A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

"Tonight."

Liu Ye returned through the snow, her body shivering with cold, her voice hushed.

"The villagers were busy getting the vehicles loaded during the day, and everything was covered with tarpaulins. Seeing the momentum, they set off in the middle of the night."

I hid in the mountain hollow and listened for a long time; there were five or six of them, all carrying weapons!

The brazier in the backyard was burning just right, and the faces of the group of people were flushed as the fire was put out intermittently.

"The path we've chosen is now set."

Liu Ye drew lines on the floor with a charcoal stick. "After leaving the abandoned village and heading north, there is only one road for vehicles. After crossing that rocky ridge, it forks into two: one is the official road, and the other leads into the deep mountains."

I think it will bury things very well, and most likely it will run towards that road leading deep into the mountains.

"Over there at the rocky hill, the road is narrow and steep, the car moves slowly, and there's tall, dry grass on both sides—the perfect place to start!"

"These past two days, my hand has been so anxious that it's become deformed."

Liu Ye added, "The number of people guarding the village has increased to seven or eight. Even during the day, there's one person standing guard on that high spot on the rocky hill! I didn't dare get too close so they wouldn't see me."

Yang Hu stared at the circles and drawings on the floor for a long time before finally speaking:

"Even if we take action at Luanshigang, there's still one thing on my mind!"

Yang Hu raised his head and slowly looked over Qin Ying, Liu Ye, and Liu Da's faces: "It never makes any mistakes in its actions, so why did it have to show such a big tail this time?"

"Willow Leaf was able to figure out the timeline and route from the mountain hollow—that's too smooth of an achievement!"

Qin Ying stopped sharpening her knife.

"Don't you suspect this is a trap?"

"We can't let our guard down," Yang Hu said. "If it really wanted to sneak away, it could have just left quietly in the middle of the night, right? Why make such a fuss, loading it onto the truck first and then scouting the area? This is to show the people watching it that we should intercept that truck at the rocky hill!"

Lu Yan walked in carrying a bowl of hot soup, placed it there without saying a word. Having grown up in the Duke's mansion, she had seen quite a lot.

Everyone knows better than anyone what it means to step onto this springboard.

But he didn't say anything, he just took the bowl of soup to Yang Hu and quietly changed the hot water for everyone.

The people in this courtyard are all twisted together like a pretzel.

"Are we still going to do it tonight?"

Liu Da asked in a simple voice, his face contorted with a big pimple.

"Move," Yang Hu said, emphasizing each word. "Its bet is all on that car. This is its only chance to turn things around. If it doesn't get through tonight, there won't be another chance! But we can't go in the direction it points."

It told us to dig a hole in the rocky area, so we refused to dig a hole there.

"In the army, setting up ambushes and breaking them are your forte. They've set a trap for you in this rocky terrain. How are you going to break it?"

That night at Wild Fox Ridge, she had personally witnessed just how ruthless this hand's scheme could be—it had accurately calculated the route she and her father would take on their border patrol, when they would pass which pass, and even laid traps along the way, making the ambush airtight. She knew the intricacies of this hand's scheme better than anyone else.

Qin Ying's eyes gradually sharpened. She squatted down, took the charcoal stick from Liu Ye's hand, and added a few more strokes to the road marks.

"How did it set up this trap?" she asked in a low voice, but every word was spoken with firm conviction. "One way was that it would secretly take the real stuff first, then leave the rest of the cart, either empty or loaded with fakes, on the rocky hill to lure us in and expose us, so that its tail could catch up with us and raid our hideout. Another way was that while the real stuff was on the cart, there were already axemen hiding in the withered grass on both sides of the rocky hill. As soon as we moved, they would turn around and bite us, trapping us on the narrow slope."

"According to you..."

"They're really in the car!" Qin Ying said. "That batch of weapons and account books are his greatest assets. He wouldn't let them go too far away from him and would entrust them to the most reliable person. Therefore, he set up a second trap: the car is real, the people are real, but there are axemen in the withered grass of the rocky hill, waiting for us to die."

Yang Hu nodded slowly.

"That makes things easier." He paced around the room, gradually sketching out his plan in his mind. "It's waiting for us at the rocky hill, so we won't go there. Willow Leaf, you said that after the rocky hill, the road forks in two directions. So, what about the section of the road before the rocky hill?"

Liu Ye's eyes lit up: "There's a long slope, and after leaving the village, the low slope, the car has to go downhill for half the distance. At the bottom of that slope, there's a sharp turn. The car is heavy, so when it gets to that corner, you have to pull the reins and slow down."

"Alright." A faint glint flashed in Yang Hu's eyes. "It's setting its trap at the rocky hill, thinking we'll definitely make our move there. But we need to make our move before it leaves the village, at the bottom of the slope where it turns. That's when its trap hasn't been set yet, and the people escorting the carts are the most careless. They've just left the village and thought they're safe."

"That's a sloping bend, the car is slow, people are tired, and their vigilance is at its lowest," Qin Ying said, her eyes full of admiration. "To strike unexpectedly when they're unprepared. That's military strategy. It has placed its eyes, ears, and executioners on the rocky hill, but the stretch of road before the rocky hill is the place it least expects. We'll strike before its trap closes, intercept its car, and get out of there, without lingering."

"Where do you think you'll run after you intercept the goods?" Liu Da asked.

"There's no way back down that road!" Qin Ying drew another arrow on the ground. "Get two fast horses ready and hide behind that embankment in there. Once we're done, we won't come back. We'll follow the path the hunters made in the grass at the bottom of the hill and into the woods. They can't get in through the snow."

"But to get down there and take action, we need to be quick, ruthless, and quiet!" Yang Hu turned his head, his face turning grim. "Five or six men with knives, with one shout, everyone in our yard and those on the rocky hill were stunned. We took them down before they even shouted, blocked the truck, and snatched the goods. All of this took at most the time it takes for an incense stick to burn."

"Okay!" Everyone listened intently. Liu Da clenched his fists, and for the first time, a fierce look appeared on his honest face. Liu Ye stuffed the medicine packet in her hand into her chest again.

He took out an oil paper packet from the corner under the medicine box. Inside was an extremely fine powder containing chili pepper, veratrum, and several other ingredients that would cause unconsciousness upon smelling. It was used to numb people and was called "sleep-inducing" medicine.

"This stuff, when the wind blows, you can't close your eyes, it just blows straight into your mouth, and you're instantly paralyzed!" Yang Hu picked up the oil paper package and looked at it, saying, "Liu Ye, you better be quick and throw it in; Liu Da, give him a hand and keep an eye on the cow; and Qin Ying..."

He paused again as he spoke.

"I'll cover their retreat," Qin Ying said, picking up the conversation. "Don't worry, I won't show my face. None of these escorts will make it back alive."

Yang Hu glanced at him, said nothing more, and nodded heavily.

"That hand was right about the rocky terrain." Yang Hu stood in the corridor, gazing at the increasingly cold, dark sky, where a blizzard was about to descend. "That hand was too thorough in its planning, but it didn't expect us to appear at its feet, at what it considered the safest spot, before it abruptly uprooted the train beneath its feet!"

In the middle of the night, the snow finally began to fall, large snowflakes falling densely one after another.

The sky was pure white, while the area north of the city, towards the abandoned village, was pitch black, like a vast, deep pool.

Four black figures silently made their way down the long, steep slope, their footsteps crunching through the freshly pressed snow.

But Yang Hu knew that tonight he only had two choices: either pull out a section of the hand buried under the ground, or bury everyone in the yard into the predator's web that the hand had set up beforehand.