Extreme Frontier Army: Starting from the bottom ranks, conquering the chaotic world

The guard captain reached out to stop Shen Qingqiu, his eyes filled with suspicion.

"Sir, who is this...?"

He looked at Shen Qingqiu, who was wearing loose servant's clothes and had his face smeared with black mud.

But her slender figure and fair neck made her look nothing like a laborer doing rough work in the army.

Shen Qingqiu's heart jumped into his throat.

It’s over.

No matter how well she acted, her identity as a criminal would be immediately exposed if her clothes were lifted and she were seen.

Lu Jing stopped, turned around, walked to Shen Qingqiu's side, put his arm around her shoulder, and roughly pulled her into his arms.

Shen Qingqiu seemed to suddenly understand something, gritted her teeth, lowered her head, and took a step closer to Lu Jing's side.

His shoulders trembled slightly as he feigned being terrified and unable to resist.

Lu Jing winked at the guard captain, revealing a lewd smile that any man would understand.

"Mr. Gu is in a bad mood tonight, so he asked me to pick out a sensible girl from the convict camp to take with me to vent his anger. What, do you need to inspect the goods first?"

The guard captain had a look of sudden realization on his face.

He glanced at Shen Qingqiu's figure, which, though dirty and disheveled, still revealed her beauty, and cursed inwardly at how the people above really knew how to play games.

"I understand, I understand! Thank you for your hard work, sir!"

The guard captain quickly made way for them.

"Take care, sir! Feel free to call on the brothers if you need any help!"

Lu Jing put his arm around Shen Qingqiu's shoulder and half-dragged, half-pulled her into the gate of the quartermaster department.

We walked until the light from the doorway was completely out of sight.

Shen Qingqiu finally broke free from Lu Jing's hand and leaned against a cold brick wall, panting heavily.

"You...you're a madman!"

Shen Qingqiu gritted her teeth and lowered her voice.

"Do you know that if he had asked just one more question, we would both be dead right there!"

Lu Jing took the wine gourd from his waist, tilted his head back, and took a swig.

He didn't dare ask.

Lu Jing wiped the wine stains from the corner of his mouth and forced a smile.

"In a place like this, the more of a bastard you are, the less likely anyone will dare to stop you."

Shen Qingqiu's chest heaved a few times; he wanted to curse, but in the end, he swallowed it back.

"Alright, stop trembling. We're inside now; the real work is just beginning."

The internal structure of the quartermaster department is far more complex than it appears from the outside.

The interior is like a maze made up of countless tall stone brick houses.

Each row of houses was separated by a wide passageway, facilitating the passage of grain carts.

Every so often along the passageway, a patrol of soldiers carrying torches would pass by.

Lu Jing led Shen Qingqiu, quickly weaving through the shadows between the buildings.

They evaded three patrol teams.

As they passed a fork in the road, Shen Qingqiu suddenly reached out and grabbed Lu Jing's sleeve.

"Don't go to the left."

Lu Jing turned around and glanced at her.

Shen Qingqiu pointed to a stone tablet in the corner of the wall that was half buried in snow.

"That's the marker for the fodder depot. When the Ministry of Revenue escorts grain and fodder, they use three horizontal lines and one vertical line to indicate fodder, and one dot and two vertical lines to indicate military rations. The main grain depot of the Military Supplies Department should be in that row inside."

Lu Jing narrowed his eyes.

The patterns on the stone tablet were covered by frozen snow and could not be seen at all unless you looked closely.

"Okay."

Lu Jing chuckled lightly: "It wasn't for nothing that I brought you along."

Shen Qingqiu rolled her eyes and followed with her head down.

The two bypassed the hay storage area on the left and crept along the wall for more than ten feet before finally reaching a row of the most sturdy-looking warehouses.

The doors to these warehouses were all made of thick iron-clad wooden planks, and each door was secured with a fist-sized brass lock.

Lu Jing took a closer look and found that there was a thin red thread stuffed in the keyhole of the brass lock, with both ends of the red thread sealed to the door frame and the door panel with sealing wax.

The sealing wax will break if someone tries to unlock the door or forcibly damages the lock.

This is a hidden lock specifically used in the military to prevent internal spies.

Shen Qingqiu stared at the red thread and closed her eyes in despair.

"It's no use. Only the quartermaster in charge of the key can open this kind of lock. Once the sealing wax breaks, it will be exposed during the room check tomorrow morning. We can't get in at all."

Lu Jing squatted down and turned his gaze to the door hinge.

The warehouse doors were frighteningly thick, and the locks were exquisitely made.

Unfortunately, the door hinges are exposed, with three iron hinges nailed to the outside.

They guard against honest people very well, but they guard against madmen almost as if they haven't guarded against them at all.

Lu Jing pulled a flat iron plate out of his boot.

Those were arrowheads salvaged from broken arrows on the battlefield, which he had sharpened on a stone.

"The wisdom of the ancients is indeed worthy of respect."

Lu Jing inserted the pointed end of the flat iron sheet into the gap in the door panel.

"But for special forces soldiers, the only ones they can guard against are gentlemen."

He inserted the flat metal piece into the gap of the door hinge and gently pried it open.

After confirming that the iron pins inside had been frozen loose, he braced his shoulder against the door panel and applied slight force with his hand.

Shen Qingqiu held her breath, not daring to even breathe loudly.

Lu Jing changed the angle again, inserted the flat iron sheet into the bottom of the second hinge, and pressed it outward with the weight of the door panel itself.

He pried open the heavy iron-clad wooden door, along with its complete lock and the intact red thread, from one side of the hinge, creating a gap large enough for a person to squeeze through.

"It's much faster to dismantle a door than to unlock it."

Lu Jing put away the flat iron plate and slipped inside first.

Shen Qingqiu stared in disbelief at the door that had been pried open from the base.

Just how many heinous things has this person done? His skill in dismantling doors is even more adept than those thieves!

She quickly followed him into the warehouse.

The warehouse was pitch black; you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Shen Qingqiu found it hard to adjust: "This is too dark."

"Setting fire to a military supply depot piled high with grain and fodder is simply courting death."

Lu Jing focused on adapting to the changes in light as quickly as possible.

He used the faint moonlight filtering in from outside to survey the situation inside the warehouse.

empty.

The huge warehouse, which should have been filled with bales of refined wheat and millet, now only had a few shriveled sacks left.

The house was filled with the musty smell of old grains and the stench of rat droppings and urine.

Lu Jing walked over and kicked the sacks.

It was filled with wheat bran mixed with sand.

Shen Qingqiu also saw the scene before him clearly.

"How could this happen?"

Her voice was filled with disbelief.

"The Eighth Battalion ran out of food because the main command said the supply depot was running low. But this is the largest transit warehouse for the Northern Xuan Army. Even if things are tough at the front, there's no way they wouldn't have a single bag of proper rations!"

Lu Jing sneered.

"Food reserves are running low? That's a lie."

He paced in the darkness.

"The lock on the door is intact, indicating that no one forcibly stole anything. The storeroom, however, is empty. What does this mean?"

A terrible thought flashed through Shen Qingqiu's mind.

"You mean... the general in charge of supplies emptied the food supply himself?"