Shoved by the sorcerer’s servant, Ren Xiaosu embarked on a journey to the west. Speaking of which, it was quite a coincidence. That disciple of his had wanted to escort him to obtain scriptures from the Western Paradise.
Actually, it never crossed Ren Xiaosu’s mind that he would have a chance to go to such a faraway country in his lifetime.
He did not know where he would end up, nor did he know if he could complete the infiltration mission.
Ren Xiaosu only knew this moment was probably the highlight of Melgor’s life. If Melgor went to the Central Plains and told everyone he had the Stronghold Destroyer in his captivity, he probably would instantly become the most dazzling celebrity in the entire Alliance of Strongholds.
At this moment, Melgor led his servant and Ren Xiaosu quickly away from the outposts’ surveillance perimeter under the cover of night.
Ren Xiaosu realized Melgor seemed to know the outposts’ patrol routes and timings like the back of his hand as they did not encounter a single sentry along the way.
This made Ren Xiaosu breathe a sigh of relief. After all, if they encountered any sentries while leaving, the guards would definitely intercept them.
If the sentries attacked, Melgor would surely retaliate.
If Melgor retaliated, then Ren Xiaosu would be forced to kill him.
In that case, wouldn’t the infiltration plan go up in smoke?
Therefore, Ren Xiaosu was truly glad for Melgor.
Before dawn, they had already passed through the surveillance perimeter of all the outposts. Only at this moment did Sorcerer Melgor finally heave a sigh of relief.
Ren Xiaosu sat on the ground in a relaxed manner with his shackles on. Then he said to the sorcerer’s servant, “Hey, sheep, find me some water to drink.”
The sorcerer’s servant was shocked. “Who the fuck are you calling a sheep?”
Ren Xiaosu said unhappily, “Since you can turn into a sheep, aren’t you a sheep?”
“My name is Li Chengguo!” Li Chengguo, the sorcerer’s servant, said, “You are just a captive of Lord Melgor, so show some respect!”
Ren Xiaosu turned to Melgor and said, “You should just turn him back into a sheep. If you do that, I’ll agree to be your steward.”
Li Chengguo was confused.
However, Melgor no longer went along with his request. Instead, he signaled to Li Chengguo with his eyes. “Go and find some water. I’m thirsty too. Go look for Liu Ting while you’re at it too. He should be nearby.”
Liu Ting was the other sheep that had escaped. Melgor did not bring him along to capture Ren Xiaosu as he needed to move quickly.
Ren Xiaosu pondered about how these two sheeple had retained the naming conventions of the Central Plains natives. It seemed like it was really as the Great Hoodwinker had said. Too many people had been abducted from the Central Plains in the past. As a result, it introduced some weird cultural changes in the nation of sorcerers.
He wondered if this organization known as the Eye of True Sight regretted abducting so many people from the Central Plains and getting assimilated.
Of course, all the sorcerers in the Eye of True Sight should have retained their own culture and language to showcase their status.
When Melgor saw Ren Xiaosu in a trance, he suddenly asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Oh.” Ren Xiaosu glanced at him. “I’m just a little homesick.”
He was speaking the truth. Even though Ren Xiaosu used to live in Stronghold 113 a long time ago, he had never thought of that place as home.
Later, he traveled to the Yang Consortium, the Li Consortium, the Qing Consortium, the Zhou Consortium, the Kong Consortium, and the Wang Consortium, but none of those places made him feel a sense of belonging.
It wasn’t until he came to the Northwest that he and Yang Xiaojin had their first “home” in Stronghold 144.
Melgor smiled and said, “A home is a very illogical concept. Humans should not be impeded by such secular things.”
Ren Xiaosu snapped, “What do you know?!”
Melgor was left choking with anger at Ren Xiaosu’s response. ‘I want to reform him! I want to reform him! I can’t get mad at him!‘
…
At this moment, the eight-hour duration Ren Xiaosu and Zhang Jinglin had agreed on had passed.
By the time Zhang Jinglin returned to the outpost, it was not only him and the other two sentries who had come back. Even Wang Fengyuan, the Great Hoodwinker, and other powerful figures were here as well. When they received news that their commander and future commander had been attacked, they immediately drove over. They were afraid the two core leaders of the Northwest would perish here.
When they got to the vicinity of the outpost, dawn was almost breaking. However, the Great Hoodwinker realized only Zhang Jinglin was at the agreed-upon rendezvous point.
The Great Hoodwinker immediately said in a sobbing tone, “Commander, where’s Future Commander?”
Zhang Jinglin waved him off disdainfully. “Enough already, he’s not here. Stop acting.”
The Great Hoodwinker stopped crying and said, “Oh, where did he go?”
“He’s still at the outpost.” Zhang Jinglin took a look at his watch. “He told me to head back to the outpost in eight hours. Although I don’t know what he’s up to, we should do as he says. Alright, there’s only 15 minutes until the agreed time. We should get there on time if we set off now.”
When they arrived at the outpost, it was empty.
Wang Fengyuan knelt down on the ground and carefully checked for every clue. “Based on the tracks, other than Future Commander, the two sentries, and Commander Zhang’s footprints, there’s also traces of two other strangers. One of them should be a sorcerer. The footprints that he left changed from light to heavy over a distance. He probably used their so-called levitation and rushed here, dispelling it after he reached the outpost.”
They did not know what the spell used by the sorcerer was called, but they had seen it before during the war, so it was recorded and categorized under a label to be saved into the files.
Wang Fengyuan followed the footprints and analyzed them. “Future Commander seems to have been restrained, so he started struggling very hard on the spot. We’ve all seen this spell before too. It should be a binding spell. After that, Future Commander was shoved along by someone. The footprints on the ground show he staggered for a moment here.”
Wang Fengyuan was also an extremely outstanding intelligence agent. Just by analyzing the footprints, he could already guess that Ren Xiaosu had been shoved around by the sorcerer’s servant here. He was simply too sharp!
The Great Hoodwinker said in surprise, “With Future Commander’s strength, even a sorcerer should not be able to take him away that easily, right? What on earth happened?”
“I’m not sure.” Wang Fengyuan frowned and shook his head.
The Great Hoodwinker said to Zhang Jinglin, “Commander, I’ll lead some people to go save Future Commander. It seems like that sorcerer was acting alone. We can’t let him abduct Future Commander just like that!”
But at this moment, Wang Fengyuan, who was kneeling on the ground and searching for clues, suddenly shouted, “Come over and have a look. When Future Commander left, he etched a number on the ground with his foot.”
Zhang Jinglin and the Great Hoodwinker looked over in surprise. There really was a number “3” marked out on the ground on the mountain path!
“This is the information Future Commander wants to relay to us. It’s just that I can’t determine what it represents at this moment,” Wang Fengyuan said.
Then Wang Fengyuan heard Zhang Jinglin laugh heartily. “Commander, why are you laughing?”
“I know what this number means,” Zhang Jinglin said.
The Great Hoodwinker asked, “What does it mean?”
Zhang Jinglin recalled what Ren Xiaosu had told him. Then he said to Wang Fengyuan and the Great Hoodwinker, “The Prosperous Northwest 3.0 plan has begun..”