Chapter 467.2: Flying General Battalion (2)

Chapter 467.2: Flying General Battalion (2)

The Gramophone collected the blood from Li Banfeng's clothes and dripped it onto the cabbage seeds.

Before long, the cabbages sprouted. Li Banfeng took one look at what had grown and smiled. This bait won't work...

What grew out of the cabbage was Gu Rusong himself. Li Banfeng wanted him to pose as Lu Dongliang, but this cabbage person did not have the ability to take on someone else's appearance by itself. This meant that his wifey would need to turn this cabbage person into Lu Dongliang.

While Wifey worked on changing the cabbage person's appearance, the Film Projector went to the fifth room and imagined up a new scene.

At dusk, a sweet, innocent-looking young woman in a simple blue changshan ran across the grassland. A young man in a black Zhongshan suit chased closely behind her.

He soon caught up and placed a beaded hair ornament in her hair. The result looked a little strange. She wore a student cut, also known as a mushroom cut, which did not exactly go well with delicate ornaments like that.

Still, there was no point fussing over the details. It was the thought that counted.

The young man in the Zhongshan suit took the girl's hand. "I want to stay with you for the rest of my life."

The girl shook her head. "That's not enough. I want you with me for lifetime after lifetime."

"Alright!" the young man agreed. He wrapped his arms around her, and the two of them stood together on the grassland, quietly watching the sun set. "We will stay here and slowly remember the stories of our past lives."

The girl nodded and shyly nestled into his arms.

The Film Projector was nervous.

Director Qi, I have done everything I can. If I manage to coax anything out of her, I will count myself lucky. If I can't, then I will have to leave the rest to you.

***

A large poplar tree stood at the entrance to Properfolk Village, its broad canopy spreading over the roadside. The bagworm moth Swallowie often rested beneath it.

Today, however, there was another woman waiting under the tree. Swallowie looked her over and asked, "Waiting for someone?"

Lu Dongchun nodded. "My man."

Swallowie smiled. "What a coincidence. I like waiting here for my man too. We are not waiting for the same one, are we? Does your man treat you well?"

Lu Dongchun was silent for a while before answering, "Very well. He's the only person in this world who's ever treated me kindly."

Swallowie flicked the antennae on her head and scoffed. "Come on, don't talk like that. We women don't have to live our whole lives for some man. I refuse to believe there's nobody else in this world who treats you well."

Lu Dongchun looked at her. "Does your man treat you well?"

Swallowie snorted. "He's good to me when he's sleeping with me. When he's sleeping with some other woman, he's good to her instead. Getting worked up about it won't change anything. That's exactly why I say we can't live our lives around men. Next time I see him, I am definitely giving him the cold shoulder."

Lu Dongchun lowered her head. "My man isn't like that. He's always been very good to me, but when it comes to... that, he doesn't know anything."

Swallowie laughed. "Nothing at all? You have to teach him? What? Is your man a virgin?"

Lu Dongchun shook her head. "He wasn't before. He used to know everything. Some of the things he knew even frightened me. But then, all of a sudden, he forgot how. I don't know why."

Swallowie frowned. "Girl, are you sure that's still your man? You haven't run into something strange, have you?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Lu Dongchun sighed. Her delicate face was pale and completely expressionless, making her look almost like a porcelain doll.

Swallowie quietly put a little more distance between them. She might have been a powerful roaming aberration, but even she found Lu Dongchun's eerie appearance unsettling.

A group of people slowly came into view along the road in the distance.

Swallowie's eyes lit up. She hurried over to meet them. "Darling Wu, you are back!"

Ma Wu had returned. He was just planning to ship a batch of rare treasures from Properfolk Village to Yellowclay Bridge, hoping to attract merchants from the surrounding areas and bring more people into the town.

When Swallowie came rushing over, Ma Wu caught her in his arms and planted a hard kiss on her chubby cheek.

Swallowie glanced back toward the tree. "There was a woman over there. Something about her felt really strange. She said she was waiting for her man too. Was she waiting for you?"

Ma Wu looked toward the tree. "What woman?"

Swallowie frowned. "She was there just a moment ago, and now she's gone. Her cultivation level must be pretty high."

Ma Wu gave Swallowie a pat, but his eyes remained fixed on the enormous poplar tree. Hidden among the tall weeds beside it, Lu Dongchun was watching him too.

There had been no word from Lu Dongliang for two whole days, and Lu Dongchun was worried that he might have fallen into Li Qi's hands. If that was true, the only plan she could think of was to seize Ma Wu and use him to force Li Qi to hand Lu Dongliang over.

The two women beside Ma Wu looked capable. Obviously, the Madam Bagworm Moth would be even more troublesome to deal with. Still, no matter how difficult it would be, she had to give it a try. There was hardly anything left in this world that she cared about anyway.

She was just about to burst out of the weeds when a strand of spider silk wrapped around her arm. The silk trembled, and the clothes against her body began to quiver with it.

Sound was nothing more than vibration. When the silk vibrated against Lu Dongchun's clothes, it was no different from hearing a voice.

"Pray don't go over there. Do try not to be rash. If you go now, you will be walking straight to your death."

Lu Dongchun responded with the vibration of her clothes. "Who are you?"

"I have come to offer you my assistance. Whether you care to admit it or not, Li Qi and Ma Wu are among the most powerful men in Puluo Province. They are equivalent to the Four Great Families back then. Go after either of them alone and you would be courting death. Accept my help, however, and you might come out of this alive."

There was something peculiar about the way the man spoke. His accent was unmistakably Puluo, yet there was a distinctly foreign air to it.

Ma Wu was already making his way toward the weeds. Lu Dongchun had only two choices: charge out and fight for her life, or leave at once. Staying hidden where she was would only get her killed.

The spider silk vibrated against her again. "Come with me. I know you are here because of Lu Dongliang, and I should very much like to help him as well. But first, we must find out where he is."

Hearing this, Lu Dongchun no longer hesitated and followed the spider silk out of the grass.

***

Ma Wu searched the grass with Qin and Huo Ling for quite some time, but they found no trace of the woman Swallowie had described. After returning to the village, Ma Wu was listening to Swallowie describe what she looked like when he spotted Shui Yongquan drinking in the tavern.

He hurried over. "Big Bro Shui, Swallowie saw a woman near the village entrance who looked like a cloth doll. Have you noticed anyone like that around here?"

Shui Yongquan quietly raised a curtain of water around them, sealing off every sound without leaving so much as a drop behind. "You are talking about Lu Dongchun, aren't you?"

Ma Wu nodded. "She's an enemy of ours. Do you know her?"

"No, Old Qi told me about her. She's a Threadbound Cultivator. Her scent is faint, and she leaves no footprints, so she's hard to track. Another sixteen people are hiding in the woods east of the village. They hid themselves well, but last night, they killed several hunters and stole their food. I found the hunters' bodies, and that led me to those sixteen bastards. Old Qi plans to take them all out tonight, along with Lu Dongchun."

Ma Wu's face lit up. "Old Qi is in the village?"

"Don't rush off to find him just yet. Wait until tonight is over."

***

Lu Dongliang walked into the woods east of Properfolk Village and lit a cigarette. He was halfway through it when a man in his thirties approached and bowed respectfully. "Master!"

Lu Dongliang raised a hand. "Gather everyone."

The man turned to carry out the order without asking any questions. Thankfully, he didn't ask. These cabbage people were of lower quality than muskmelon people and couldn't handle much beyond simple exchanges.

Before long, all sixteen of Lu Dongliang's men had gathered, but Lu Dongchun was nowhere to be seen.

Shui Yongquan frowned and signaled for Li Qi to deal with the men in the woods while he went to find Lu Dongchun.

Li Qi nodded. Once Shui Yongquan was far enough away, he quietly opened the door to the Pocket Dwelling.

With the effect of Golden House of Hidden Beauty, the cabbage Lu Dongliang walked toward the Pocket Dwelling. His men had no idea where he was going, but they kept their heads down and followed him all the way inside.

Li Banfeng closed the door from outside.

The sixteen men couldn't understand how they had gone from the woods into such a cramped room. They looked to Lu Dongliang, only to find him standing respectfully against the wall.

There was a gramophone across from Lu Dongliang. Beside it, a woman in red sat with her back to them, combing her long, silky black hair.

Between the dim light and the mist that filled the room, they couldn't see the mirror in front of Hong Ying clearly, so they had no idea what Hong Ying really looked like. All they could tell was that she had a beautiful figure.

Is this a reward from Master Lu?

To be honest, the men were desperate. They hadn't touched a woman since setting out for the New Land.

The Gramophone puffed out mist as the record spun rapidly on its turntable. A woman's voice came from the horn. "Yiiing... our man brought home some snacks. I will share some with yooou..."

Hong Ying slowly rose from her seat in the corner. "Xiaowan, I knew you cared about me," she said softly.

Then she turned to face the men. Where her head should have been, a spearhead gleamed coldly between her shoulders, draped in thick black hair.

Most of the sixteen men were trembling. Some felt faint, while others wanted to scream. Feeling faint or trembling was fine, but screaming was not. It was late, and the Old Man Pocket Dwelling was already asleep.

Hong Ying slit the throats of everyone who tried to scream. Those who kept quiet got to watch the whole family enjoy their midnight snack.

***

Five kilometers away, the famous detective Daboinsky rested his hand on a strand of spider silk, quietly sensing its every tremor.

Lu Dongchun asked, "What's happening?"

"Someone appeared in the woods, and sixteen people gathered around him."

"It's Dongliang! He brought sixteen men with him," Lu Dongchun exclaimed. She was very excited as she knew Dongliang's men were hiding in the woods, and only Lu Dongliang could have summoned all of them out.

She was about to head into the woods when Daboinsky stopped her again. "That man has disappeared. So have the others."

"What happened?" Lu Dongchun asked anxiously.

Daboinsky shook his head. "My spider friends can only give simple descriptions. They can't make sense of what happened, so they can't explain it clearly."

"I will go and see for myself!"

"Don't rush into anything. Wait a little longer..."

A few minutes later, Daboinsky felt the spider silk tremble. "That man has reappeared, but the others haven't."

Lu Dongchun couldn't understand what was going on.

Daboinsky gathered up the spider silk. "I have been a private investigator for decades, and I can tell you with confidence that the man in those woods isn't Lu Dongliang."

Lu Dongchun shook her head. "That's impossible. His men only take orders from him."

"It's probably someone who looks very much like Lu Dongliang, or someone impersonating him by other means."

Lu Dongchun still didn't believe him. "How do you know? Didn't you say the spiders couldn't understand what happened?"

"Ma'am, this is my deduction. Gathering all his men in the forest late at night was a dangerous move. It could easily have exposed their whereabouts. If Lu Dongliang needed everyone together, he must have been planning something he couldn't do without them. But he took them away, then came back alone. That accomplished nothing and only put him at risk. The most reasonable explanation is that he handed those sixteen men over to the enemy, then returned to act as bait and lure you out too."

Lu Dongchun's expression remained blank. "Dongliang wouldn't betray me."

Daboinsky nodded. "I believe he wouldn't betray you. That's why I said this man isn't Lu Dongliang. Someone has set a trap. If you go into those woods now, you will walk straight into it, just like the others. Once you are caught, you will have a hard time getting out alive."

Lu Dongchun hesitated.

"If you want to get yourself killed, I won't stop you," Daboinsky said. "But if you choose to trust us, we can help you find Lu Dongliang."

"Us?" Lu Dongchun looked at him, her clear eyes as bright and lifeless as glass marbles. "Who are you?"

"We belong to the Flying General's Battalion. We all serve the Flying General."

"Who's the Flying General?"

Daboinsky's expression grew solemn. "Everyone in Puluo Province has heard her name. The Flying General, Zhao Xiaowan, who conquered the land with a single spear."

Lu Dongchun didn't really believe Daboinsky as Zhao Xiaowan was a figure from legend.

A drip sounded in the grass. They both looked toward the sound and saw dew sliding off the blades.

Daboinsky's expression grew grave. "There's too much moisture in the air! Shui Yongquan will be here soon. Ms. Lu, this is your last chance. If you are willing to join us, we will leave together. If not, let us go our separate ways."

Lu Dongchun nodded in agreement.

A strand of spider silk descended from above, and Daboinsky took Lu Dongchun with him, disappearing into the night.

Klakakak!~

With a dry crackling sound, the plant that had shed the dew pulled itself out of the ground and scurried away on its roots over to a man. It climbed swiftly up his back and once it reached the back of his head, the little plant bit through his skin, curled itself into an emerald-green ball, and burrowed into his skull.

The man's cheek twitched. It seemed to have hurt a little as the ball of grass rolled back and forth in the back of his head like an emerald-green eyeball.

He was Omnidirectional Peeper, a Spycraft Cultivator and a capable subordinate Qiu Luoye had given Li Banfeng. Many parts of his body could detach and act on their own, including the eye in the back of his head.

That eye had been lucky. The Omnidirectional Peeper had been stationed far from the village and hadn't expected to learn much, yet he had uncovered crucial information.

The Omnidirectional Peeper passed the news to Li Banfeng at once. Li Banfeng was surprised; he hadn't expected Daboinsky to still be alive.

"They have an organization called the Flying General's Battalion. Lu Dongchun went with him to join the Flying General, Zhao Xiaowan," Li Banfeng said to the Gramophone.

Wifey burst out laughing. "Heyaaaa~ Husband dear, let them know that if they want to serve me, they will have to discuss it with me in person!"