Chapter 210: First Sighting of the Enemy Camp
“More than 200 people, we have a total of about 140 men and over 100 ladies.”
“You all stay on the hill?” Zhang Xiao Qiang was confused, the hill looked extremely ordinary without any structures on top.
“We live behind the hill, as long as you climb over this portion, you’ll reach there. If you want to take the main road, it will require you to take a huge detour around the hill. There should be a few scouts at the top, they were the ones who saw your fleet and reported to Liu Tou. That was why he brought us here to try and seize your things.” Li Zhu answered everything honestly and was very cooperative, he even took the initiative to inform Zhang Xiao Qiang of the hidden sentries.
Zhang Xiao Qiang was unsure if the men at the top of the hill were prepared. He got three subordinates to look after the captives while he and 12 other men slowly climbed their way up.
The slope was rather gentle, allowing Zhang Xiao Qiang and his men to scale it easily. They climbed very carefully and even detoured around shrubs that were impassable, more willing to detour than cut through afraid that the sound of twigs breaking would alert the enemies.
Zhang Xiao Qiang had the best physique and thus climbed at the front. He quietly but quickly moved forward, but unintentionally throwing large rocks and shrubs behind him onto his subordinates. He constantly paid attention to any wind blow or grass movements around him, although Li Zhu had already pointed out the ambush points, he did not dare to be careless. He could not trust Li Zhu wholeheartedly and was willing to be more careful. They had lost too much and had not even figured out what to say to the people back in camp.
The night was without moonlight, causing the hillside to be in complete darkness. With the apocalypse, the flora and fauna began to change, vegetation withered, animals mutated, even the ordinary crickets that chirp in the night no longer made any sounds or movements. The surrounding became extremely silent, Zhang Xiao Qiang could not hear a single sound except for his own breathing.
Zhang Xiao Qiang continued to listen on, the surroundings remained extremely quiet and the hill remained unmoving. He raised his head and carefully took a whiff, that’s right, there was the smell of cigarette smoke burning, as a smoker himself, Zhang Xiao Qiang was extremely familiar with it. There was someone smoking, and that someone was extremely nearby.
He moved even more carefully up the hill and slowly approached the top. A figure could be seen looking around. In the wee morning of 5 am, the sky was still dark. Zhang Xiao Qiang could not see what the man was dressed in, but he could confirm that the man smoking was not him as the red dot of light on the cigarette could not be seen.
He slowly looked around, wanting to seek out the man in hiding. The man smoking was a hidden scout, Li Zhu’s report had a mistake, he said that the hidden scout positions were slightly behind the scouts at the top, but if the location was as he said, the smell of the cigarette could not linger so far out.
They were at the top of the hill where the wind was stronger than at the base. Looking at the obvious scout ahead, Zhang Xiao Qiang did not dare make any random movements. Although he could kill him, what then? Weren’t they carefully climbing the hill to beat Liu Tou helpless? Why the need to alert him?
Right while he was carefully searching, a hoarse voice came out: “Eh! How many of them are back…”
The voice came out right beside Zhang Xiao Qiang. The sudden speech caused Zhang Xiao Qiang to jump in shock as he helplessly shrunk his neck back and lowered himself.
Beside Zhang Xiao Qiang was a boulder half the height of a person with its feet buried into the soil. Zhang Xiao Qiang’s line of sight was on the boulder but the sound came out from behind the boulder, which also meant that Zhang Xiao Qiang was less than a meter away from the hidden sentry.
“I don’t really know, all I know was that a hundred odd of them went out and a dozen-odd came back. Right, I even saw a man being carried down, do you think he is ours? If it were ours, Liu Tou will definitely cut him.” The open scout actually looked towards the hidden scout’s location and conversed with him.
“He should be from the enemy team, I wonder where they came from, might be hunters, to forcible kill off our 100 plus men to a dozen odd, luckily it’s our turn to be scouts today, otherwise, hmph hmph….our lives would have been forfeited.” The scout seemed to be happy that he was not the one to have gone out and his tone of speech even held a tinge of joy in the other people’s calamity.
“That’s right, I could hear the crazy gun fires from over here, seemed to be coming from the 12 o’clock position, their fires never seemed to stop and there were lights flickering endlessly like rain. It was to the point that I got dizzy watching those lights flickering on and off. Oh right, did you hear some sort of cannon over there?” The scout in the open seemed to have forgotten his task and started to engage in a conversation with the hidden scout.
Zhang Xiao Qiang did not continue listening to then, he slowly skirted around the two who had been scouting for two days and headed towards the hidden scout that Li Zhu had informed him about. Behind him, his troops were waiting for his command.
Upon going over the hilltop, Zhang Xiao Qiang saw the bright lights at below, where plenty of supplies burned at the empty ground, the men and women were continuously shifting things into their trucks. By the bonfire were a row of simple houses with thick logs at the sides. On one of these logs was a half-naked man. Zhang Xiao Qiang looked at the man and noticed that it was Guo Fei. Seems like Guo Fei can’t win that mysterious man.
In front of Zhang Xiao Qiang was a pile of stones which was covered with tree branches and leaves on the top. He slowly groped his way to the stone pile and drew out his bayonet and entered.
The space within the stone pile was extremely narrow, only allowing two persons to squeeze inside. It was extremely dark and nothing could be seen inside. Zhang Xiao Qiang slowly moved over with the bayonet in his hand ready to strike at any time. Wheezing sounds could be heard. Zhang Xiao Qiang stopped moving and squinted his eyes, adjusting himself to the darkness. A faint figure could be seen curled up and asleep as the snores came out from his mouth.
Zhang Xiao Qiang nudged the man with the handle of the blade but the man remained asleep without any reactions. Zhang Xiao Qiang retrieved out the belt on the man’s waist and tied his hands up, then knead his jacket into a ball and forced it into the man’s mouth. Zhang Xiao Qiang tied him up like a dumpling but the man continued to sleep well, except he no longer wheezed but used his nose to breathe.
There were two left. Zhang Xiao Qiang continued to move towards the scout in the open. When he reached them, he realized that his own members had their guns raised and aimed towards him, the two scouts were already tied up and were kneeling on the ground with something stuffed into their mouths.
It was chaos at the foot of the hill, the people ran all over the place like headless flies, a man lifting a large trunk had his foot caught with a bag, causing him to drop the trunk and dropping the salt bag contents all over the floor.
Before he could climb back up, a long blade covered with flames cleaved his head in half, the bottom half of the head was still stuck on the neck while the upper half fell. The wound spewed blood endlessly, along with the white fluids of his brain.
“Plop…” The corpse still spewing blood dropped onto the salt bag. Under the brilliance of the flaming light, the dark red blood from the body slowly drowned the bags on the floor.