Chapter 32 The Search
That very night, Gu Cheng sent men to sneak into the village through a side path and slit the throats of the bandits guarding the villagers.
The rescue went relatively smoothly, since many of the bandits were refugees who had been recruited. Only Jin Biao was alert; after discovering that the villagers had been rescued, he decisively led his twenty-odd brothers to escape.
Gu Cheng was worried that the bandits would target several nearby villages. Since he couldn't get away, he simply sent Xue Huai'an with his men to hunt them down.
Xue Huai'an didn't say anything, and directly led his men to chase after the bandits in the direction they had left.
At this time, the people in other villages had already relaxed their vigilance after receiving the news that the county magistrate was suppressing the bandits. No one expected that there was still a small group of bandits on the run.
Song Yushu never went to bed too early at night, so when the gong sounded, she immediately woke up Zhou Chengzhu beside her.
After hurriedly leaving the house, she dared not be careless and woke up all the Wei family members who were sleeping.
"What's wrong?"
"The gong rang, though it was only struck once," Song Yushu confirmed he hadn't misheard, but still woke everyone up just in case.
"Let's hide in the secret passage. If it really is bandits, the person banging the gong is probably already... Even if it turns out to be a misunderstanding, there's nothing to lose," Wei's father said cautiously.
"Don't pack too much, and don't hide all the food in the kitchen. Leave some out! Otherwise, if they come in and see that the house is too clean, they might get suspicious!" Song Yushu reminded him.
Following Song Yushu's advice, the Wei family reluctantly gave up some of their grain and quickly hid it in the secret passage.
Not long after, Song Yushu heard the sound of horses' hooves outside.
"Boss! This is the Wei family!"
The Wei family members hid in the secret passage, and their hearts tightened as they heard the sound of the courtyard gate being pounded outside.
"Bang!" The wooden door finally gave way and collapsed.
"What's going on? Why is no one at the Wei family's house?" The bandits rushed into the courtyard and ransacked the place, searching every house, but they didn't see a single person.
"Could they have run away?"
"That shouldn't be the case. Did they find any food?"
"Boss! Pang Hu was right! The Wei family really does have more grain than ordinary families!"
"Pack up all the grain, then search the place again before we move on to the next house!" Jin Biao found the Wei family strange and specifically left someone to search it again.
The Wei family members, hiding in the secret passage, couldn't help but feel a little distressed listening to the sounds of smashing and looting above. However, they were even more afraid that the bandits would find the entrance to their tunnel, so they could only stay in the secret passage and wait quietly.
Jin Biao and his men searched the entire village. After all the villagers were driven out and tied up, he led Pang Hu, who had defected to them, to identify them.
"Check if everyone's here?"
"Where is the Wei family? Didn't we agree that I would handle the Wei family?" Pang Hu said, dissatisfied.
"How dare you speak to our boss like that?" one of the bandits shoved him in annoyance.
"Take him to the Wei family's house and search it again!" Jin Biao didn't have time to argue with Pang Hu and directly sent him to the Wei family's house to check the situation.
When Pang Hu entered the Wei family's courtyard, he indeed found it ransacked and smashed by the bandits, which made him feel relieved.
"Look carefully again. I heard that the Wei family even suggested that the village dig tunnels. They must be hiding here!"
The two bandits who followed exchanged a glance and began searching the messy house.
Hiding in the secret passage, Song Yushu felt a chill run down her spine. This Pang Hu really intended to kill them, and had even colluded with the bandits. At their current search method, it was only a matter of time before they found the entrance.
Wei's father and the others had also anticipated this outcome. They gripped their knives tightly, ready to fight the bandits once the entrance was opened.
The two bandits who followed Pang Hu in searching the house thought they could find something, and they carefully searched the house as Pang Hu instructed, but they couldn't find the secret passage he mentioned. They felt that they had been deceived.
"Impossible! Right, we haven't searched the yard yet! They must have dug it in the yard!" Pang Hu searched the yard unwillingly, kicking away anything that seemed suspicious.
As the sound of searching grew closer, Song Yushu couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
Just when they thought they were about to be discovered, there was another commotion outside.
"The officials are coming!" The two bandits immediately ran out, and Pang Hu, no longer caring about finding anyone, followed them.
After finding clues about Jin Biao and the others, Xue Huai'an quickly led his men over. To prevent the bandits from escaping and harming people again, he surrounded the village completely, forcing the bandits to retreat step by step.
"If you come in, we'll kill them all! With so many of them to take our place, it'll be worth dying for!" In the end, only a dozen or so bandits remained, holding hostages. Seeing that there was no hope of escape, Jin Biao became ruthless.
However, what they didn't expect was that there were many able-bodied men in the village, and the village head was also a retired soldier. After quietly untying the ropes, he gave a signal to the other men. While the bandits were facing off against the soldiers with their backs to them, he pounced on them and tightly strangled their necks.
Caught off guard, the bandits were caught off guard and strangled. This left them unable to attend to both sides and threw them into disarray. Seeing this, Xue Huaiyi seized the opportunity to shoot and kill Jin Biao. With their leader dead, the bandits lost their will to fight and were quickly wounded and captured.
"Well done. If it weren't for your village head, we probably would have been stuck in this stalemate for a long time," Xue Huai couldn't help but praise after arranging for people to check for any bandits who had been missed.
"We were soldiers who fought on the battlefield back then, we can't let a few bandits scare us to death," the village headman said, relieved that the crisis was over.
"Is everyone here?" This time it was the bandits' turn to have their numbers counted.
"We must report him! Pang Hu has sided with the bandits! We must not let him get away with this!" When the other villagers saw that Pang Hu was not inside, they quickly spoke up to explain the situation to Xue Huai'an.
"Speaking of which, none of the Wei family members have been found. Could it be that they were really killed by that Pang Hu and his bandits?" a villager speculated.
"That's too tragic. Her daughter used to run a restaurant in town and I heard she made a lot of money. This time, because of the drought, she even brought her two children back to live with her. Now that she's gone, isn't all that work for nothing?"
Hearing the villagers' speculations, Xue Huai'an felt a lump in his throat and led his men toward the Wei family's location.
"It really is deserted. The courtyard has been ransacked. Could it really have been murdered by that Pang Hu?" a soldier beside him said.
"Count the bandits' corpses, and take those who are still alive to the yamen to the magistrate..." Xue Huai'an couldn't quite describe his feelings, so he could only give instructions to the officials on what to do next.
Hearing the commotion above, Song Yushu and the Wei family members inside the tunnel exchanged glances. After confirming that they hadn't misheard and that the people above were government soldiers, they immediately lifted the cover and crawled out of the tunnel.
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