Chapter 44: The most special breath in the unusual cave...
After receiving the task, Pei Yixue followed a bandit and started writing a letter to the people at Jishiyi Station, so that he could also report his safety to Xie Yushu.
He was "captured" on the Seven Heroes Cliff, and Xie Yushu had to execute him first and report to him later, otherwise Xie Yushu would definitely stop him.
By now Xie Yushu should have seen the letter he left and was turning around anxiously.
Thinking of Xie Yushu, Pei Yixue felt warm in his heart and a sincere smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
After writing the letter and handing it to the bandit at the table, Pei Yixue looked outside the house, "It's a bit stuffy in the house... Can you send someone to take me out for a walk?"
The bandit who was sent to supervise him writing the letter was a young man in his twenties. He looked him up and down and said, "Wait."
"Thank you." Pei Yixue said.
The young man stepped out of the door with the letter in his hand and saw a bandit about the same age coming out from the corner. He walked quickly over and said a few words to him, and the bandit then walked towards Pei Yixue.
The young man took the letter and left the yard.
"Let's go." The bandit shouted to Pei Yixue as he entered the room.
"Thank you."
Pei Yixue only has less than three days left, and he cannot relax for even a moment.
During these few days he had to find out the defense of Qixia Cliff, and most importantly, the activities and schedules of all the bandits.
Then find a way to make them lose their fighting power so as to achieve the great feat promised to Governor Fang.
Pei Yixue led the group to tour most of the mountain village until they arrived at a place that seemed to be the granary of Qixia Cliff.
Countless trucks of supplies packed in sacks were being loaded and transported to a cave not far away.
Pei Yixue took a step forward to find out what was going on, but was stopped by the bandit: "Wait, you can't get close to that place."
There were many people and eyes when transporting a lot of goods, but the bandits who were on guard to maintain order were particularly vigilant and accurately caught Pei Yixue's sight at a glance.
He immediately shouted and drove them away: "What are you doing? Get out of here!"
He didn't look like he was guarding food at all, but more like he was guarding his own head.
Unable to go over, Pei Yixue found a nearby bench and sat down. The blue bricks on the bench were slightly cool, penetrating his skin through his clothes, and he adjusted his clothes.
He turned to the bandit boy beside him and said, "I'm a little tired. Why don't you sit down and take a rest?"
During the journey, Pei Yixue took a break no less than 20 times in order to play the role of a "patient" well. The bandit frowned and asked, "Rest again?"
Pei Yixue responded with a gentle smile, which was not without a hint of weakness and helplessness.
Although the bandit was dissatisfied, he still sat down reluctantly next to him, mumbling something under his breath.
Seeing the bandits busy moving goods, Pei Yixue asked, "Are all these trucks loaded with food?"
"What else could it be? Qixia Cliff values food the most. A large amount of food will be shipped in every three to five days. It's nothing new."
The bandit responded unhappily, still with his hands folded across his chest, but his eyes occasionally glanced at the busy crowd, full of curiosity.
"I see." Pei Yixue answered softly, but secretly thought in his heart that it seemed that the bandit in front of him was also unclear about the situation.
It's nothing new, but that doesn't mean there's nothing unusual.
Lin Feng once said that there was indeed grain storage at Qixia Cliff, and nearly two thousand trucks of supplies had been transported to Qixia Cliff in the past half month.
These alone are enough to sustain Qixia Cliff for more than half a year, and now Qixia Cliff has brought in another four or five hundred carts of food.
In years without famine, it is normal to simply store some grain, but it is not justifiable for Qixia Cliff to spend a lot of financial and human resources to store excessive grain.
After all, Qixia Cliff can't just eat stale food every year.
Pei Yixue had to take a look to see what the trick was.
He watched quietly for a while, and saw that the bandit next to him was obviously unable to sit still. He began to twist his body and his eyes became wandering.
Pei Yixue sighed for no reason: "That's great."
Seeing the bandit looking at him inexplicably, he looked sad and said slowly, "Excuse me. Seeing them easily carry a hundred kilograms of cargo, I can't help but feel envious. For me, this probably only existed in my dreams every night when I was a child. As I grew up, I no longer even dreamed about it."
His voice was three parts envy, three parts loneliness, and four parts involuntary, as if he was talking about an unattainable dream.
Upon hearing this, the bandit lowered his arms which were folded, and moved his lips as if he wanted to say something.
After hesitating for a moment, he said: "Why should I envy you? I envy you guys for your days of spending money like water." The bandit straightened his clothes and sat down again. His restless heart seemed to calm down.
Pei Yixue had a smile on his face. Having achieved his goal, he withdrew his gaze and quietly watched the bandits carry the goods.
The sunlight gradually set in the west, shining on them and casting long shadows.
When the sun was over the mountain, the bandit could no longer bear it: "How long are you going to watch? It's time for dinner."
"I'm not hungry yet. Why don't you go eat first, little brother? I'll wait for you here." Pei Yixue refused to leave, and the bandits didn't want to fight with him and drag him away. After thinking about it, they agreed to Pei Yixue's suggestion, turned around and left in a hurry.
No one knew where the bandit had gone to eat. Pei Yixue hadn't seen him until the goods were moved.
At night, the noise of people moving goods in front of the cave gradually faded away, leaving only six bandits guarding the cave entrance.
They stood scattered around the cave entrance, the swords in their hands shining coldly in the faint moonlight, as if they were guards protecting a mysterious treasure.
Taking advantage of the cover of night, Pei Yixue quietly observed all this.
The bandits at the entrance of the cave looked rough and unruly. Some of them held grass stems in their mouths, some crossed their arms, but their eyes were always scanning the surroundings vigilantly.
Every gesture they made showed their tacit understanding and coordination with each other. It was obvious that they had received formal training, which was obviously different from the bandits he had encountered along the way.
This made Pei Yixue even more certain that there must be some unknown secrets in the cave.
With this doubt in mind, Pei Yixue waited quietly to see if he could get some clues next.
After waiting for a long time, he just sat down on the ground.
Watching the cook and three or five bandits carrying food to the cave entrance and then returning, the bandits guarding the cave entrance ate with relish, as if everything was normal.
Just when Pei Yixue thought that he would never be able to find out the truth tonight, the aroma of food, like an invisible thread, gently penetrated into his nostrils.
The smell was very faint, so faint that ordinary people could not detect it at all, but Pei Yixue's sensitivity to smell was more than ten times that of ordinary people.
The fragrance came from the direction of the cave, and was quite far away. He took a deep breath and distinguished it carefully.
Different from the strong smoky smell of home-cooked dishes, it has a warm and sultry smell that comes from a lot of stewing, like a pot of thick soup that has been simmered over a long fire, exuding a mellow flavor.
It is not strange to cook at mealtime, but it is a bit unreasonable for Qixia Cliff to cook a large amount of food at this moment, because the bandits in the open have already eaten, so who are they cooking for in the cave now?
Unless there are other people hiding in the cave, and there are quite a few of them.
"Seven Heroes Cliff is really not easy to find." Pei Yixue stood up slowly and walked back while thinking about how to successfully knock down all the people inside and outside the cave.
After walking less than twenty meters, Pei Yixue suddenly caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of his eye. In order to perform a complete act, he had to show the state of a sickly person who had walked twenty meters.
He raised his hand to hold the blue brick wall beside him, pretending to stand up weakly.
"Why did Manager Pei come all the way here?" It was Xing Wenhan.
Pei Yixue didn't expect that this man would dare to get close to him. If he didn't have to stay in the Seven Heroes Cliff, he would have made Xing Wenhan unable to take care of himself again with that injection last time.
Xing Wenhan reached out his hand to help Pei Yixue, but Pei Yixue stared at the hand and refused coldly, "No need."
"Are you angry with me?" Xing Wenhan was not annoyed, and withdrew his hand in dismay, "I tied you back, and you stabbed me unconscious, and fed me poison, so let's write off the score. From now on, we will work for the Seven Heroes Cliff together, so don't be estranged."
"There's no need to be overly familiar with each other." Pei Yixue continued to walk back, coughing a few times symbolically.
In the silent night, the coughing sounds seemed particularly desolate.
"I wonder from whom did Manager Pei learn this acupuncture technique and the poison he carries with him?" Xing Wenhan followed beside him, pretending to chat with him.
"As one becomes a doctor after a long illness, it is natural that I will learn some basics. As for the poison, I am not capable of preparing it. I just bought it for self-defense."
"Is that so?" Xing Wenhan continued, "How many years has Shopkeeper Pei been ill?"
"This has nothing to do with the Third In Command." Pei Yixue said bluntly, with impatience in his tone.
"Hey, I just want to apologize. I guess you've tried a lot of treatments and used a lot of medicines on your body."
"So, what does the Third In Command want to say?" Pei Yixue stopped and stared straight at Xing Wenhan.
Xing Wenhan smiled: "Huichuntang has a 300-year history and has treated countless difficult and complicated diseases. If you trust me, I dare not say that I can make you fully recovered, but it will definitely be much better than it is now."
"I don't trust you." Pei Yixue found it funny. If he didn't want to get better, even the gods wouldn't be able to find a forensic doctor. Xing Wenhan was very confident in his medical skills.
"Don't you want a healthy body? You won't lose any weight by giving it a try, and maybe from now on you won't have to envy others anymore." Xing Wenhan continued to promote.
Pei Yixue finally found out why the bandit had not returned for a long time. It turned out that he met Xing Wenhan.
He didn't respond, so Xing Wenhan continued, "Although ordinary herbs have little effect on your condition, it may be possible to cure it if other miraculous elixirs are used instead."
Xing Wenhan kept chasing Pei Yixue and talking all the way. His voice was like the buzzing of a fly, lingering in Pei Yixue's ears.
Finally, they arrived at the courtyard that Qixiaya had arranged for Pei Yixue.
The yard is not big, but it is decorated quite elegantly. A few unknown flowers and plants sway gently in the night breeze, emitting a faint fragrance.
In the room, not long after Pei Yixue finished his meal, a bandit brought a small white porcelain cup to Xing Wenhan.
Xing Wenhan held the porcelain cup with a little pride, handed it to Pei Yixue, pinched the lid button with two fingers, and slowly opened the lid.
A white mist carrying a strong medicinal aroma rose up, with a hint of sweetness in the bitterness, and went straight into Pei Yixue's nose.
Pei Yixue couldn't help but be stunned. He had smelled an unusual medicinal fragrance since the bandits came over. Now that the smell was only a foot away from him, he was even more convinced of the specialness of this medicinal soup.
He didn't want to pay attention to it, but now he couldn't help but take the medicine and smell it again.
Hundred-year-old angelica, 100-year-old rehmannia root, 80-year-old astragalus root…
The most special scent came from ginseng, but the rich medicinal fragrance was something Pei Yixue had never seen before, as if it carried a mysterious power.
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