Chapter 232: Closing the Net

That night, rain began falling in the mountains.

Outside the cave, the damp breath of rain mingled with a certain disorder, nature itself creating an atmosphere of clamor.

Zheng Fan sat there silently with a blade of grass between his lips. Across from him sat A’Ming, relaxed as ever, his waterskin never leaving his hand.

As he himself put it, sometimes drinking blood was for survival.

And sometimes, it was for living.

Helian Baozhu slept deeper inside the cave, wrapped snugly in military bedding.

They might be using the girl, but that was one thing. Neither Zheng Fan nor the Demon Kings had sunk so low as to torment a little girl.

There were only three people inside the cave.

Xue San prowled the outer perimeter. As an assassin, he was confident in his ability to provide vision for the team at a time like this.

The Blind Man sat in a tree outside the cave, draped in an animal-hide blanket. The signal inside the cave was poor; reception was stronger outside, just like a router back home.

Fan Li, meanwhile, sat submerged in a pool below, with only his head above water to breathe. Even that was covered with dead leaves.

There were two organizations in this world whose skill at intelligence gathering was universally acknowledged.

One was the Great Yan Dynasty’s Secret Intelligence Department.

The other was the Silver-Armored Guard.

In Zheng Fan’s opinion, the Great Yan Dynasty’s Secret Intelligence Department was actually somewhat crude. Perhaps because Yan had not been a truly “unified” state for a very long time, its intelligence organization was neither especially complete nor especially powerful. Qi Refiners and other practitioners of mystical arts had also been folded into it, making the whole institution feel more like a hodgepodge.

Only in Yinlang Commandery, under the Marquis of Jingnan, had the Secret Intelligence Department’s usefulness once been pushed to its fullest extent. Thanks to the husband-and-wife partnership there, it had achieved remarkable results.

By comparison, the Silver-Armored Guard actually felt more like a proper intelligence service. Its operational ability, capacity to mobilize resources, organizational framework, and other capabilities were all a level above Yan’s Secret Intelligence Department.

Even after the Yan–Qian war began, Qian’s Silver-Armored Guard had remained active in the shadows and played an enormous role. No matter how hard Yan tried to ban them, they could not be stamped out; no matter how many were killed, they could not be exterminated.

Unfortunately, because Qian’s armies had collapsed on the battlefield, the Silver-Armored Guard as an institution suddenly seemed more than a head shorter than Yan’s Secret Intelligence Department in the eyes of the world.

There was nothing to be done about that.

Still, Zheng Fan believed that when it came to intelligence work and concealment, the Demon Kings under his command were the true elite among elites.

Their only disadvantage was that Zheng Fan himself was not yet powerful enough, and their reputation had not grown loud enough.

Once their faction truly rose in the future, the world would see an entirely different kind of “intelligence organization.”

When that happened, they could have Siniang design a new set of Flying Fish Robes.

Hehehe.

Just then, the Blind Man’s voice began sounding inside everyone’s minds.

This “mental link”—their so-called “team voice channel”—naturally could not be maintained indefinitely. The battery simply could not handle it. So it was only established at critical moments.

And because the Blind Man had caused several awkward incidents in the past by accidentally picking up the others’ private thoughts, earning furious glares from Zheng Fan and the other Demon Kings, he had learned his lesson.

Every time he established the “mental link,” he would imitate the village funeral band after they had just finished setting up a gigantic loudspeaker left over from the previous century and picked up the microphone:

“Hello? Hello, hello? Hello, hello, hello…”

That served as the warning: stop thinking random nonsense in your head.

Of course, the biggest reason was still that Fan Li was present.

Heaven knew what that idiot might be thinking right now.

For example:

Master actually made me hide in a water pit. Might as well split Master open with one swing of my axe!

“San’er has signaled. Someone is approaching. Everyone prepare. Level-one combat readiness.”

Zheng Fan and A’Ming exchanged a glance, then each put on the clothes lying beside them.

They belonged to Helian Baozhu’s guards. They were somewhat damaged, but not enough to matter.

Once dressed, Zheng Fan lay down toward the inner side of the cave. A’Ming curled up against the wall, pretending to be exhausted and dozing.

Up in the tree, the Blind Man used his mental power to draw the surrounding branches closer together, concealing himself more thoroughly.

Fan Li simply sank his entire body beneath the surface of the pool.

Zheng Fan waited.

Truthfully, this kind of trick—inviting the enemy into the trap—was extremely difficult to pull off, and the odds of it collapsing were high.

But at present, it was still the most effective method available.

“Don’t panic. The closest one is still thirty meters away. Three people are coming.”

The Blind Man’s voice kept sounding in everyone’s minds like a live commentator.

Zheng Fan adjusted his breathing.

His saber lay beneath his body.

A Seventh Grade Martial Artist already counted as a minor master in the secular world. Whether one became a retainer to a great noble clan or joined the army, one could make a respectable living.

Perhaps Zheng Fan had simply seen too many vast battlefields and become accustomed to that atmosphere.

Suddenly returning to this kind of small-team operation felt strangely unfamiliar.

“Ten meters.”

“Five meters.”

“Master, two have reached the cave entrance. One more is beside the pool. All three are fairly strong, and they’re being very cautious.”

“There are probably more people on the outer perimeter. San’er is watching them. We need to deal with these three quickly enough that they can’t make too much noise.

“A’Li, when I give the signal, kill the one beside the pool outright.

“Master, one will enter from the left side of the cave mouth. Strike him immediately.

“A’Ming, the one entering from the right—take him alive!”

In a fight, life and death could be decided in a fraction of a second. There was no room for error.

If you deliberately wanted to take someone alive, then either your martial arts had to exceed theirs by many levels, or their sword had to be incapable of killing you.

“They’re here. They’ve already come over. They really are cautious. Attention—about five seconds until they lean inside.”

The Blind Man’s callouts at this point felt rather like having one teammate in a battle-royale squad using wallhacks while spectating.

“Blind Man, shut up.”

A’Ming spoke through the mental link.

They were already this close.

Who still needed his callouts?

Talking in their heads now would only interfere with their reaction speed.

The Blind Man obediently fell silent.

Zheng Fan sensed someone leaning into the cave.

“Master, you move first,” A’Ming said.

Zheng Fan’s body suddenly jolted.

His right hand ripped the long saber from beneath him. He sprang upright with a kip-up, lunged forward, and swept the blade horizontally downward.

The other man reacted quickly and immediately raised his saber to block.

But Zheng Fan was a Seventh Grade Martial Artist. At that instant, all his strength and surging qi and blood poured into the long saber.

The opponent’s guard shattered in an instant.

His weapon flew from his hand.

Zheng Fan slapped his left palm against the ground for support.

The saber in his right hand thrust forward again.

“Pfft!”

The blade plunged straight into the man’s chest.

With Zheng Fan’s current strength, he could have defeated the man even in a fair duel.

With an ambush added on top of that, it took only two exchanges to kill him.

At almost the exact same moment on the other side, A’Ming’s body seemed to shed downward like a snake slipping from its skin.

The intruder saw only an empty outer robe in front of him.

Then, an icy chill covered his back.

He was well trained.

Without the slightest hesitation, he stabbed his sword beneath his own armpit.

“Pfft!”

The blade pierced A’Ming’s body.

A’Ming did not react at all.

His left hand clamped around the man’s throat and instantly tightened.

At the same time, the nails of his right hand smashed directly into the man’s mouth. In the blink of an eye, he extracted a tiny poison pellet hidden beneath one of the man’s teeth.

Then A’Ming twisted around again and appeared in front of him.

His left hand still locked the man’s throat.

His right fist hammered into the man’s abdomen.

“Bang!”

The man collapsed to his knees.

Having freed himself, Zheng Fan immediately stepped forward and kicked away the sword lying near the captive.

Then he pulled out rope and helped A’Ming bind the man beneath him.

“Master, gag him first.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

He shoved the file A’Ming normally used on his fingernails into the captive’s mouth.

That would prevent him from biting off his tongue to commit suicide.

Things had ended here.

They had ended beside the pool as well.

The man standing beside the water had never imagined that a gigantic creature had been lurking beneath the surface for so long.

Fan Li seized both his ankles and dragged him directly into the pool.

Then one fist came crashing down.

Blood bubbles immediately began rising to the surface.

Truthfully, if either the Sword Saint of Jin or Baili Jian had been caught completely unprepared by Fan Li in the same fashion, they would probably have been finished too.

The Blind Man used his mental power to support himself as he descended from the tree.

He was even holding an orange and peeling it.

What came next was his job.

Helian Baozhu had been a little girl, after all. Directly searching her soul did not quite fit the group’s aesthetic sense of how things should be done.

But now that they had captured an adult, there was no need for such courtesy.

“Master’s saber strike just now was truly fast, vicious, and precise. Watching from the tree, this subordinate found it an absolute pleasure to behold.”

The Blind Man walked over while offering some thoroughly halfhearted flattery.

He was probably thinking that if he kept flattering Master, perhaps one day a blind cat really would stumble across a dead mouse and he would advance.

A man needed dreams.

Zheng Fan ignored him.

Instead, he began searching the captive.

The Blind Man walked over and nodded toward A’Ming.

A’Ming strengthened his restraint on the prisoner.

The captive was an adult man with a fairly clean-cut face.

At present, he glared furiously at the people before him, his eyes filled with rage and unwillingness.

“Oh my, my, my. Tsk, tsk. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Relax and enjoy it. It’ll all be over soon.”

The Blind Man spoke with mock sympathy as he placed both hands on the man’s head, preparing to search his soul.

“No need to search him.”

Zheng Fan suddenly spoke.

“Hmm? What is it, Master?”

The Blind Man sounded surprised, but obediently stopped.

Zheng Fan sighed.

He looked helpless.

A little heartsore.

And more than a little caught between laughter and tears.

He raised a waist token he had just found on the man.

Three large characters were carved prominently across it:

SECRET INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT!

[End of Chapter 232]