Chapter 2244 Suspicion
Manbao and his companions waited in the town for a day, and the guards really caught up with them on horseback, bringing back a letter from General Meng.
After Bai Shan and the others looked at it, they put it away, packed their luggage, and went into the desert the next day.
Manbao and his friends had camels. Besides carrying some heavy goods, they also climbed on them out of curiosity and sat on them for a while. Then they began to feel distressed. “Are they tired from carrying such heavy goods?”
"It seems that there isn't much food prepared for them..."
Da Yu rode by on his horse and rolled his eyes. "They're so big, why would it be tiring to carry such a small load?"
However, Manbao and the others refused to sit and got off the camel and continued riding horses.
After all, the horse only carried them, but there were a lot of goods hanging on both sides of the camel.
The group headed west at a fast pace. They were very careful along the way, because there was a group of horse thieves in the dark who were watching them from somewhere.
Although General Nie had been sending scouts to check back and forth, he did not find anyone following him.
Manbao spent points to have Keke scan, but no one was found, so they could only speculate that those people were not near them, or at least not close to them.
It’s a pity that information is not easily circulated, otherwise I could ask General Meng if he could get any information out of those two people.
Alas, Teacher Mo and the others could still contact her at any time despite the distance between them and time, but it was difficult for them to communicate after being separated by just a few days.
Manbao felt the sun was getting stronger, so he dismounted and got into the carriage.
The others also changed to the carriage, drank some tea, and began to talk while looking at the yellow sand outside. Dayu didn't know why they had so much to talk about, as if they could never finish talking every day.
However, when traveling in the desert, the most frightening thing besides the lack of water is loneliness. With them around, I don’t feel lonely anymore.
The marching team lost contact with the outside world. Not only could Jin Kui'an and others, who had rushed from the desert to Shazhou City again, not find any trace of them, but Batur, who had arrived in Shazhou City a day earlier than Jin Kui'an and others, could not find any trace of them either.
As soon as the three of them arrived in Shazhou City, they went to a restaurant that was familiar to their town to inquire about the situation. Their original intention was to ask if anyone knew about Zhou Man and his group, and if so, whether they were still in the city. If not, when would be the best time to leave so that they wouldn't have to go to the government office.
Although the mayor said that they were doing a good deed this time and could ask openly, but...
Thieves are afraid of the government. Of course, they are not afraid, they just don’t want to see the officers and soldiers and are unwilling to greet them. So why would they go to the government office if they can get information in the restaurant?
As soon as they entered, the owner of the restaurant said, "You really came here to look for someone. Da Yu and the others have left."
Batur was stunned for a moment and said, "I know they left. They should have returned to the town by now. Boss, do you know the convoy that Da Yu and the others sent into the city? Are they still in the city now?"
The shopkeeper looked at him puzzledly. "What did you say? I said that Da Yu and the others followed the caravan. I didn't say they returned to your town. He said they accepted the caravan's order to send them to the Western Regions. I don't know how much they were paid, but I saw that they looked very happy, so it should be a lot."
Batur and the other two were stunned.
Heavy rain actually followed Doctor Zhou and the others?
It took Batur almost an hour to figure out the whole thing. He not only knew the time they left, but also learned that Dayu had bought a lot of things from Shazhou City and wanted to take them to the Western Regions to sell.
It is said that before leaving, Dayu declared that when he returned from the Western Regions, he would go to Suzhou or Liangzhou to marry a Han Chinese wife, and his money should be enough.
The other two companions looked at Batur together, "What should we do?"
Batur wiped his face and said, "Kurban, go back and tell the mayor that the two of us are going to chase them. There are wolves chasing them from behind, and we must find them before they catch up."
But in fact, the mayor noticed something was wrong without anyone going back to notify him, because he thought there was no news about the heavy rain that should have returned to the town.
If he was delayed on the road and was two or three days later than expected, it would be fine, but why is there still no sign of him after seven or eight days?
The mayor thought of the time Zhou Man and his companions had stayed in his town, and his back stiffened. "Is this going to backfire? Are they still staying somewhere in the desert?"
The housekeeper said, "That's impossible. There aren't many people in this desert. What's fun to do there?"
Although there is no oasis as big as their town elsewhere, it does not mean that there is no oasis. There is still water and people living in other places.
Who knows if Zhou Man and the others will stay like they did in the small town?
The mayor fell into deep thought, unable to sit still any longer. He said, "Call the brothers, divide into three teams and go out to look for them. Zhou Man and the others are fine, but we have brother number 20 in there, and we just happened to run into them..."
The mayor paused, leaning back in his chair, stroking his chin in thought. "If I really run into them, I shouldn't be afraid. There are only about seventy or eighty of them, while Zhou Man and his men have about a hundred. Aside from those dozen or so who are unarmed, the rest are probably seasoned warriors. Plus, Da Yu and the others..."
The housekeeper smiled and said, "It's stable!"
The mayor nodded. "As long as they don't have any other personnel, it's safe."
So the mayor took back the order he had just given and continued to live out his days in the town waiting for his brothers to return.
At this time, the person who was going to deliver the letter to the mayor hid at the gate of Shazhou and watched Jin Kuian and his group enter the city. Then he quietly pulled his horse out of the city and took the road through the desert to return with food and water.
General Meng knew about this the moment Jin Kuian and his companions entered the city. "...They said it was a caravan, but they didn't even have carriages. They just had some stuff on each horse. The soldiers at the city gate quietly felt around when they checked, and found it was either grain or bran or something like that. But they paid the city tax as if it were cloth."
"There were seventy-nine of them in total, all armed. They found an inn to stay in as soon as they entered the city. I've been keeping an eye on them, and just as they were settling in, someone approached them. They seemed familiar. I suspect they're the ones Doctor Zhou and the others were talking about."
General Meng frowned and asked, "Didn't they ask for information outside?"
"No, I'm buying water right now. Some people are going to the border checkpoint to get their documents. It seems they'll be leaving tomorrow. General, should we seize their documents and arrest them for questioning?"
General Meng pondered for a moment and shook his head slightly. "Don't give them the documents yet. Check whether they are from inside the pass or from outside. Ask Governor He to send someone to check their goods."
"Will it alert the enemy?"
It's the end of the month, and book friends who still have monthly tickets, look at me, I'm begging for monthly tickets.
Let me tell you a good news, when we enter December, there will be a full explosion of updates, so I can pay off some of my debts, so please give me more monthly tickets.
The next chapter will be around 6 p.m.
(End of this chapter)
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