Palace Fighting Naive Concubines’ Ascent to Power
Chapter 549 Found

Chapter 549: Chapter 549 Found

When they followed the Grain Transport Team and lodged in the town center, they secretly criticized the Ancestral Master’s lack of morals for even robbing beggars, stripping people’s clothes off completely, and then having them bring clothes along. They didn’t expect that the clothes would be used here, disguising themselves as beggars to double the effectiveness of the operation.

Chen Wei, feeling helpless, stepped forward and said, "Ancestral Master, I’ve failed to penetrate deep into the village to gather intelligence."

"You weren’t exposed, were you?" Cao De asked, still with a straw in his mouth, his gaze fixed on the map before him, not even glancing at the two men.

Old Liu immediately replied, "Rest assured, Ancestral Master, we weren’t exposed. I am originally from Northern Liaoning and I’ve previously mingled with the Beggar Gang for a while. I know beggars better than anyone, so they couldn’t have detected us."

Cao De finally looked up, giving them a straight face, tossed the map to someone beside him, removed the straw from his mouth, and spoke methodically, "Tell me in detail."

Chen Wei and Old Liu, thereupon, started recounting what they had seen and heard, from the unusual glances upon entering the village, to being pushed north, to being driven out, in detail.

The more Cao De listened, the bigger the smile grew on his face. After hearing everything, he stood up, suddenly slapped the shoulder of someone next to him and laughed mischievously, "Finally found it, it has been killing me. The Xue Family’s lad is really something, tsk, tsk, tsk."

After slapping the man, Cao De regained his senses, disdainfully wiping his hand.

Mao Daniu at his side felt wronged, almost on the verge of tears. The Ancestral Master might look gentle and delicate, but that slap on the shoulder made it go numb with pain, and then came the disdain.

Chen Wei was puzzled and hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and asking, "Ancestral Master, what have we found?"

The Grain Transport Team didn’t find it, the private soldiers didn’t find it, they found nothing, so what did they find?

Upon hearing this, Cao De’s good mood was all but ruined. His fox-like eyes narrowed as he stared at Chen Wei for an unbearable length of time without speaking. Was he wondering if the heads of the Internal Guard Bureau were frozen stiff, unable to understand human language? Was a beating needed to knock some sense into them?

With his scalp tingling, Chen Wei steeled himself and tentatively asked again, "Ancestral Master, are you saying that we’ve found the rats’... nest?"

The word "private soldiers" was too sensitive, so they used "great rats" as a substitute; the headquarters of the private soldiers were referred to as the "rats’ nest", which was a rule set by the Ancestral Master.

He knew the Ancestral Master’s temper—he liked cleanliness, hated stupid people, especially those from the Internal Guard Bureau. They had been tormented nearly to death along the way, but they all knew the Ancestral Master did this for their own good. He punished them frequently, but he also rewarded them quite generously.

Cao De said impatiently, "What else?"

He then looked at Chen Wei as if looking at an idiot and threw the straw in his hand at him. Whoosh—the straw flew through the air and embedded itself in Chen Wei’s disheveled hair.

Chen Wei didn’t dare to dodge and, hearing the answer, was as overjoyed as the others.

Cao De stopped paying attention to him and walked a few steps forward, deliberately avoiding the direction of Chen Wei and Old Liu, making his way to the edge of the woods and gazing at the distant stacks of wheat straw and the threshing ground.

He pointed in the direction of the distant wasteland and asked, "What do you see there?"

Mao Daniu followed his gaze and blurted out quickly, "Withered grass?"

Cao De felt a surge of irritation catch in his throat. He then lashed out with his foot, kicking the young man, "Idiot, that’s a long-abandoned field. When we return to the capital, you’ll receive five floggings with the staff!"

The Internal Guard Bureau recruited talents from all walks of life, including those both clever and sly, having a variety of people. However, there were indeed individuals with low intelligence, and thankfully, those were not in abundance because they would have been enough to drive anyone to frustration.

Moreover, the Internal Guard Bureau was selective in its recruitment, and those with a deficiency in intellect must possess some unique traits. That is to say, the dumber the person, the more likely they had an extraordinary ability in another area.

Take Mao Daniu, for instance, who was a thief by trade and had an exceptional talent for tracking. Before joining the Internal Guard Bureau, he had stolen all the chickens in the local area, able to locate a chicken just by smelling its droppings. Left on a desolate mountain, he could trace the wildlife to find and devour their young. Due to his folly of daring to steal from a unit of the Internal Guard Bureau on a mission, he was caught, but he also had the remarkable achievement of tracking down a thief through several towns using only two dog hairs.

In this particular instance of tracking, the ability to lag far behind the Grain Transport Team without drawing attention was largely thanks to Mao Daniu’s contributions.

Mao Daniu immediately wore a bitter expression. On this journey, his prominent intellect and habit of quick talking had already earned him fifty strokes of the cane, the most among the group, ten times more than Chen Wei. Upon his return, his backside would undoubtedly be punished severely.

After pondering for a moment, Chen Wei approached the downwind area and said, "Ancestral Master, are you suggesting that these lands are deserted, and the people in the village are not like ordinary villagers, that their true livelihood is not farming?"

Cao De felt somewhat relieved. At last, there was someone who understood.

Indeed, there was much work to be done to improve the quality of the Internal Guard Bureau’s personnel.

Enough of that—time to offer them some guidance and to make up for the deficiency in training over the years. Best to start with the bunch of misfits who had come out with him.

Cao De nodded, his expression turning more serious as he shared his deductions.

As they had followed along, when reaching the most recent town, the men of the Grain Transport Team had completely relaxed, indulging themselves in pleasure and leisure for two full days as if throwing off shackles.

Finally, when they could no longer bear it, a man dressed in coarse cloth and resembling a villager entered the ranks of the Grain Transport Team. Not long after, the team departed again, heading towards a remote village away from the town.

The village they went to survey was the very place where the Grain Transport Team had vanished.

Before reaching this village, Cao De had managed to evade several groups of people. Near the village, he noticed the abandoned fields on both sides, which had been unevenly tilled at the village’s edges, but the effort seemed half-hearted.

There was a large threshing ground nearby that appeared to still be in use, but the piles of wheat stalks around it had turned black and gray from age, having been left untouched for quite some time.

His immediate reaction was that there was something off about the village—it didn’t seem like a typical farming community.

He examined the abandoned fields carefully and found them to be well-leveled, with signs of agriculture that seemed long neglected. This observation confirmed his suspicions, prompting him to send Chen Wei and Old Liu to probe further, and his hunch proved correct.

The villagers were wary of outsiders, even beggars, and Chen Wei and Old Liu were shoved away—a test from the villagers to see if they had any martial prowess.

Now, he was almost certain that the village hid the Rebel Prince’s private soldiers who were being sheltered by Xue Ping. The threshing ground was likely used for military training, with certain areas worn smooth from use.

But since there was no training currently in progress, he inferred from the traces that there might be other, larger, and more concealed spots for military drills. Otherwise, the field should have been active with training when they arrived.

He had studied the government’s records and geographic layout of the area, and beyond this village lay a sprawl of sporadic settlements.

He deeply suspected that the village in front of them was merely a facade and that crossing through this collection of villages would unveil the true mystery they sought to uncover.