The eye contact lasted for several seconds, when Hu Sanbiao's strange voice came from the side: "What's going on? This brat was quite scared just now, but now she's so scared she's lost all her courage and isn't afraid at all?"
Upon hearing this, Hu Sanbiao narrowed his eyes even more.
Lili sneered inwardly.
He was only pretending to be scared so he could hear some intelligence from Hu Sanbiao himself.
She'd heard everything she needed to hear, and had a general understanding of the bandit's den. Since she wasn't afraid, why pretend anymore?
He dared to make her lewd jokes.
Damn it, I'm going to explode!
"What are you squinting for? What are you pretending to be so profound about? Hurry up and bring my guards up to see me!"
Lili's sudden assertiveness silenced the dozen or so men around her.
Hu Sanbiao was even more terrified, as if he had seen a ghost.
The oriole didn't dare to breathe.
Before entering the room, Lili had quietly loosened the rope on her wrist. Just as Lili was bracing herself for a fight with Tiger Laopao, Tiger Laopao suddenly put away his broadsword and smiled: "Interesting."
Lili: "?"
"This little girl still has some temper."
Lili: ...Do you like being scolded?
When Hu Sanbiao saw Hu Laopao put down his knife, he was really afraid that he would soften his heart for a moment. After all, this little girl looked like a fairy and had an untouchable feeling about her.
Hu Sanbiao quickly stepped forward: "Boss, what do you think of this girl? Isn't she pretty? We'll keep her in the village, and when we return to the Great Jin, we'll present her to His Majesty. What do you say?"
Tiger Old Cannon thought for a moment. He originally wanted to reprimand him, saying that the Great Jin had not yet established a new emperor and that he should not talk nonsense.
But then I thought, they've been bandits in these wretched mountains for so long, and they're still cowardly bandits who can't go out to burn, kill, and rob for fear of attracting the attention of the government. Isn't it all to ensure that the crown prince can ascend the throne smoothly?
After a moment of silence, Tiger Old Cannon said nothing more. His gaze swept over Lili's small face again, and he nodded: "The Crown Prince is in his prime, and this girl is still young but has such a heavenly appearance. Moreover, she is from Southern Jin. I'm sure the Crown Prince will like her. In that case, let's keep her."
Hu Sanbiao breathed a sigh of relief. He was the one who brought this man back. If he could gain favor with the new emperor in the future, he would definitely benefit from it!
Lili finally understood; the emperor they were talking about was actually the current Crown Prince of the Great Jin Dynasty.
It seems these people are all the Crown Prince's men, which, in other words, makes them Shen Ye's enemies.
Then they really didn't arrest the wrong person.
"Ahem, where are my guards?"
Lili pretended not to hear their open and aboveboard discussion.
Two frail women, and the thirty-odd men in the village, Tiger Laopao, weren't worried at all about what trouble they could cause.
"Bring those people up from the basement."
"Wait!" Lili interrupted him, "This young lady is going downstairs."
"Why?" Tiger Laopao squinted, looking at her intently.
Lili said arrogantly, "What's it to you?"
Tiger Old Cannon indeed stopped asking questions, and then showed an interested expression. He looked at the two men's bound hands and said, "Fine, even if you have a knife in your hand, I'm not afraid. Take them away, but wait, just take her alone."
Tiger Laopao pointed at Lili, and Huang Ying's eyes widened: "I want to go too!"
"You? Stay here and give me a shoulder massage!"
Tiger Laopao and his brothers have been living in this village for years, trying not to attract attention from the government. They are called bandits, but they are actually just menacing-looking people with a reputation. They have never done any of the things that bandits do, such as burning, killing, looting, kidnapping women and capturing slaves.
They were there simply to receive the grain that their undercover agents had stolen from the Red Eagle Army's camp.
After keeping a low profile for so many years, it's finally been a long time since we caught two people, so Tiger Laopao naturally wants to enjoy himself.
Huang Ying refused to separate from Li Li. She was afraid to face the bandits alone, and even more afraid that Li Li would encounter misfortune on her own.
"Miss!"
Huang Ying struggled to go to Li Li, but Hu Laopao had already called two people to grab Huang Ying and drag her away from Li Li, and then called two more people to take Li Li out of the room.
Huang Ying was visibly flustered. Li Li nimbly dodged the hands that reached out to grab her and turned back to comfort Huang Ying: "Don't be afraid, I'll be right back!"
The wind was biting cold, and only after stepping outside did Lili feel some relief from the stuffiness in her chest.
There were several braziers of charcoal burning in the room, and they kept adding more. With so many people in one room, it was warm, but also incredibly stuffy.
The two people who were ordered to take Lili to the basement didn't say much. Seeing that Lili was not cooperating, they didn't force her. They just kept an eye on her from the front and back. She led her down the high village, around several large warehouses, and towards the back of the village.
Walking to the back of the village, a large water vat was covered by snow, its dark brown body standing out conspicuously against the white snow.
A man was squatting to the left of a large water vat, rubbing his hands constantly because of the cold. Lili noticed that there was a thin layer of snow covering an area in front of where the man was squatting.
When the man saw Lili, a look of surprise flashed in his eyes, and he asked the two of them, "What's going on?"
The two people who brought Lili gave a brief explanation. The man didn't say anything more, glanced at Lili again, and then used his hands to brush away the thin layer of snow, revealing a white wooden board.
The man tapped the wooden board three times, then three times.
Then, the man made no further move, seemingly waiting for a response from those below.
Taking advantage of the brief moment, Lili glanced sideways at the large warehouses.
Tsk.
Before coming, she had made a rough inquiry about the situation along this road. She had never heard of bandits in this area, which meant that this bandit den was usually very low-key and had probably never done things like burning, killing, or looting.
She looked around the village but didn't see any fields that looked like they were used for growing vegetables.
Even if there were, such a heavy snowfall would cover it all, making it impossible to grow vegetables.
A bandit who doesn't rob or kill is called a bandit.
How do they manage to eat and drink?
And the charcoal in the house was used without any restraint; it was clear that they had plenty of stockpiled goods and were not afraid of being extravagant.
Where did these giant golden figures get their supplies from?
Pear Pear didn't think they were going to buy it.
The warehouses were all closed, with only a tiny crack showing, making it impossible to see what was inside.
Lili thoughtfully looked away, her hands already ice-cold.
The South is damp and cold; when it gets cold, it feels like you're being thrown into a block of ice and frozen to death. Pear's lips turned white from the cold.
Lili suppressed her desire to explore those warehouses, deciding to wait until she saw Chen Ye first.
The trees in the mountains are almost withered, with only a few leaves left. The leaves hanging on the branches are bent over by the heavy white snow, swaying forlornly.
Suddenly, Lili seemed to spot a familiar figure on the branch.
The pale yellow dress was covered in snow, revealing a pair of eyes staring intently at her. Who else could it be but Yun Shu?
Lili's eyes lit up, and Yun Shu's eyes flickered slightly as she tilted her head, seemingly signaling something to her.
Lili glanced down at the two people behind her and the man squatting on the ground in front of her, waiting intently for a response, and suddenly understood something.
Yun Shu propped herself up, gripping a thick branch tightly with her left hand and hanging herself from the tree. The two people behind Li Li noticed this and their eyes widened in surprise.
Before she could even utter a sound, two silver weapons came swiftly from Yun Shu's right hand. Li Li instantly squatted down, and the two silver weapons passed over Li Li's head and plunged straight into the foreheads of the two people behind her.
The sound of silver piercing flesh was drowned out by the sound of falling snow. Lili heard two muffled thuds behind her as she fell to the ground. She glanced back, then quickly freed herself from the useless rope binding her wrists and got up.
She stood up too suddenly, and it was too cold. Lili couldn't hold on any longer. She almost collapsed when everything went black. Relying entirely on her instincts, she kicked hard forward in those two seconds of darkness, hitting the person right in the buttocks.
"Wow!"
The moment the man fell to the ground, Lili regained her senses. With lightning speed, she drew the knife from his body and struck first, slashing fiercely at his neck. Bright red blood instantly flowed out, gradually spreading across the white snow as his breath faded.
A splash of vibrant color startled Lili, causing her to drop the knife. Still shaken, Lili leaned against the water vat, patting her chest and panting heavily.
She killed someone...!
Lili has cut off the descendants of treacherous officials and pulled out the long hair of bad people, but she has never... She is not a coward, but she is, after all, a soul of the new era, having received nine years of compulsory education and been nurtured by the spirit of socialism in the new era.
Lili sighed, raised her eyes again, and stared at the wooden board.
This is probably the entrance to the basement.
After a while, a response of three short and three long notes came from under the wooden plank.
Yun Shu also came to her side, first confirming that the three of them were definitely not dead, and then carefully looked Lili over: "Miss, what are you doing here? Are you alright?"
Lili shook her head, pointed to the wooden board, and said weakly in a low voice, "I'll talk about it later."
Yun Shu understood, and leaned down to listen to the wooden board. She roughly determined how many people were below: "Miss, there are about five or six people."
"Can you win?"
Yun Shu nodded: "It's not a big problem."
Yun Shu had been secretly observing the village. If she hadn't been searching the warehouse earlier, she could have rescued Chen Ye and the others much earlier. However, she suddenly saw Li Li, which changed her original plan.
Perhaps because there was no response, the person under the wooden board became suspicious and knocked the signal again. At the same time, Yun Shu also heard the sound of a sword being drawn.
Yun Shu pulled Lili behind her, subtly protecting her behind her: "Miss, stay hidden."
Lili obediently stood behind, and Yun Shu drew her sword and cleaved the wooden plank in two. The broken plank crashed down with a crackling sound, and Lili heard several curses.
"Damn it, something's wrong!"
"Damn it, what's going on?"
Without hesitation, Yun Shu leaped down and killed the leader of the group who was climbing the stairs with a single sword strike.
The first person's body fell vertically backward, crashing down on the people behind him and knocking them down.
"Tsk, even the Golden Man is nothing special."
Yun Shu gave a disdainful look, threw away the sword she had just picked up from the ground, and faced the men who had gotten up with their bare hands.
Lili crouched down at the entrance, looking down while cautiously glancing back to see if anyone was coming.
Shen Ye heard the commotion outside, and the two people guarding him also heard it.
What's that noise?
"I don't know, let's go check!"
The two men picked up the knife on the table and were about to leave when Chen Ye suddenly stood up, knocked one of them to the ground, then used the wall as leverage to kick the other man over.
With his hands and feet bound, Shen Ye relied entirely on his waist and abdomen to exert force. After knocking the two people over, his feet couldn't land properly, and he rolled to the ground as well.
After the two men recovered, they spat out a mouthful of saliva and got up to attack him.
Shen Yeli sprang to her feet, dodging the attacks of the two people.
After dealing with the others outside, Yun Shu casually grabbed two torches from the wall and stuffed them into the clothes of the two men from behind.
Their clothes instantly burst into flames, and they cried out in agony as they tried to run out and roll in the snow to put out the fire, but Yun Shu ruthlessly snatched their knives and killed them one by one.
The basement returned to calm. Yun Shu quickly went forward to untie Chen Ye's ropes and then went to untie the ropes of the other guards.
With great effort, Lili lifted the lid off the large water vat next to her, partially obscuring the entrance, and followed them inside.
"Yun Shu, Brother Chen Ye!"
Chen Ye frowned and asked Yun Shu, "Why did Miss come along?"
Yun Shu said, "I don't know either."
"You guys were gone for a long time and didn't come back, so I got worried and came along," Lili explained, thus moving on from the matter. "By the way, these people are all Jin people. What exactly is going on with this village?"
Yun Shu had been following Shen Ye the whole time. She knew that Shen Ye and the others had been captured, but she didn't rush to rescue them. The two of them must have planned something. Li Li's sudden arrival only disrupted their plans.
Lili added, "By the way, should I have come along? It seems like you guys already had a plan. I'm sorry, I didn't know that was the case."
Lili felt a little guilty, but how could Shen Ye and Yun Shu blame her? They were only worried that she might get hurt by accident.
"Miss, please don't say that."
Yun Shu retorted seriously, and Li Li immediately assured her that she wouldn't hold her back.
Yun Shu told Li Li that Shen Ye was the first to discover signs of people at the foot of the mountain and found several traps in the surrounding area before noticing that something was wrong.
Shen Ye had only walked a short distance up the mountain when he encountered the people who were patrolling the mountain. Shen Ye recognized them at a glance as the Jin people.
Like Lili, Chen Ye was deliberately brought back.
Yun Shu decided to play along and, while Shen Ye and his group were drawing most of the attention, she quietly slipped into the strange-looking warehouses to investigate.
Yun Shu first inquired about the situation inside Chen Ye's room.
Shen Ye shook his head: "They are watching very closely. I haven't dared to make any rash moves without your signal, for fear of attracting the attention of others outside."
Yun Shu nodded and told him what she had seen: "There was a lot of stuff in that warehouse, all kinds of grain. Most importantly, that grain..."
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