Chapter 683: The Darkest Moonless Night (19)

Jier insisted that he had only come to counter-attack and retaliate against the bandits for their raid on his team, yet he said not a word about the several money boxes he had hung on his horses.

"Go and call those people over; I need some help from you all. Go on."

Seeing the look of surprise and joy on the man's face, Jier knew these people had likely suffered quite a bit, so he clapped his hands and told this middle-aged man to go and bring everyone over.

Only then did the middle-aged man realize they were finally rescued; tears began to drip down, and his face wore a miserable smile that looked even worse than crying. He wiped his face with his hand, and the dirt on his face mixed with the tears, becoming a mess that only got worse the more he wiped.

Even though he was a middle-aged man—who in this other world would likely have children already married or wed off—when he ran toward his companions who had suffered alongside him, he not only cheered but also skipped as he ran, looking exceptionally jubilant.

Jier smiled and continued to inventory the supplies scavenged from the bandits.

Besides the cash and valuables from earlier, some expensive goods the bandits had plundered were also brought out. These goods were mostly cloth and paper, along with Lamp Oil and some lightweight handicrafts.

"Are these the valuable things you picked out?"

Jier asked the surrendered bandits; the few bandits did not understand what Jier meant, but they nodded anyway.

Exhaling, Jier shrugged, feeling that the bandits' standards were truly limited.

He felt it would be better to search the Shandong of the bandits' lair again in a moment.

At this time, those who had been kidnapped all surged over at once. They had originally wanted to approach Jier, the Knight, to thank him for the rescue, but after coming closer, they were all scared off by the smell of blood and the gore covering Jier.

"Haha, I see everyone's good intentions, but I am indeed a sight with all this blood on me. Could someone fetch me some water? I need to wipe down my armor and weapons."

When Jier said this, he had expected these rescued people to take the initiative to help him, but they just looked at one another. Finally, an old man nodded and said he knew where to fetch water at the bandits' lair and would go get some.

Jier had thought they were indifferent for that reason, but he later realized that these kidnapped fellows were, at the very least, somewhat well-off, and they had never done menial labor like fetching water or cooking.

"You, come here. Yes, you."

Jier called out to the middle-aged man from earlier, and the man walked over sheepishly to ask what was the matter.

"Here is the plan: take this Dagger, and bring this glowing pendant along. Mount my horse, carefully head down the slope, pass through the Shulin, and find my men. Call them over; there are so many things here that must be moved, and we need to destroy this bandit lair while we're at it."

"Sir Knight, I do not know in which direction your team is."

"It's fine, my horse knows; it will take you there. But after you arrive, you must first show them this Dagger of mine to convince them to come. Sigh, I cannot get away, otherwise I would have gone to call them myself."

The middle-aged man tried to decline, but there was no choice; Jier pushed him directly, making him climb onto the Tianxuecao. The Tianxuecao was quite unwilling, but after Jier nagged at its ear for a while, the man was not thrown off the horse.

"Do not touch my things; those are my spoils of war."

Jier gave the middle-aged man one final threat, and the other party nodded solemnly. Only then did Jier slap the horse's rump to send it off.

The moment the horse exited the Yingdi gate, a scream from the middle-aged man came from outside.

It scared the surrounding men, women, and children who had just been rescued.

"It's fine, he was likely just startled by the scene of the battle outside the gate. It's nothing, it just looks scary."

Jier comforted them and shouted aloud: "Water-Crossing Skull—"

Following this, the axe glowing with blue light whistled as it spun back. It circled once above Jier's head before landing autonomously in his outstretched palm.

Hanging it on the rack on his back, Jier faced the people who were staring at him with wide eyes and shrugged, saying: "You must all be hungry. Everyone, eat something; we still have a long way to go after leaving here."

Some of these people had likely been locked up for a long time and were extremely emaciated. Jier was afraid they wouldn't be able to walk, so he suggested eating. As soon as he spoke, a series of stomach rumbles echoed around; clearly, many only felt hunger once they were in a safe environment.

Perhaps the feeling of hunger had always been there, but these people had not dared to admit they were hungry before.

At Jier's words, these people went to the pile of food stacked in the middle of the Yingdi and picked through it to find things to eat. A skinny child, likely only ten years old, clutched a piece of Salted Fish and tore at it hard, not caring that the salt made his eyes roll back.

"This won't do. Find a pot and boil something thin to drink, otherwise, many people's stomachs won't be able to handle it."

When Jier said this, some of the young people realized what to do; they put down the dry wheat grains in their hands and ran toward the surrounding houses to find things to cook with.

At this moment, the old man who had gone to fetch water returned with a bucket. Jier stepped forward to take the bucket, casually tore a piece of animal skin clothing off one of the many corpses on the ground, soaked it, and began to wipe the surface of his armor.

The clear water, now polluted with blood, trickled away along the terrain at Jier's feet, leaving behind a winding little red stream.

"Could you please fetch another bucket? I need to wipe my weapons and the upper part of my armor as well."

Hearing Jier's request, the old man nodded and said: "There are more buckets in the Shandong; I will go fetch another one for you."

Soon, the old man brought a new bucket of water. Jier did not rush to wipe his upper armor; he first drew his Hunting Sword, stuck it into the ground beside him, and then fumbled around the Helmet and Neck Armor, opening the connecting Lock to remove the Helmet.

"Phew, that's much better. The Helmet is good in every way, but it gets a bit stifling after wearing it for a long time."

Jier shook his head, flicking the sweat from his long hair. When Jier looked at the old man, the old man retreated several steps in fear: "Young Knight, your eyes?"

Jier lowered his head, curiously looking into the reflective clear water in the bucket; on his overly young face, a pair of eyes emitting a cyan glow were very dazzling: "It is nothing, just a change brought about by a powerful blessing."

He had not expected that over an hour had passed, and the infinite energy effect from the 'Grass and Wood Source' blessing had not yet faded.

This led him to speculate that this blessing either provided near-infinite Divine Power to compensate for consumption over a long period, or it provided a cap of Divine Power that an ordinary person, or even a Knight, could not exhaust.

Considering the saying that blessings fade with frequent use, he felt the latter was more likely.

The so-called infinite energy was not truly infinite; it was just inexhaustible, giving one the feeling of infinity.

It was like the water in a well; it seemed as if it could never be drawn dry, but if it did not rain for a year, the seemingly inexhaustible well water would also run dry.

"A blessing? Are you a Knight of the Church?"

The old man seemed to have some knowledge, but Jier shook his head: "No, I am just helping the Church with some business, and they provided me with a blessing for fear that my strength would be insufficient. Do you know about blessings?"

The old man nodded: "Of course I do. I am not some ignorant young person; I have been to several provinces of the Kingdom. Sigh, I never expected to stumble in this place during the winter and get caught by bandits."

Jier smiled: "I heard that after the Southern Province was defeated on the battlefield last year, it gradually fell into chaos. The Knight Lords responsible for local governance all took their troops to assemble at the Province Capital in early spring. It has been even more chaotic here lately."

The old man found a place to sit and rubbed his back: "It was my own greed. Thinking that after the war, the price of goods in the region would rise significantly, I wanted to get involved and make a profit. I never expected that many merchants with the same plan as me would fall here."

He spread his hands: "The situation in every town is truly bad. They took our goods, but then refused to pay and drove many merchants from other places out."

The old man shook his head: "That is still the lucky outcome; at least they didn't try to swallow the entire merchant Caravan." He tilted his chin toward the young men getting food not far away: "Those young fellows were not so lucky. Not only did they fail to endure when they were being taken advantage of, but they also got into a conflict with the local town officials. They not only lost the goods they had worked so hard to transport, but even their livelihood."

The old man was referring to the carriages and other items used by merchants for business.

"Even their livelihood was confiscated. Hmph, all they have left is the clothes on their backs. Those bandits saw they were dressed well and, regardless of whether they had money or not, kidnapped them. In the end, those young men even got a free ride on food and lodging for a while."

Jier had just been thinking that these merchants who came to do business for profit faced heavy risks, but he had not expected to hear such a funny story at the end.

"Did those bandits not discover that the people they kidnapped had no money?"

Jier asked while wiping his armor and weapons.

"Those who come out to do business don't necessarily have no money at home, but most of us are not locals. For people from other provinces, even if they hold us for ransom, it would take at least half a year to go back and forth."

"Haha. So they were lucky enough to run into me?"

"It is good luck."

The hungry young merchants who had been kidnapped carried tables, chairs, and iron pots out of the houses in the Bandit Camp. Once they poured in fresh water and food, they picked up the Bandit weapons from the ground, chopped up some wooden furniture, and started a fire.

Most of the rescued people gathered around the fire and the iron pot. Naturally, the Bandits would not let the people they kidnapped eat their fill and have the strength to escape, so some of them had not eaten their fill for a long time.

They could no longer care about the fine things they had eaten when they were merchants; at this moment, they simply put in whatever they had: a handful of wheat grains, a handful of wheat flour, a handful of Beans, a handful of smashed dried meat, and half a Salted Fish for seasoning.

Gurgle, gurgle—as these foods were added, they soon boiled into a pot of murky soup.

Jier did not want to taste that stuff, which looked unappetizing at a glance, but the starving former hostages around him, regardless of their original status, took the Wooden Bowls in their hands to scoop up the soup, blew on it twice, and impatiently gulped it down.

"Young Knight, are you not going to eat some?"

The old man sat up, intending to go over and eat something, and asked Jier, who was carefully wiping his armor to the side.

Jier shook his head immediately.

He did not want to eat that soup of unknown flavor at all.

The middle-aged man Paxi-Aidewen rode on the back of a tall horse, surrounded by the dark Shulin.

The sound of flapping wings constantly rang out in the surrounding shadows, accompanied by bird calls that were either pleasant or hoarse.

But he was not afraid; he held high a Magic pendant that could emit light, clutched a Gems-encrusted Dagger that looked very valuable in his arms, and used these things to bring himself a sense of security.

Although the horse beneath him was only trotting, it was at the same speed as other horses running, and the eerie rustling sounds just emitted by the Shulin were left far behind.

Speaking of behind, Paxi could not help but look toward the place on the horse behind him where the weapons and luggage were placed.

A Hunting Bow was stuck there, and a Metal Spear was also fixed on it, but that was not the point; the point was the four small boxes bound with Rope.

He knew what was inside them.

Money, money. Money! Money!! Money!!!

It was all money, and valuable small precious items.

'With this money, perhaps I can reorganize a Caravan and go back?'

Once this thought arose, it was like wild grass that had taken root, impossible to clear away, and it grew increasingly lush.

His hand could not help but grab the Jiansheng that was swinging wildly on the horse's neck as it ran, and his breathing gradually became heavy.

Turning his head to look in the direction of the Bandit lair on the hillside, he muttered to himself: "This is what those Bandits owe me. They kidnapped me and threw my goods out in the wilderness. This is the Bandits' property, and even more so, it is my lost property!"

The more he said it, the more he felt it made sense. Moreover, at this moment, looking back at the Bandit lair from the Shulin, the burning tower that he previously felt was scorching and blinding was now no longer clearly visible.

Furthermore, there was no one around; he was the only one.

Which meant he had an opportunity.

An opportunity to reverse the bad luck he had been having for some time.

The Jiansheng was yanked hard, attempting to change the horse's original spontaneous running direction.

"Turn around! Change direction!"

The face of the middle-aged man Paxi-Aidewen twisted.

The rescued people were eating their first unlimited meal since being saved.

After Jier reminded these people not to eat too much and cause the consequence of eating themselves to death, he began to search the Bandit Camp.

In the semi-circular Bandit Camp, besides the burning tower, there were five or six wooden houses of varying sizes. These houses were built very casually; it was estimated that there was no one among the Bandits with construction experience, so even though they had a Shulin very close by, the houses were built in a mess.

Either the timber was too large, making the houses too tall and big, or they were too small and low. Jier had to lower his head to squeeze into the doorways, and when searching inside the houses, he had to stay hunched over the entire time.

These houses were mostly where the Bandits lived. That made sense; after all, who would live in a dark Shandong for no reason? Although these houses were built casually, at least when stepping outside, it was a place where one could see the sky, and they could usually get some sun.

Jier threw many of the Bandits' smelly clothes outside the houses. These things were a bit dirty, but at least they were warm and cold-resistant. Jier could still tell that many of the clothes were stolen by the Bandits from merchants; the material was good, but they just weren't taken care of properly, making them look very dirty.

He wouldn't wear them himself, but it was fine to give them to many of the Refugee youths who only had one set of Linen Cloth clothes.

After getting rid of the parasites on them and washing them well, they could be worn.

The residence of the Bandit Leader, who was only known by the nickname Fatty, was also in the Yingdi; it was the largest wooden house.

Perhaps to show his status as the Bandit Leader, the height of this guy's house was the kind of oversized wooden house mentioned earlier that one couldn't reach the roof of even with a ladder.

It was a mess inside, having gone through two rounds of looting and rummaging, but the good things were still the most numerous. The iron pot the rescued merchants were currently using to cook food was dug out from here, and the furniture and chairs that were chopped up as firewood were also dug out from here.

It was not hard to see that the few young merchants who were cooking were doing so with a sense of revenge.

Jier smiled at this thought.

He first took down the large pieces of animal skin used for decoration and warmth hanging on the walls of the wooden house, rolled them up, and threw them outside. Then, he found the Bandit Leader's several spare weapons. These weapons were quite heavy and were all made of steel; the others like Wild Snake thought they were too heavy to carry away, so they were left on the spot. As soon as Jier saw them, he felt he could melt them down to modify his armor or forge a new set of armor.

After a period of use, this armor had dozens of large and small damages, especially the volleys of arrows from the subordinates of the King of White Wall, which had left many scratches on the right side of his body.

Although it looked like he had the feel of a battle-hardened warrior, for Jier, clean and good-looking weapons and equipment were more to his liking.

Mainly because it looked good and imposing.

Lifting the Bandit Leader's exceptionally heavy and wide wooden bed, Jier thrust his Long Sword hard into the wooden floor.

Sure enough, he found a secret door that was not easy to find.

This thing was blocked by the wooden bed. Not to mention whether Wild Snake and the others knew about this place, without Jier's strength, they wouldn't have been able to lift this heavy wooden bed in a short time.

This thing was dead heavy, almost like a solid block of wood. There were traces of Rope bindings on the wooden bed; clearly, the Bandit Leader had to summon his subordinates to pull it with Rope outside the door to move the wooden bed away when he used this hidden place.

Unlike Jier, who just lifted it and tossed it aside.

Opening the secret door, a musty smell wafted out. Jier didn't rush to go in; he walked out of the house to let the passage leading downward ventilate first.

"Sir Knight, what are you doing in there?"

A rescued middle-aged woman asked Jier out of curiosity. After eating, regardless of whether the food tasted good or not, these people at least regained their vitality and energy.

At this moment, several young people were whipping the corpses of the Bandits who had stayed behind, venting their resentment for being humiliated. It was estimated that they hadn't been treated well by these Bandits before.

Jier took a look and left them to it.

"Nothing, just rummaging through the property the Bandits hid. Look, isn't this it?"

Jier shook a money bag in his hand, which emitted a crisp sound of metal clashing. These were all things he had dug out from various crevices in the Bandit houses. There was no extra hidden money in the Bandit Leader's house; clearly, the four boxes containing property were the ones dug out by people from the Bandit Leader's house earlier.

"These were all our original possessions!"

The other party said this, and Jier shrugged: "Coins all look the same; who can say clearly which one is yours? Right?"

Several older Merchants hurriedly pulled this loose-lipped fellow away and whispered something to the other party; that middle-aged woman then deflated, sat on the ground, hugged her head, and began to wail.

The several middle-aged and elderly Merchants beside her who were comforting her also sighed; they had all suffered heavy losses, and this woman was actually better off, having been captured because she had money while fleeing from the Southern Province to another province. Although she had lost many of her personal belongings, compared to those who had borrowed money to do business, she was already much better off.

Because this woman only had no assets, but at least her wealth was a positive number, whereas some among them had borrowed money to run trade; not only did their business fail, but they were also looted clean by Bandits, and with so much time having passed, it went without saying that their families back home had likely already sold their houses and land just to pay back the borrowed money.

For a time, the young people were retaliating by whipping the corpses of the dead Bandits, while the middle-aged people sighed in low voices, wiping away tears.

Jier shrugged once again and went over to talk to an old man who still had a good mindset.

At this moment, the old man was sitting on the only remaining intact wooden chair, and a child of about ten years old was sleeping in his arms.

"Is this your grandson?"

Hearing the young Knight's question, the old man shook his head and said in a low voice: "He is a child from a wealthy family captured by the Bandits. The little fellow is truly pitiful; if I hadn't been taking care of him, he likely wouldn't have survived until now to be rescued. Those Bandits were too careless; children get sick easily, and he couldn't handle the hardship after his former life of luxury, so he suffered quite a bit."

Jier leaned down to examine this ten-year-old boy; his little face was dirty, there were food scraps at the corners of his mouth, and his build was very thin—usually, children of this age in Farmer families could already go into the fields to help with work.

But at this moment, not only was this boy as thin as a stick, but he was also missing several fingers.

"His fingers?"

The old man shook his head: "When he first arrived, they were bitten off by rats in the Shandong."

Jier pursed his lips, not knowing what to say.

"And he didn't come alone; there was a sister of the same age, it seems, but not long after being captured, that little girl was tormented to death by the Bandits. Sigh, I heard she was thrown into some Dead Cave and fed to the moving corpses."

Jier drew in a breath and nodded: "I'm going into the Shandong to take a look. You keep an eye on those young people venting their emotions; don't let them kill the Bandits I captured. If something happens, find someone to go in and call me."

The old man nodded, gently stroking the head of the boy, who had woken up at some point and was pretending to sleep while sobbing in a low voice.

He muttered in a low voice, not knowing who he was saying it to: "Don't cry, don't cry; kindness must be repaid tenfold. And hatred often requires a hundredfold to be eliminated and settled."

The boy gave a low grunt of acknowledgement; apart from the old man, no one heard it.