Chapter 687: The Second Half of the Night of Drizzling Rain (Part 1)

Jier mounted Tianxuecao and waved his hand: "Let's go!"

Dozens of young people drove the carts and horses, carrying some of the things they had taken a liking to, and formed a long line as they headed out from the gate of the Bandit Camp.

The torches used for lighting were ignited, and the torches in the front and back looked like a glowing snake, slowly crawling down from the hillside.

Knowing there was no danger nearby, Jier let the young people walk in front, while he brought up the rear to hold the line.

Turning his head to look at the crevice of the Shandong, which was emitting rolling thick smoke, and the wooden houses filled with the corpses of bandits that had been set on fire, he let out a sigh of relief. He did not know how much evil and suffering this place had produced.

Only by burning it all down could there be a final good outcome for this place.

He had just gone to check the passage under the Bandit Leader's bed after it had been ventilated for a while.

The interior of the passage, which was not often opened, connected to a cellar. Contrary to Jier's expectations, it was not some treasure room or anything he had imagined, but simply a storage room containing several heads.

On a long table, several air-dried Human Head of males were meticulously placed, each with a fierce and menacing expression. In front of the metal plates holding the air-dried heads, there were also pieces of broken weapons placed one by one.

After a brief glance, Jier knew what this place was for.

It was a place to store trophies.

Each air-dried head was likely a strong enemy that the Bandit Leader nicknamed Fatty had defeated in his previous life. The broken weapons were clearly the enemies' weapons as well.

After questioning a captured bandit from Fatty's Bandit Group, Jier corroborated his judgment.

Since that was the case, the place had no effective value.

He set fire to the wooden table holding the heads, letting them enter the flames along with the entire Bandit Camp to be purified.

When the light from the team's torches had moved a bit further away, Jier jumped off his horse and came to the giant python snake he had beheaded earlier. He picked up the thick and heavy snake body, and Jier disappeared, with the long snake body vanishing along with him.

Shortly after, he appeared again, but he was all alone, and the snake body he had been holding was gone.

"Let's go, let's catch up."

Jier vaulted onto his horse, ignoring Tianxuecao's curious gaze, and tapped its belly to make it follow the team along the winding dirt road.

The fine raindrops could not interfere with the grease-coated torches, only adding a slight crackling sound to them.

But the rainfall did, after all, make the air damp and chilly.

Crowded onto the creaking carts, the rescued people could not care about the stench of grease on the bandits' clothing; they huddled together and wrapped themselves in thick Beast Skin Clothing.

They began to complain in low voices, muttering, which made the young Refugee walking in twos and threes on both sides of the carts keep glancing at them. Although those words did not sound very pleasant, the young people all knew that these people had been tortured by the evil and cruel bandits for a long time. They did not mind the slight complaints.

But the eight bandits who were walking together while tied up began to curse.

"You guys, complaining while sitting in a cart? How about swapping with me? Get down and move around."

"We got beaten and still have to be forced to walk, and you still have the nerve to complain?"

"Each and every one of you, if I had known, I should have slaughtered you just now."

But the situation had changed, and the rescued people were no longer afraid of the tied-up bandits. A young Merchant leaned back against a wooden box and mocked the bandits who were tied to the cart by ropes: "You guys, didn't get beaten enough by me just now? Want to taste my urine? I'm standing on the cart, and in a moment I'll pee all over your faces and bodies, let's see if you still complain!"

The faces of the several bandits walking behind the cart tied by ropes changed drastically, and they immediately started cursing. However, when they saw that the young Merchant really intended to unzip his pants, they immediately shut their mouths obediently.

The young Refugee nearby found it funny and all burst into laughter.

However, the young Merchant thought these farmers were laughing at him, so he really unzipped his pants and aimed that thing at the young Refugee on the side of the cart: "What's so funny? Keep laughing, and you'll open your mouths to taste my flavor!"

These words angered a young Refugee who was closest, who directly raised his hand to grab the young Merchant's ankle and pushed him into the cart, causing him to fall heavily with a loud boom.

The rescued people who had been hit by their own kind immediately cursed the troublemaking young Merchant and the young Refugee who had taken action, but when a dozen or so young Refugee from the surroundings gathered around, the people in the cart shut their mouths obediently.

This time it was the bandits' turn to laugh. They mocked everything happening before their eyes in low voices among themselves, still complaining about the reason they were defeated earlier—it was simply bad luck to have run into a Knight; otherwise, how could they have been defeated by these fledglings and puppies in front of them? At this moment, they would surely be escorting the people they had captured and walking on the Shanglu.

Speaking of this, these bandits looked one after another into the darkness behind them.

Amidst the messy sound of hooves and footsteps, the place where weapons were clashing in the glowing area in the distant darkness was the culprit behind all of this.

But they only dared to take one look before turning their heads to continue walking. They had surrendered, but whether they could survive in the end remained an unknown.

The team followed the route provided by the surrendered members of the Desert Snake Bandit Group, barely walking along the mountain at the south side of the Shanglu toward the lair of the Desert Snake Group, which was not far from here.

The fact that the two families were so close was also one of the reasons why the Desert Snake insisted on launching a sneak attack on Fatty's lair before planning to leave this place to make a living.

Although the people of the Desert Snake had raised snakes before and were considered sinister and vicious, being best at using Poisonous Snake to sneak attack caravans staying overnight, Fatty's team had been suppressing the Desert Snake group due to the disparity in numbers.

The Mountain Wolf team rarely took in new members and always operated as a mature team with a sufficiently refined number of people. The White Wall King's team, however, rarely accepted outsiders; they had a Village Jiedian in the mountains and would only capture children during raids to raise themselves, or kidnap women to bear offspring.

Therefore, outside bandits joining in would often only choose some smaller Bandit Group, or the largest one.

Fatty's people did not think there was any problem with the two lairs being close; it should have been the Desert Snake who were afraid of being attacked and swallowed up.

"Snake-playing guy! How much longer until we reach your lair?"

A young man in armor leading the crowd asked the Desert Snake group bandit who was being held behind the first cart.

A certain bandit with a bruised and swollen face opened his eyes wide, looked left and right, and then shook his head: "How would I know? The direction is correct, but it's pitch black all around; I must get into the Shulin to observe the marks on the trees to know where it is."

"I think you're being dishonest! You occupy these places, and you tell me you don't know? Beat him! Beat him until he talks!"

Another young man with a bad temper went up and kicked the bandit, knocking him down, so he could only be dragged behind the cart as it moved forward.

The bandit who had been hit hard on his body gritted his teeth and did not wail; he and the other bandit companions around him understood that the more they cried out, the more beatings they would receive.

Because not long ago, they had done the same thing.

What they could do, others could naturally do as well.

After beating him for a while, seeing that the beaten bandit did not speak, the irritable young man who felt it was boring gave a heavy snort: "I understand you want to live and want to rely on various pieces of information to raise your status in the heart of the Knight, but wheat seeds are wheat seeds, and beans are beans; they cannot be planted mixed, nor can they be planted against the season. Be quick about it, let us destroy your lair, and everyone, especially the Knight, will be satisfied, and you will naturally be able to live!"

Kicking another Desert Snake group bandit in the butt, the young man intended to walk away, but he was called back.

"Walk along the forest, where a small stream flowing from the mountains overflows the Shulin is our lair. But you have to be careful of snakes; the lair Yingdi is surrounded by several nests of Poisonous Snake that love to return to their nests during the day."

The irritable young man nodded, muttering to himself: "Wouldn't have been beaten if you'd said so earlier, a bunch of old dogs." Saying this, he walked to the front of the team.

The bandit who had spoken used his wrists, which were tied with a long rope, to awkwardly rub his butt, and then helped up his companion who was being dragged on the ground along with the others.

They communicated in low voices.

"Will we live if we tell them?"

"Who knows? These mud-legged ones probably won't, but it's hard to say about that young Knight."

"But he killed the most of us! So murderous, and didn't he finish us off without even blinking an eye?"

"Sigh, looking at them, they seem to want to take this opportunity to wipe out the Mountain Wolf gang as well. At least until that goal is achieved, we can stay alive, and maybe suffer fewer beatings."

With that, the five bandits looked at each other; under the flickering light of the torches on both sides, everyone's complexion looked as if their time was running out.

Consequently, everyone lost the interest to speak and fell into silence, each wondering what the others were calculating.

At the very back of the group, Jier was chatting intermittently with the bandit who had surrendered from the Mountain Wolf gang.

"Young Lord, if you continue to attack the lair our boss retreated to tonight, you must be very careful."

Jier, feeling bored, wiped the faceplate of his armor with a red cloth and replied: "How so? Are there still many traps and mechanisms inside and outside that lair of yours in the Forest?"

"There are traps, but they are all for driving away wild beasts. The main thing is that there is a trusted subordinate of the boss in the lair, and he is very formidable! In the years I've been in the gang, I've never seen that person get defeated."

"Oh? Could it be a Knight-rank Warrior who fell on hard times and became a bandit? But if that's the case, can your leader still sit firmly on the chair beneath his backside?"

The surrendered bandit hurriedly said: "No, no, no, not as formidable as you, but still very formidable."

"What kind of nonsense is that? Speak clearly."

The bandit raised his bound hands and rubbed his face hard: "Um, yes, it's like this. Although he doesn't look like much, every time that guy fights someone, he wins! Regardless of whether the opponent is one person, two people, or five people. Just like that, with a Long Sword hacking back and forth, heads fall off just like fruit falling from a tree, plop, plop, plop, they all fall down."

Jier raised his eyebrows, finding it somewhat interesting.

"Tell me his name, nicknames, and the like. Also, his height, weight, and the weapons and equipment he usually uses; tell me everything."

Facing these demands from Jier, the surrendered bandit gave two dry laughs and finally shut his mouth that had been flapping on and on.

"How would I know that much? That guy has no nickname, and we wouldn't dare give him one. Everyone usually just calls that guy Weier. His weapon is a Long Sword, and he doesn't usually get close to the brothers; he just likes to stay outside the Yingdi by himself. That's why the boss often lets him guard the entrance and exit of the Yingdi."

"Oh, sounds like a reclusive expert with quite a bit of style?"

Jier muttered to himself.

After a while, the group slowed down and stopped; Jier rode his horse forward to ask what was wrong.

"Knight, according to what the bandits said, we have found the bandit lair named Desert Snake. The place is not too far from the previous bandit lair, and there is a small stream, a Shulin, and the two are mixed together."

Jier looked left and right: "It should be here. Hmm, tell everyone to be careful; this bunch of snake-players keeps quite a few Poisonous Snakes around their lair."

His horses were far more sensitive than Humans, and at this moment, including the Tianxuecao that Jier was riding, they all appeared restless and uneasy.

Jier jumped off his horse, directing the group to watch their footing and for the front and back to link up first.

"Everyone watch your feet, the grass, the edges of the bushes, and the branches; you never know where a Poisonous Snake might be lying."

Jier held his axe in his hand and used it to casually poke at the surrounding bushes and other low-lying shrubbery.

Amidst the rustling sound of branches being pushed aside, a sharp hissing sound suddenly rang out, and then a black shadow lunged toward Jier's arm.

With a crisp 'Bang', the long black shadow slammed heavily against the arm Armor of Jier.

With a cold snort, Jier nimbly backhanded his blue Two-handed Axe, flicking the dazed long black shadow into the air, and then with a slash of the axe, split its head in two vertically.

The black shadow twisted and curled continuously in the mottled, swaying torchlight; Jier shone his glowing Magic pendant on it, and sure enough, it was a one-meter-long brown-black Poisonous Snake.

Jier continued to walk around the crowd, constantly provoking one Poisonous Snake after another into attacking, and then casually killing them.

This made the corners of the mouths of the surrounding people twitch, and the bandits of the Desert Snake gang felt quite pained.

"Speak up, you must have a way to keep the Poisonous Snakes from attacking people. If even one person on our side gets bitten by a Poisonous Snake and dies, I will randomly kill one of you few people. A life for a life, that's fair, right?"

Jier threw the Poisonous Snakes he had chopped to death back to the front of the group, and a bold young Refugee immediately took out a large sack and picked the curled-up Poisonous Snakes into the bag.

This was all meat.

Hearing the Knight's threatening terms, the few bandits who had originally wanted to let these people suffer some losses hurriedly spoke up: "Understood, understood. My Lord, there is a way, there is a way."

Another person hurriedly added: "We have a kind of powder in our pockets, made from the feces of the large snakes raised by our leader. If you rub a little bit on your legs, the surrounding Poisonous Snakes won't attack!"

Jier snorted coldly: "What are you all standing there for? Everyone rub it on yourselves."

He himself did not use it; after his subordinates searched the pockets on the bandits and found a small bag of black-gray dry powder for everyone, and after everyone, including the horses' hooves, had been evenly coated with some dry powder, he finally let one bandit go into the Shulin to test it first.

Under the accompaniment and surveillance of Jier himself, sure enough, only he was attacked by Poisonous Snakes, while the bandit who had rubbed on the large snake feces powder was not bitten by the Poisonous Snakes.

"Move! Leave half the people outside, the rest follow me!"

Jier mounted his horse, took twenty armed young Refugees, and entered along the edge of the damp Shulin.

According to the intelligence obtained from questioning the bandits earlier, Jier indeed found various markings on the trunks of the large trees in the Shulin. These bandits had decent 'artistic' talent and were very fond of hanging beast heads on the trunks of large trees, or deliberately carving the bark of the large trees to create all sorts of terrifying patterns.

Every large tree around had been turned into an 'art wall' by them to intimidate outsiders, but these things were fake after all; having just experienced the slaughter of this night, the young men under Jier were not very afraid of these strange artistic creations.

They were more worried about the enemy's real blades and guns.

Jier specifically chose to advance toward the large trees that had human skulls hanging on their trunks, and soon, not long after penetrating deep into the Shulin, he found a simple Yingdi built in the Shulin.

Those bandits collected a type of water-loving vine in this Shulin, dried them, and wove them into nets; after they were completely air-dried, the net-like vines turned into a sturdy, breathable type of wall.

By burying this vine wall between two adjacent tree trunks, piling soil at the bottom to fix it, and hanging it with Rope at the top, this group of bandits with great imagination and survival skills had established a seemingly crude but quite practical simple Yingdi deep in the wild Shulin.

The gate of the Yingdi was tightly closed, and a vine basket for sentry duty was hanging on a nearby tree. Jier smiled upon seeing it, drew his bow and arrow, and shot the sentry bandit who was looking at them—not knowing if they were his own people returning—to death with one arrow.

That bandit was struck in the chest by an arrow, and before falling from the high vine basket, he still stubbornly rang the alarm bell.

Ding-dang, ding-dang, ding-dang, ding-dang.

The quiet Shulin Yingdi was instantly awakened by the urgent bell; some people asked what had happened, and others loudly cursed, asking if the sentry was playing a prank on purpose.

But no one thought they were being attacked.

Jier knew that there were not many people in this bandit lair, at most no more than six, so with a wave of his hand, he ordered his twenty subordinates to launch an attack!

"Kill!"

"Ahhhhh!"

Untrained personnel were just like this; once Jier gave the order, the young man in the lead shouted, and then led the others, who were also shouting, to run while yelling and screaming.

They rushed to the gate of the bandit Yingdi and directly used their shoulders to ram the Yingdi gate, which was also made of vine walls, all at once.

The lightweight Yingdi gate, which was only tied with a piece of Rope inside, naturally could not withstand the ramming of so many Human males; it was violently knocked backward, and even knocked over a bandit who had curiously stepped forward.

The number of bandits left behind in the Yingdi was small, and their strength was not enough; facing the twenty people who attacked, they were all hacked to the ground in a single encounter.

One guy threw the Poisonous Snake he was carrying, but the Poisonous Snake that fell at the feet of the young Refugees did not attack them, but instead curled up in fear.

Jier slowly rode his horse to the wide-open gate of the Yingdi, watching how the young men, holding torches in one hand and Cleavers or Long Swords in the other, fought chaotically to take down the counterattacking bandits.

The Bandits still had some skill, managing to barely maintain their defense against the attacks of one or two young people. But the disadvantage in numbers was too great; the two Bandits on the left could barely hold on, but the two Bandits on the right were instantly hacked into pulp by a dozen or so young people.

Jier nocked an arrow and shot dead the fellow who had been knocked over by the gate earlier.

Very quickly, the remaining Bandits were all killed by the young people who swarmed them.

"Take a count and see how many of the remaining Bandits were killed."

Jier gave the order.

The young person in leather armor, breathing heavily with excitement, loudly responded in the affirmative.