With Brother Han at the helm, the efficiency was through the roof. About four hours after he left, Ye Shuang received the call that the truck was already prepared. They only needed one hour to arrive at the outskirts of the mine and could intercept the military arms at any moment.
At the same time, the government gave their greeting. The local law enforcement was not sent, but around dusk, from the nearest army camp, came a small group of five. They wore casual outfits and looked pretty much like hikers going for some exercise.
“Please send a local to guide us up the mountain.” During the interaction, the team leader revealed his line of pearly whites and took out some weapon from the hiking bag that was supposed to be filled with canned goods and mineral water to give a signal. “Leave the fighting and escorting of the truck to us.”
Ye Shuang hung up the call with Han Chu and nodded at Master Five before finally turning to the group. “We shall thank you for your help.”
The kind Xiao San arranged some people to walk the five up to the mountain. Master Five sipped on the tea and felt like everything was going fine. “Since everything has been arranged, we shall retire early today. There’s much to do tomorrow.”
“Where is the girl that was captured?” Ye Shuang replied. “I wish to stay over there.”
“You?” Master Five looked at Ye Shuang with surprise before frowning. “There is already a family of five and two other people watching over her. A girl like yourself shouldn’t get mixed up in it.”
Then he thought about it before adding, as if to make Ye Shuang feel better, “My original job is to teach these young kids. Even though they might not be as professional as the soldiers, it is still pretty much impossible for anyone to slip anything by us.”
Ye Shuang nodded and said with sincerity, “Then, shall I go over there after dinner?”
“…” Master Five. Since you showed such sincerity, please don’t act like you didn’t hear the things that I said.
After dinner, Ye Shuang was still led to that family to stay the night. Since everyone in Nature Village was one of Master Five’s people, this kind of family style management allowed the change of logistics. With an order, even at midnight, those who were asleep would wake up to help move Ye Shuang’s place of rest.
Nighttime was when people came out to interact. Families visited each other for group activities. They chatted or shared the schedule for the next day. Everything was better than staring at the television at home.
Of course, in today’s society, computers were very common, but since Master Five was in retirement, this place was very isolated. Furthermore, they could not guarantee that people would not use the IP address to trace their server and so on, so internet was not accessible inside the village. At most, there were console games. If not for the fact that Han Chu’s laptop had satellite internet, he would have been cut off there as well.
Just as everyone left home for their recreational activity, Ye Shuang started her own mission. Instead of mingling with everyone, Ye Shuang was more concerned about the girl who had remained unusually reticent. Therefore, she went to meet the girl’s guard and went in for a private conversation.
“Good evening.” Climbing down the wooden ladder singlehandedly, Ye Shuang jumped down to the ground and waved at the girl who was tied in the corner of the room. She then raised her other arm. “Roasted chicken and braised meat, would you like some?”
A hostage’s food would not be so good. Even though she knew that the girl would not be touched by the offer of a meal, to show her sincerity, Ye Shuang still prepared a scrumptious meal for her.
The girl lifted her head to look at Ye Shuang. The sweetness that she showed when she was around Master Five had completely disappeared. In its place was a detached coldness. “Sorry, but I’m vegetarian.”
“Then, shall I go make something vegetarian for you?” Ye Shuang shrugged. She walked over and placed the bowl on the table. She used her leg to hook over a chair and sat down. “It’s not fun having steamed corn bread day after day, right? Actually, making such food is even harder than sourcing a chicken leg. To make your meals, people have to dig into the stored grain that they were planning to save for the winter, and they had to open a different oven to bake them for you.”
Ye Shuang appeared touched when she said so. “They do care about you.”
The girl was rather speechless. She stared at Ye Shuang for half a minute before saying, “I thought you were here to ingratiate yourself to get some information, but it looks like I was mistaken.”
She had thought Ye Shuang was there to soften her up with some kind gestures, but Ye Shuang was obviously there to annoy her.
“Just joking.” Ye Shuang smiled and pushed the bowl on the table toward the girl. “You sure you don’t want it? This might be your last good meal.”
“Are you trying to scare me?” The girl scoffed. “You think I might blurt out something in the fit of anger? Well, you’re wrong. I am just a small lackey. Even if I tell you everything, actually, the information that I can provide won’t be useful to you at all.”
Ye Shuang smiled wordlessly. The girl looked at the bowl before picking up the chicken leg to study it. She took a small bite out of it. “The taste is not bad… but I’m surprised that old man would go so far. Isn’t he afraid that he might not see his granddaughter again?”
“That’s hard to say. After all, your condition is worse, and no matter what, Master Five’s granddaughter’s life is much more valuable than yours. Your boss only has this leverage over Master Five, so I don’t think you’ll kill the hostage any time soon,” Ye Shuang said. “The taste’s pretty good, right? I purposely swiped it from the family’s youngest son, who only managed to take a bite out of it. He cried so badly when he lost his food… tsk tsk tsk.”
“I think you’re asking for death.” The girl failed to swallow the meat that was in her mouth. She spat it back onto the table and tossed the chicken leg away. Disgust colored her face, and she gave Ye Shuang a once-over. “Do you think that you’ve won?”
“It’s too early to tell, but yes,” Ye Shuang said humbly.
The girl was speechless again.
“Who exactly are you?” It was not easy to train to become so shameless.
“I’m an earthling!” Ye Shuang said proudly.
“…”
The two girls in the prison went back and forth. The guards outside were rather bored. With the thick wooden door in the way, they could not hear the conversation inside. Seeing as everyone had gone out to play, but they still needed to guard the door in the cold wind, a sense of dissatisfaction grew in their hearts. Compelled by boredom, and since chatting would not affect their job, the two-started to get curious about the situation beforehand.
“Who is that girl? Master Five gave her quite a large amount of power. Isn’t he worried about her at all?”
The other person glanced over. “Why do you care? We only need to follow the master’s order. Why do you need to have so many questions?”
The young man who spoke first pouted slightly. “That’s not true. Earlier, didn’t Master Five allow the girl who is currently captured to do anything. He even told us to refer to her as Sister Xiao Qi, and when there’s an outsider, we are to treat her as Master Five’s granddaughter…”
“Are you dumb?” The other looked down on him. “The sudden disappearance of the real Sister Xiao Qi and the appearance of a fake Sister Xiao Qi that none of us know. There is obviously something going on here. Did Master Five need to tell everyone that? With regards to the current situation, I’m not so clear either, but the enemy of our enemy is our friend. As long as there’s no conflict of interest between us. After all, she came under Master Eight’s reputation.”
“This means that everyone knows that this Sister Xiao Qi is problematic?” The young man was in shock. “Then how come no one told me anything about it?”
“It’s probably because of your intelligence.”
“You!”
At this point, the wooden door was opened from inside, and Ye Shuang climbed up the wooden ladder with a laugh. She looked no different from those young masters who had just toyed with a beauty. She asked the two who quickly shut up to close the door.
Then… the next second, the wooden door slammed shut, and her expression shifted immediately. “Inform Master Five that there’s a change to the plan. We’re moving up the mountain tonight!”
The two guards looked at each other. “Do you mind telling us why?”
Such a sudden change a plan would make anyone suspect that this might be a trap.
“The reason is…” Ye Shuang paused for a moment before waving her hands in surrender. “Never mind, I’ll go see Master Five myself. With your intelligence, it’ll take too long to explain the situation.”
The two watched Ye Shuang walk away speechlessly. It was not until the latter disappeared that the young man poked his partner and chuckled. “Now we’re in the same boat!”
Looking so happy that they were treated as equally dumb.
His partner refused to talk to him.