Tong Shuxue surveyed the hillside where the fierce battle had taken place once more. Although the traces had already been cleaned up, anyone experienced enough would still be able to tell that a large group of people had been active there.
Irritated, she ran a hand through her hair. As long as someone was careful enough, the cave entrance would still be discovered.
Moreover, if anyone circled around to the top of the valley cliff, they would be able to see the situation inside the valley.
Tong Shuxue returned to the cave hall, while Mo Shen followed behind her with a rather complicated expression in his eyes.
At this point, everyone had already entered the cave. Mo Shen still could not hold himself back from asking again.
“Miss Tong, do we really not need to station guards outside?”
Tong Shuxue walked back to her chair and sat down. After thinking for a moment, she took a reclining chair out from her dimensional space and tilted her chin toward Mo Shen.
“Take this for your Prince to rest on. There’s no need to guard outside. As long as anyone appears within three kilometers, my people will know.”
Perhaps the sight of over six hundred corpses vanishing instantly outside the cave had been too great a shock for Mo Shen.
Now that he saw a reclining chair appear out of thin air again, he instinctively became nervous.
Such an ability was simply too heaven-defying. The fear in Mo Shen’s heart caused him to momentarily forget to react.
Fortunately, Gao Fei was quick-witted. He immediately stepped forward and bowed toward Tong Shuxue.
“Many thanks, Miss Tong.”
As he spoke, he carried the reclining chair over to Zhao Jingyuan, then carefully lifted Zhao Jingyuan onto it.
The reactions of the others inside the cave varied greatly.
Those who had witnessed the disappearing corpses outside silently edged a little closer toward Zhao Jingyuan’s side, feeling that Tong Shuxue resembled some kind of monster from legends.
Some looked at her with fear mixed with a trace of excitement. One bold-looking boy, who appeared only fifteen or sixteen years old, directly asked,
“Miss Tong, are you some kind of immortal fairy? Only the immortals from folk legends could casually conjure things like this.”
It was not as though Zhao Jingyuan had not formed suspicions himself. In the end, he also felt that only demons or gods could possess such abilities.
However, the first time he had met Tong Shuxue, she had clearly been injured. Although she now looked fully recovered, if she were truly a deity, she should not have been wounded in the first place. Could she perhaps be a demon instead?
Tong Shuxue smiled as she swept her gaze around the cave inhabitants and spoke in a mysterious tone.
“Young brother, you have sharp eyes. This immortal descended into the mortal world to undergo tribulation and happened to land here. Since our paths have crossed, it is fate. As long as you are not wicked evildoers, this immortal shall protect you all from harm.”
Her answer left everyone half-believing and half-doubting. Mainly because her abnormalities truly could not be explained through common sense.
Suppressing the countless doubts in his heart, Zhao Jingyuan focused on the most important matter for now—maintaining peaceful coexistence.
“Miss Tong, when you said three kilometers just now, did you mean three li? How about I send people down the mountain to scout around? If anything happens, we could discover it earlier.”
Tong Shuxue had no objections to whatever Zhao Jingyuan wanted to do, so long as he did not lead people to this place.
“Do as you wish. But don’t leave anyone outside the cave. If someone really comes up here, having people outside would only attract attention instead. The three kilometers I mentioned are about six li, though whether my li and your li are the same distance is another matter.”
After some thought, Tong Shuxue instructed,
“Ling Yi, Ling Er, go guard the foot of the mountain and install signal receivers along the route. Send messages if anything happens. Ling San, Ling Si, scout farther out and see whether there are any larger caves nearby where we can burn those corpses.”
With so many corpses scattered around the area, not only would the valley become impossible to conceal, but the sight of bodies piled outside the cave was also revolting.
More importantly, leaving them untreated could easily breed infectious bacteria. If that happened, the animals in the mountains could also become carriers, and even the mountain water sources might become contaminated. The villagers below the mountain would face a high risk of infection as well.
She did not know the level of medical care in this world, but if it was equivalent to the ancient eras she had known before, an epidemic could wipe out an entire region’s population.
Thus, the simplest method Tong Shuxue could think of was to burn the corpses.
After a pause, she looked toward Zhao Jingyuan.
“Prince, do you know anything about the top of this valley cliff? For example, is it easy to climb up there from outside? Are there any potential dangers on top?”
When Tong Shuxue had first arrived at the valley the previous evening, she had already considered sending robots around to investigate the top. Unfortunately, before she had the chance, Zhao Jingyuan’s matter had occurred first thing this morning.
Zhao Jingyuan shook his head.
“My people have never gone up there. However, there are stories passed down among the older villagers at the foot of the mountain. The area where we are now is already deep enough for fierce beasts to appear, so villagers gathering firewood or hunting would never venture this far.”
These pieces of information had been gathered long ago by Mo Shen and the others after Zhao Jingyuan had been sentenced to exile. This mountain range had been prepared as one of their escape routes during any rescue attempt.
According to the local villagers, the mountain range had not contained fierce beasts in earlier years. Later, perhaps because the beasts deeper in the mountains multiplied, fierce beasts had begun appearing around this area roughly fifty or sixty years ago.
Originally, this cave had not been hidden at all. Even ordinary hunters would need about two days to travel from the foot of the mountain to this place, making the cave the ideal location for overnight shelter.
Later, as the number of fierce beasts increased, hunters no longer dared venture this deep. Most of the old hunters who had once entered these areas had already died, so stories of this shelter cave gradually became little more than unreliable legends passed from mouth to mouth.
As for whether the cliff top of the valley could actually be reached, nobody knew. Zhao Jingyuan’s men had previously searched this area for both the cave and the valley, but they had never expected the cave entrance to be concealed so thoroughly by vines.
Moreover, it was impossible to climb directly from outside the cave to the valley cliff above because the route passed through a miasma forest. Although skilled physicians could create pills capable of resisting the poisonous miasma, Zhao Jingyuan did not have a physician by his side.
Tong Shuxue understood immediately. Without medicine to counter the miasma, there was no way to inspect the cliff top.
“Ling Wu, head up to the cliff top and take a look. While you’re at it, collect some air samples from the miasma forest.”
Judging purely from the simulated terrain map, it appeared possible to reach the cliff top by traveling up the outer slope. Whether it could truly be done would only be known after attempting it.
Mo Shen expressed his desire to send someone along as well.
“Miss Tong, although the abilities of us brothers cannot compare to those elder brothers of yours, we cannot just hide here and contribute nothing.”
His words were not unreasonable. Since the outside was temporarily safe anyway, Tong Shuxue was not worried about Zhao Jingyuan’s people becoming burdens.
She retrieved a gas mask from the pharmacy section of her space.
“Fine. Assign one person to go with Ling Wu. Once you reach the miasma forest, put this on. It protects against poisonous gas.”
Mo Shen accepted the gas mask and ordered a man named Dali to accompany Ling Wu. Dali appeared to be in his twenties, tall and powerfully built, clearly someone with great physical strength.
For the time being, the arrangements were mostly complete.
Zhao Jingyuan seemed to have finally reached his limit and had fallen asleep on the reclining chair. Gao Fei removed his outer robe and draped it over Zhao Jingyuan.
At this season, it was already the twenty-fourth day of the eighth month, and the cave temperature was rather cold.
Tong Shuxue noticed that Zhao Jingyuan was covered with only a single outer garment and feared he might catch a chill. However, there were still more than one hundred fifty people present, and she had no intention of concerning herself with such matters.
What truly concerned her now was what all these people would eat at noon… and what they would eat tonight.