Chapter 83 Betrayal? "Boss! Found it!" A…
"Boss! Found it!" A rugged-looking man stood on the top of the mine mountain and shouted down to Mingcai below.
Mingcai narrowed her eyes slightly and lifted her foot to go up the mountain.
"Boss, what should we do with these two?" Another handsome man asked, carrying the mine owner and the codebreaker with a look of disgust.
Mingcai's fierce gaze swept over the two trembling figures, and she replied indifferently, "Kill them."
The mine owner's pants got wet, and the dripping water soaked the ground. His face was full of fear as he kept pleading, "I was wrong, please forgive me, please forgive me."
The chubby codebreaker had already collapsed to one side, pale as a ghost, too terrified to utter a single word.
Mingcai paused, glanced at them sideways, and sneered, "My people have also begged you in the same way."
Upon hearing this, the handsome man's expression changed drastically. He stopped delaying and, together with his companion, dragged the two away.
A moment later, two screams were heard from there.
Mingcai climbed to the top of the mountain with a calm expression, looked at the mountain that had collapsed into ruins, and raised an eyebrow at the burly man.
The man pointed seriously to a spot and said, "The stones here are a bit different. I looked closely, and there should be a hole here."
"A cave?" Mingcai's eyes gleamed. "Where does this cave connect to?"
The burly man shook his head: "I don't know yet, but it's a long way; it must have crossed a mountain."
The mountain the man was referring to was the one where Sang Zhitao and the others came from, the place where the sacred mountain and the mine were divided in two.
Mingcai's sharp gaze swept across the endless mountain ridge before turning to the man: "Dig it open, find the exit."
The burly man paused for a moment, then said with some difficulty, "It will probably take more than ten days..."
“Transform.” Mingcai’s voice was somewhat cold. “I hope to see results within a week.”
The burly man called Touka was a little pale, but he still nodded: "Okay."
Mingcai said nothing more and returned down the mountain to continue comforting the abused miners.
While he was supposedly trying to appease them, most of his subordinates were actually busy, while he sat there, staring blankly into space.
"Boss...?" One of the women glanced at him with some concern.
The handsome man who had killed the mine owner glanced at the woman, his face carrying a warning: "Qingbai, don't die young."
The woman, called Qingbai, turned pale and dared not say anything more, bowing her head to distribute supplies to the miners.
The miners, who had been abused for a long time, cautiously accepted the supplies with vigilance and fear. They then quickly ran to the side to hide and wolfed down the food, even picking up the scraps and putting them in their mouths.
"Hey! This is all dirty!" Qingbai saw many of them stuffing food with mud in it into their mouths and couldn't help but stop them.
The miner she stopped trembled and knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I was wrong."
Qingbai was at a loss for words after his actions, and turned to look at Mingcai pleadingly, but unfortunately Mingcai ignored her.
The handsome man glanced at her helplessly, pulled her behind him, and then said to the miner who was lying on the ground, too afraid to raise his head, "Alright, go and get yourself ready."
The miners cautiously looked up and, seeing that they had neither whips nor stun guns, hurriedly clutched their supplies and scrambled to a corner.
The other miners also witnessed what was happening here. Seeing that Qingbai and the other person had not done anything violent, they secretly breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed their arms that were holding the supplies.
Sang Zhitao was unaware of what was happening on Mingcai's side; she simply frowned as she watched the pursuers follow, along with Toulan and the others.
"What should we do? It looks like we're about to be caught." Sang Zhitao said with some worry, standing next to Toulan.
"It should be fine." Tou Lan was also a little nervous, but she still reassured him.
"Why were they able to detect our spaceship? Isn't our spaceship invisible?" Tou Lü asked bluntly.
Tou Lan shook her head: "I don't know. We didn't notice them at first, but after flying for about three minutes, we couldn't shake them off anymore."
"Our spaceship has been equipped with monitoring devices?" Tou Lu asked, puzzled.
“It shouldn’t be.” Tou Lan shook her head. “The Floating Mirror Lake has only been open for the first time in sixteen years. It’s impossible that surveillance equipment was installed sixteen years ago.”
“It can’t be that we have a traitor who’s sending messages out.” Tou Qing, as always, was straightforward and spoke his mind at this moment.
Everyone instinctively looked at Tou Dian, after all, he was the only one who joined them later.
Tou Dian's face turned pale, and tears welled up in his eyes instantly, making him look pitiful. He looked at Sang Zhitao, his voice trembling, "Sister... Sister, it really wasn't me, you have to believe me."
Sang Zhitao glanced at the pursuing soldiers and didn't reply to him immediately.
Despair instantly settled on Tou Dian's face, and tears streamed down her face.
“I believe him,” Sang Zhitao said, turning her gaze to the crowd.
Tou Dian's expression softened slightly, and he looked at Sang Zhitao with a hint of gratitude in his eyes.
“But…” Touqing wanted to say something more, but Sang Zhitao raised her hand to interrupt her.
"After inspecting various parts of the spacecraft, I suspect there are eavesdropping devices."
Hearing her say that, everyone stopped talking and turned to check various places.
After searching for a long time without finding anything, he looked at Sang Zhitao after everyone returned.
Sang Zhitao stared blankly at the control panel.
"What's wrong, Blue Star?" Tou Lan looked at her in confusion.
Sang Zhitao took a few steps forward, looked at a button on the control panel, and after a while, pressed it to everyone's surprise.
With a "snap," the door at the back of the spaceship opened, and a rapid stream of air rushed into the cabin. Everything inside was involuntarily swept up by the airflow and carried towards the open door.
"Blue Star?!" Tou Lan exclaimed, his face pale.
The others looked at Sang Zhitao with even more confusion, eager to ask her what she was doing.
Sang Zhitao steadied herself, gripped the control panel, and pressed the button again next to the one she had just pressed.
With a muffled thud, the open door slammed shut.
The group was thrown to the ground and it took them a while to get up and quickly tidy up the cabin, which had been messed up by the turbulence.
"Blue Star, what exactly are you trying to do?" Tou Lan frowned as she looked at Sang Zhitao, her face full of confusion.
Sang Zhitao ignored him and quickly walked to the back of the cabin, where the door had just been opened. There, she saw a black device the size of a fingernail.
"What is this?!" Tou Lan's face was beyond ugly. He looked at Sang Zhitao and then at the equipment.
Sang Zhitao nodded: "Monitoring device."
Tou Lan suddenly turned around and swept his gaze across the crowd. He held up what he was holding, his voice trembling, "This is... what we were wedged under the door when we came in!"
"Speak! Who is the traitor!" Tou Lan's voice carried an unconcealable sadness.
Sang Zhitao understood him. Among them, Tou Dian was the family he found later, Jing Qian and her sister were the younger sister he had been searching for for a long time, Tou Qing was the partner who escaped from the tribe after growing up, Tou Huang was the older brother who had always taken care of them in the tribe, Tou Lü was the younger brother they picked up, and although Tou Zi and Tou Hui were later arrivals, they were also tribesmen they had finally found. He absolutely could not accept that they would betray the tribe.
Tou Dian subconsciously looked at Sang Zhi Tao, and seeing that she wasn't looking at him, he turned pale and stood to the side without saying a word.
The Jingqian sisters looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
Both Touhuang and Touqing looked unwell. They had witnessed their parents and relatives die at the hands of the rebels, and were the least likely, besides Toulan, to accept that there was a traitor among their comrades.
The remaining green-haired girl looked around helplessly, biting her lip and not daring to speak.
Tou Zi still had that cold and aloof demeanor, but the look in her eyes as she swept over everyone was filled with coldness and suspicion.
Only a gray hue remained, its figure hidden in the darkness, head bowed slightly, staring at its toes, lost in thought.
"...Gray?" After a long while, Tou Lan finally uttered a single word through gritted teeth.
Touhuang's expression changed. He glanced at Touhui, then took two steps forward to block the gaze directed at Touhui before saying, "Hui was the first person to join us, and I believe in him."
Tou Zi looked at Tou Huang with a hint of hurt in her eyes.
Translucent Yellow glanced at Translucent Purple, her eyes filled with apology: "I also believe in Translucent Purple."
“Blue, perhaps this is a misunderstanding. The surveillance cameras have been there all along. Perhaps it’s the rebels sowing discord. We can’t misunderstand our comrades like this.” Touhuang looked at Toulan with pleading eyes.
With sadness in his blue eyes, he looked around, his raised hand falling limply. After a long while, he clutched his chest and said painfully, "A surveillance camera that can fall down with a simple opening and closing could only have been done by the person who closed the door after we came in. How can you expect me to believe that?"
Touhuang knew perfectly well how far-fetched her excuse was, but looking at the person she had been through thick and thin with for so many years, she simply couldn't believe it.
"Crack." Sang Zhitao took the monitor from Toulan's hand, crushed it, and then said to Toulan, "Adjust the flight path first."
Tou Lan was stunned for a moment and stood there dumbfounded.
"Hurry up, the pursuers are catching up!" Sang Zhitao urged again. If she weren't so bad at operating the controls, she would have already taken over herself.
Tou Lan then realized what was happening, nodded repeatedly, and quickly ran to the control panel to operate it.
After everything was settled, he turned to look at Sang Zhitao, then at Touhui who was looking down, and sighed deeply.
"I did it." A pale voice echoed in the silent cabin.
"Gray!" Transparent Yellow suddenly turned around and looked at him.
With his head bowed, he spoke after a long silence: "I'm sorry..."
"Bang!" A yellow fist slammed into his face. "Why!"
Translucent gray seemed to want to bury itself in darkness, its entire being exuding an aura of endless sorrow.
"I...I..." He hesitated for a long time, unable to utter a complete sentence.
"Because of your family, isn't it?" Sang Zhitao said at this moment.
Touhui suddenly looked up at her, and only then did everyone realize that Touhui's face was covered in tears.
Sang Zhitao suddenly remembered a plot point written in the original book.
That was near the end of the story, when the Mirror Clan boy who became the High Priest of Blue Star said he rescued two boys from the Dark Duke's dungeon. They said they had been captured along with their brother, who had been threatened by the Dark Duke to do something.
Later, that same Mirror Clan boy remarked that one of their adventurers had been controlled by the Dark Duke and made some wrongdoings, eventually dying while trying to assassinate the Dark Duke.
Sang Zhitao recalled the description of that person in the story: a man addicted to tobacco, known as Ash.
Until today, she suddenly realized that the person looked a lot like Touhui, so she tentatively asked him to speak.
Tou Hui just stared at Sang Zhi Tao like that, and only after Tou Huang repeatedly pressed him for answers did he squat down on the ground with his head in his hands.
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