Chapter 93: Volume 1, Chapter 93 — You'd Better Tell Me the Truth

Rong Luoge followed Dai Qi's patrol team to begin scouting the mountain. By the time they finished their patrol route, she had gathered the information she needed to inquire about, and basically knew the temple's layout. But no matter how she probed indirectly, Dai Qi seemed not to know where things were hidden.

Following everyone through the back gate into Dadongshan Si, Rong Luoge covertly observed the temple's routes and memorized them in her mind, then followed Dai Qi to his quarters to rest.

"Why don't you go find the people on the Chief's side?" Dai Qi asked, looking somewhat puzzled at Rong Luoge still following him.

Rong Luoge put on a look of hesitation, sighing helplessly, "Brother Dai, don't I have my difficulties?"

Dai Qi recalled that she had previously been assigned to the Second Chief's team, and immediately understood — she was being squeezed out by the Chief Manager's people. So he patted her shoulder and said, "It's not easy for you either. The Chief Manager's side does make it easy to suffer grievances. You and I hit it off as brothers — stick with me today, and I've got your back."

Rong Luoge's eyes lit up, and she pulled out another silver note and slipped it into his hand. "Thanks, Brother Dai. Today your little brother is counting entirely on you. I really don't want to go get myself killed."

Dai Qi glanced at the silver note and was startled — this kid was quite generous. Not wanting to go get killed meant he must be looking for a safe, easy assignment. He thought for a moment and said in a low voice, "I won't let you spend this silver for nothing. I'll take it to find the steward and see if he can arrange us brothers for a gate-guarding post — easy and safe."

Guard a gate?

Rong Luoge didn't know which gate they'd be guarding, but she'd take the post first and figure out the rest. Once she became a gate guard, finding the storehouse door wouldn't be difficult.

Dai Qi told Rong Luoge to rest in his room while he hurried off to find the steward.

Rong Luoge didn't enter the room. Instead, she walked around the surrounding area. Judging from the buildings, this place appeared to be the temple's utility quarters.

Such places housed people when there were people around, and were used to store things when there weren't. Generally, utility quarters were located at the very rear of a temple, in the most remote spot.

She carefully avoided people as she walked a full circle, finding nothing unusual, and returned to the courtyard before Dai Qi came back.

Not long after she returned, sure enough, she saw Dai Qi coming back, looking at Rong Luoge with a face full of smiles. "We're really lucky today. The Ding storage area is short-staffed, and the steward told us to go fill in."

The Ding storage area?

So there must also be Jia, Yi, and Bing — her guess had been right.

"All thanks to you, Brother Dai. It's not that I'm afraid of dying — I just have my old mother at home. If I'm gone, what will my old mother do?" Rong Luoge looked at Dai Qi with a face full of gratitude, practically ready to shed tears of thanks.

Hearing Rong Luoge mention his old mother, Dai Qi also sighed. "I worry about my wife and kids at home too. If I just die out here, who will look after them — a widow and orphans?"

Dai Qi took Rong Luoge to the Ding storage area. Rong Luoge followed behind him. They encountered quite a few people along the way, but with Dai Qi leading her, no one was suspicious, and they had a smooth journey.

She had assumed the Ding storage area was also inside the temple. Who knew that after a series of twists and turns, Dai Qi led her out of the temple and headed straight for the mountain behind it.

After passing through a stretch of dense forest, the view suddenly opened up. It turned out there was a flat clearing between two mountains, and quite a few caves had been carved into the foot of the mountain. The caves were spaced some distance apart, roughly several dozen meters. From afar, she could see two cave doors with the character "Ding" written on them.

Sure enough, Dai Qi led her straight over. Outside the caves were wooden cabins — not small ones, with beds, tables and chairs, and even a small stove for boiling water.

"This is where we'll be standing guard," Dai Qi said, having Rong Luoge sit down. "I'm going to find the steward to report in. You wait for me here. Security is strict here — don't wander around, it's easy to run into trouble."

Rong Luoge quickly nodded. "Don't worry, Brother Dai. I'll wait for you right here. I won't go anywhere."

Only then did Dai Qi leave reassured. Rong Luoge watched him head toward the large wooden cabin at the center of the small valley. The entire valley formed a somewhat irregular circle. There were over a dozen wooden cabins like the one Rong Luoge was staying in, and it was unclear how many of them were guarded.

If all these caves contained goods, then the Qiongchuan merchant caravan had brought a truly massive amount of cargo this time.

If it were medicinal herbs, there would be no need to hide them so secretly. Hidden this deep and this tightly, it had to be something that absolutely could not be known to others.

Rong Luoge thought of refined iron.

If that were truly the case, then things were looking very bad.

The Qiongchuan merchant caravan came to the capital and sought out Di Yue Nu. Di Yue Nu was the Protector Duke's mistress, and Rong Dai wanted to marry Prince Qi — so would this refined iron become Rong Dai's dowry?

It was hard to say whether Di Yue Nu would make such a choice for her daughter's sake.

Rong Luoge also recalled the incident outside Dadongshan Si today. Whether the ones who clashed with those people were Han Xinglan's men was still uncertain.

From the route she'd taken to enter, she could tell this place was easy to defend and hard to attack, and extremely well concealed. Earlier, Han Xinglan had said he'd already confirmed the goods were hidden at Dadongshan Si, but did he know the exact location?

If he didn't, then rashly bringing people here would make the situation very dire indeed.

With these thoughts, Rong Luoge grew restless. She stood up and, seeing that Dai Qi still hadn't returned, stepped out of the wooden cabin and slowly wandered the surroundings, striving to memorize the position and path of every cave.

Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui — sure enough, they were arranged according to the names of the Heavenly Stems. The Ding area where she was located ranked fourth. Judging from the order of the caves, this position was not far from the exit.

She hadn't anticipated that the storehouse would be here. Now that she was here, how could she get word to Han Xinglan?

Just as she was puzzling over this, Dai Qi returned, his face full of delight. He looked at Rong Luoge and said, "Brother Xiao Rong, the steward said our shift covers the first half of the night. Someone will come to relieve us in the second half."

Rong Luoge put on a pleasantly surprised smile as well. "Really? That's wonderful. Don't let my young age fool you — I really can't stay up late. Every time we traveled by night on the way here, I felt so drowsy it was like dying."

Dai Qi found a seat by the window and sat down, adding, "Isn't that the truth? I thought we'd be able to rest once we reached the capital, but who knew we'd end up here instead, not even able to enter the city. Brother Xiao Rong, you've stayed in the city before — what's the capital like inside compared to Qiongchuan?"

"Qiongchuan certainly can't compare to the capital. But I didn't go many places either. You know the Chief Manager had us base ourselves in Xi Cheng" — far from the imperial palace.

"You never went out to look around?" Dai Qi asked in surprise. "I thought the Chief Manager had you all selling goods in the city. Wouldn't selling things mean going all over town?"

Hearing this, Rong Luoge's mind raced quickly, and she soon came up with a response. She showed a helpless smile. "I offended someone I shouldn't have — otherwise, how would Brother Dai have run into me today?"

Dai Qi showed a meaningful smile. "So that's how it is. There happens to be something I need to ask you about — and you'd better tell me the truth."