Chapter 42: Exploring the Enemy's Lair at Night
After Wei Qing and the two jumped into the temple, they quietly went to the direction of Cihang Temple, the last of the four holy temples, is the closest hall to the back door, and there is only a courtyard for Taoist priests to live in the view. At this time, the Taoist priest in the temple had already turned off the lights and went to bed, and the two of them crossed over effortlessly and came to the outside of the Cihang Palace.
Wei Qing and Cao Lu quietly crouched down behind a bush in the flower garden outside the hall, quietly watched the movement of the hall, waited for half a pillar of incense, and did not notice anything abnormal, only to see that the door of the hall was closed, and the outside of the hall was also silent.
Cao Lu was about to get up and move forward, but Wei Qing stretched out his hand and gently pressed it, Cao Lu was puzzled: "Brother Qing, if you delay any longer, I'm afraid that Guo Jing's dog thief will sleep, then you won't be able to find out anything."
Wei Qing stared ahead, and whispered: "Don't worry, the lights are still on in the hall, how can he sleep so quickly, but I always feel that something is wrong, and it is too quiet here, if Guo Jing is really a golden man, there should be someone to guard this place to prevent people from secretly investigating, but now there is no one outside the hall, don't you say it's strange."
Cao Lu replied: "Maybe the dog thief is planning to empty the city, if he arranges people to patrol back and forth with great fanfare, how can he not make others suspicious."
Wei Qing ignored Cao Lu and waited quietly for a moment before saying, "Senior brother, isn't it strange to listen."
Cao Lu listened carefully for a long time, and asked in confusion: "What do you want me to listen to, what other sounds besides the wind and insects."
Wei Qing said in a low voice: "It's not strange to have wind, it's strange if there are insects, what time is it now." At that time, it was the first month of the second year of Jingkang, although the Central Plains did not say that it was dripping into ice, but it was also cold and unexpectedly steep, as usual, it was only in March and April that there were songworms infested, but outside this hall at this time, every once in a while, there would be a few insect chirping.
Cao Lu suddenly realized, and said hatefully: "These guys are really cunning, and they almost fell for them."
Wei Qing carefully discerned the sound of insects outside the hall, counted silently in his heart, and then said to Cao Lu: "This insect sound must be a code for the other party to make an appointment to signal that nothing is wrong, I think they must also have a warning code, I have already counted, there is someone hidden on the tree in front of the wall of the east courtyard of the palace", he said and pointed to the big tree to signal Cao Lu, and after Cao Lu nodded to show that he saw clearly, he pointed to the west and said, " There are people hidden in the big stone tank of water storage in the west of the hall, and there are people hidden on the roof of the main hall, except for these three places, there is no insect sound, and the other party communicates about every quarter of the time of the pillar of incense, we first sneak to the east together, and take care of the people on the tree, and then you stay and continue to learn the insect song on time to hide from each other, and I will climb up the main hall to take care of the people on the roof, and you can listen to the movement in the hall from above."
Cao Lu nodded in agreement, and Wei Qing admonished again: "Remember to start quickly, but don't make any noise, otherwise tonight's efforts will be in vain."
Cao Lu chuckled and said, "I can take care of it, don't worry", and he and Wei Qing fell on the ground, slowly bypassing the open space in front of the hall from the flower garden, and climbed under the big tree in the east.
After climbing to the east of the hall, the two of them gently got up and stood against the wall behind the tree, and after a while, they heard a sound of insects coming from the tree, and the people hiding in the tree obviously patronized and paid attention to the front of the hall, and they didn't notice the two Wei Qing under the tree. The dead trees in winter have already lost their leaves, Wei Qing followed the sound of insects and looked up, and immediately found a black shadow on the treetops, he gave Cao Lu a look, Cao Lu understood, gently climbed up against the trunk of the tree, and stopped at a position where he was only a leap away from the hidden figure.
At this time, a gust of north wind blew, blowing the dead branches of the whole tree swaying, Cao Lu took advantage of the cover of the wind to jump suddenly, covering the mouth of the hidden person from behind, preventing him from making a little noise, and broke the other party's neck with a force. Wei Qing saw that Cao Lu had succeeded, and hurriedly responded to Cao Lu's corpse from the tree, gently placed it on the ground, and after making a gesture to signal that Cao Lu was in order, he gently approached the main hall from the east, and climbed to the top of the hall along the pillars on the side of the hall.
Wei Qing had only practiced a little superficial light skill, and his climbing skills were far less flexible than Cao Lu's, but fortunately, he had been practicing the True Skills of Sanqing Land for nearly a year, and finally succeeded in climbing to the top of the hall after spending a lot of effort. The person at the top of the hall also paid attention to the open space in front of the hall, and he didn't pay attention to the situation on his side, Wei Qing easily wiped his neck with the Zhanlu sword, and didn't even snort. After succeeding, Wei Qing carefully uncovered the green tiles on the roof of the hall and couldn't wait to look at the hall. I saw that the lights in the hall were bright, Guo Jing really hadn't fallen asleep, and at this time he was sitting in front of the statue of Cihang Immortal Gu enshrined in the main hall, and there were four other people sitting on both sides of his head, one of whom was the first to bow down in the crowd during the day, and the other three were dressed as scholars, rich merchants, and coolies. I only heard Guo Jing say: "This is the situation now, everything has been in my hands, and the big guy just needs to act according to the plan", and the next four people stood up and promised when they heard the words.
Wei Qing secretly said in his heart that it was not good, he didn't want to delay for a while outside in order to avoid the enemy's eyes and ears, the other party had already discussed the matter, but he didn't hear anything, this is a waste of effort, not to mention that as soon as the day dawns, the other party will find that two people have died, and it will not be easy to secretly investigate like this, he watched the next four people retreat to Guo Jing and walked out, he couldn't help but feel very anxious, but there was no way to deal with it.
"Wait", Guo Jing suddenly opened his mouth at this time to stop the four people who were about to leave the hall, "Ah Er, your side is the most important joint in this plan, but you can't be careless, you must control your subordinates, it's best to choose a few obedient ones from it, according to their preferences, or lure them with wealth, or tempt them with beauty, anyway, when the time comes, it will be good to obey your orders."
The man dressed as a peddler immediately bowed down and clenched his fists, and said in a deep voice: "Remember the advice of the eldest brother."
"Ah Wu, your side is related to everyone's retreat, and you must not be sloppy", Guo Jing waved his hand to signal everyone to retreat, but he was still a little uneasy, and finally ordered the person dressed as a scholar, before extinguishing a few lights in the hall, turning out the bunk and sleeping in the hall.
Wei Qing saw that the other party had dispersed, and estimated that there would be no more useful news tonight, so he planned to slip down from the top of the hall and beckon Cao Lu to retreat. At this moment, I could only hear someone shouting loudly in the open space in front of the hall: "Come out, the matter has been discussed, the eldest brother has also slept, let's go back to rest, we have to get up early tomorrow to be busy." Wei Qing took a look through the night probe, and saw that the four people who had withdrawn from the Shicai Hall were standing in the open space in front of the main hall to greet the accomplices who were holding the wind outside, and a figure immediately flashed out from behind the big stone jar in the west and walked towards the front of the hall. Wei Qing secretly complained in his heart, if he didn't show up as soon as possible at this time, he would definitely arouse the other party's vigilance, but if he really walked over, he was afraid that there would be a drama fight immediately.
Just when Wei Qing was at a loss, there was a "bang" sound on the big tree in the east, and a person jumped down and walked slowly towards the front of the hall, naturally Cao Lu walked out in response, Wei Qing was afraid that Cao Lu would be exposed, so he hurriedly looked over, but he could only see a vague black shadow, and he couldn't see his face clearly in the night. Wei Qing saw that Cao Lu was walking very slowly, and immediately understood what he was thinking, and immediately stood up, deliberately made a noise, and then walked slowly to the east of the top of the hall and slid down the pillar.
"What are you rubbing, it's cold, hurry up", the four people in front of the hall shouted impatiently, seeing that the people who were hiding in the west had already joined the four people in front of the hall and stood together, Wei cleared Cao Lu's pace, and when he slowly walked side by side with him, he hurriedly whispered: "Rush out of the back door", Cao Lu nodded, the two exchanged glances, suddenly turned around and ran towards the back door.
The five people in front of the hall were stunned when they saw this, and only reacted after a while, shouting and chasing after them, Wei Qing and Cao Lu didn't care to look back to check the situation of the chasing soldiers behind them, and ran to the back door before the Taoists in the view heard the sound, Cao Lu knew that Wei Qing's light body kung fu was very ordinary, so he jumped on the wall first and leaned over to pull him up. As soon as Wei Qing took Cao Lu's hand, he heard a hidden weapon coming directly to his back with the sound of wind, he quickly let go of Cao Lu's hand and bent down to dodge, and a stone hit the wall in front of him where he was standing. Wei Qing hurriedly stood up again, and then Cao Lu's pulling force jumped up and climbed onto the wall.
Just when Wei Qing was dodging the opponent's flying stone attack for a while, an enemy who was chasing after him had already approached the wall, jumped high and punched out, it was the Ah Er who was pretending to be a peddler. Wei Qing had just climbed over the wall at this time, and before he could turn around, Cao Lu had to take advantage of the opportunity that Ah Er's body was nowhere to borrow his strength in mid-air, and swung his stick to "sweep away the demons" and hit the opponent's waist.
After Ah Er landed, he didn't adjust his breathing, and immediately wrapped himself forward, Cao Lu pushed Wei Qing out of the wall, reached out and grabbed a tile on the wall and shouted, "Look at the hidden weapon", and threw it out. Ah Er hurriedly leaned over to dodge, but did not hear the sound of the hidden weapon attacking, it turned out that Cao Lu was just pretending to throw the hidden weapon this time, he was about to get up again to pursue, only to hear Cao Lu shouting "Hold" again, this time it was not a false throw, a tile rotated and came head-on. In the dark night, Ah Er couldn't see clearly, and when the tiles were close to his eyes, he couldn't avoid it, and his forehead was immediately hit with blood flowing, and he fell to the ground with his head up.
Cao Lu chuckled and jumped off the wall, and Wei Qing disappeared into the vast night in an instant.