Chapter 44: Backfire

I had to admit the bandits had planned their operation with meticulous care.

Digging four discrete extraction tunnels beneath a heavily guarded imperial trade route took weeks of grueling, silent labor. Furthermore, leaving the entry shafts wide open once the captives were pulled below wasn’t an act of carelessness, it was an intentional, calculated misdirection.

By leaving the excavated pits exposed under the burning wreckage, they intended to draw the caravan’s surviving guards straight into the dark underground maze, buying their retreating comrades time to collapse the auxiliary tunnels behind them. It was a brazen display of defiance, a final mocking gesture left behind to humiliate the slavers.

I turned away from the pits to look at the bandit leader.

Thanks to the Mid-Mortal Grade Bone-Knitting Pills I had tossed out like cheap candy, the burly man’s shattered jaw had clicked back into place, his cracked ribs knitting together under waves of restorative medicinal mist.

Supported by two of his battered men, he struggled to his feet. He brushed the mud from his coarse wolf-pelt armor, took a trembling, ragged breath, and bowed deeply toward me with hands clasped in profound reverence.

"This lowly one is named Tie Shan," the bearded man rasped, his voice rough and laced with awe. "On behalf of my surviving brothers, I offer our eternal gratitude to Immortal Senior. You possessed the divine might to erase us from this earth with a sneeze, yet you spared our lives and bestowed such precious spirit pills. We will never forget this benevolence."

"Save your breath, leader Tie," I replied casually, resting my hands behind my back as I took in the smoky clearing. "I stepped into this mess simply because I found your little theater mildly amusing. There is no need to sing my praises. However, as clever as your extraction plan was, your entire squad came within half an inch of a complete, irreversible disaster."

Tie Shan froze, blinking through his bruised eyes. "A disaster? But Senior... the captives have already entered the secondary tunnel network, and we held the road long enough for them to clear the valley perimeter. How did it almost backfire?"

I turned slightly, pointing the tip of my clean boot toward the headless, armored corpse lying in the dirt ten paces away.

"Look at that fool," I said, a faint chuckle slipping past my lips. "Did you truly believe an imperial caravan would haul dozens of captives through a lawless border wilderness with only a handful of bodyguards and a cowardly merchant? That dead man was a genuine cultivator at the Peak of the Qi Condensation Realm. If his objective was simply to protect the wagons, he could have stepped outside and cleaved all thirty of you in half before my disciple even finished tying her hair."

Tie Shan’s weathered face drained of all color, his lips parting in a silent gasp.

"The entire merchant convoy was a deliberate facade," I continued smoothly, looking down at the groaning, unconscious merchant in the mud. "They brought just enough mortal guards to put up a decent fight, ensuring you would feel confident enough to commit your strike force. That spearman was never meant to guard the cages. He was deliberately staying hidden in the shadows, waiting for your secondary team to breach the wagons and pull the captives into the tunnels. The moment the extraction began, he would have slipped into the shafts behind them, traced your escape route back to your hidden stronghold, and led an imperial extermination force to wipe your entire clan off the map."

The clearing went completely dead silent.

Tie Shan and his surviving men stood utterly paralyzed, cold sweat drenching their torn pelts. The burly leader’s hands began to shake violently against his thighs as the sheer, horrifying reality of the setup sank into his skull.

"T-That... how could that be possible?!" Tie Shan stammered, his voice cracking with sheer panic. "Our reconnaissance, the tunnel coordinates, the timing of the strike, everything was kept under absolute, top-secret quarantine! Only four senior captains within our inner council knew the exact hour we were hitting the wagons! How could the imperial slavers predict our route and plant a cultivator to bait us?"

Standing beside her warhorse, Shen Qingxue’s delicate features darkened into a frost-covered mask. Her obsidian eyes narrowed into two razor-thin slits of icy contempt.

"Is it not obvious?" she said, her voice flat, cold, and dripping with disgust. "You have a traitor rotting inside your council."

Having watched her own father’s border garrison fall to internal betrayal and royal court conspiracy, the stench of an informant was something she could smell from a mile away.

I glanced at Qingxue’s rigid posture, noting the sharp, righteous fire burning behind her gaze. A slow, amused smile curled the corner of my lips. As the saying went, an opportunity handed to you by heaven shouldn’t be wasted.

Dragging her through wild forests to fight stray boars was fine for physical conditioning, but navigating human treachery, tracking subterranean ambushes, and unraveling conspirators was the true forge for her Asura Dao Heart.

"Then I’m interested," I said, my gaze sharpening. "Tell me more about this situation. I think I’ll poke my nose into your affairs."

I glanced at Qingxue. "What about you? Want to help me root out this rat?"

Qingxue’s eyes hardened. "I hate corrupt traitors almost as much as I hate slave traders. If this involves both, then I want to see this through."

I nodded, pleased by her resolve. "Good. Then let’s see what kind of rat is hiding inside your ranks."

We mounted our horses, and I looked toward Tie Shan. "Lead the way. Take us to your stronghold."

Tie Shan immediately gave orders. Two men stayed behind to burn the remaining wagon wreckage, ensuring the scene would be difficult to investigate. The rest of his men gathered their horses and followed us into the thick pine thickets.

As we walked, Qingxue nudged her horse closer to mine. The evening breeze carried the scent of pine through the trees, mixing with the faint fragrance of spirit tea from the pouch at my waist.