A burly man approached Zhou Datong, the bare-chested leader riding alone on horseback, and tilted his head upward, a servile smile on his face. “Brother Datong, forty packs of premium goods in total. Minus the dead horse, we still have nine horses left. The count is accurate.”
Zhou Datong nodded, his mood buoyant, the delight evident in his expression. Raising his voice, he proclaimed:
“With such a fine haul, the Chieftain will be ecstatic when we return. Tonight, we’ll be staying in the first-class quarters for at least three months, feasting on meat and wine every day. Everyone in the stronghold, except the Chieftain himself, will revere and obey us. We can bed any woman we desire!”
His lackeys erupted into cheers, pumping their fists in the air.
“Brother Datong,” one of them chimed in, “that woman is utterly outmatched now. She’ll be completely at your mercy. She’s just a little wench who relies on her body to deceive people. She might fool the Chieftain for a while, but if she keeps failing to bring back valuable goods, how long do you think he’ll tolerate her? In the end, it’s Brother Datong’s strategic brilliance and true skill that matter!” The man chuckled, showering Zhou Datong with flattery.
“Hmph,” Zhou Datong sneered. “That woman’s not worth mentioning. What matters is our resounding victory! All our brothers’ painstaking intelligence gathering, the half-month we spent lying in ambush, and our meticulously laid traps paid off. We’ve secured a fine haul! Let’s head back to the stronghold!”
“Hey, Brother Datong, shouldn’t we deal with that dead horse? Bring it back with us?”
“Why bother with such a hassle? It’s just one dead horse. Nine horses plus all this loot is more than enough!” Zhou Datong, radiant with triumph, spurred his mount forward, taking the lead.
The remaining men, lean and gaunt, squeezed three to a horse, or rode in pairs.
The rhythmic clip-clop of hooves faded into the distance.
Silence settled over the wilderness once more.
Xia Qingyue crouched in the undergrowth, her eyes hollow as her mind raced to process the information she’d gleaned.
A band of mountain bandits from a stronghold deep in the mountains had ambushed a shipment, slaughtering the delivery crew.
These bandits operated in small raiding parties, roaming the mountains and foothills, surviving by looting and killing with impunity.
Within their stronghold, it seemed there was fierce competition. Those who returned with the most loot earned higher status and preferential treatment, while those who failed faced hardship.
Initially, Xia Qingyue had only learned about the mountain bandits through the original owner’s memories and Chen Yuzhen’s recent accounts.
But today, after personally encountering them up close, she truly grasped how dangerous these encounters were.
The sky had grown overcast, the sun veiled by thick, dark clouds. A cold wind howled, rustling the grass blades that whipped against her face, stinging her cheeks.
Wincing at the sting, she raised a hand to touch her reddened face and tried to stand. But after squatting for so long, her legs were numb and cramping.
The cramping sensation was excruciating. She pounded her legs, accidentally kicking the burlap sack—a solid, unyielding weight.
What could be in this thing?
Driven by curiosity, Xia Qingyue opened the sack. Inside, she saw something blindingly white, and she froze in shock.
She reached in and grabbed a handful, rubbed it between her fingers, and brought it to her nose to sniff. A faint, salty aroma drifted up.
Holy crap, it’s refined salt!
No wonder the bandits were so elated, even abandoning the horse meat.
The sack contained over fifty pounds of refined salt. Assuming each horse carried four sacks, ten horses would have hauled over two thousand pounds.
Two thousand pounds of refined salt—worth several hundred taels of silver!
Xia Qingyue gasped, Holy cow!
It was likely between one and two in the afternoon. Fearing the bandits might return, she emerged from the tall grass, shouldering the bag of refined salt.
Five corpses and the carcass of a horse lay sprawled where they had fallen.
The sight of the bodies still made her uneasy. She clasped her hands in a bow and murmured, “Forgive me for trespassing. I mean no harm.”
Heihei circled the horse’s corpse, sniffing incessantly.
Xia Qingyue examined the animal.
The horse had died recently; its body was still warm. Multiple deep cuts scarred its hide, the most grievous wound gaping at its neck, exposing bone. Rope marks girdled both front legs.
Judging by these marks, she surmised the bandits had ambushed the deliveryman, tripping the horse with a rope stretched across its path before swarming in for the kill.
In the chaos, the surviving deliveryman had fled blindly on horseback, inadvertently stumbling upon the lu’er jiu patch where Qingyue had been foraging.
“Poor horse,” she murmured, “what a waste.”
The horse was plump and well-muscled, its blood still crimson and vibrant, showing no signs of poisoning.
An idea sparked in Xia Qingyue’s mind. A horse yielded a substantial amount of meat, and combined with the fifty-odd pounds of salt she’d already secured, she could butcher the carcass and salt the meat.
It would last her until next year.
The hide, once tanned, could be repurposed into leather for shoes or a coat.
A free windfall was too good to pass up.
Frustrated by her lack of a suitable blade for butchering, she suddenly remembered the weapons the bandits had wielded during the fight.
Unfortunately, the bandits had taken her longsword. In the end, she found a sharp blade beneath the body of the man who had fallen from his horse and died. As she moved the body, a dagger clattered to the ground from his sleeve.
The dagger was about thirty centimeters long, its willow-leaf-shaped blade thin, gleaming, and razor-sharp. The blade and hilt were cast from bronze, giving the weapon a compact, refined appearance.
Xia Qingyue fell in love with the dagger at first sight. She hefted it a few times, finding it remarkably well-balanced and comfortable in her hand.
Armed with the sharp blade and dagger, she began skinning the horse. Lacking experience, the hide came off in ragged pieces, leaving some patches still clinging to the carcass. The skinning alone took an hour.
First, she severed the four hooves, a task that took some time as the sharp blade wasn’t designed for hacking. Next came the butchering: she sliced open the horse’s belly, and blood and viscera gushed out.
The stench of blood and viscera nearly overwhelmed her. She fought back the urge to vomit, held her breath, and stubbornly forced herself to continue carving the meat.
After only three cuts, the wooden bucket she had intended for crabs and shrimp was full.
As dusk fell, ferocious beasts would soon emerge. The strong scent of horse and human blood would inevitably draw them to the area.
After careful consideration, Xia Qingyue decided to return to the pine forest, transfer her basket of mushrooms into a burlap sack, and use the carrying basket to carry the horse meat and refined salt.
Fortunately, she had made it a habit to carry a burlap sack with her on her daily outings.
She carved several large chunks of horse meat, carefully selecting prime cuts from the belly and rump—areas where the horse’s constant movement resulted in superior meat quality.
She continued carving until her basket was overflowing, filled to the maximum she could carry.
To prevent blood dripping along the return path and attracting beasts to the sinkhole, she scraped the blood from the meat and smeared it onto the surrounding weeds.
With her basket laden and a bucket of horse meat in hand, she hurried back to the sinkhole. She first brought the meat back to her shelter, then grabbed her cleaver and returned to continue cutting meat.
By the time she returned, it was already past four o’clock. The cleaver made the work much easier, and she quickly filled another basket and bucket with horse meat, again carefully cleaning up any blood.
As dusk deepened, Xia Qingyue dared not linger. Carrying the horse meat, a vegetable basket brimming with black fungus, a basket of lu’er jiu, and a sack of mushrooms, she hurried back to the sinkhole.
The sky darkened to inky black, and stars began to shimmer in the night sky.
Xia Qingyue stumbled through the darkness back to the sinkhole. Without Heihei leading the way, she would have been hopelessly lost.
This was the first time she had ever returned so late from foraging. She had no time to retrieve her fish traps, leaving them for tomorrow.