Lili and Huangying were tied back to back, struggling to walk along the already difficult mountain path, with the burly man following behind them.
Walking backwards is uncomfortable, and no one feels comfortable being the one walking backwards behind you, so the two compromised and started walking sideways.
Thus, a strange scene unfolded amidst the snow-covered landscape: in front of them were two people, a master and servant, dressed in fine clothes, while behind them was a man in a tiger-skin sable coat carrying a pheasant, following closely without leaving their side.
Huang Ying accidentally met his gaze and was terrified. She quietly asked Li Li, "Miss, do we really think we can find Lord Shen like this?"
"Don't be afraid, Oriole, he won't do anything to us."
Huang Ying was somewhat relieved.
Seeing them whispering amongst themselves, Hu Sanbiao immediately drew his knife and threatened them, "Run! Believe me or I'll kill you right now!"
The oriole trembled at the cold light and dared not raise its head.
Although the mountain path is not steep and the slope is very gentle, the path is very narrow and completely covered by snow, making it difficult to walk.
In particular, Lili and Huangying had no idea which way the road led, so they could only wander around based on their intuition.
If the two of them go in the wrong direction, they will be met with a roar of anger from the person behind them.
Lili patiently continued walking, feeling a little regretful. She should have just taken the knife from his waist and held it to his neck, so she wouldn't have to suffer this injustice.
But Lili only thought about it; it's a bandit's den, so it wouldn't be fun if they started with force from the beginning.
Of course, the goal is to infiltrate and find out if this bandit's den is a gold mine.
Look at this tiger skin, it's obviously real. There must be a lot of good stuff in this bandit's den.
She wanted to see what these big golden men were up to, hiding here on this mountain and acting as bandits.
The two walked in silence, ignoring the man behind them who spoke with a slight accent.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, Lili realized that her shoes and socks were soaked again before she could finally see a village perched on a mountain peak in the distance.
The village wasn't big; it looked like an ordinary bandit's den.
Lili was very excited.
As they approached the village, Hu Sanbiao finally changed his lazy demeanor, tossed the pheasant onto his shoulder, freed his left hand, and forcefully pushed the two men forward.
"Hurry up, stop dawdling like a woman... Damn it, you are a woman." Hu Sanbiao spat and shoved the two of them. "Stop talking nonsense and hurry up! Damn it, I picked up two little girls in this freezing weather, tsk tsk tsk, the boss will definitely reward me well! They're good-looking, but they look a bit young. I'll just keep them."
Lili listened in silence; the plot was so cliché, it was utterly boring.
"Behave yourself. I've been really lucky lately. I just caught a few free servants, and now two delicate little girls have come along. Tsk tsk tsk, I've been in Southern Jin for so long, and finally I've got something new." Hu Sanbiao was in a great mood, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, which made the two girls instinctively move aside in disgust.
Huang Ying blushed deeply, feeling both ashamed and angry, as she listened to the foul language uttered by Hu Sanbiao.
Lili remained calm and quietly observed the village, not seeing anyone outside.
Hu Sanbiao casually tossed the pheasant aside. The pheasant lay motionless on the ground as if it had died. It turned out that Hu Sanbiao had broken the pheasant's wings long ago, and it had been unable to flap its wings along the way.
Lili noticed that he hadn't mentioned another woman in what he said earlier.
Yun Shu, having followed Chen Ye and the others all the way here, must have sensed that something was amiss.
But Yun Shu wasn't caught by them. So, was Yun Shu secretly trying to find a way to sneak in and rescue people?
"Hurry up and go in. Once you're in our village, you're one of us. You're pretty; you'll definitely grow up to be a great beauty! Stay here and when you're grown up, we'll take you back to the Great Jin Dynasty and present you to our Emperor!"
Lili was suddenly pushed, and a sharp pain shot through her shoulder, causing her to frown involuntarily.
Since the oriole was tied to her, the force naturally affected the oriole as well.
Huang Ying quickly asked her, "Miss, are you alright?"
Hu Sanbiao sneered, "Oh, a young lady, huh? Who cares? She's no longer a young lady once I've kidnapped her!"
Lili shook her head, noticing a hint of amazement and desire in Hu Sanbiao's gaze as he observed her.
Suppressing her disgust and revulsion, Lili hurriedly looked away, feigning fear and panic: "If you arrest me, my father will definitely not let you go. This place, this wretched place, will be trampled to the ground by the soldiers!"
"Oh my!" Hu Sanbiao exclaimed in surprise. "She's a daughter of an official? I'm so scared!"
Lili stretched her neck: "It's good that you know fear. Let me tell you, none of my guards are pushovers. They can beat you half to death in a minute!"
"Guards?" Hu Sanbiao thought for a moment. "Wait, those guys we arrested at noon, could they be your guards?"
Lili's face stiffened: "How is that possible? Let me tell you, my guards are so capable, how could they have been captured by you?"
"They're impressive, but do you think just a few of them can take on more than thirty of us?"
The men arrested at noon were quite skilled. Although they were dressed as guards, their clothes were made of very fine material, so they were definitely not guards from ordinary families.
They were doing well in the village, but the most handsome boy noticed their presence and insisted on coming here.
Their leader and thirty brothers lay in ambush along the way, and easily captured those few.
Hu Sanbiao had already determined that those guards were her subordinates, so he naturally saw that Lili's appearance was just a pretense of calm to scare him.
"Pah!" Hu Sanbiao spat on the ground, and the spittle splashed all over Lili's face.
Lili had a moment of collapse, closed her eyes, and once again suppressed the anger rising in her heart.
So annoying, so annoying, so disgusting!
"Let me tell you, this wretched place, this desolate wilderness, with heavy snow blocking the way, and we've deployed a large number of people along the way, there's absolutely no way you can make it up here successfully. Just think about it, stay here obediently, protect your face, and when I return to the Great Jin, I'll present you to His Majesty, and I guarantee you'll become his favored concubine!"
Lili noticed that this was the second time he had mentioned this... His Majesty of the Great Jin?
The old emperor of the Great Jin Dynasty has only recently passed away, and isn't the regent assisting in the government now?
Where did Your Majesty come from?
"Do you think I'm stupid? There's no Emperor in the Great Jin Dynasty now!" Lili snorted. "Are you lying? Putting on airs and using someone else's power to intimidate you?"
“There isn’t one now, but a year from now, the person sitting in that position will definitely be the Crown Prince. What’s wrong with calling His Majesty now?”
Hu Sanbiao tied their wrists behind their backs before untying the rope binding them together.
Lili, having gained a brief moment of freedom, wearily moved her ankles, exhausted from walking with the crab.
"Hurry up and go!"
Hu Sanbiao led the two inside. Lili pondered his words while taking note of the village's structure and roads.
The information wasn't much; Hu Sanbiao is a simple-minded guy, no wonder he was sent out to hunt pheasants in this freezing weather.
If Gu Ziyi were here, he would definitely applaud her terrible acting skills and then gently ask her if he had done something to upset her that she was torturing him like this.
The village has several high fortresses, and every door is tightly closed, with snowflakes clinging to them.
Suddenly, a door to the largest room in the middle opened, seemingly attracted by the commotion outside. A man with equally well-developed limbs poked his head out, shivered from the cold, and cursed under his breath, "Damn it, we've never had such cold weather back in the Jin Dynasty. It's like a ghost, a blizzard."
The man exhaled and reluctantly moved out to look. He saw Hu Sanbiao leading two girls back and shouted, "What's going on? Where did these little brats come from?"
Pear lowered her head at just the right moment, and the oriole, seeing this, quickly followed suit.
The way the two of them looked was frightening to others.
Hu Sanbiao smiled with satisfaction and then began to explain the origins of the two men.
"Wow, she's really beautiful, like a fairy! The girls of Southern Jin are just gorgeous!"
"Damn it, who says otherwise? If this brat weren't still so young, we'd have to raise her for another two years..."
"Let's keep them. We're not short of food anyway. We can offer them to the boss later, right?"
"No, no, with her looks like that, it would be a waste to offer her to the boss, especially since she'd need another two years to recover. How about we take good care of her and offer her to that person when we go home?"
"Tsk tsk tsk, that makes sense."
The two men explained the arrangements for the two girls in a few words. Suddenly, Hu Sanbiao remembered: "Speaking of grain, why haven't we seen that guy surnamed Wang deliver grain these past few months?"
"Are you stupid? Our mountains are blocked by heavy snow. How much better can Nanlin County be? It's probably because of the blizzard that they can't get out!"
"Yeah, well, we're not short of food or clothing anyway, so we might as well skip one now and then. I happened to catch a pheasant today, so I'll have to have a good drink tonight!"
Lili seemed lost in thought.
Is the man surnamed Wang delivering grain?
What's the meaning?
A strange sense of familiarity suddenly flashed through Lili's mind.
The one surnamed Wang...
Who is it...?
They have no shortage of food, is it because this man surnamed Wang keeps supplying them with food?
The Wang family in Nanlin County...
Lili frowned, hiding her face with her drooping hair as she pondered quietly.
Before Lili could grasp her suspicions, the two were led into the middle of the fortified village and onto the second floor. Hu Sanbiao tossed Huang Ying forward like a treasure, and Huang Ying fell forward uncontrollably to the ground.
It wasn't as rough with Lili, but it wasn't much better. It was the same throw, just not as hard, and Lili managed to keep her balance.
Countless eyes immediately turned to her, some with doubt, some with surprise, some with admiration, and some with disgusting desire, making Lili feel uncomfortable.
Lili looked up, steadied herself, and quickly scanned her surroundings.
Ah, a simple wooden house, nothing there, nothing to see.
Then, Lili met the gaze of the person sitting in the middle chair.
The man in the middle has the air of a bandit leader, wild yet composed, with a long scar running from his forehead to his chin, which is quite intimidating.
Tiger Laopao stared at Lili's luxurious clothes for a while. Although Lili was dressed very simply and only had a thin jade hairpin in her hair, the cloak still revealed that its owner was extraordinary.
What really caught Tiger Laopao's eye was her stunningly beautiful face, like a budding flower about to bloom.
Hu Sanbiao recounted how he captured the two men, adding many strokes to his description of the scene as extremely dangerous in order to highlight the difficulty of his capture.
In reality, the two of them only pretended to take two steps back at the beginning. Lili actually dragged Huang Ying along and let Hu Sanbiao grab her. She even wrapped the rope around herself twice when Hu Sanbiao tied her up.
They were just two young girls, one of whom was not even ten years old. They looked like they had been pampered and spoiled in their boudoirs.
No one present was a fool, and Tiger Laopao was no idiot either; they could easily tell he was talking nonsense.
"Alright, alright, shut up."
Tiger Laopao scolded him, and Tiger Sanbiao reluctantly shut his mouth.
Tiger Laopao carefully examined Lili's face. The brothers around him had been hiding in these deep mountains and forests for several years. When they saw a pretty girl, even if she was just a child, they were extremely excited.
They were all young and vigorous men. They weren't so perverted as to do anything to a child, but the child was just too good-looking. It was okay to have some fun with him, right?
Lili listened to the laughter of these people, her face expressionless.
Huang Ying reacted even more strongly than Li Li herself, glaring at the people around her, wishing she could rush up and slap them twice to shut them up: "Enough, stop talking!"
Huang Ying's words had no effect whatsoever; on the contrary, they only made everyone more interested.
Tiger Laopao ignored Huang Ying's fierce reaction, but seeing that the delicate and pretty girl was not frightened at all, he felt somewhat bored.
Hu Sanbiao suddenly remembered that the people currently locked in the basement might be in cahoots with these two girls, and stepped forward, saying, "Boss, the ones we caught at noon should be this girl's guards. This girl seems to be from an official's family."
As expected, the title of "daughter of an official" didn't attract Tiger Laopao's attention at all.
Tiger Laopao stood up, and the heavy wooden stool creaked as he moved.
Tiger Laopao casually pulled a knife from one of the people in the surrounding group and held it directly to Lili's neck.
Huang Ying gasped in shock: "Miss!"
She knew that her mistress was aware of the situation, but swords and blades don't have eyes, and her mistress couldn't possibly control them!
Lili glanced at the knife indifferently and said, "I want to see my guard."
Tiger Old Cannon narrowed his eyes and moved the knife a little closer to her neck.
Lili twitched the corners of her mouth, a little impatient: "I said I want to see my guard!"
Tiger Laopao and Lili stared at each other, neither willing to give in, in a silent standoff.
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