There are no clouds tonight, and the night sky in the desert north of the city is particularly clean, and you can see the stars very clearly, and even the galaxy formed by the gathering of stars. Mu Yuan and He Ming, as well as a few agile soldiers, wore night clothes and walked out of the city with fire folds.

Under the guidance of He Ming, the group drove to the water source closest to Lanxiang City, except for a few sparse bushes of vegetation near the water source, they did not see anything suspicious, and the sandstone wall not far away also found nothing, so several people hurriedly went to the next water source. I didn't expect to have an unexpected gain on the road.

Mu Yuan and his party took advantage of the moonlight to run as far as possible along the trade route, and when they were about to reach the water source in the center of the trade route, a soldier suddenly tripped over his horse's leg by something in the sand and fell off his horse's back. He saw that something had been pulled out by the horse's hooves, so he stepped forward and cut the sand around the thing, it was a man! He hurriedly called Mu Yuan and He Ming.

Mu Yuan and He Ming, who were in the forefront, drove their horses back, He Ming dismounted and took the fire fold and approached the man's face and exclaimed

"It's the second son of the Wang family! Quick, help carry it out. ”

Mu Yuan also followed, only to see that the body had been left in the desert for many days, and it had dried a little, but the wound on the neck could still be seen. Mu Yuan held the fire fold and carefully looked at Wang Chu's body, in addition to the fatal wound on his neck, there were also some shallow wounds on Wang Chu's arm, which should have been left when he fought with the thief. In addition, the soldiers found Wang Chu's saber not far away, with Wang Chu's name engraved on it, and there were still dried blood stains on the blade.

The people scattered and searched for a long time, but found nothing. He Ming saw that Mu Yuan was silent, and asked

"The last general saw that there was a lot of blood on the knife body, but no thief's body was found around. If the thief did not die on the spot, he must have been seriously injured. ”

"With such a serious injury, if the camp is too far away, the injured person should not be able to bear the bumpy road, and the thieves are afraid that they will abandon him here in the first place. If I am not surprised, the horse thief's den should be near here, and you will split up to find any hiding place here. ”

"The general's inference is very reasonable, but the last general has searched here before, and he has not found anything."

"But didn't Commander He say that you haven't gone up to this sandstone wall yet, why don't we tie the horses here and go up the slope over there to have a look."

They tied their horses to the dry poplar trees not far away, and walked up the slope ridge, although the desert was so hot during the summer that the nasal cavity burned when inhaling, but at night, the occasional evening breeze mixed with sand grains could not help but shiver.

"This place is good, although it is not too high, and you can't see the whole picture of the trade route, but it is more than enough to see the situation near the water source" The sandstone wall is not very steep, He Ming looked down, and the water surface was still dancing with silver light.

The terrain around is not particularly flat, and the soil is much more solid than other places, with occasional bulges of soil. Everyone split up to check if there were any clues around the earthen bag, and suddenly Mu Yuan saw a huge round stone leaning against a dirt bag in front of it, and at a glance, he felt that the round stone seemed to be embedded in the earth bag, but the round stone looked very abrupt here.

So Mu Yuan used the fire fold to shine all the way down the connection between the cobblestone and the earth bag, and found that there were some traces on the ground, he summoned He Ming, and the two squatted on the ground and took the fire fold to observe it at close range for a moment, with a pair of eyes

"General, it seems that there is something in this round stone" He Ming lowered his voice and got up to push the round stone away.

Before Mu Yuan could stop it, He Ming had already pushed out the cobblestone and dirt bag through a crack, Mu Yuan saw that there was a flash of fire inside, and his heart was not good, so he quickly commanded everyone to hide nearby.

In a moment, the cobblestone was pushed away, and one man with a torch was seen coming out of the cave, and the other was struggling to hold on to the cobblestone to prevent it from slipping back to block the hole. The torch said to the other man when he looked around and saw that there was no one else

"I didn't see anyone else around, the boss is too suspicious."

"I see, it's just that you Taozi didn't close the hole tightly when he came back from peeing just now."

"Fart, I'm absolutely close. Just now you went to pee after me, and you still want to lie on my head. ”

"Bah, you don't want to spew blood. Just now Lao Tzu was holding the embroidered cloth of Shu, and he touched it, who came out to pee... ”

The two scolded and cleared the sand and gravel on the ground at the entrance of the cave, turned back to the cave, and as soon as they let go, the cobblestone slipped back and covered the hole.

Mu Yuan and the others also came out of the shadows, and He Ming was a little impatient:

"Why don't you go back to the city and get some gunpowder, throw it into the hole, and blow up these thieves."

"No, we are not sure how many strongholds the thieves have, if we fail to catch them all, the survivors will be trapped and the beasts are still fighting, and they will definitely spread their anger on the caravan and the people of the two cities, and the danger will be unimaginable."

"That... The general means ... ”

"It's almost dawn, and the sky is getting brighter, so let's go back first, this matter needs to be considered in the long run."

He Ming saw that it was indeed dawning, so he urged the soldiers to quickly take the horses back to the city, who knew that when someone untied the horse rope, the branches of the poplar tree, which had been dry, were accidentally taken down. The crowd was busy returning to the city before dawn, and no one cared about the fallen branches.