Chapter 208: Blackwind Bandits

“Sir, we are at Wolf Fang Valley…” Liang Yijie rode toward Yan Liqiang and the rest when he saw Sun Bingchen and his party. He pointed at the valley and said, “This mountain valley is about thirty li long. As soon as we make it through Wolf Fang Valley, there will be a market town up ahead, which is known as the ‘Hui Clan Gathering’. There’s also another road at the side of the valley which bypasses Wolf Fang Valley. However, the journey will be more than sixty li. If we go through Wolf Fang Valley, we will be able to make it to the Hui Clan Gathering before nightfall. If we take the alternative route, we will have to travel in the dark before we make it there…”

Yan Liqiang was also sizing up Wolf Fang Valley before him while Liang Yijie was explaining. His heart couldn’t help but race at the sight of it.

The terrain of Wolf Fang Valley was simply too dangerous. The long valleys were surrounded by mountain ridges on both sides, like a pair of intertwined wolf fangs. With only a road narrow enough to fit three carriages side by side to travel in between the mountain valleys, if someone were to block their path from the front and the back, they would be trapped like fish in a barrel, unable to flee unless they grew a pair of wings.

Liang Yijie had waited here for Sun Bingchen to catch up to him because the scouting guards could only stay about ten li ahead from the main party. This was the furthest distance they could go for them to be able to send any warnings. If they recklessly rushed into the mountain valley and the party behind them also followed suit, it would be useless for them to give the others any warnings at the sight of danger.

Sun Bingchen looked at the two paths before his eyes while he deliberated over the choices. One of the paths was shorter, but it was riskier. Although the other path was longer, it was relatively safer as it allowed more room for maneuver.

Yan Liqiang and the others stared at Sun Bingchen as they waited for him to make a decision.

Wolf Fang Valley made Yan Liqiang feel uncomfortable for some reason. However, he could only follow Sun Bingchen’s order at a time like this as he had no rights to make any decisions.

“Woof, woof…!”

While everyone was waiting for Sun Bingchen to make a decision, Goldie, who had been staying in a carriage at the back, suddenly barked. Yan Liqiang turned around and saw that Goldie had suddenly jumped off from the carriage. It came running toward him, then circled around him twice before it immediately dashed off into Wolf Fang Valley.

Yan Liqiang was startled for a moment before he hurriedly informed Sun Bingchen. “Sir, it seems like Goldie’s keen nose has picked up something. I will go over to take a look!”

Sun Bingchen knew that the dog Yan Liqiang was raising was a peculiar one. As soon as he heard Yan Liqiang’s words, he cast a glance at Liang Yijie who was beside him. “Yijie, go with Yan Liqiang to check things out!”

“Understood!”

Liang Yijie and Yan Liqiang charged toward Wolf Fang Valley on their steeds. By the time both of them arrived at the entrance of the valley, Goldie had already rushed inside. After running for more than twenty meters, it suddenly went through a shrub at the side and continued running toward a hill behind those shrubs.

Since it was not possible to go up the hill on their rhinodrake steeds, Yan Liqiang and Liang Yijie had no choice but to dismount. They passed through those shrubs and followed Goldie up the hill.

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The small hill was about fifty meters above the ground, right at the entrance of Wolf Fang Valley. By the time Yan Liqiang and Liang Yijie got up there, they saw Goldie sniffing the ground behind the shrubs on the hill with its head lowered.

Yan Liqiang went over to it and crouched down. Upon closer inspection, he discovered a few footprints on the ground.

“Brother Liang, come look at this…”

Liang Yijie walked over to him and crouched on the ground. He looked at the footprints on the ground and measured them with his hand before he frowned deeply. “There are three people. The footprint patterns are from the soles of a warrior’s long boots. Look at this little hole, that’s from a round, anti-slip iron nail at the soles of the boots. These aren’t commonly worn shoes. Not even a hunter would wear these kinds of boots when they go hunting…”

“Mm, seems like someone was probably here…” Yan Liqiang laid down on his stomach and compared the distance between the footprints and the shrubs before he stood up again. “Someone had probably laid down on their stomach here not too long ago to hide behind these shrubs. From the looks of it, they were looking in our direction. These footprints were left here when they stood up to leave…”

At this moment, Goldie had already run about ten meters away from them and barked twice. Both of them went over and discovered there was a darker spot on the ground behind some thorny undergrowths. Both of them instantly understood what was going on at the sight of this — someone had urinated here, and the person was probably one of the owners of the footprints.

Of course, the pee was nothing interesting to look at. However, they could tell when the person had urinated here from the dryness of the wet spot. It was probably an hour or two hours ago…

They also discovered a fine black thread on the thorny undergrowth beside the spot. Yan Liqiang picked up the black thread. It only took him a single glance to identify that the black thread was camel hair, probably left behind from a cape.

Yan Liqiang and Liang Yijie exchanged looks. Both of them didn’t utter a word, yet they could see the grave emotion swimming in each other’s eyes.

The most common camel hair capes were gray and yellow in color, which were natural camel hair colors. It was extremely troublesome to dye camel hair black. Not only that, it was also very costly to do so. Therefore, people in northwestern provinces were rarely seen with black camel hair capes. According to Yan Liqiang’s knowledge, there was only one group that was well known for wearing black camel hair capes in the northwestern provinces. They were secretive, ruthless, and they took no prisoners.

A few minutes later, the black camel hair was in Sun Bingchen’s hand and he was examining it through his squinted eyes. “Yijie, you are saying that this these black camel hair capes are mostly worn by only the Blackwind Bandits among the northwestern provinces?”

Yan Liqiang nodded, “That’s right. I heard that there were also other people who loved wearing black camel hair capes in the past. But after the emergence of the Blackwind Bandits who had a bad reputation for the evil deeds they did while wearing black camel hair capes, those who loved wearing black camel hair capes dwindled because they didn’t want to give others the wrong impression…”

“Then there’s no mistake about it. The Blackwind Bandits have come!” Sun Bingchen moved his hand and let the black camel hair be blown away by the wind. The expression on his face had grown unprecedentedly grave.

“What should we do now, sir?”

“Get on your steeds, everyone! Carry whatever in the carriages that can be carried on you and leave the carriages at the entrance of the valley. We will take this side path instead of going into Wolf Fang Valley!”

At Sun Bingchen’s orders, everyone started to get busy…