Well, given her current strength, it's safer for her to keep a low profile for now. And although on the surface there are no conscious people left in the stronghold, we still need to be vigilant at all times to prevent any from slipping through the net.
She looked up at the very center of the massive mountain stronghold complex before her, her mind racing. If there were any secrets hidden within this Wolong Stronghold, where would she most efficiently begin her search?
According to the usual practice, there are only a few places where secrets can be hidden: the storeroom, the prison, and the bedrooms and studies of the most important members of the stronghold.
If the search is conducted in descending order of importance, then the first target would definitely be the chieftain's personal residence.
According to Guo Qinglan, the main members of Wolong Village were all at least at the "beginner level" or above. Therefore, the village leader would need to be at least a master at the "perfect level" to command respect.
The only master Ruyi could recall ever seeing who had reached the "perfect" level was the bandit leader at the stone quarry a year ago. She secretly compared her own lightness skill to his, and although she knew she couldn't beat him in a fight, it seemed like escaping shouldn't be too much of a problem.
It seems Lady Luck was on Cheng Ruyi's side this time. When she cautiously found the chieftain's residence, he and his confidants were already drunk and unconscious.
Just to be on the safe side, she sent everyone directly to sleep. Then she took out the hemp rope she had prepared earlier and tied them up tightly. Although it was not difficult for martial arts masters to break free of the rope, if necessary, even a few seconds could buy them a better chance of survival.
After she had painstakingly tied everyone up, she secretly made a decision: the next time she saw Guo Xiaoyu, she would definitely ask her to teach her the art of sealing acupoints!
Finally, she also administered a pre-prepared common sedative to all of them. With this triple protection, Ruyi felt at ease to begin the formal search.
With limited time, she got straight to the point. After putting on leather gloves, she first searched the body, then the room, and then looked for the secret room.
After a thorough search, she was truly amazed. She never expected that Wolong Village was indeed full of hidden talents, and the identity of the village chief was completely beyond her expectations.
Ruyi learned about the chieftain's background from a letter she found in the room of one of his concubines. According to the beginning of the letter, the chieftain had inadvertently revealed his past to her when he was drunk. Combined with the information she had collected over the years, she felt that something was amiss and wrote it down.
The chieftain Yin Xiangtian's original name was Yin Xiaotian. Thirty years ago, he was one of the imperial guards of the previous dynasty. Back then, his martial arts skills were mediocre and he was inconspicuous among the imperial guards. However, he was unwilling to be ordinary and was eager to make a name for himself. So, he finally chose to join the Ninth Prince, who is now the Emperor of Dayue, and launched a rebellion from within and without.
Who knew that after the deed was done, the Ninth Prince would try to silence him? Fortunately, he noticed in advance, stole a few treasures from the palace, and then fled with evidence of the Ninth Prince's rebellion.
In order to buy time to escape, he even gave the Imperial Guard's deployment map to the Crown Prince, who was also on the run at the time.
Originally intending to flee north to seek help from his maternal clan, the crown prince returned to the capital after obtaining the defense map and launched a strong attack. The two sides were deadlocked for several months, but in the end, the crown prince was defeated and retreated to the north, where he established the present-day Great Qi.
Knowing he could no longer live under his real identity, Yin Xiaotian, a double agent on both sides, changed his identity and became an outlaw, hiding among various mountain strongholds as an ordinary bandit.
It wasn't until more than a decade ago, when he saw that the time was ripe, that he began to emerge. With the help of a few treasures he had looted from the palace, he not only made rapid progress in his martial arts skills, but also gradually built up the Crouching Dragon Stronghold.
Good heavens, Cheng Ruyi really didn't expect that such a mountain stronghold could be involved in the old stories of the previous dynasty, and the content was so explosive!
She looked at the letter in her hand and suddenly felt it was burning hot. She didn't know whether to throw it away or hide it. She was in a real bind!
Is this the secret of Wolong Village mentioned in the system? What use is such a secret to an ordinary person like her? Thirty years have passed since the previous dynasty; surely no one is still thinking about restoring their kingdom?
Moreover, this concubine's behavior was quite strange. If it were an ordinary person, upon hearing such news, they would surely keep it to themselves and pretend they knew nothing. But she, on the contrary, meticulously recorded and carefully preserved all the contents. Presumably, her identity was not simple. If this concubine was a spy sent by another force, then it means that the contents of the letter had already been leaked long ago...
With this explosive news as a foundation, she originally thought she would no longer be shocked by other information, but she still underestimated Wolong Village.
In Yin Xiangtian's study, she discovered a large number of account books and correspondence, the contents of which were truly shocking.
This story begins a year ago. After the war last year, a large number of refugees poured into the Mangshan area, and the bandits took the opportunity to capture many people and bring them up the mountain as slaves.
Most of the people arrested were farmers. In order to save their lives, they asked the mountain stronghold to help them farm on the mountain so that they could have a stable food source. After discussing it with his subordinates, Yin Xiangtian readily agreed.
However, when everyone was clearing land and farming on the back mountain, they accidentally discovered an iron ore mine.
This made Yin Xiangtian extremely happy. With the imperial court waging war year after year, the management of ironware is quite strict. If he had his own private mine, it would undoubtedly be a huge fortune!
He initially intended to keep it all for himself, but later discovered that both mining and weapon forging were extremely complex and required a huge amount of manpower and resources. After much deliberation, despite his reluctance, he finally decided to develop it together with others.
However, the bandits could not reach an agreement on who to cooperate with, mainly because they looked down on ordinary people. Everyone had high aspirations and wanted to take advantage of the situation to board a big ship and rise to prominence.
Yin Xiangtian had a sudden thought. Considering the current situation of the court, he immediately set his sights on the distant capital. It took him a long time to finally find a buyer in the capital. The two sides negotiated for a long time before finally settling on a cooperation plan.
However, just as they were preparing to officially begin mining, they encountered a drought and scorching heat. After less than half a month of forced mining, more than a hundred people had died or been injured. They had no choice but to stop work and wait for the weather to improve.
Under pressure from buyers in Beijing, mining operations finally resumed in October. Due to the severe delays, the buyers expressed their dissatisfaction and demanded a lower price to compensate for their losses during this period. Yin Xiangtian had a vague idea of the buyers' background and knew that he absolutely could not afford to offend them. He could only grit his teeth and swallow this loss.
Since this is the first time everyone has worked together, they lack experience. So far, they have only produced two small batches of weapons. The first batch is already on its way to the capital, while the second batch is still in the warehouse and is being prepared to be shipped out before the end of the year.
Cheng Ruyi carefully examined all the contents of the ledger and found that the production costs of the first and second batches of weapons were different. The cost of the second batch was significantly lower than that of the first batch, which meant that some method had been used to reduce the cost of this batch of weapons.
Based on her previous findings, she felt that the most likely explanation was that someone in the counterfeit operation was dissatisfied with the other party's price reduction, so they deliberately used inferior materials to make a second batch of weapons and sold them to the other party, so that they could not only make more money themselves, but also cheat the other party.
Ruyi recalled the night the bandits attacked Lishan Village. Although the weapons the bandits carried were new, their quality was extremely poor; they couldn't even cut through wooden sticks. Now it seemed they must have come from the second batch of weapons.
Buyers are unethical, taking advantage of natural disasters to drive down prices, while sellers are also dishonest, selling inferior goods as superior ones. The two sides are simply a match made in heaven!
Cheng Ruyi picked up one of the letters written by a buyer from the capital. She felt that the thickness and texture of the paper were unusual. Suddenly, she had a whimsical idea. She put the letter on a candlestick and heated it with fire. Sure enough, she found a faint lotus flower mark in the lower left corner of the paper.
As expected... there aren't many forces in the capital that would dare to, have the strength, and need to purchase a large number of weapons. Since a lotus mark appeared on this paper, this matter is probably related to the White Lotus Holy Sect.
But if the buyer is the Grand Tutor, then why would he hoard such a large number of weapons? Even if he wanted to rebel, he couldn't become emperor himself; his claim would be illegitimate.
Unless some agreement was reached with a certain prince, who could it be? The Crown Prince or the Fifth Prince?
Well, these things are beyond her control. After putting the letters back in their place, she continued searching the other rooms.
A short while later, she spotted Liu Wei in a courtyard, which was not surprising at all.
She had previously suspected that the relationship between the Green Dragon Gang and the Crouching Dragon Village was unusual, but the Zhang brothers had stayed in the county town for many years and were just ordinary people before they rose to prominence. The only person with a mysterious identity who could serve as a link between them and the bandits was Liu Wei.
He probably never worried about being discovered, so he didn't deliberately hide any information in his room. The conclusion drawn from these clues was almost the same as what Cheng Ruyi had guessed before. It was nothing more than old grudges and suspicions about the secret of the Cheng family's rise, so he thought of sending people to kill the Cheng family when the village was attacked.
Ruyi looked at Liu Wei, who was lying unconscious on the bed, a cold glint flashing in her eyes. After hesitating for a moment, she decided not to take action herself.
After all, so many bandits here were just asleep, but only Liu Wei was killed. That would be tantamount to telling others that it was done by someone who had a grudge against him. Although it might not lead back to her, it was too risky.
It took her almost an hour to search all the courtyards in the vicinity. There might still be other places she missed, but due to time constraints, she decided to check the storeroom and dungeon first. If she found nothing in those two places, she would come back here to search more thoroughly.
When we searched Yin Xiangtian's room before, we didn't find anything special except for letters, silver, and a few keys.
Cheng Ruyi was happy to find the keys, but after searching the entire room, she couldn't find any place where they could be used, nor any secret rooms or mechanisms. Therefore, these keys must belong to the storeroom or the dungeon.
She was somewhat concerned about the treasures that Yin Xiangtian had brought from the former dynasty's palace, which her beloved concubine had mentioned in her letter. She felt something was off, so she chose the storeroom as her next destination.
The warehouse was very close to the main courtyard, right behind it. That place should have been the most heavily guarded spot in the entire stronghold, but now it was deserted and the gates were wide open.
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