After separating from Wei Jiang, Xiao Hongtao walked back to the tent alone, put Xiaoqing and Xiaocui back, and sat on the stool alone to think about things, he needed to carefully sort out the current situation.

It has only been more than half a day since Xiao Hongtao woke up, but there have been too many things that have happened during this period, Xiao Hongtao, who was originally the first to be the first one, suddenly became the emperor's third brother, and he also has military power.

But things are not as simple as imagined, Xiao Hongtao himself is involved in a huge conspiracy to kill the emperor, and the emperor is not as kind to him as he seems - from Chai Rong let himself go to the north of Yizhou City to attack, it can be known that Chai Rong is also looking for an opportunity to weaken the power of Xiao Hongtao's troops.

Xiao Hongtao's brain is a little messy, he originally lived a good life in the 21st century, eating some instant noodles when he was hungry, drinking some tap water when he was thirsty, and watching some Japanese love action movies if he wanted to be entertained. Where would it be like now, caught in such a big power entanglement, the people around him don't seem to be so friendly, as if they want to eat themselves, or profit from themselves, this feeling makes Xiao Hongtao very uncomfortable and uncomfortable.

Xiao Hongtao thought in his heart: Now it seems that he has to bite the bullet and attack from the north gate, our people are strong, as long as we observe carefully and find the weak point of Yizhou City, it should not be a big problem to win.

"Father-in-law, you are ready to go up the mountain at any time. While Xiao Hongtao was pondering, Wei Jiang opened the curtain and walked in to report to Xiao Hongtao on the preparations for going up the mountain.

"Oh, are you all ready, how many people have been selected?" Xiao Hongtao asked.

Wei Jiang arched his hand and said: "Father-in-law, there are a total of 20 soldiers, of which 5 are people who are proficient in martial arts personally selected by me, and 15 people are selected from the soldiers who volunteered to go, all of them are dragon spirits and tigers. In addition, the child also found a nearby mountain man who was familiar with the road conditions as a guide. ”

Xiao Hongtao was very satisfied with Wei Jiang's arrangement, "Okay, then let's set off immediately." ”

After Xiao Hongtao came out of the tent, he found that all the people were waiting outside the tent, twenty tall soldiers were divided into two teams, each team of ten people, and in front of the team stood a person with a coarse cloth clothes and an old face, which should be the guide Wei Jiang was looking for.

The two walked to the front of the team, and Wei Jiang began to introduce the guide to Xiao Hongtao: "Father-in-law, his surname is Cao, everyone calls him Cao Lao'er, he is a local clan, he hunts in the nearby mountains all the year round, and he is very familiar with the situation of Broken Tiger Cliff. ”

When Wei Jiang introduced, Xiao Hongtao carefully observed Cao Lao'er in front of him, Cao Lao'er's face was black and red, his head was gray, and his back was slightly up, but his eyes were bright, Xiao Hongtao also found that Cao Lao'er's hands were very rough, his nails were full of black things, and Cao Lao'er's left hand was still shaking slightly from time to time.

After speaking, Wei Jiangyou turned to Cao Lao'er and said, "Cao Lao'er, this is our General Xiao, you can call it Xiao Ye." ”

Cao Lao'er hurriedly greeted Xiao Hongtao, and after getting up, Cao Lao'er said: "Xiao Ye, the little one has something to ask for." ”

"What's the matter?" asked Xiao Hongtao.

Cao Lao'er continued: "Xiao Ye, I believe you have also heard of the evil nature of the Broken Tiger Cliff, to be honest, I have never been up to the Broken Tiger Cliff, I can only take you to the Hidden Tiger Cave, and I don't dare to go up any further, and I hope that Xiao Ye and your old man will forgive your sins!"

Xiao Hongtao hurriedly stepped forward to help Cao Lao'er up, and said, "It's okay, you just take us to the Tibetan Tiger Cave, and we will walk the rest of the way by ourselves." "Xiao Hongtao has not liked to force others since he was born.

"Thank you Xiao Ye" Xiao Hongtao's attitude made Cao Lao'er a little surprised, and paused, "Xiao Ye, the villain heard that tiger bees often appear on this broken tiger cliff, so please bring more burlap cloth to it, and connect it together to prevent bees." ”

"Okay, thank you for the reminder" Xiao Hongtao began to slowly have a good impression of this old man, he felt that this old man was very kind, very similar to those old people in his hometown.

After packing up and taking weapons, mountain axes, burlap, ropes, mugwort, and some herbs, a group of 23 people mounted their horses and began to walk towards the Broken Tiger Cliff.

Yizhou City is not big, and it only took about half an hour for everyone to walk around Yizhou City, and after about a stick of incense, everyone came to the foot of Hutou Mountain.

Xiao Hongtao found that Hutou Mountain is not much different from the mountain in his memory, if there is anything special about Hutou Mountain, it is that the vegetation on Hutou Mountain is very lush, and the further you go, the more lush the vegetation is.

Everyone went up the mountain along the mountain road, and during this time they encountered several pheasants and a wild boar, all of which were beaten by warriors selected by Wei Jiang and put on horseback.

The sun is warm on the winter afternoon, the scenery along the way is good, and occasionally you can catch some game, Xiao Hongtao's mood is very bright, he thinks that the legend about the Broken Tiger Cliff must be a rumor deliberately spread by someone, maybe it is just a rumor spread by Orion in order to prevent others from grabbing game with him.

At this moment, Cao Lao'er, who had been walking in front of Xiao Hongtao's right, suddenly stopped, pointed ahead, turned to Xiao Hongtao and said: "Xiao Ye, the front is the Hidden Tiger Cave, and further on is a place where no man can go, so the villain can only send Xiao Ye here." ”

Xiao Hongtao looked forward, and could see a small stone cave in front of him from a distance, the light in the stone cave was very dark, and the distance was far away, so Xiao Hongtao said to Cao Lao'er, "Old man, how should we go forward?"

Cao Lao'er raised his hand a little too high and said, "Master Xiao, there is no road ahead, but you can go in this direction to reach the Broken Tiger Cliff." After a pause, Cao Lao'er wanted to say something more, but stopped again.

Seeing Cao Lao'er's appearance, Xiao Hongtao asked, "Old man, do you still have something to say?"

"Xiao Ye, there is a sentence, the villain still wants to tell you, this Broken Tiger Cliff is very evil, the mountain god of this Broken Tiger Cliff does not like men to go up the cliff, no man has ever come down from the cliff alive, the villain said an unlucky word, Xiao Ye and these soldiers were back then, if they stayed in the Broken Tiger Cliff like this, it would be a pity. After struggling for a long time, Cao Lao'er still said these words.

"Haha, how can there be any mountain gods, they must be doing something wrong, don't worry about the elderly, we are all young and strong people, not afraid of villains. Xiao Hongtao couldn't shake Cao Lao'er's heart, and denied Xiao Lao'er's mountain god with a smile. After that, Xiao Hongtao turned to Wei Jiang and said, "Wei Jiang, you give the old man some reward money, and let the old man go back." ”

took the ten taels of silver given by Wei Jiang, and Cao Lao'er went down the mountain with a thousand thanks.

After saying goodbye to Cao Lao'er, Xiao Hongtao and his party continued to walk in the direction of the Broken Tiger Cliff, and did not find anything abnormal along the way, and everyone's nerves, which had been tense, slowly relaxed.

After walking for a while, Wei Jiang, who was walking in front, suddenly pointed to something in front of him and said to Xiao Hongtao: "Father-in-law, look, there is a sign in front." ”

Following the direction of Wei Jiang's finger, Xiao Hongtao really saw a wooden sign in the yellow grass, and looked at it from a distance as if a skull was painted on the sign.

Xiao Hongtao's heart sank and said, "Let's go, go up and have a look." With that, Xiao Hongtao and Wei Jiang urged the horses under them to step forward.

When he got closer, Xiao Hongtao found that instead of drawing a skull on the sign, a skull was hung with a rope, and there was a thumb-thick hole in the skull. The rope on which the skeleton was hung was just through the thumb-thick hole.

Xiao Hongtao's heart froze, and he said secretly, this is the beginning!