Chapter 66: I Will Not Strike Until the General Arrives
Chapter 66: Chapter 66: I Will Not Strike Until the General Arrives
General Zhou felt Tang Wen had a point. "Zhao, would you mind taking care of this?"
"Alright," General Zhao agreed without hesitation.
Before nightfall, General Zhao and the six Commanders gathered at the Outer City Guard Battalion.
Tang Wen assigned the Commanders their tasks, arranging them into three pairs. They were to split up and stake out three locations: the Scavenger Camp, a stretch of road in the forest west of the Hunter Camp, and the trails within the Lakeside Forest.
The footprints of the recently disappeared Scavengers had been found in these three areas.
That afternoon, the camp’s head chef prepared a special meal for Tang Wen and the others.
After they had eaten their fill, the sky had grown completely dark.
As they were about to leave, General Zhao came to see them off.
Tang Wen was suddenly struck by an idea. He looked at the camp’s high stone walls and said, "Everyone, let’s not use the main gate. We’ll each scale the wall!"
"Huh? Scale the wall?"
Everyone immediately nodded in agreement.
The six Commanders exchanged a few words with the Guards, then covertly slipped down the other side of the stone wall.
Watching their disappearing figures, General Zhao broke into a satisfied smile. He turned to Commander Zhang and said, "That Tang Wen is a clever one. Always pulling a new trick out of his hat at the most critical moments!"
"I hope everything goes smoothly for them."
West of Flame Camp lay the Scavenger Camp.
And further west still was a great lake.
The lake was impenetrably deep. Common sense dictated it must be teeming with fish and shrimp.
Yet even the most desperate Scavengers wouldn’t dare fish here.
For one, the shore consisted of cliffs several meters high.
They were smooth and treacherous, offering no handholds.
Ascending or descending was extremely dangerous.
Moreover, one summer, a number of Scavengers had used rope ladders to climb down for a swim.
But a colossal creature had emerged from the depths. With razor-sharp teeth and a mouth as wide as a boat, it had devoured them one by one, staining a large patch of the lake red.
Ever since, everyone had given the great lake a wide, respectful berth.
Tang Wen and Zhou Bing gazed at it from a distance.
With no light in the night, the lake was a sheet of inky black, like a bottomless Abyss.
Tang Wen said in a low voice, "No matter how bad the drought gets, a lake this big can’t possibly dry up, can it?"
’If the lake doesn’t run dry, we could find a way to irrigate the fields.’
’Maybe build a man-powered Water Wheel?’
His mind began to wander.
But he saw Zhou Bing gently shake her head. "The camp elders say that if it doesn’t rain for a period of time, this lake dries up. They think it’s connected to some underground river."
Tang Wen sighed in disappointment.
The two fell silent and continued along the lake, their pace swift.
In less than half an hour, they reached the spot where the Scavengers’ footprints had been discovered.
At night, the forest was even more foreboding.
But it didn’t hinder their vision in the slightest.
On the ground, footprints of all sizes were jumbled together.
Some belonged to adults, others to children. All were barefoot.
"They’re completely depraved. To kidnap a child this young!"
"Maybe they grabbed the child first to threaten the family," Tang Wen said offhandedly.
"The Scavengers are starving. Trading children for food is a common occurrence for them; a threat like that might not work."
"If not coercion, then what? A lure?"
"A combination of both, probably."
Tang Wen nodded. "That makes sense. It’s not like the Scavengers have much to lose, anyway."
The two stopped talking and leaned against the same tree, silently observing their surroundings.
The forest in the dead of night was as silent as a morgue.
SWOOSH!
A dark shadow flew overhead.
Zhou Bing looked up and said softly, "A red-eyed crow."
Tang Wen frowned, his gaze following the direction it had vanished. "It seems I’ve seen this kind of crow every time I’ve come out here recently."
"Yes, I’ve seen them too. These red-eyed crows are also called Blood Crows. Strange for them to be flying around this late at night." Zhou Bing speculated, "Blood Crows usually fly in flocks. This one must have been left behind."
Tang Wen’s brow remained furrowed. A bold idea was forming in his mind.
’It can’t be, can it?’
’Could the Blood Crows be the eyes that were spying on the Hunting Team?’
’Could that hidden Awakened’s ability be Beast Taming?’
As Zhou Bing was looking up at the sky, she suddenly felt her hand being grasped.
Then, Tang Wen leaned in close to her fair, delicate ear. As his warm breath washed over her, her heart fluttered. ’No way, not now,’ she thought, her pulse racing. ’We’re on a mission! Here?’
In the next moment, Tang Wen whispered his suspicion.
The frantic beating in Zhou Bing’s chest subsided.
"You think it’s the Blood Crows?" she asked, finding it hard to believe.
Tang Wen said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Zhou Bing took a moment to process this, then looked at him. "Alright. If it is the Blood Crows, what’s our next move?"
"You go back and get General Zhao. I’ll follow them."
"No!" As expected, Zhou Bing refused.
But Tang Wen wouldn’t agree to let her stay either.
Zhou Bing squeezed his hand. "We’ll go back to General Zhao together. This could involve an Awakened; we need to be cautious."
That was the answer Tang Wen had been aiming for.
"Let’s go. Shh!"
Before the words were fully out, Tang Wen suddenly held up a finger and crouched down.
Sensing something as well, Zhou Bing copied him, and they both pressed an ear to the ground.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP
A faint, rhythmic vibration came from the earth.
"Hoofbeats," Zhou Bing judged with her experience. "The hooves must be wrapped in thick cloth."
SWOOSH!
Overhead, a Blood Crow shot past again, flying in the opposite direction.
The two remained motionless, crouched on the ground.
Tang Wen focused his senses. ’Hmm, my heart isn’t pounding. I don’t feel any sense of unease or danger.’
’Does that mean the enemy hasn’t spotted me?’
Then another thought struck him: the enemy had used the Blood Crows to avoid the Hunting Guards before.
That meant they definitely didn’t have any truly powerful experts among them.
Otherwise, they could have just approached Flame Camp and negotiated directly.
There’d be no need for all this sneaking around.
’So, could the Awakened Spirit Binder controlling these crows be a General-Level expert?’
Tang Wen shook his head.
A General-Level expert could come and go without a trace.
Why would such a powerhouse need to deliberately avoid Flame Camp’s Hunting Teams?
In the span of a single breath, they could have wiped out the entire team.
Having reached a conclusion, he said to Zhou Bing, "You go back and report. I’ll follow them."
Before Zhou Bing could object, he spoke rapidly, "I’m fast. I can fight if I have to, and I can get away if I need to. With your speed, it won’t take more than an hour for you to get back to camp, report, and for General Zhao to arrive. I swear I won’t make a move during that hour!"
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Wait for me."
Zhou Bing caressed his cheek, then slipped away like a crouching cat, as elegant and agile as a pantheress.
Tang Wen steeled himself and moved deeper into the dark forest.
’I’ll just follow from a distance,’ he decided. ’I absolutely will not engage until the General arrives.’
’Even if they look weak, I can’t risk it. What if I alert the enemy?’
’This is the first real lead I’ve managed to track down!’
With that in mind, he selected a large tree with dense foliage and climbed it.
A few minutes later, Tang Wen peered through a gap in the leaves and saw a ten-person team leading several dozen short-legged horses clattering through the woods.
He narrowed his eyes. ’Hm, they don’t look so tough at first glance.’
’On second thought,’ he mused, ’they look even weaker than I first thought!’
They passed right in front of him, and he didn’t feel the slightest bit of alarm.
His intuition told him that if he were to launch a surprise attack right now, he would have a very high chance of victory.
But Tang Wen had no intention of attacking.
He waited until they were far in the distance, and the sky was clear of any Blood Crows.
He scrambled down from the tree and began to follow them by sound.
’It’s okay if I can’t see them. As long as I can hear them, I won’t lose the trail.’
But just a few minutes later, the hoofbeats suddenly stopped.