Changes in the Knockoff

Just when Xiushui Village was bustling with excitement.

Han Weishu and Tong Jialiang, who were traveling from the southernmost part of the Pusi Kingdom towards the east, encountered some situations on their journey.

To save money, they mostly took small backroads.

These paths were mostly trodden between various villages, so they didn't need to constantly enter the county towns to rest. They could simply lodge in the villages for a few copper coins, which was much cheaper than staying in the city.

Moreover, some cities even charged an entry fee.

Therefore, the two would only grit their teeth and enter a county or prefectural town when it was absolutely necessary to pass through, finding a shack to make do for the night.

Fortunately, Han Weishu had worn men's clothing for many years. Her words and actions didn't resemble a young woman's, and she even smeared dirt on her face and tied dry grass in her hair, making herself look quite wretched so that others wouldn't pay her any mind.

The two of them had a relatively smooth journey along the way.

Today, they did not enter a city but were crossing a mountain.

As long as they crossed this mountain peak, they would be close to the border of Hufang Province.

However, they underestimated the vastness of this mountain. When the sun completely set, they hadn't even made it halfway through.

Wandering around the mountain in the pitch dark for a long time, they were quite lucky to come across a small mountain stronghold.

This kind of stronghold was not a bandit lair, but rather a small village established by the mountain dwellers.

The mountain dwellers were mostly former refugees without household registrations. In truth, the government knew of their existence but simply turned a blind eye and left them alone.

The people of this mountain stronghold were very rustic and hospitable. Seeing that the two young people, Han Weishu and Tong Jialiang, had been traveling for so long, they quickly invited them into the stronghold to rest.

Han Weishu observed these mountain dwellers with great curiosity.

Although she often sneaked out of her sect to wander around mortal cities, the truth was that she hadn't actually interacted with many people.

The people she interacted with the most on a daily basis were probably the hooligans and ruffians on the streets.

She especially loved fighting injustices in the county town near their Qinghe Sect.

Because of this, her name was very resounding in that county town. So much so that in the two years since she started sneaking out frequently, the hooligans and ruffians in the town had almost completely vanished.

Yet, after two years, the only person she had truly gotten to know and interact with in the county town was Tong Jialiang.

The one who received them was the wife of the stronghold leader, a woman in her early thirties.

This woman was very amiable towards them. She mentioned that she also had a son about their age, but he worked as an apprentice in town all year round and could only come back once during festivals.

Now, there was only a swaddled infant daughter left at home.

The woman even brought her few-months-old daughter over for them to see.

Looking at the fair, tender little dumpling in the woman's arms, both Han Weishu and Tong Jialiang didn't dare to touch her, afraid of hurting her.

The stronghold was filled with bamboo houses, which were relatively easy to build, so there were many rooms available—more than enough to accommodate them.

Late into the night, the entire mountain stronghold completely quieted down.

Han Weishu and Tong Jialiang each took a room, shedding the exhaustion of the day, and fell into a deep sleep.

Who knew that around midnight, there would suddenly be subtle noises outside the stronghold. These sounds were quite strange and didn't seem like natural outdoor noises.

Others might not be able to hear it, but Han Weishu, a first-level Qi Condensation cultivator who had cultivated for over ten years, heard it quite clearly.

So she immediately opened her eyes.

However, she didn't get up right away. Instead, she summoned the earth spirit Qiuqiu, telling it to carefully check the situation outside.

As long as Qiuqiu didn't actively make a sound, its movements on the ground were completely silent.

Therefore, the people outside didn't realize they were being monitored by an earth spirit; they were just busy blowing sleeping gas everywhere.

After they went from house to house blowing the sleeping gas, they waited quietly for a while, then pulled out bundles of hemp rope from the storage bags at their waists. They then walked into each house, tying up everyone inside, from fifty-to-sixty-year-old elders down to six-or-seven-year-old children.

Although she didn't know if this sleeping gas would affect her, Han Weishu had long held her breath and did not inhale it.

The earth spirit directly broadcasted the scenes it saw back to Han Weishu.

Seeing this, anger flared in Han Weishu's heart, but she soon realized that these people were very likely cultivators.

Because every single one of them actually had a storage bag.

As such, even though she was deeply worried about those mountain dwellers, she didn't dare to move. She only called the earth spirit back to conceal her aura.

The earth spirit's abilities on the ground were still very powerful. Concealing the aura of a minor Qi Condensation cultivator like Han Weishu was absolutely not a problem.

Then, Han Weishu thought of Tong Jialiang sleeping next door. Seeing that those people were about to head toward their rooms, Han Weishu had no choice but to hide under Qiuqiu's cover first.

She planned to find a way to rescue Ah Liang later.

She stored all the bedding on the floor into the storage bag in her robes, then ran to crouch in the shadows of a corner. Qiuqiu came over and spread out from the shape of a large round ball, covering her entirely without leaving a single gap.

Subsequently, she heard the person walking towards their side open the room next door and say softly:

"Senior Brother, there's another person here."

As he spoke, the owner of the voice tied Tong Jialiang up, carried him out, and threw him onto the ground.

Then he walked towards Han Weishu's room, but seeing that the room was completely empty with nothing inside, he went back out.

Seeing him leave, Han Weishu, hidden in the corner by the earth spirit, quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, maintaining her state of being completely wrapped in Qiuqiu, she climbed out from a nearby window. Afterwards, she found a relatively high vantage point to secretly observe what this group of people in the mountain stronghold below was trying to do.

It wasn't long before these people had tied up and carried out the majority of the mountain dwellers in the stronghold, tossing them onto the open ground in the center.

There were five of these people in total. One of them kept his arms crossed, standing completely motionless in the very center like a stone statue, watching the other four work.

When one of them came out of the stronghold leader's wife's room, he asked the leader:

"Eldest Senior Brother, there's still a little baby in that room. Do we take it?"

The leader, referred to as Eldest Senior Brother, had a rather gloomy voice. He asked:

"Can it walk yet?"

The man was seen shaking his head:

"Probably not, it's only the size of two palms."

The leader cast a dark glance at him, turned his head away, and didn't answer him again.

The man knew this meant they didn't want it, so he turned around and joined the others, taking out an antidote and scattering it over the mountain dwellers lying on the ground to wake them up.

The awakened mountain dwellers didn't know what was happening at first. Sleepy-eyed, they peered into the darkness around them but couldn't see anything clearly.

Then, they heard an unfamiliar voice shout in the dark night:

"Everyone, get up and move!"

As the voice faded, the mountain dwellers felt themselves being yanked forward by a massive force. They were forcibly pulled up from the ground and dragged forward.