Chapter Thirteen: Target Mountain Stronghold
Three riders stirred up the wind and dust, with a white tiger and war horse by their side. With Flowing Star's recent great contributions, Xiao Ying rarely puts it back in her pet space. Anyway, they're all on the same team, and Xiao Ying found that letting it roam free makes it grow faster. Although Flowing Star is still underage, its speed isn't any slower than the war horse - it's even much faster!
Riding a horse makes a big difference, walking to the other side took several hours, and returning on horseback only took tens of minutes. After returning to the village, he called San Du and inquired about the situation at Tie Mu Shan's mountain stronghold together. There were only around 300 people on the mountain, including women and children, and not many knew much about the leader, only that it seemed like a demoted general or something, with an armed force of over 100 people. Although not many, they couldn't be dealt with by Evil Shadow Village at present. Then they began discussing how to handle it. Letting them be was impossible, what if they suddenly came to Evil Shadow Village to rob? In the surrounding area of a thousand miles, there was only one village, Evil Shadow Village, who else would they rob? Thinking about attacking, Evil Shadow Village had only four or five combat units and didn't have any powerful generals like Wan Ren Di (a legendary general).
"We can't beat them no matter how hard we fight, and our defenses are useless. What's the point of this? Our village was just starting to flourish, is it going to be destroyed so soon?" Du Wei complained bitterly.
"It's not necessarily that we must attack!" Just as everyone was silent, Du Cheng suddenly said slowly and mysteriously, with a bit of the aura of Zhuge Liang.
"Oh? How to say it?" Xiao Ying asked in puzzlement, can't they just surrender without a fight? They have more people than Yeshuang Village and their combat units are several dozen times that of Yeshuang Village, how can they be surrendered?
"Listening to the two dog sons, their leader is a demoted general, and the mountain stronghold life is not bad, self-sufficient, and there are no suitable targets for robbery nearby, which means they shouldn't be considered as bandits. I think robbery might just be an individual act of some people in the mountain stronghold, which means their leader's nature isn't bad, otherwise he wouldn't have come to this remote place to open a mountain stronghold. There's basically no target for robbery here! Even if we don't bother them, they won't necessarily come to rob us!" Du Cheng analyzed with his head nodding in agreement.
"This is also true! Bandits shouldn't appear in such a place, it's rare for people to pass by. However, completely ignoring them isn't an option either, I think it's better to go and observe their attitude, after all, they might also yearn for a more lively life like ordinary people!"
After careful consideration, Xiao Ying highly agrees with Du Cheng's statement. Looking at the slow development of the village, Xiao Ying can't help but have other thoughts. The reason he says this is that generally, mountain strongholds and villages cannot develop into cities, at most they can only develop into towns, just like semi-underground organizations. Except for specific villages or cities with special NPCs, it's impossible to obtain a village construction permit, so they can only establish institutions similar to underground organizations.
The ratio of players to NPCs is over 1:1000, if NPCs could also build their own villages and develop into forces, how would players survive? Would they work for NPCs? There are not many players who would be willing to do that, after all, it's just a game, who would willingly submit to being inferior?
This is also one of the reasons Xiao Ying doesn't believe in players.
"To be honest, was the robbery your own idea or a copycat behavior!" Xiao Ying suddenly shouted at Er Gouzi and Gou Dan with an attitude of not tolerating any nonsense, ready to settle the matter immediately.
"Village head, spare our lives! This is Zhang Yi's deception, we are not willing to do this! Because there are no people coming and going here, the mountain stronghold has no special regulations on whether or not to rob!" Er Gouzi was scared by Xiao Ying and immediately knelt down to beg for mercy, pushing everything onto the dead person's body. Since they were already dead, there was no way to prove otherwise. Hearing him say this, the chances of surrendering increased greatly. After all, their mountain stronghold did not belong to a purely bandit den, and besides, Evil Shadow Village had just been built for a few days, so it was unlikely that the system would refresh such a powerful bandit group so soon. In a radius of ten thousand miles, only Evil Shadow Village existed, wouldn't that be the end of Evil Shadow Village's road? Seeing that they were given such good news, Xiao Ying also didn't bother to calculate with them anymore!
"Let's try this, we'll go and pay our respects first, see how they react. If we can persuade them to surrender, that would be best. If not, at least we can put our minds at ease and focus on development. Even in the worst-case scenario, it's better to make other plans early!" After some contemplation, Xiao Ying spoke up again. "Besides, even if we get killed, it's not like we'll really die. We'll just lose a tenth of our abilities, that's all. I'm only level 7, so losing a tenth isn't a big deal. And who wants to live in constant fear and anxiety? Of course, the most important thing is that if we can persuade them to surrender, Evil Shadow's power will increase dramatically. Opportunities and risks coexist, and the ratio of loss to gain is too great. The risk is small, but the potential reward is huge - a 200% profit is enough to make people take risks. Not taking this gamble would be foolish."
The master is not afraid of death, as a subordinate, what else can be hesitated? Moreover, Xiao Ying's words are also very reasonable. Next is the selection of people going out. Someone must lead the way, there are only four war horses, and only three places are available. Looking at Xiao Ying's eager attitude, it's certain that she will go, leaving only two places left. San Du suddenly fell silent.
"It's better for Xiao Wei and Lao Bo to go, if things don't go well, there's still hope that they can bring you back; Lao Bo has rich experience and also has the skill of surrendering, if things go smoothly, the chances of success are relatively high!" In the end, it was Du Cheng who spoke up first, voluntarily giving up his spot. Of course, this wasn't because he was afraid to die - if the master wasn't afraid, what would he be afraid of? This was a rare opportunity to gain merit, and the higher the merit, the greater the position; naturally, this merit was relative to Xiao Ying, after all they had already acknowledged Xiao Ying as their leader.
"Alright, let's have Er Gouzi lead the way. Du Weidu Shou and I will set off immediately!" Xiao Ying stood up and said, he was also a decisive person, besides they didn't have much to prepare anyway.
They put the meteorite back in their pet space and set off immediately, leaving the meteorite outside, fearing that the mountain stronghold people would be disgusted if they brought it with them. After all, the meteorite was a considerable help, so it wasn't too much of a waste.
After more than half a time, the four of them finally arrived at a small canyon about 40-50 meters wide (relatively speaking, this place was called Taoyuan Valley by Xiao Ying and his group). The two sides were towering mountain peaks over 100 meters high, and the mountains seemed to be moving further back, with the mountain range getting higher. After entering the small canyon for 20-30 meters, they encountered a stone wall about 5-6 meters high, with more than a dozen people standing on top of it. In the middle was a wooden gate about 2 meters wide and 3 meters high. Seeing this, Xiao Ying couldn't help but exclaim in admiration. The arrangement of two or three powerful warriors on the city wall was indeed formidable, making it difficult to imagine that such a natural fortress existed, yet it didn't seem like it was man-made. He couldn't help but marvel at the "heavenly craftsmanship" of nature, and wondered what the famous Tiger Trap Pass, known as the number one pass in the world, would be like - truly impregnable!
