When Lei Zhong led his ten-man squad on horseback around a mountain hollow, scouts reported that a large group of people and horses were traveling toward Guangping Prefecture on the official road ahead. From their banners, they appeared to be an escort agency transporting goods. However, any escort agency daring to transport large quantities of goods in this war-torn and chaotic land would necessarily be very large in scale and renowned in reputation. Yet this group was flying the banner of an obscure “Weihai Escort Agency,” which was highly suspicious and required special attention.

Lei Zhong appreciatively dismissed the scout to investigate further and ordered the entire squad to be on alert. At the same time, he thought to himself that this group of scouts had all been personally trained by Master Meng for half a year. They could infer ten things from hearing one, perceive the significant from the subtle, and were truly handy to use.

Half an hour later, the scout reported again that the goods being escorted by that group of escort guards should be grain, estimated at possibly over three thousand dan.

Grain! Three thousand dan of grain! Where did it come from? How had the Fish Intestine Army not heard even a whisper of news about this?

Lei Zhong’s mental alarm bells rang loudly. With a wave of his blade, the entire squad quickened their pace and intercepted this group of escort guards before the boundary marker of Guangping Prefecture.

Lei Zhong and his men wore ordinary Southern Army armor. After the escort group stopped, one of their stewards approached with a face full of smiles, saying they had already obtained travel permits from Governor Liao, who was stationed in the three prefectures of Guangping. Lei Zhong merely grinned and said, “Unfortunately, we don’t answer to Governor Liao.” The steward, hearing his unfriendly tone, showed a slight change in expression and was about to speak again when a rider from the rear of the large group came galloping forward, cupping his hands and laughing from afar: “Captain Lei, it’s been a long time!”

It was Chu Bitian.

Lei Zhong was startled, and Chu Bitian had already ridden his horse over. The steward tactfully withdrew.

Chu Bitian had been traveling and studying in various places for the past few years, claiming to “read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles.” Over these years, his temperament and demeanor had greatly changed. He was no longer the inexperienced youth of the past and had developed an air of refined elegance.

Lei Zhong knew his true identity and dared not be negligent. He cupped his hands in return and said, “Young Master Chu is too polite.”

Chu Bitian lowered his voice slightly: “Please convey to Master Meng that these three thousand dan of grain and two hundred jin of medicinal materials were purchased by me through contacts in southern Lu, and I’m preparing to transport them to Guangping Prefecture to give to Senior Brother Li for disaster relief.”

After Lei Zhong made an “oh” sound, his gaze slowly swept over those escort guards who were clearly not good people, remaining motionless as he waited for Chu Bitian’s continuation.

Chu Bitian looked at him and suddenly laughed, lowering his voice even more: “Brother Lei, your expression right now resembles that of Master Meng of yours. It’s just a pity that your appearance is too…”

Lei Zhong knew that his appearance looked very much like Zhang Fei, which was too inconsistent with the cautious personality familiar to the Imperial Guard members, so he had long ago earned the nickname “Zhang Fei Doing Embroidery.” But it seemed unnecessary for Chu Bitian to point this out so directly to his face, didn’t it?

Chu Bitian knew what he wanted to ask. He raised his chin to point at those escort guards and said quite proudly: “These people have excellent martial skills, don’t they? I visited seventeen mountain strongholds before I could gather this group of people. Unfortunately, no one tried to rob the escort along this route, so there was no opportunity for them to display their skills.”

Lei Zhong felt the corners of his mouth beginning to twitch. Chu Bitian looked like a wealthy young master on the surface, but who would have thought he was a bandit leader? With these fierce bandits and great robbers whom he had beaten into terror and forced to work as escort guards, what band of mountain bandits would dare to rob this escort?

As he was about to leave, Lei Zhong brought up the matter of Yun Yanjiao’s disappearance. Chu Bitian’s expression immediately became strange, and he hemmed and hawed for a long time before saying, “I know what Senior Sister Yun might have gone to do, but I can’t say. If it’s something that can be told to Master Meng, Senior Sister Yun will naturally notify him herself.”

Lei Zhong’s mind stirred: “Young Master Chu means that Madam hasn’t encountered any accident?”

Chu Bitian laughed with a “ha”: “Accident? All eighteen teams of the Yun family’s servants have rushed to Guangping Prefecture. They’re less than half a day’s journey behind me. Now it’s only them giving others accidents—where would there be anyone who could cause them to have accidents?”

Lei Zhong’s heart jumped. The Yun family had deployed such a large formation this time? Was it the Yun family or the immortal mountain on the sea that was about to undergo great changes?

Chu Bitian led the escort convoy away with a flourish, and Lei Zhong hurriedly led his squad back to camp to report.

That evening, the five squads that returned to report had all failed to find any trace of Yun Yanjiao, but the intelligence they gathered left Meng Jianqing deeply troubled. Chu Bitian had purchased grain and medicinal materials locally in southern Lu, causing grain and medicine prices in the southern Lu area to soar; the Zhejiang merchant magnate Fan Fu seemed to have foresight and had early on transported large quantities of grain and medicinal materials by sea route, stockpiling them in eastern Lu, perfectly filling the shortage in southern Lu; Fan Fu had also accepted an invitation from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang merchant association in Guangping Prefecture to hire a group of canal boatmen who had lost their jobs due to the war, transporting three thousand dan of grain and two hundred jin of medicinal materials by waterway to Guangping Prefecture for disaster relief. When this group of boatmen passed through Weishui Lake, they had conveniently dealt with the water bandit Liu Qi, who had been blocking the road and robbing travelers. Given that even the two thousand naval forces stationed there had previously been unable to eliminate Liu Qi, Meng Jianqing suspected that this group of such fierce and brave boatmen must have problems; the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, while on a mission to comfort the troops, had encountered rogue soldiers, lost all his baggage, and several of his subordinates had gone missing, while those rogue soldiers had also disappeared without a trace; recently, many wandering monks had appeared near Guangping Prefecture, their movements quite suspicious…

Meng Jianqing instinctively sensed the brewing of a storm.

The next day, he deployed all the scouts at his disposal. That evening, he finally obtained the intelligence he wanted.