The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, becoming a disciple of Yue Buqun.

The bandit child felt the couple's crazed gaze and cried out in terror.

Jiang Ning looked at these people.

“You are the people here, so you must know where there are bandit strongholds. Tell me the locations of these strongholds within a radius of several hundred miles, and I will simply help you eliminate them all.”

Jiang Ning spoke calmly, but his words startled the others.

Regardless of how the bandits reacted, the common people wept and kowtowed to Jiang Ning.

"Thank you, hero! Thank you, hero!"

However, despite this, the local people only knew about a few mountain strongholds.

Jiang Ning then looked at the group of bandits.

"Hero, if we reveal all the mountain strongholds we know, could you spare our lives?"

"It was a bandit speaking in a trembling voice."

Jiang Ning calmly said, "I told you, I can let you die a quick death and send your colleagues down to join you."

"If you don't talk, I'll skin you alive."

Hearing such cruel words, several bandits who had originally planned to die rather than speak suddenly trembled, and their previous courage vanished.

The bandits from Shaanxi sighed inwardly.

Everything is predestined, and nothing is up to us.

The bandit named Lao Hu couldn't help but exchange glances with his brothers, and they all saw tears welling up in each other's eyes.

It's all fate.

They thought that escaping to Jiangnan would prevent them from running into King Yama Ning, but who would have thought that their good days would not last long, and King Yama would follow them to Jiangnan like a shadow.

It's true what they say: if the King of Hell wants you to die at midnight, who dares to keep you alive until dawn?

"Brother, you really didn't misjudge him by calling him the King of Hell. Now the living King of Hell is going to send us to meet the real King of Hell."

A bandit said in a bitter whisper.

He spoke very softly, but Jiang Ning had sharp ears and still heard him.

"You're the ones who started spreading the nickname 'King of Hell'?"

Jiang Ning looked at the bandits with some surprise.

Even facing death, these bandits remained calm.

“You’re a ruthless killer, even more so than us gangsters. You’re like a living Yama. You just said one thing, and who knew it would get out.”

Hearing these people admit it, Jiang Ning didn't show any anger.

Actually, he didn't feel anything about this nickname; it's just that Yue Buqun was very dissatisfied with this name for a period of time.

Now that the culprit has been found, Jiang Ning can tell Yue Buqun when he goes back this time, which will relieve Yue Buqun of a worry.

However, Jiang Ning still needs to correct these people's statements.

"I am now a great hero of Guanzhong, certified by the imperial court."

Chapter 288: Fate, a Wonderful Thing

These bandits, who had traveled thousands of miles to Jiangnan to escape Jiangning's pursuit, still died at Jiangning's hands, as fate would have it.

Perhaps this is fate, something truly wondrous.

In their final moments, the bandits felt not fear, but relief.

Especially that bandit who frequently dreamt of Jiangning.

Now he no longer has to live in fear, afraid that Jiang Ning will suddenly find them one day.

Jiang Ning also learned the location of the nearby mountain stronghold from those bandits.

After all, death is terrible, but being tortured to death is even worse; they are not tough guys.

Jiang Ning obtained a considerable amount of information about the mountain stronghold from these people, but these bandits could not guarantee that it was all the information they knew.

Jiang Ning didn't pay much attention to this. He would use torture to extract confessions from each mountain stronghold he visited, just to fill in any gaps in his knowledge.

At this point, the struggle between the couple and the woman also ended.

The bandit boy lay motionless in the woman's arms, his face contorted with intense fear before he died. His body was covered in stab wounds, and in some places, pieces of flesh were missing.

The woman also died.

The couple from before were also silently weeping, holding the body of their dead son.

"You should go down the mountain."

Jiang Ning glanced at the couple; the villagers had already gone down the mountain.

"Thank you, thank you."

The couple kowtowed to Jiang Ning in gratitude.

Jiang Ning shook his head, said nothing, and let them go down the mountain.

Now the mountain stronghold is piled with corpses.

Jiang Ning did not leave immediately. Before the people came down the mountain, Jiang Ning told them to bring the villagers up the mountain to transport the grain a few days later.

These bandits from Tianfeng Village have been entrenched here for many years, and in addition to grain, they have also robbed a lot of gold and silver jewelry.

The grain can be distributed to the villagers to compensate them for the losses caused by the looting, but the gold and silver jewelry cannot be given away casually. It would not be good for them and would cause a lot of unnecessary trouble, which is not what Jiang Ning wants to see.

Jiang Ning never underestimates human nature.

He plans to bury these things somewhere and deal with them later when he has more time.

He is currently traveling and has many places to visit, so he cannot deal with these things or take them with him on his journey.

After finding a secluded spot to bury the gold and silver jewelry, Jiang Ning went to a forest on the back mountain.

This is what the bandits confessed. In the past, after they captured civilians, women, and those who robbed people on the road and took them up the mountain for fun, they would dump the dead here.

At this moment, Jiang Ning looked at this forest, where many white bones were laid out, some of which were already covered with dirt.

Jiang Ning dug a pit and buried the bones before going down the mountain.

……

"Hero, spare my life! Hero, spare my life!"

In a mountain stronghold, several bandits were kowtowing to a man, while corpses littered the surrounding area.

"We were wrong, we will change, we will definitely change, please, heroes, don't kill us."

Hearing the bandits plead for mercy, Jiang Ning shook his head.

"Many people have said this to me, but how can people like you change?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a flash of sword light appeared, and several bandits fell to the ground at the same time, blood gushing from their necks.

Jiang Ning shook his hand to wipe the blood off his sword, then sheathed it.

This was the last mountain stronghold he had swept away. He had been torturing the bandits and they couldn't get any information about the other strongholds, which meant he had wiped out all the surrounding strongholds.

After clearing out the last mountain stronghold, Jiang Ning descended the mountain and headed towards Jinan Prefecture.

In the days that followed, Jiang Ning did not encounter any more bandits who tried to rob him on the way across the mountains. The journey was very smooth until he crossed those mountains and came to a river on the other side.

There was a small town on the banks of this river. Jiang Ning rested in the town for a day before setting off to find a ferry.

"Young master, where are you going?"

A boatman was sitting on his boat waiting to attract customers. When he saw Jiang Ning walking toward the shore, he greeted him warmly.

"Shall we go to Jinan Prefecture?"

Jiangning Road.

"Let's go."

The boatman nodded repeatedly.

After agreeing on the price, Jiang Ning boarded the boat, but the boatman still didn't move.

Jinan Prefecture is a bit far, and it would be too costly to carry just one person at a time, so he planned to carry several more.

"Are there any more people going to Jinan Prefecture? Are there any more people going to Jinan Prefecture?"

The boatman shouted at the top of his lungs.

Before long, several more passengers boarded the ship, also heading to Jinan Prefecture.

"Dear guests, the ship is setting sail. Please be seated."

The boatman gave a shout and then started rowing.

"Hey, have you heard? It seems like all the mountain strongholds within a radius of several hundred miles have been wiped out."

As soon as the group sat down, one of them brought up a topic.

"No, who cleared it? The government?"

"That's what the other person is wondering about," another person said.

"The government? Hmph, if the government could wipe out these mountain strongholds, they would have done so long ago. Why wait until now?"

The person who had spoken earlier chuckled twice, then stopped teasing and said...

"I heard it was done by a mysterious person who wiped out all the surrounding mountain strongholds in one fell swoop."

"real or fake?"

As soon as he said this, everyone else expressed their disbelief.

"This area is full of mountain strongholds. Who has the ability to wipe them all out by himself? I don't believe it."

The person who was questioned shrugged: "I don't believe it either, but many villagers are talking about it. Many people went to those mountain villages to investigate and found that it was indeed true. There are no people left in those mountain villages."

Hearing him say that, the others couldn't help but become curious as well.