In late autumn in October, the chill is getting thicker, and the mountains and forests under the cover of night are silent.
Deep in Baekdu Mountain, there is a peak called Chilju Peak. Although it is not majestic, the terrain is steep and dangerous.
Zhao Lin and Liang Song were lying in a pile of rocks in front of Qizhu Peak, looking up at the mountain.
"Did you see that notch? It's the only way up the mountain."
Liang Song pointed forward and said.
Over the years, he had used hunting as a cover to snoop around secretly and knew several dens where Beards were haunted, and Qizhu Peak was one of them.
Zhao Lin looked intently and saw a natural valley notch.
The opening of the valley is extremely narrow, and a mountain path extends upward, winding up with cliffs on both sides.
"It's really a place that's easy to defend but hard to attack!"
He originally thought that the bandits had not been wiped out for many years because the garrison was not interested, but now it seems that this may not be the case.
In this kind of terrain, even if a hundred thousand troops were sent, they would still have to move up one by one.
Liang Song nodded slightly, "More than that, some of the people in the beard used to be hunters and set up many animal traps and traps on the mountain road."
"If you don't know what's going on inside, no matter how powerful the person is, it will be easy to get into their trap."
Zhao Lin turned to look at him, "How do you know so clearly?"
Liang Song grinned: "Beards are human beings too, and it's impossible for everyone to keep their mouths shut."
"Moreover, do you think they built this village themselves? They don't know how to do this kind of hard work. They built it little by little with laborers brought from outside the mountains many years ago. I don't know how many people died."
"However, some people are lucky enough to survive. I interviewed an old worker who used to work in the mountains and got some inside information from him."
Zhao Lin thought for a while and said: "Since it is so difficult to fight, why not surround this place with a large army?"
"Without water and food, I'm afraid the beard won't last long, right?"
Liang Song shook his head, "It's useless. A few years ago, the state government sent troops to suppress the bandits and trapped the bandits in Wuzhi Peak. After being trapped for half a month, there was suddenly no movement on the mountain."
"I sent someone up to take a look and found that all the bandits had escaped. Finally, I found several secret passages."
"The bandits have several lairs, and each lair has secret passages. You can't try them one by one, right?"
Having said this, Liang Song turned around and looked over, "What are you going to do?"
Zhao Lin pursed his lips and said, "I want to explore the way first. It would be best if I can capture one or two alive. If not, I would kill a few beards and bleed them."
If you dare to attack your own family, you must give them some color.
Liang Song nodded in agreement, pointed to the big trees next to the entrance of the mountain and said, "I'm afraid it won't be easy. There must be their secret whistles on the trees."
Zhao Lin looked at the big trees and felt a little confused.
In order to prevent people from climbing up the mountain, the bandits cut down all the trees in a radius of 100 feet, leaving not even the taller weeds.
The open space in front of the mountain is completely bare. As long as someone approaches, even at night, they will be very conspicuous and cannot escape the eyes of the secret whistle.
Zhao Lin touched the beard that had just grown on his chin and asked, "Is there a road behind the mountain?"
Liang Song still shook his head, "Behind the mountain is a cliff."
Zhao Lin was speechless. He was not a gecko. He had to use an ax and an iron awl to climb up the cliff.
But in this case, there will definitely be a sound, and I am afraid that what will greet me is a big stone.
Thinking of the stone, Zhao Lin suddenly had an idea, "There is a way!"
Liang Song quickly asked: "What method?"
Zhao Lin searched the pile of rocks for a while and saw a large fan-shaped stone with an uneven surface, which was very suitable for grasping.
He crawled over, turned around and waved to Liang Song, "Come here."
Liang Song didn't know why, but he still followed his example and came behind the big stone.
Zhao Lin straightened his upper body, half-crouched and grabbed both sides of the boulder. Using both arms, he lifted the thousand-jin boulder off the ground and slowly moved it forward.
Liang Song suddenly realized that Zhao Lin wanted to use the boulder as cover to approach the entrance of the mountain.
If it were daytime, this would definitely not work, but now it was night after all, and it would be difficult for the whistler to notice a slow-moving boulder.
However, this requires great arm strength, and only Zhao Lin can do this.
Zhao Lin carried the big stone and moved it little by little towards the entrance of the mountain slot, stopping every once in a while to prevent being discovered by the secret sentry.
After more than half an hour, the two moved to a place less than thirty feet away from the big tree.
Zhao Lin heard Anshao's breathing.
His breathing was even, with pauses in between, which meant that An Shao was a little sleepy, but he was definitely not asleep.
Zhao Lin quietly poked his head out from behind the boulder, his Adam's apple vibrated and emitted ultrasonic waves, immediately locating the secret whistle hidden in the gap between the branches of the tree.
"On the second big tree."
The mountains were empty and the people were quiet. Zhao Lin was worried about alerting the secret whistle, so he wrote on Liang Song's palm with his fingers.
Liang Song immediately wrote: "There may be more than one secret whistle. Please listen again."
After following Zhao Lin for a long time, he vaguely knew that Zhao Lin had extraordinary hearing, but he never asked about it.
Zhao Lin nodded silently, picked up the big stone and continued to move forward.
A dark cloud passed across the sky, blocking most of the moonlight.
Zhao Lin took the opportunity to speed up and carried the big stone to a place more than ten feet away from the entrance of the mountain. Sure enough, he heard subtle breathing coming from the valley.
He looked around and saw a raised stone on the slope of the valley.
The sound comes from behind the stone.
Sure enough, there is a way!
There are two hidden stakes. Even if the first hidden stake is attacked and killed, the second one can warn you in time. No matter how fast you are, you can't pull them out at the same time.
Zhao Lin frowned slightly, wondering if there would be a third hidden stake?
He wrote what he saw and his guesses in Liang Song's hand. Liang Song was not surprised and wrote in his hand: "Alive or dead?" Then he silently took off the hunting bow from his back.
Liang Song hadn't practiced yet, so in order not to hinder Zhao Lin, before coming here, they went to the cliff of Beiling to bring their hunting bows.
"Let me think about it."
Zhao Lin was a little hesitant. Now that he knew the location of the two hidden stakes, he would definitely be able to capture them as long as he launched a surprise attack.
But only killing two minions was far from what he expected.
Now that I'm here, I have to beat my beard until it hurts.
At this time, the beard hidden in the second hidden pile yawned.
Sleepy?
Zhao Lin's heart moved, and he suddenly thought of a possibility.
Generally speaking, the vigil must be rotated, and it is impossible for one person to concentrate on watching from beginning to end.
He raised his head and glanced at the sky. The moon was high in the sky, and it was already midnight.
"There may be people on rotation to take over in a while. Let's wait and catch them all in one fell swoop!"
Zhao Lin wrote in Liang Song's hand.
Liang Song was startled for a moment, then gave him a thumbs up.
The two of them waited quietly behind the stone, and time passed by.
Around the fourth watch, that is, at one o'clock in the middle of the night, there was a soft sound of footsteps, and three shadowy figures walked down the mountain.
