"I was afraid it was something dangerous, so I knocked them out last night while they were separated, to save you trouble when you come over. None of these people have ever been into the cave behind it with me."
"Hello, Comrade Xiao Qian, thank you for the clue. This..." Captain Wu pointed to the cloth bags covering the heads of the five people on the ground.
Qian Xiao scratched his head and laughed foolishly: "Well, this is what I brought up the mountain to pack mountain goods. I was just worried that these guys would see what I look like and then retaliate against me, so I thought I'd put it on them so they wouldn't be able to see what I look like."
"Pfft," someone couldn't help but chuckle, but Qian Xiao didn't mind. Otherwise, how could she explain that these people still had cloth bags over their heads? She was thinking that if these people woke up late at night and stared at her with wide eyes, it would be creepy, so she didn't take the cloth bags off.
"Okay, you've thought this through very well. You should rest for a bit while we go in and investigate. You can come down the mountain with us later."
"Okay," Qian Xiao hadn't considered going in. If these people really couldn't find the item, she would go in and pretend to find it to give them a heads-up.
"Third Uncle, do you have any food on you? I'm starving to death." She was indeed hungry, but saying she was starving to death was definitely a lie; she hadn't missed a single meal along the way.
The main problem is that I feel like those snacks are always missing something; they can't be considered proper meals.
Qian Sanbao took out a few dry cornbreads from his basket: "This is all the food I have on me, is that alright?" How could he have forgotten that his eldest niece hadn't brought any food with her when she went up the mountain? If he had known, he could have brought her two boiled eggs.
Qian Xiao didn't mind at all and took it directly: "Okay, as long as it's food, it's fine," as long as it's proper food.
To Qian Sanbao, these words meant that his eldest niece had been hungry for two days and was now only willing to eat anything to fill her stomach—poor thing.
Qian Xiao had no idea what her third uncle was thinking. She casually added two more pieces of firewood to the dying fire, skewered the dry cornbread in her hand onto a branch, and warmed it up by the fire before eating it.
It was still a bit chilly this morning, and she hadn't had anything hot for two days. She desperately needed something warm to soothe her stomach.
Watching his eldest niece devour the dry cornbread, Qian Sanbao felt a pang of heartache and quickly took out a water bottle: "Drink some water, eat slowly, don't choke."
"Hmm, is there any more? Uncle, I don't have enough to eat."
"Yes, yes, yes, your grandma brought me a lot of cornbread. Eat as much as you want, there's no need to worry about it."
Qian Xiao devoured ten steamed buns the size of an adult man's fist before finally feeling full. Perhaps because he had deliberately starved himself in previous years, he now felt an empty and uncomfortable feeling in his stomach whenever he was hungry.
Only then did Qian Sanbao have time to inquire about what had happened in the past two days: "How did you take down these people? Tell your third uncle quickly."
His niece is so amazing, he has to remember the details, he can brag about it for years to come.
The five men on the ground who had regained consciousness, damn it, how could they be so unlucky as to be taken down by a little brat? If word gets out, how will they ever be able to survive in the underworld again?
Didn't they think about whether they'd be able to leave again in the future? Did they still think they were in their own country?
Qian Xiao had finished eating and was quite eager to talk. He was talking non-stop, recounting his heroic deeds to his third uncle. Qian Sanbao was thrilled, wishing he had been the one to discover all this.
Qian Sanbao gave a thumbs up: "My niece is really amazing. Just by looking at these five people, I knew they would be difficult to deal with, but my niece managed to capture them alive in one fell swoop. This is something that most people can't do."
Although Qian Xiao's words were a bit eloquent, he didn't exaggerate at all. He was even a little embarrassed by his third uncle's praise.
"No, no, they're not as formidable as you make them out to be. These guys are incredibly strong; I couldn't handle them all at once. I had to take them down one by one when they got up in the middle of the night, hehe..."
"That's still pretty impressive, you know. You caught five bad guys after two days and two nights without food or water!"
"You flatter me, you flatter me."
The uncle and nephew were playfully bickering, one praising and the other modestly. When the people who went into the cave came out, Qian Xiao and Qian Sanbao both stared wide-eyed at Captain Wu, as if asking what kind of treasure was inside.
Their expressions weren't just similar, they were exactly the same; they were clearly uncle and nephew.
Captain Wu almost burst out laughing at the two men, but he still shook his head: "Nothing has been found so far?"
Qian Xiao scratched his head. Was it really hidden so well that there wasn't a single flaw? How come these people couldn't find it after searching for so long?
"No way, I heard them say it several times along the way. They said they didn't know if that thing was still there, and that no one here would find it, so it must still be there. Oh, and the person in the middle has a map in his pocket."
Captain Wu gestured for his men to find a map, then squatted down and said, "Comrade Xiao Qian, didn't you say you couldn't understand what these people were saying?"
"Ah! That's right, but they mostly speak in Chinese. They only start talking in gibberish when the four of them are alone. I first became suspicious of them because I heard their Chinese accents sound strange when I was standing in the tree, and that's when I decided to follow them."
"You suspect them just because they have strange accents?"
“Yes, the deep mountains around here are very dangerous. No one comes in unless there’s something going on. Even if someone is brave enough to want to come in, they’ll bring their belongings with them. But these people just carry a bag and walk in. Isn’t that strange enough?”
"And their backpacks, I've never seen bags like those before. Anyway, these people are definitely not from around here. If they're from out of town, why haven't I seen them in the village? They came in through the back mountain of our village, isn't that strange?"
That's a good enough reason, isn't it?
Captain Wu nodded. What the young comrade said was correct. The main reason for the suspicion was that these people were too different from the locals. Putting aside whether the items could be found, it was definitely not normal for these foreigners to come to this remote place.
"Captain, we've found the map."
Captain Wu took the map and started looking at it. Qian Xiao glanced at it and realized that even though they had found the place, she still couldn't understand what was drawn on the map. The person who drew the map was a master, and anyone who could understand it was also very capable.
"The location is correct. Go in and look again. If you still can't find it, it proves that what they are looking for is no longer here."
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