Two days later on Mount Yong...

“Third owner, do you think what that officer said is true or not?” One person asked a tough guy beside him with hesitation.

The third owner slightly frowned but said nothing.

Another one said, “Third owner, I think the officer looks rather sincere...different from Minister Wang.”

“Yes.” One more person echoed. “Third owner, does the imperial court really summon us to surrender?”

“He said that as long as we forsake darkness for light, the mistakes we made before could be forgiven. Is it true?”

“Third owner, it seems unreal? Those ministers always said nice words, but what they did was totally different!”

“You’re right...If I hadn’t trusted some ministers so much, I wouldn’t have made my family ruined.”

“Neither would I...But, we can’t be bandits forever...”

“That’s all. It’s not our call to make a decision.” The third owner finally opened his mouth to end the discussion.

When the crowd dispersed, the third owner walked toward one side.

Without being noticed, three people of the crowd walked toward the other side.

Needless to say, those three people were Shi Qingzhou, Long Xiaoyuan and Liu An capable of disguises.

Having stayed in Rivers and Lakes for a long time, Jiu An was then rescued by Shi Qingshan when he was almost killed by his enemy. Since then, he followed and worked for Shi Qingshan.

“Liu An, you stay here to familiarize the surroundings, collect information, and figure out what kind of people these bandits are,” said Long Xiaoyuan.

“Yes,” said Liu An. Having walked two rounds, he left.

Having thrown a glance to each other, Long Xiaoyuan and Shi Qingzhou followed the third owner inadvertently.

Instead of casually selecting three bandits, they chose those whose figures were similar to themselves.

Besides, when they dealt with the three bandits, they interrogated the bandits and learned of their names, the deployments, and the basic condition here. Otherwise, they would have been exposed even if their disguises were the best.

When they reached a room and saw nobody guard here, Shi Qingzhou stood beside the doorway, for his internal force was good, so he didn’t need to attach his ears on the door to eavesdrop. Long Xiaoyuan acted as a lookout.

“First brother.” It was the third owner talking. “Our people feel insecure. What should we do?”

The first owner didn’t speak, but the second owner said in a hoarse voice,

“First brother, I think the officers want to play tricks with us.”

The third owner frowned and said with hesitations, “But, the imperial court has sent many people here this time. If a real general is also here, we won’t get the upper hand even if we can utilize the landscape.”

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Hearing this, the second owner said angrily, “What do you mean? Are you strengthening their morale and reducing ours?”

Seeing the two fighting against each other, the first owner said, “Enough. Stopping arguing.”

The second owner said with his brows wrinkled, “First brother, you’ve heard that he wants to surrender. Didn’t we make a promise before? We’ll never give in. If we have to die, then we die together.”

Hearing this, the first owner couldn’t help saying, “We only had about 100 people at that time and had no families, so it’s no big deal that we died together. However, we have more than 4,000 people, hundreds of who are women and children. Do you want them to die with us?”

The second owner opened his mouth but murmured in the end, “But...but...”

The first owner said tiredly waving his hand. “That’s all. Leave this matter be. I have to think this through, so you two get out of here.”

“But...”

“It’s all right, second brother.” The third owner held the hand of the second owner. “Let’s get out, leaving first brother alone.”

When the two walked out of the room, the second owner got rid of the third owner’s hand. “Humph, I’ll go by myself.”

The third owner sighed and walked away.

A few moments later, Long Xiaoyuan and Shi Qingzhou inadvertently passed through the room again and walked away after looking at each other. At night, Shi Qingzhou and Long Xiaoyuan slept in the same quilt. There were many houses on Mount Yong. Some families lived together under the same roof; some people lived together.

The two men who Shi Qingzhou and Long Xiaoyuan disguised to be lived together. Liu An lived in the next door.

Since they lived in the same room, they naturally slept in the same quilt.

Long Xiaoyuan put his hand around Shi Qingzhou’s waist and said with his voice down, “Qingzhou, according to you, the first and third owners are quite reasonable and want to do good for the people uphill. They don’t want to be bandits any longer, do they?”

“Eh.” Shi Qingzhou added, “If they can live under the sunlight, why will they want to be bandits? After all, being bandits is a dangerous job.”

“Well...you’re right.” After some thoughts, Long Xiaoyuan continued, “If so, we can still carry out our plan. Perhaps, we can persuade two of the three owners.”

Shi Qingzhou said with hesitations, “But if the plan doesn’t work out, we’ll be in danger...”

After a pause, Long Xiaoyuan said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s worth of us doing this.”

Shi Qingzhou slightly frowned. If he was here alone, he wouldn’t mind carrying out the plan, but His Majesty was of great significance to this country, so how could Long Xiaoyuan take this risk!

Long Xiaoyuan got it right away upon seeing that Shi Qingzhou was silent. He said after thinking for a while, “Okay. We’ll observe two more days. I’ll go downhill before the plan is carried out.”

Shi Qingzhou said with a sigh, “OK. You can leave this matter to me, and I won’t let you down.”

Long Xiaoyuan kissed Shi’s forehead. “Eh, be careful.”

Long Xiaoyuan, Shi Qingshan, and Liu An spent the next two days looking and listening.

They then concluded from what they saw that the people here might have been forced to be bandits, some of who were indeed bad and even killed people.

They bore those people in mind and wanted to deal with those people in proper time.

Tonight, Long Xiaoyuan went downhill together with Liu An. Originally, he wanted to leave alone, but Shi Qingzhou didn’t allow him to do so. Besides, he didn’t want to bother Shi Qingzhou at the time, making the possible negotiation impossible, so he agreed on that.

When Shi Qingshan and Liu An arrived at the foot of Mount Yong sound and safe, Shi Qingzhou sneaked into the room of the first owner...

Long Xiaoyuan stood on the foot of the mountain all night and waited for Shi Qingzhou.

Waiting was suffering. Against the night, he tightly clenched his fists and found it terrible that he couldn’t protect the one he cared about.

Not until now did he clearly realize that he really cared about Shi Qingzhou.

It wasn’t because Shi Qingzhou was the protagonist, or Shi Qingzhou would kill him. It wasn’t because of the interests.

He cared about Shi Qingzhou because he treated Shi Qingzhou as his lover. That was all.

Lover...It wasn’t because of the interests, his life, or that book. It was only because Shi Qingzhou was his lover.

Tonight, Long Xiaoyuan clearly knew that Shi Qingzhou meant a lot to him. Next chapter -> His Majesty Is Back!