"What do you suggest, Young Hero Feng?" Wu Neng asked cautiously.
Feng Luotian's gaze swept the room, lingering on the weathered faces of the villagers before he began. "I think we should act quickly and decisively. It's true that with Little Sister Tu here, you might be able to hold out for now—her presence alone deters the troupe leader. But how long do you think Little Sister Tu will stay here? For the rest of her life? From what I heard, she isn't even one of the villagers. No offense."
Luotian gave a slight, apologetic bow, the fabric of his robes rustling in the sudden silence. Tu Lingxi returned the gesture with a fluid, effortless grace. "None taken, Big Brother Feng," she said calmly, her voice a steady anchor in the tense atmosphere.
"That means at some point, she'll leave this village to gain experience and grow stronger," Luotian continued, his voice hardening as he laid out the cold reality. The path of a cultivator is paved with distance, not stagnation. "What happens after that? And the longer you wait, the more unpredictable the situation becomes. The troupe leader might already be calling for reinforcements through his connections.
"If that happens, you'll have no chance to defend yourselves. That's why I suggest we eliminate the bandit troupe entirely—and leave no survivors who might cause trouble in the future. What do you think?"
Murmurs broke out around the room. Most of the villagers shook their heads, unable to see how they could destroy a force so much stronger than their own.
"It's not that we don't want to, Young Hero Feng," Wu Neng said, voicing their concern. "We just don't have the strength."
"How many bandits are there?" Luotian asked, his mind already beginning the mental refinement of a strategy, wanting to assess the situation for himself.
Wu Ya interjected with an update, her expression sharp. "I didn't kill anyone in the third squad, so there are only two fewer than before."
Wu Neng nodded slowly. "Based on Miss Tu's intel, assuming they haven't received reinforcements yet, there should be 56 bandits left."
"And their cultivation levels?" Luotian pressed.
"The troupe leader is an Eight Fangs Fighter, and the vice leader is at Seven Fangs," Wu Neng began, listing what he knew. "They still have four squad captains, all Six Fangs Fighters. Among them, there are…"
He went on to describe the rest of the bandits' composition and strength in detail, the numbers painting a daunting picture of the force gathered against them.
"How many monster cores do you have in the village? Between Four Fangs and Six Fangs, preferably. Higher-level ones are welcome too," Luotian asked, his eyes brightening with a sudden, calculated intensity.
"About two hundred," Wu Neng replied after a moment of thought, surprised by the shift in focus.
Hearing this, a faint smile formed on Luotian's face, a sharp contrast to the grim faces surrounding him. "This will work."
"What will work, Young Hero Feng?" Wu Neng asked. The others leaned forward, waiting for Luotian to explain.
Luotian's mysterious confidence intrigued them, but they couldn't grasp his reasoning. "We will do this…" Luotian began, his voice dropping into a steady cadence. He laid out his plan with meticulous detail, tracing invisible lines in the air to mark positions and timing, ensuring no step was left unexplained. He spoke of leveraging the monster cores, turning their static energy into a localized storm of cultivation pressure.
When he finished, the room was quiet except for the wind whistling through the floorboards. The plan was daring, but everyone agreed it could work with the resources they had. The villagers now had a plan to put into action.
Once the meeting ended and tasks were assigned, the villagers dispersed to prepare. Hurried footsteps and quiet instructions carried between the huts.
Tu Lingxi stayed behind, her light footsteps barely making a sound as she approached Luotian with curiosity. "It's incredible that someone around my age could come up with such a plan."
"You're giving me too much credit," Luotian replied modestly, waving off the praise with a slight, calloused hand. "I just happen to have some experience with situations like this."
"Experience with coordinating a group to battle someone significantly stronger? This operation is practically a small-scale war. Where did you gain such experience?" Lingxi asked, her interest clearly piqued, her eyes narrowing as she tried to read the enigma standing before her.
Luotian responded with a cryptic smile, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "Never mind that. I'm more curious about why a Vermilion Kingdom cultivator is traveling alone and almost at Divine Bird City's border."
"!!"
Lingxi stiffened, her expression guarded. She hadn't expected him to ask so directly.
Luotian continued, his tone still amicable but with an undertone of seriousness that carried the weight of an authority. "Not that I suspect you of causing trouble, but as someone from Divine Bird City, may I ask your purpose in coming here?"
Though his voice was polite, the atmosphere grew noticeably colder, his words carrying a subtle pressure that made the very air feel heavy and restrictive. If she is a spy, her heart rate will betray her now.
Lingxi fell silent for a moment, her gaze dropping to the floor before she answered. "I'd rather not answer that question. But I can assure you, I have no intention of causing any trouble for your city."
"Alright, I believe you," Luotian said, the warmth returning to his tone as he withdrew the pressure as casually as one might douse a candle.
He turned and left the hut. Lingxi watched in surprise; she hadn't expected him to trust her so readily. Luotian, however, was confident in his judgment. Years of survival had taught him to read people's reactions, and he saw no sign that this girl was lying.
A few seconds later, his voice reached her from outside. "Is something wrong? Let's go, Little Sister Tu."
Snapping out of her stupor, Lingxi quickly followed him, her mind swirling with more questions than she had started with.
* * *
The first step of the plan was to convince the bandit troupe that Tu Lingxi had already left the village. As long as they believed she was still present, their leader and his men would remain cautious, their movements restricted by a constant, prickling wariness of her ambushes.
Similarly, Feng Luotian couldn't stay in the village; his presence as an unknown factor would only heighten their suspicions. To the bandits, this unfamiliar young man was a shadow—a variable they might even consider more dangerous than the girl they already feared.
Thus, Luotian devised a ruse. He transitioned into the role of an envoy from the same distant lands as Lingxi, sent to drag her back to her origins. To make the act visceral and convincing, he bound her slender wrists with coarse, biting ropes, the hemp fibers scratching against her skin as he began pulling her away from the village gates.
The villagers played their parts enthusiastically. They shouted, argued, and pleaded with Luotian, raising a commotion loud enough to reach any scouts hiding nearby. Dust rose around the gates as they acted out their desperation.
But Luotian "revealed" a token—an object he had hastily crafted out of mundane, drying mud, shaped with enough precision to mimic an official seal. Waving the dark, earthen scrap in front of the elders, he declared it proof of his undeniable authority. Begrudgingly, the villagers "relented," their faces twisted in practiced defeat as they reluctantly allowed him to lead Lingxi away.
The direction Luotian chose for their departure was calculated. He moved toward the area where Wu Ya had previously defeated the remaining members of the Vulture Bandit Troupe's third squad. It was a place of lingering echoes, perfect for his secondary objective: to collect their souls.
The absurd scene played out exactly as planned. The exaggerated act of Lingxi being "forcibly taken," her head bowed and her steps heavy, was witnessed by hidden eyes in the brush and quickly reported back to the leader of the Vulture Bandit Troupe.
* * *
"Boss!! Boss!! Big news!!"
A skinny man burst into the leader's private room, shouting between ragged breaths. The door struck the stone wall with a sharp crack.
Inside, a middle-aged man with fiery crimson hair and a beard as thick and wild as Zhang Fei's from the Three Kingdoms sat enthroned in a heavy wooden chair. A massive lion's mane was draped around his neck like a macabre cape, the faint scent of old musk and dried blood clinging to the fur. His sharp eyes glinted with a dangerous spark as he scowled at the intruder, the air in the room growing heavy with his irritation.
"What's with all the racket?!" he barked, his booming voice vibrating through the floorboards and shaking the very foundation of the room. "And do you have to announce to everyone that I'm the boss around here? Come back when you've learned some manners!"
With a swift, blurred motion, the leader delivered a kick that sent his unfortunate subordinate flying backward through the doorway, the man's boots skidding uselessly against the dirt floor.
Moments later, the man stumbled back inside, his shoulders hunched and his voice reduced to a hesitant murmur. "Boss, I have something important to report."
The leader's frown deepened as he glared, his knuckles white as he gripped the armrests. "Why are you acting so timid now, like a scared little woman? If you're one of my men, act more barbaric!" he snapped, before a heavy palm flattened the air, slapping the poor guy right out of the room once again.
The man picked himself up, dizzy and thoroughly confused. He looked pleadingly at the two guards outside. Both met his eyes, then turned away. Neither wanted to get involved.
Thankfully, his rescue came in the form of a shadow approaching from behind—a scholarly man with a composed, steady demeanor that seemed to cool the surrounding heat.
"Vice Leader!" The man's face lit up with relief as the scholar ushered him back into the room for a third time.
The newcomer, Mao Quanzhou, was the vice leader of the Vulture Bandit Troupe. His calm and calculating presence, marked by the neat fold of his robes and the sharp clarity in his gaze, contrasted sharply with the explosive temperament of their leader, Jiu Hao.
"Jiu Hao, must you always bully your own men?" Mao Quanzhou said with an exasperated sigh, his voice a smooth blade of logic cutting through the tension.
Jiu Hao leaned back in his chair, feigning a look of wounded innocence that sat poorly on his rugged features. "What? I wasn't bullying him. I was just teaching him some manners."
Mao Quanzhou rolled his eyes, the gesture subtle but pointed. "Like you have any manners yourself," he muttered under his breath.
"…" Jiu Hao had no comeback for the truth, so he huffed, the lion's mane shifting on his shoulders as he turned back to his subordinate. "Hmph! Speak. What do you want to report?"
The man straightened his tunic, eager to finally deliver the message that had cost him so much dignity. "Boss, that damn girl has left the village!"
Jiu Hao's expression stayed blank for a heartbeat, his tone flat and unimpressed. "What girl?"
The messenger froze. For a moment, he could only stare at his leader, the excitement draining from his face.
Swallowing his frustration, he collected himself and gestured wildly with his hands. "Boss, the girl who kept trying to set our camp on fire every time you went to attack their village! The one we couldn't catch!"
Finally understanding the news, Jiu Hao's eyes burned with a sudden, wolfish excitement as he let out a booming laugh that rattled the cups on the table. "Hahaha!! Finally, my time has come! Without her, those villagers are just sheep for the slaughter!"
But his fiery enthusiasm was extinguished in an instant as Mao Quanzhou calmly interjected, his fingers tapping a thoughtful beat against his chin. "Wait. Why did she leave? With how much she cares for that village, she wouldn't just abandon them to suffer at our hands. This might be a trap set up by the villagers."
"It's that new guy who arrived at the village this morning," the man reported, his voice dropping to a cautious whisper. "I think he's from the same place as that girl. He tied her up in ropes and dragged her away from the village like she was a common prisoner."
Mao Quanzhou's frown deepened, the lines on his forehead carving into a mask of calculated suspicion as he processed the report. "A new guy? Strange. If that's the case, the villagers should have done everything in their power to stop him from taking her."
"That's exactly what happened, Vice Leader," the man repeated, his voice gaining a frantic edge. "The villagers made a huge commotion trying to stop him, but the moment he showed some sort of token, they all fell silent and let him do whatever he wanted."
"I see," Mao Quanzhou mused, his tone slipping into a thoughtful, distant hum. "That explains it. He must be from a big sect in the city or a kingdom near Warland Thicket. Once the villagers realized who he was, they probably chose to let her go rather than offend a sect of that caliber. If that girl is from the same place, it also explains why she's so capable despite her young age." He paused, his sharp eyes flicking to the scout. "Did you send someone to follow them?"
The man nodded quickly. "Yes, Vice Leader. But after ten minutes, we lost sight of them. They were too fast—moving through the brush like ghosts. Should we send another squad to track them?"
Mao Quanzhou shook his head decisively, the movement sharp and final. "No. They'll be long gone by now. It's not worth the effort to chase shadows. What about Xiong Fan and his squad? Have they returned yet?"
"No, Vice Leader," the man replied, his voice wavering with hesitation. "I haven't seen them since last night. There's been no word from the perimeter."
"What are they doing?!" Jiu Hao roared.
Mao Quanzhou, however, knew his leader's anger had nothing to do with concern for his missing men. Instead, Jiu Hao was likely fuming at the thought that they might be off enjoying a hidden cache of wine or spoils without inviting him to join the revelry.
With a dismissive wave, Mao Quanzhou ignored Jiu Hao's antics and turned his attention back to the subordinate. "Never mind that. We'll raid the village without them. Without that girl interfering, they don't stand a chance against us. Go and tell everyone to prepare for the raid! I want every blade sharpened and every man ready to move."
"Yes, Vice Leader!!" The man saluted, his boots thumping against the floor as he scrambled to carry out the order.
Jiu Hao, meanwhile, stood dumbly in place, the fire in his expression momentarily replaced by a look of utter confusion at having been completely ignored by the other two.
Mao Quanzhou turned toward the door, then looked back at Jiu Hao with an exasperated expression, his patience clearly wearing thin. "What are you doing?! It's your time to lead our men to battle!"
At this, the fire reignited in Jiu Hao's eyes, burning brighter than before. Without hesitation, he rushed out of the room, his heavy footsteps shaking the walls. "You despicable sons of vultures, RISE!!" he bellowed, his voice a thunderclap that echoed through the entire camp. "Today, we'll feast on ravens' blood!!"
True to form, Jiu Hao charged out of the camp alone, his crimson hair trailing behind him like a streak of flame as his booming voice echoed through the trees.
The other bandits stopped in confusion, their armor still half-fastened as Jiu Hao charged off alone. They had barely begun following Mao Quanzhou's orders. Looking to him for guidance, they found their vice leader covering his face with one hand and shaking his head.
Meanwhile, miles away, the atmosphere was entirely different. All the villagers in Raven Village were locked in a silent, focused hustle. They were busy preparing for the second step of the plan: setting up arrays, their hands steady as they laid the groundwork for the trap.