Su Rong looked up at Zhou Gu, pointing to the roasted rabbit in front of her, "Do you want some?"
Zhou Gu: "..."
He glanced at her secret guards who were surrounding Zhang Mao, then at his own guards nearby. Together, they numbered over a thousand people. Today, there would be no escape for Zhang Mao.
He didn’t need to lift a finger. He walked over to her and asked softly, "What are you doing here? Did you know Zhang Mao would pass this way and come here on purpose to block him?"
"I’m not that smart, it was just a coincidence." Su Rong tore off a rabbit leg and handed it to him.
Zhou Gu took it, "I was also just hungry. I’ve been hunting all night, searching this mountain for this bastard, but the Eighteen Villages are too large. After finding two secret tunnels, there was still a third one that he managed to use to escape."
He asked in frustration, "Am I really that useless? Thirty thousand soldiers, plus my own people who came with Ning Chi, and we still couldn’t capture him."
"Three secret paths in the Eighteen Villages?" Su Rong was taken aback, "No wonder they’re well known in Nanping." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
She wanted to pat Zhou Gu on the shoulder, but halfway through, she realized that her greasy hand was not fit to touch anyone’s clothes. She quickly retracted her hand, "Everyone has their failures. Zhang Mao is not just anyone. Out of all of Zhang Ping’s children, he is the most cherished, and he obviously has his extraordinary attributes. Compared to his father, he is even more capable. It’s not a big deal that you didn’t catch him. After all, the Eighteen Villages is really vast, isn’t it? A continuous stretch of mountains, eighteen peaks, it’s not easy to find one person, right?"
Zhou Gu whispered, "You really know how to comfort me."
Su Rong said, "Even if I wasn’t here, you would’ve caught up in no time. You have many men and fast horses. Zhang Mao could at most run another five miles before you would catch up and stop him."
She regretted, "I was too busy clearing out the secret agents in Nanping City with Fen Ling and now I’m tired. When I got here, I saw a dense forest up ahead and thought it would be a good place to catch some rabbits to roast. I didn’t expect to run into him. If I had known, I would’ve saved him for you. I wouldn’t have roasted the rabbit, even if it meant going hungry."
Zhou Gu: "..."
At first, he was quite upset, but now after hearing her talk, his frustration had dissipated and he couldn’t help but laugh. "In that case, I would have to exert myself to catch him. It’s better that you, like a blind cat catching a dead mouse, just happened to stop him. It saved me a lot of effort."
He was also hungry and began eating the rabbit leg, "That Zhang Mao, why is he so unlucky? Who else could he have encountered? He would’ve been better off if I caught him."
At the very least, his undercover guards were not as skillful or varied as hers. Look at Zhang Ping being overwhelmed now. His face almost the color of dirt, utterly desperate. Quite satisfying.
Fen Ling was tying up Zhang Mao, Zi Ye and his men had no need to interfere at all.
Once Fen Ling was done tying up Zhang Mao, he realized that the two of them had eaten all the roasted rabbit. He stared at Su Rong with a face full of grief, "Sister, why didn’t you save me some?"
Su Rong innocently pointed at Zhou Gu, "Ask him."
Fen Ling turned to Zhou Gu, looking pitiful.
Zhou Gu touched his nose, "Um, how about I tell someone to roast a couple more for you?" He felt a bit embarrassed, "I was hungry too."
"Forget it." Fen Ling muttered softly, "I knew it. As long as you are here, my sister doesn’t care about me."
Zhou Gu didn’t hear him clearly and leaned closer, "Fen Ling, what did you just say? I didn’t hear you."
Fen Ling cleared his throat, "Nothing, I was asking, should we kill this guy or imprison him?"
He gestured towards Zhang Mao.
Zhang Mao was in a pitiful state, covered in dirt from head to toe.
Zhou Gu thought about it for a moment, "Let’s imprison him!" He turned to ask Su Rong, "What do you think?"
"Hmm." Su Rong didn’t object. Keeping Zhang Mao alive would be more useful for now.
Zhou Gu asked, "Then should I hand him over to you first? Take him back to the Marquis Nanping Residence. I need to go back to the Eighteen Villages and help Ning Chi wrap things up."
"Okay." Su Rong nodded.
So, Zhou Gu led his men back to the Eighteen Villages, while Su Rong motioned to Fen Ling, "You lead the men back to Marquis Nanping’s Residence and lock him up. I’ll take people to continue investigating."
Fen Ling looked at Su Rong, "Sister, shouldn’t I be the one leading people to investigate and you to escort him back to Marquis Nanping’s Residence?"
Why was she doing the hard work?
"Aren’t you still hungry? I’m full, so naturally, I should do more work." Su Rong stated matter of factly, "You go back. Fu Zhou will come with me, his martial arts skills are not much worse than yours."
Fen Ling winked, "Right, in that case, I’ll take him back. You be careful."
He suddenly felt that missing that rabbit had its benefits, as it saved him from further toil.
Su Rong nodded.
So, the secret guards split into two groups. Fen Ling took half of the men back to the Marquis Nanping Residence. Su Rong led the other half to continue searching for secret agents. Any secret agents lurking within the boundary of Nanping would be rooted out.
When Zhou Gu returned to the Eighteen Villages, the battle cries had stopped. Chen Qi, Lin Hai, Feng Jiang and more than a dozen others had been captured. All were influential figures in the Eighteen Villages. Jiang Zhu and more than a dozen of his men were not captured. He was unscathed, as his village did not engage in combat with the imperial court’s soldiers. Likewise, several other village chiefs didn’t take action.
Since they didn’t resist, Ning Chi handled them with courtesy.
After all, this wasn’t an official decree from the imperial court to wipe them out, but an attempt to pacify, and hopefully, incorporate the Eighteen Villages peacefully, to prevent them from joining forces with the Pingxi General of Jibei to rebel against the imperial court.
Upon seeing Zhou Gu return empty-handed, Ning Chi was taken aback, "You didn’t catch him?"
"I did." Zhou Gu was in high spirits, "Zhang Mao had bad luck in he chose the wrong escape route and ran into Su Rong, who was roasting rabbit in the wilderness. He naturally couldn’t escape. It didn’t take much effort on my part. She took Zhang Mao back to Marquis Nanping’s Residence, and I returned here to help you tidy up."
Upon hearing the news, Ning Chi heaved a sigh of relief and smiled, "In such cold weather, Lady Su Qi is actually roasting rabbit in the wilderness?"
Zhou Gu replied, "She was trying to weed out the secret agents from Dawei, Jibei, and the Nangong family of Nanchu that are hiding in Nanping." He couldn’t help but complain, "You are the heir of Marquis Nanping, you’ve lived in Nanping since you were young, and you didn’t realize so many secret agents were hiding in your own territory?"
Ning Chi sighed, "I knew, but it’s not easy to unearth them, these secret agents are well hidden." After a moment, he was shocked, "Lady Su Qi has only been in Nanping for a few days, and she has already found those secret agents?"
"Three days." Zhou Gu replied, "Thirteen secret agents, dozens of people."
Ning Chi took a deep breath.
Zhou Gu looked at him, "Alright, let’s get to work. Let’s finish this and get back as soon as possible. I’m sure there will be some sort of movement in Jibei within three days."
Ning Chi snapped back to his senses and nodded.
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