Chapter 40: Flaunting
“……Outside the city gate, there are about ten people, mostly women, only two men. Everyone has a horse!”
“Every one is a good horse!”
The two clerks rushed to report to the Young Master.
Shi Yan nodded slightly and murmured to himself: “A good horse is worth a hundred taels, and it’s in short supply. What is Sixth Sister Pei’s background, to have more than ten good horses.”
The retainer at his side picked up the conversation: “Sixth Sister Pei doesn’t hide it at all, parading openly like this. I’m afraid she’ll soon be targeted by the mountain bandits.”
Mountain bandits are rampant in Changping County, with five or six groups of large and small ones. Passing merchants and magnates are often looted, enduring unspeakable suffering. Moreover, this is the necessary route to the Northern Lands, unavoidable and inescapable. Every time Shi Yan comes to Changping County, he brings at least seven or eight retainers.
A bunch of women, with good horses, buying a large batch of seeds…… It would be against heaven if the mountain bandits didn’t rob them.
Shi Yan’s eyes flashed: “Maybe this is exactly Sixth Sister Pei’s intention.”
The retainers were baffled: “Young Master, where does this come from? Who would willingly provoke mountain bandits for no reason?”
“A bunch of women, not every one can fight.”
Shi Yan tugged at the corner of his mouth: “Just wait and watch the fun.”
He instructed the grain store manager: “Manager Qian, keep an eye on the movement around Pei Family Village. Report any news to me immediately.”
True gold is not afraid of fire. This is a good chance to test Sixth Sister Pei’s capability, to see if she is really worth befriending.
Manager Qian hurriedly agreed respectfully.
……
Pei Qinghe rode slowly, and the group followed by slowing their speed. They walked and stopped, and after more than an hour on the road, they had already rested twice.
Pei Yun couldn’t help but come to Pei Qinghe’s side and asked softly the doubt in her heart: “Why not hurry back to the village?”
Pei Qinghe raised her water pouch and took a sip, gesturing with her eyes.
Pei Yun turned her head to look into the distance, her brows twitching: “That man seems to have been following us from afar since we left the city.”
Pei Qinghe hummed in acknowledgment.
Pei Yan also came over and said in a low voice: “Are we too ostentatious today and got targeted? We’ve heard before that there are many mountain bandits in Changping County. This one following us, isn’t he a mountain bandit scout?”
Pei Qinghe glanced at Pei Yan: “If he is, are you afraid?”
Pei Yan raised her brows proudly and chuckled: “Afraid of what. If mountain bandits really dare to come, kill one if one comes, kill a pair if a pair comes.”
“I’ll go over now and grab him to question him.”
“Wait!” Pei Qinghe reached out to hold back the eager Pei Yan: “Just let him follow.”
Pei Yan was stunned.
Pei Yun was sharp and meticulous: “You’re deliberately parading today to lure a group of mountain bandits here?”
Pei Qinghe said indifferently: “Land reclamation and farming will take at least half a year to yield harvest. More than two hundred old and young people need to be fed. Where will the food and drink come from?”
“We of the Pei Clan are families of convicted officials in exile, unable to leave the exile place, and cannot target good common people or ordinary merchants. If mountain bandits come to our door, for self-preservation, we ‘have no choice’ but to strike.”
This would be perfectly justifiable.
Pei Yun understood and nodded.
Pei Yan also got it, clenching her fist and shaking it, grinning to reveal two little tiger teeth: “Make sure they don’t return!”
The group rode slowly back to Pei Family Village.
Pei Xuan and Pei Feng led a bunch of kids rushing out to welcome them, followed closely by Madam Feng and the others.
The man following from afar greedily licked his lips.
It turned out to be a bunch of children and women!
Simply fat meat dropped from the sky right to the mouth.
The man hid in the dark and watched for a long time, then quietly turned away. Before nightfall, he slipped into the mountain forest, walked a night of mountain roads, and at dawn drilled into a mountain hollow, impatiently telling his boss the good news of discovering fat sheep.
The mountain bandit boss, over nine feet tall with dark skin and a face full of fierce flesh, nicknamed Black Bear, listened with eyes gleaming: “Did you really see clearly? They really have more than ten horses?”
“Not only that, there should be more good horses in the village.” The man licked his lips and chuckled a few times: “I only saw two or three men, one of them a one-armed cripple. Almost all children and women. And mostly young and tender misses.”
The other mountain bandits also got restless: “Boss, what are we waiting for. Let’s go there today, rob horses and women.”
“Kill all the brats, rob all the women into the mountains.”
“After robbing, I want one.”
“Boss picks first, then we divide the rest.”
Mentioning women, the mountain bandits howled excitedly, highly aroused.
The mountain bandit boss was the calmest one, grabbing the messenger man’s collar: “Are you sure there’s no men in the village?”
The messenger man swore to heaven: “I watched for half a day, only saw three. And one is a one-armed waste.”
“Boss, hurry, don’t hesitate.”
“If Scarred Wolf beats us to it, we won’t even get a warm one.”
There were six groups of mountain bandits, each occupying a mountain. Scarred Wolf’s group was the closest to them, only two or three days’ mountain road away.
Fat meat at the mouth cannot be snatched by others.
The mountain bandit boss quickly made the decision.
The stockade had more than a hundred people, excluding women and children, over a hundred and twenty able-bodied mountain bandits. Leave half to guard the stockade, the rest took knives, spears, axes and such weapons and headed down the mountain. In one day they reached the foot, arriving at Pei Family Village right at midnight.
Changping County’s County Magistrate Wang was notoriously drunk, drinking all day every day. If Pei Family Village was looted by mountain bandits, County Magistrate Wang wouldn’t care. At most he’d pretend to write a memorial to the Imperial Court, then send a few bailiffs to collect the bodies.
How did the previous village become empty?
It was the “merit” of their group of mountain bandits.
Just one trip, horses, grain, women. Just thinking about it made the blood surge.
……
“There are six groups of mountain bandits in the mountains total. The mountain bandit boss closest to Pei Family Village is nicknamed Black Bear, uses a thick-backed long axe, tall with great strength. It’s said he killed a bear when young, later recruited personnel, occupied a mountain hollow and built a bandit stockade.”
From the thatched hut in the center of Pei Family Village came Pei Qinghe’s calm and clear voice: “Black Bear has more than a hundred men under him. Excluding children and women, and leaving some to guard the stockade, about sixty or seventy will come to Pei Family Village.”
“Most of them have weapons, but their skills vary, a mob, far inferior to that group of vicious thugs we encountered before.”
“They haven’t scouted Pei Family Village and came rushing over. Clearly they don’t take us seriously.”
“Overconfident and rash, a great taboo in warfare. Once they come, leave them all behind.”
The last sentence was casual, yet full of killing intent.
Pei Yan listened with blood boiling, the first to chime in: “Right! Make sure they don’t return!”
