I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

"I have some dried fish here. You don't eat mushrooms, so how about I give you the dried fish?"

Wang Dali's heart pounded wildly for a moment. That was one hundred taels! One hundred taels!

"Dried fish? That's fine, but is it clean?" Huang Biao became picky.

Wang Dali nodded, "It's perfectly clean! There's no shortage of water now, so we just washed it by the water and brought it back to bake."

Huang Biao chatted with him for a couple more minutes. Apart from the fact that they were chased and killed by bandits and refugees, Wang Dali refused to reveal anything about the team. Huang Biao was secretly annoyed and sent someone to follow him back to exchange for two catties of dried fish.

As I was sitting, an old man came over furtively.

Unable to get anything out of either of them, Huang Biao grew annoyed and waved his hand, telling his men to deal with them.

A short while later, one of his men came over. "Brother Huang, this man has agreed to exchange the team's information for silver!"

"What?!" Huang Biao stood up abruptly and walked to the oilcloth shed beside the line. An old man, thin as a skeleton, sat on a bench. Upon seeing him, the old man said, "I want to see the money first!"

"Second brother, go get the silver." Huang Biao waved his hand, and his subordinate immediately went to get the silver. He sat down and asked the old man, "How can you guarantee that what you said is true?"

"Hmph!" Old Man Xi raised his head. "If you don't believe me, you can verify it yourselves!"

"There's just one thing, I'll say it once: if you give me some silver, when it's the last one, I need to walk a short distance ahead, and you can't chase after me!"

Old Man Xi held his head high, as if to say, "If you don't agree to my demands, I won't do business with you."

Huang Biao was genuinely curious about what kind of brilliant ideas he could come up with, so he nodded in agreement.

Before long, one hundred taels of silver were delivered.

A large silver ingot weighs ten taels, and ten silver ingots fill a large box.

Old Xi didn't want the two catties of dried mushrooms he had, but poured them out and asked Huang Biao to bring over twenty taels of silver first. Huang Biao was speechless and gave him the silver for the dried mushrooms first.

Old Man Xi stood up and stood outside the tarpaulin shed, saying, "Our village now has eighty-three people!"

This wasn't important information, but Huang Biao still gave him ten taels of silver as agreed.

Holding the silver, Old Man Xi continued, "Besides those from our village, there are two other families that joined later."

Huang Biao gave him more silver.

"Let's not talk about the Shang family. Only Liu Dali is somewhat capable of fighting, but they are richer."

"The other family, the Wen family, that's something else! They have so much food, drink, and supplies!"

While this information was useful, it wasn't what Huang Biao wanted. He urged, "Say something else."

"We have a few good fighters in our team," Old Man Xi said, naming a few capable men. "There's also one named Zhao Tieniu; he and his wife are both strong fighters."

Huang Biao nodded and gave the silver to Old Man Xi.

"And the Wen family too! The Wen family is also very good at fighting!" Old Man Xi said. "They're the ones who killed that group of bandits."

Hearing this, Huang Biao frowned, feeling relieved: Thank goodness, thank goodness we found someone to scout ahead. If we had underestimated them and followed the original plan, our team would have suffered a great loss!

"Give me the rest of the silver, and I'll tell you something important." Old Man Xi reached out his hand to ask for it.

Huang Biao gave him the rest of the silver. Old Man Xi greedily stuffed the silver into the bag containing the mushrooms, tied it shut, and strapped it to his body. He took a few steps forward, then stopped when he noticed Huang Biao and the others following him. "You all agreed not to follow me!"

With no other option, Huang Biao and his men had to stay put.

Old Man Xi ran forward a short distance, making sure Huang Biao could hear him, before saying, "Our village has been watching you for a long time!"

After saying that, he didn't explain further and just took off running.

The people around Huang Biao wanted to chase after them, but Huang Biao stopped them with his hand.

"Brother Huang, didn't we agree to rob the silver back?"

"No rush, we'll take the silver back once their group is in our hands." Huang Biao hurried into the large tent. The group they were targeting this time was a tough nut to crack!

Old Man Xi ran for a while, and seeing that no one was following him, he felt relieved and jogged forward.

The detour was a bit steep, but he figured he'd already exchanged the money, so he slowly made his way back to the usual mountain path.

He was old and didn't need to keep watch here, so he naturally didn't know that he had walked onto the road that villagers would take when changing shifts.

From a distance, two villagers changing shifts came face to face with him. Ning's father squinted and said to Zhou Jian beside him, "Isn't that Old Man Xi?"

"Yes." Ning's mother also felt puzzled.

This isn't the time for people looking for food to change shifts, and Old Man Xi doesn't need to come over for his shift, so why is he here?

Ning's parents went to change shifts with some questions in mind. By the way, Ning's father told Wang Xiufeng about Old Man Xi's unusual behavior.

When Wang Xiufeng returned to the group, Old Man Xi had already hidden the silver he brought and was sitting happily on his cart, watching his son and daughter-in-law work.

Wang Xiufeng didn't notice anything unusual, so he could only quietly call Xi Ershun over for questioning.

Avoiding anyone, Wang Xiufeng asked, "Did your father go out today?"

Xi Ershun thought for a moment, "Yes, he said his stomach hurt this morning and went out to have diarrhea."

Wang Xiufeng then asked if his family had lost any dried mushrooms or dried fish. Xi Ershun secretly went back to check and found that the bags used to store the food were intact.

Suppressing his doubts, Wang Xiufeng told Xi Ershun to go back.

Back at his car, Wang Xiufeng shook his head. "Maybe we're overthinking it. Old Man Xi just went out to have diarrhea."

He was bulging, as if he had some mushrooms stuffed inside. Who hasn't hoarded food? This is nothing special.

The village head nodded, "It's good that everything is alright. We're leading the team, so it's always better to be careful."

On the other end.

While no one was around, Ning's parents, who were keeping watch, were having a private meal outside.

After Ningning came back, she started emptying the refrigerator of drinks and other beverages, and Ning's dad drank Coke freely.

After eating spicy food and drinking cold drinks, his stomach started to hurt.

He told Ning's mother to stay here while he went to relieve himself in the grove of trees, clutching his stomach.

Ning's mother disliked him and told him to go away.

While desperately needing to relieve himself, Ning's father paced back and forth, squatting at one end, barely able to see Ning's mother's side.

Only then did he begin to address his stomach pain.

After using the toilet, he felt much better. While vowing to himself that he would never eat like that again, Ning's father got up and straightened his clothes.

He inadvertently noticed something unusual.

He came down from up there and went straight to the woods; the traces of his footsteps are still there.

The grass along that small slope had clearly been trampled on!

After straightening his clothes, Ning's father went over to take a look. The creases on the grass were still fresh. Further ahead was the direction in which the team they were keeping watch on was!

Something's not right.

Hurriedly returning to the surveillance location, Ning's father told Ning's mother about his findings.

"There are two possibilities: either that group of people has another way in and out, or someone is avoiding the route we are following."

Ning's father analyzed.

Ning's mother asked, "Is that road easy to walk on?"

"It's not easy to walk because it's next to a small slope and there's not much to walk on. It's easy to slip and fall if you go there." Ning's father shook his head. When he went to check, there were several places where people had stepped on the ground and there were obvious signs of slipping.

Ning's mother said, "The fact that it's difficult to walk means that someone is trying to avoid this road."

For the past few days, the people of Wangli Village have been keeping an eye on that group of people, who all walked along the same road they were watching.

Since there's an easy path, why would they choose to take the difficult one?

Ning's father was also puzzled, and got up to say, "I'll go take another look."

After making inquiries, Ning's father returned with a serious expression: "Lanxiang, someone from our village went to them to exchange silver."

He had just checked; the footprints were fresh, and they led from one end to the group from Wangli Village, and from the other to the group from the large tents, only bypassing the section of road they were tracking.

This indicates they are villagers or people who have been on duty!

Only Old Man Xi, who wasn't quite sure where the village guards were located, bumped into them on his way to change shifts.

Those people wouldn't be so kind as to exchange so much silver for food; they're probably just trying to get information about the team!

—I need to talk to the village head about this when I get back today.

Ning's father thought.

After the two men finished their surveillance, other villagers took over to keep watch, just in case they alerted the enemy. Ning's father didn't tell the two villagers about the unusual things he had discovered that day, but only told them to be more vigilant.

Back in the cave, Ning's father told others about his discovery.

"Sigh!" The village head sighed heavily, his head throbbing for a moment. "Explaining won't help!" he said.

"People die for money, birds die for food, how could they know so much?" Ning's father comforted him, "Right now they only know about Old Man Xi, they don't even know if the others have gone out."

Wang Xiufeng said, "Our daily teams for finding food and the people who go out to keep watch are all the same. As long as we know who inexplicably leaves the cave area, we can find out more!"

"We'd better keep a close eye on them tomorrow, lest they use money to find out what's going on in our ranks!" The village head was anxious, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He had already advised them, but some people still ignored his advice and went to contact that group. He couldn't just do nothing and keep watching them all the time!

There were patrols during the day, so Wang Xiufeng, disregarding sleep, went to find the men patrolling near the cave to inquire about information.

After a thorough investigation, the activities of Zhao Huilan and Zhao Laosan from the Zhao family raised serious suspicions.

There's also Wang Dali, who had a dispute with the village over fetching water before.

Needless to say, Old Man Xi is the prime suspect.

There were a few women who had gone a little further to the toilet, and a few people who were thinking of sneaking off to find mushrooms while they were in the toilet.

Wang Xiufeng compiled the list and placed it next to the fire.

In the flickering light of the fire, both the village head and the village chief felt that things were getting a bit tricky.

These people make it impossible to directly point out who has a problem.

Even the most suspicious old man, Mr. Xi, could explain that he was just passing by.

What about the others? They were just out for a while, and no one saw which direction they went.

The night was deep, and the village headman told his son to tell the patrolmen outside to be more vigilant tonight and to let the others go to rest early, saying they would discuss the matter tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we'll call them out and give them a good talking-to.

When Ning's parents returned to their carriage, Zhao Ningning and Zhao Qi were still awake.

Seeing his two children staring intently at him, Ning's father said, "What? Aren't you two asleep yet?"

"I was just curious! How did it go?" Zhao Ningning jumped off the cart, picked up the boiled water that had been sitting to the side, and handed it to her parents.

Holding the water, Ning's mother told her about how the village head had been unable to find out exactly who it was that night.

He also mentioned that the village head planned to find out and reprimand these suspects the next day.

"Oh dear!" Zhao Ningning exclaimed softly, slapping her thigh and saying, "Doesn't that reveal that we know they went out to exchange silver?"

Ning's Mom: "You have an idea?"

Zhao Qi and Ning's father both turned to look at Zhao Ningning. Zhao Ningning stroked her chin, pacing back and forth in her shed. After a moment, she pointed her index finger at the pot on the stove, "To lure the snake out of its hole, you need to give it some bait!"

Ning's father: "Explain in detail!"

"Once they get the money, they'll definitely buy things. We can take out what they urgently need right now and sell it. As long as the price is low enough, they're sure to be tempted!" Zhao Ningning said, giving an example:

"Find a skinny horse, say it's too thin for you to keep, buy it for twenty taels of silver, whether you eat it or keep it to pull a cart, it's a good deal."

Ning's mother asked, "What if someone in the family already has money, and they take out that money to buy it?"

"There are only a few families in our village with extra silver! Apart from them, isn't it suspicious that someone who should have run out of silver suddenly takes out a large sum of money?" Zhao Ningning said, "Excluding the normal ones, the rest must have gone to exchange their silver."

"This is a good idea!" Ning's father stopped sleeping and carefully asked Zhao Ningning for her thoughts before going directly to the village head to relay them.

Fearing that arriving even a moment too late would alert the village head to the impending reprimand the person to be dealt with the next day, thus alerting the enemy.

Early the next morning.

Zhao Ningning gave her own horse to the village head's family, and the village head's thin horse that was pulling the cart was pulled out separately.

Aside from gathering firewood and taking turns searching for food, the villagers were getting bored in the cave when they saw a horse being led to the middle of the cave. Someone immediately asked, "Village head, why did you bring your horse out here?"

"We have an extra horse now, and I was thinking that raising another one would be too much trouble, so why don't we sell it to someone in the village at a low price?" The village headman stroked the horse and said, "Don't let its thinness fool you, it can pull a load for ten miles a day."

"I won't ask for much. Whoever wants to take it will get twenty taels of silver." After saying this, the village head tied the horse to the spot and let the villagers see it.

Some people, even though they couldn't afford to trade for the horse, still wanted to come and see it.

Although it's a bit thin, it's still quite a big one... Twenty taels of silver, enough to not only stop it from pulling a cart, but also feed it meat for a long time!

Some people were watching so intently that their mouths were practically watering.

"Village head, why don't we chip in and kill this horse to eat?"

"I've never eaten horse meat before. Is it delicious?"

Seeing that the villagers were about to steer the conversation astray, the village head glared and said, "Nonsense! A horse pulling a cart saves a lot of effort! We can eat it when we're really exhausted... there's still time."

Upon hearing this, the families in the village who only had carts and no livestock were greatly tempted.