Chapter 142 (2/2): Staging It All Yourself

The leader of the bandits was a Ling King, but there was also a Ling King guarding the caravan.

The two were locked in combat, neither able to overcome the other.

The bandits were not worried, as their Spirit Master strength was superior to the caravan’s, but they hadn’t expected three helpful bystanders to suddenly join and change the course of the battle.

Despite being only three Spirit Masters, they charged into the battlefield like a rampaging bull, knocking away every bandit in their path.

Before long, the battle completely tilted in favor of the caravan.

Seeing this, the bandit leader was furious, but he could do nothing about the current situation.

He could only begin a pathetic retreat.

Soon, the bandits shouted a few threats and fled completely. The caravan did not pursue, fearing it was a trap.

After quickly tallying the losses and providing simple treatment to the injured, the caravan owner hurried over and repeatedly thanked the three young ladies for their righteous help.

After the thanks, the middle-aged man sensibly offered a reward to thank the three for their assistance.

Linglong didn’t really want to take it at first, but Hua Jian stepped forward and took the reward before her.

Linglong could only glare at Hua Jian helplessly. What was originally a heroic deed had now turned into something like a mercenary job.

After taking the reward, the three didn’t stay with the caravan for long. After a few casual words, they flew away.

Watching the three leave, the middle-aged man’s face gradually turned cold, as if they had ruined something for him.

“Damn it, how can there be such idiots!” he growled in annoyance.

“Boss, what do we do now? Try again?” The Ling King among the guards approached and asked cautiously.

“What else can we do? Go find those useless trash and tell them to raid us again tonight!”

“Yes!”

…….

“I think there was something wrong with that caravan. Their gratitude was too formal, not like they were treating their saviors.”

Riding on the spiritual horse Linglong had paid for, Hua Jian spoke to Linglong while looking at the reward given by the caravan.

The reward was pitifully small—only 100 Spirit Stones, and they weren’t even in a Storage Pouch, but in a very ordinary bag.

Even if merchants prioritized profit, they shouldn’t behave so abnormally.

It was because Hua Jian smelled a conspiracy that she had accepted the reward over Linglong’s head, allowing both parties to sever ties for the time being.

“That makes sense. Look at those guards. Many of them only had superficial injuries. Not a single one had a life-threatening wound. That’s very irregular.” Shiqi also felt something was off.

She had dealt with actual dark forces before.

She didn’t believe that bandits blocking the road in the Central Continent would be charitable enough to show mercy.

Normally, wouldn’t you just kill your opponent after gaining the upper hand?

The combat earlier had been very restrained.

The caravan guards had symbolically taken a couple of hits, and after receiving superficial wounds, they cried out and fell to the ground, no longer participating.

Although the acting was decent, once they stood back up later, Shiqi saw the strangeness.

“You mean… there’s something wrong with that caravan?” Linglong roughly understood. “Then what should we do?”

“Up to you. At our current speed, it’ll only take half a month to reach Ascension City. We can afford to linger with this caravan for a bit.”

Hua Jian counted the time on her fingers and found it was quite ample.

The caravan had to move forward as well. Although its speed was slower than a single person’s, it was still progressing.

A caravan on this main road would be traveling the same way as them at least until the next big city.

“Then let’s hide and see what they intend to do,” Linglong decided immediately.

After making the decision, the three quickly found a deserted place to change clothes.

From three young ladies traveling together, they transformed into three very strangely dressed people.

Shiqi once again disguised herself as a man.

In men’s clothing, her elegance was hard to hide, but with her hair tied up and a bit of makeup, she could pass as a heroic youth.

Her signature black longsword was forced back into her Storage Pouch by Hua Jian; that thing was much easier to recognize than Shiqi herself.

Linglong played the role of a mysterious woman.

To prevent her white hair from exposing her identity, Hua Jian gave her a wig.

Not only that, she also put a bamboo hat on Linglong’s head, turning her into a woman full of mystery.

While this outfit was rare in the Central Continent, it wasn’t unheard of; there were always people who didn’t want their faces seen.

As for Hua Jian herself, it was simple. After learning the “I am no longer human” manual from Bai Hua Zun Zhe, she could change her appearance to a certain extent.

After some simple adjustments, she hid her multicolored eyes, and a terrifying scar appeared across her face.

No one would imagine the previously beautiful girl would turn into this.

“Can you even see the road like that?” Shiqi asked skeptically, looking at the black cloth wrapped around Hua Jian’s face.

Hua Jian’s method of hiding her eyes was low-tech: just wrapping them in black cloth.

“I can see fine, don’t worry. Besides, I have other eyes to lead the way.”

Pulling her collar open slightly, a small cat head popped out from Hua Jian’s chest.

Yes, the Spiritual Civet was currently hidden there.

No one in the caravan earlier had noticed its presence.

Not just Shiqi, but even Linglong looked at Hua Jian with strange eyes.

‘You actually hid the Spiritual Civet there?’

Although they didn’t speak, everything seemed to have been said.

No wonder they felt Hua Jian was a bit strange lately, as if she had suddenly become more mature.

It turned out she had stuffed things into her front!

“I see your looks. Can you keep your thoughts clean?” Hua Jian raised a middle finger at both of them, vigorously criticizing their dirty minds.

The civet didn’t like showing its face, so where else could she hide it?

It had to be stuffed against her body.

Powerful Cultivators could carry a small world for spirit beasts, but Hua Jian couldn’t afford such high-end goods.

At times like this, she missed A Meng.

Being able to stay in her mind and be available on call—truly a legendary Pokémon… cough, a legendary Spirit Beast.

There was still a very obvious gap between rare and super-rare.

“Anyway, let’s separate first. We’ll pretend to wait for the caravan to pass, then secretly follow.” Hua Jian didn’t want to argue about it and firmly changed the subject.

The three quickly separated on horseback and hid in different spots. Before long, the caravan that had just been robbed came slowly down the road.

In Hua Jian’s view, the caravan didn’t look like it had just survived a life-or-death crisis; the guards were actually talking and laughing. It was truly bizarre.

‘Please, you just clashed with vicious bandits. Can you at least act a bit alert?’

If Hua Jian had only been suspicious before, now she was certain the caravan had issues.

After the caravan passed, the three girls reunited, put on the Invisibility Cloaks provided by Linglong, and began tailing the caravan.

Everything was normal until nightfall. Just as the three thought the day would end like this, the noisy sound of fighting and shouting suddenly erupted from where the caravan had stopped.

A group of masked bandits in black suddenly rushed out from the darkness and began to fight the caravan.

The caravan guards “fought hard” as they did during the day, but were gradually suppressed.

The scene was far too familiar; some of the bandits’ fighting styles even gave Hua Jian a strong sense of déjà vu.

Especially that Ling King bandit holding back the caravan’s Ling King guard—wasn’t that the same guy from the daytime?

No wonder the caravan leader had that expression after driving off the bandits earlier; it was all a play, a double act between the caravan and the bandits.

“Interesting. Why are they doing this? Could there be insurance fraud here too?” muttered Hua Jian, who had removed her disguise.

She couldn’t see the point of deliberately acting with bandits.

“What is insurance fraud?” Linglong was more bewildered than Hua Jian. She couldn’t understand the relationship between the caravan and the bandits, nor could she understand Hua Jian’s words.

“Just think of it as the caravan acting. They must have a purpose. What could it be?” Hua Jian thought for a long time but couldn’t figure it out.

Perhaps fearing a repeat of the daytime event, the caravan’s defeat was much faster this time.

By the time the three finished a few whispered words, the caravan was already in a dire state of impending failure.

Even the Ling King guard was knocked to the ground, spitting blood very dramatically.

If she hadn’t seen the true strength of these bandits earlier, Hua Jian might have been fooled by these guys into thinking they were truly powerful.

“Hahaha! This is what happens to those who dare resist me!”

The Ling King bandit laughed and landed on the ground, shouting at the caravan leader who had come out.

“Hand over the valuable treasures quickly, or don’t blame me for being merciless!”

Before the middle-aged man could speak, a fairly beautiful young girl suddenly emerged from the caravan and said to the man through tears, “Uncle, please just agree to their demands. The brothers’ lives are more important than these goods.”

Unexpectedly, the bandit’s eyes turned green with greed upon seeing the girl.

“Oh? I didn’t expect such a beauty to be hidden in this caravan. Now, not only do I want your goods, I’m taking her with me too!”

“What?!” The girl’s face turned pale with fright. She was only at the Spirit Master stage; how could she resist a Ling King bandit who had already won?

The Ling King bandit walked toward the girl step by step with an evil smile.

Just as he was about to succeed, a loud shout suddenly rang out from the forest.

“Scoundrel! How dare you commit such an evil act! Die!”

……

“Oh, so the savior they were waiting for wasn’t us, but someone else.”

Hidden in the distance, Hua Jian watched the white-clad youth who suddenly jumped into the battlefield to fight the Ling King bandit.

Her expression became quite strange.

The scene was far too classic. At the moment of crisis, a heroic youth descends from the sky, saving a damsel in distress from fire and water.

Hua Jian didn’t even need to guess the following plot; the hero would defeat the bandit and then share a heart-to-heart with the girl from the caravan.

Depending on the novel’s tone, they would either live happily ever after or become a pair of ill-fated lovers.

However, the performance had a bit of novelty; the youth actually used a self-injuring fighting style to drive off the Ling King bandit.

After the fight, the heroic youth turned pale and fell into the girl’s arms with blood at the corner of his mouth.

Anyone who didn’t know it was a play might have been moved to tears.

But to Hua Jian, who knew the truth, this scene was hilarious to the extreme.

And could the girl please hide the look of disgust on her face? It was ruining the atmosphere!

“Wow, look at her expression. She looks so disgusted!”

Hua Jian whispered, pointing at the two main characters hugging each other not far away.

“Shh, don’t talk. Let’s see what they do next,” Linglong signaled for silence.

Her reminder wasn’t very useful.

After the bandits retreated, the girl carried the youth back into the caravan’s carriage, presumably for a private talk.

Well, theoretically, they were going for a private talk.

The three stood guard nearby for the whole night but saw no further movement in the caravan.

The bandits who had been driven off didn’t plan on returning.

By the next morning, the injured youth reappeared in the caravan and began traveling with them.

“Their speed is very fast—on a completely different level from yesterday!”

Riding their horses and chasing the caravan ahead, Hua Jian found they were actually struggling to keep up.

The three of them were now moving at full speed, but the caravan’s pace was not inferior to theirs; it was even a bit faster.

This was the polar opposite of yesterday’s snail-like pace.

“Is the horse you bought too trashy?” Hua Jian asked Linglong. They were all on horseback; why couldn’t they catch up?

“I already bought the best spiritual horses available in that place,” Linglong said, refusing to take the blame.

Fortunately, no matter how fast the caravan moved, it still had to act like a normal caravan.

As evening approached, the three finally got close to the caravan again. This time, the caravan was stationed on a plain near a city.

Many traveling Cultivators were gathered here, allowing Hua Jian and the others to blend in.

Soon, Hua Jian saw the middle-aged man from the caravan telling the story of last night’s experience to the crowd.

In his telling, the battle last night was thrilling and bloody; if it hadn’t been for the youth’s righteous intervention, not a single person in the caravan would have survived.

“That young hero originally intended to go to Ascension City for the Ascension Gathering, but he suffered such injuries for us. Sigh!”

These words made Hua Jian narrow her eyes. She felt she finally knew why this caravan was putting on this play.

They were trying to build a reputation for that youth.

When Saint Sects recruited disciples, they took reputation into account.

A Cultivator with a good reputation naturally had a higher chance of being selected.

“Heh, so that’s how it is…”