the cave, and in one corner were some old leather baskets and broken earthenware pots.

"Lock him in first." Du Jianshan pushed Luan Fujin into the corner and kicked him to the ground. "Don't even think about making a sound. I can slap your mouth crooked."

"I won't do it again, I won't do it again..." Luan Fujin covered his head and shrank into a corner, too afraid to move.

Lanzi listened intently, then frowned: "There's a sound."

Du Jianshan immediately raised his finger, rushed to the cave entrance, extinguished the lamp, leaned against the wall and listened for a moment, then whispered, "There are three people in the southwest direction, stepping on dry leaves."

"Following us?" Lanzi pulled out a steel fork hidden in the sole of her boot. "You block the mouth, I'll flank."

Du Jianshan nodded, and the two slid off the cliff from different angles. Less than a quarter of an hour later, soft footsteps echoed along the mountain path, and someone whispered:

"There are lights ahead, I just saw them."

"Don't rush, what if it's a trap?"

"What's there to be afraid of? He has that approval document. If we can get it back, Old Yang said he'll give each of us ten jin of grain coupons—"

Before he could finish speaking, one man's neck was suddenly grabbed, and he only had time to utter a "uh" before collapsing to the ground. Du Jianshan moved like a ghost, throwing his slingshot again, which struck the second man in the temple with a "bang," and the man rolled twice before falling down as well.

The third person was startled and turned to run away, but Lanzi blocked him with a swift step, swept his knee with her fork, and he fell face-first into the mud with a cry of pain.

"Still trying to run?" she sneered, stepping on his wrist. "Are you from 'Seven Eyes Gang'? Or one of the gangs in town?"

The man, enduring the pain, said, "I am...I am from Ye Bingtao's side!"

Du Jianshan was taken aback upon hearing this. "Ye Bingtao? Not Yang Wanke?"

"They're in cahoots!" the man gritted his teeth. "Yang Wanke is in charge of the town, and Ye Bingtao is in the Beishan Forest Farm—they planned this all along. They said that as soon as you turned around with the clerk, they would have us follow you and wait for the right moment to strike..."

"Damn it!" Du Jianshan slammed his fist on a tree trunk and roared, "He not only stole ginseng from the forest farm back then, but now he's interfering with the forest farm's permits?"

Lanzi's face was ashen: "We can't just rely on his words; we need concrete evidence."

"Don't worry." Du Jianshan pulled off the man's satchel, and sure enough, there was a map inside, marked with several "ambush points," and a thin piece of paper with the character "Ye" written on it.

"Enough," Lanzi said coldly. "Now even the commune can file a complaint."

Du Jianshan pondered for a moment: "We can't take Luan Fujin into the woods anymore, I'm afraid something might happen."

"Then what should we do?"

“I’ll escort him to the main road and find a legitimate excuse to report to the town’s security department—you take the clerk and go around to Yaozigou from behind the cliff. The clerk must not go astray.”

Lanzi nodded: "Then be careful. Ye Bingtao is not simple. He has more than one person behind him."

"clear."

"No, isn't that the 'Shui Pi' who used to hang out with Yang Wanke?"

"And there's Old Qi, the gatekeeper at the kraft paper factory...tsk tsk, how did they all fall from grace?"

With a cold face, Du Jianshan walked into the town police station and kicked the door open.

The patrolman on duty was an elderly man in his fifties named Xu Chongde. He was sipping his tea when he saw Du Jianshan and quickly stood up: "Oh, you're here to deliver goods again?"

“It’s not delivering goods, it’s delivering people.” Du Jianshan shoved the three men to the ground. “These three were following me last night, and they were carrying signal flares. If you’re investigating Ye Bingtao, this is your breakthrough point.”