Chapter 505: Chapter 505. Pursuit
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“Where is this person?”
Su Qing’s eyes lit up. This Han man should be Qiu Yongkang. Because he had come up with an idea, the Celestial Master was blamed by the Emperor. That was why the Celestial Master was so angry that he wanted to refine him into a pill.
“I’ve already thrown him into the alchemy furnace.
The servant trembled as he replied. They thought that Su Qing and Xiao Zeyu had come to save the Han man and that they would be angry at them if they knew that the Heavenly Teacher had already refined that man into a pill.
“Were there only the two of them at that time?
Su Qing raised her eyebrows. ‘If the Taoist Master wanted to refine Qiu
Yongkang into a pill, would he still need to use knockout powder?’
No matter how she thought about it, it was impossible!
In the Northern Barbarian territory, the Taoist Master was highly respected.
Soldiers were outside the yurt, so there was no need to smoke. She suspected that Qiu Yongkang had drugged the Taoist Master.
“That Han said that he had something important to tell the heavenly master, so the heavenly master ordered us all to leave. After about half a cup of tea’s time, the heavenly master called us in and asked us to drag the beaten Han into the pill room and throw him into the pill furnace.”
Su Qing raised her eyebrows. Just as she had guessed, the person thrown into the furnace must be a heavenly master. Qiu Yongkang was indeed cunning.
She strongly suspected that if Xiao Zeyu couldn’t see Qiu Yongkang in the pill refining room, he would escape after killing the Celestial Master.
Xiao Zeyu brought the Xiao Family Army to the pill refining room, and they found nothing. The pill furnace was burning fiercely, and the air was filled with the smell of roasted meat. There was no one in the room.
“Where is your Taoist master?”
Xiao Zeyu ordered people to capture the guards guarding the pill refining room for questioning. The guards were still loyal to the heavenly master and refused to tell him the whereabouts of the heavenly master.
Su Qing rushed over and gave him the poison he had brought back from the Miao Family Mountain. After a period of torture that was worse than death, this loyal guard honestly told him where the Taoist Master had gone.
It turned out that the Taoist Master had a secret pa.s.sage that led to the outside world. He often left the Northern Barbarians through the secret pa.s.sage, claiming that he was in seclusion to receive the orders of the G.o.ds. This time, he did the same thing again. He asked the guards to open the secret pa.s.sage and left and told him not to mention it to anyone.
“Take us to the secret pa.s.sage.”
Su Qing and Xiao Zeyu looked at each other and simultaneously ordered the guards to lead them to the secret pa.s.sage.
“I can’t move.”
The guard was tortured to the point that he was weak and could not move. Su Qing also detoxified him. After detoxifying him, he still needed two people to help him walk, which delayed a lot of time.
The secret pa.s.sage of the Taoist Master was behind the alchemy room. If no one led the way to open the secret pa.s.sage, no one could guess something else was inside.
Su Qing and Xiao Zeyu ordered people to hold torches and escort the guard into the tunnel. They also sent people to guard outside to prevent anyone from sealing the secret pa.s.sage.
The secret pa.s.sage was as tall as a person, and the entrance was narrow. The further one went in, the wider it became. The secret pa.s.sage was windy, and the torches were almost blown out a few times. The guard walked for a while and then stopped. He turned around and said to Xiao Zeyu,
“Every time, the Taoist Master forbids us from following in. We don’t know how to go any further.”
Xiao Zeyu and Su Qing walked to the front and saw three entrances. They didn’t know which one to go through.
Xiao Zeyu ordered his men to point at the ground. He crouched down and scrutinized it. In the end, he pointed to the left hole with certainty. “Chase this way.”
Fresh footprints were outside the cave, proving someone had just walked in.
“The few of you will chase from the middle hole, and the few will chase from the right hole.”
To be on the safe side, Su Qing sent two more teams to the other two caves to make sure nothing went wrong.
She followed Xiao Zeyu down from the left cave entrance. After walking for a while, they heard an explosion. The cave shook, and the gravel kept falling. It was hazardous.
Xiao Zeyu hurriedly grabbed Su Qing’s hand and ran back. They ran very fast, but the cave collapsed very quickly. The moment the two of them rushed out of the cave, they saw it covered in dust and stones.
“He escaped again.”
Su Qing looked at the cave that was blocked by rocks and frowned. Someone had placed explosives in the cave and wanted to kill them by lighting them when they entered.
Qiu Yongkang was the only one who knew how to make a big killing machine. He must be the one who planted the explosives.
Only three of the soldiers who had entered the other two holes managed to escape and were all injured to varying degrees. The rest were buried under the rubble.
Xiao Zeyu ordered his men to bring the Northern Barbarian soldiers over and make them work as laborers to carry rocks and save people. When the sun rose, they could see the situation of the collapse. Xiao Zeyu and Su Qing felt a lingering fear. They would have been buried inside if they had run a little slower.
“Chase in this direction and capture whoever you find.”
Xiao Zeyu ordered his soldiers to follow the collapsed path and capture Qiu Yongkang no matter what.
“I’ll bring him here.”
The Northern Barbarians had just been taken over, and there were many things to deal with. Xiao Zeyu had to stay behind to deal with them. Su Qing didn t care about those things; she wanted to capture Qiu Yongkang.
If this person is not eliminated, he will be a great disaster!
“Qing’er, be careful.”
Xiao Zeyu nodded and agreed to let Su Qing chase after him. She was a good hunter, and no matter how cunning a hunter was, he could not escape her pursuit.
Su Qing agreed and led a dozen bodyguards to chase after the collapsed area. At the same time, he ordered Xiao Qi,”
“Find out where Qiu Yongkang is.”
Xiao Qi got her master’s order and looked at the screen. There were moving red dots everywhere, which the system found through heat. Some of these red dots were humanoid, and some were animals. There were many humanoid red dots, so Xiao Qi couldn’t be sure which was Qiu Yongkang.
“Master, people are moving in the southeast, northwest, front, and south directions.”
Xiao Qi reported what she saw to Su Qing. Su Qing asked her to draw out the specific location and split a dozen bodyguards into four teams to chase. She chased towards the south and was alone in this direction.
When she caught up with him, she saw that it was a hunter. Su Qing ordered her men to arrest him first. She went over and checked him carefully. She let him go after ensuring he was not wearing a disguise or a human skin mask. The hunter was so frightened that he ran away without even taking the roe deer he had just killed.
Su Qing continued to chase in the northwest direction. When she caught up, the Xiao Family’s army had already caught them in this direction. They were two soldiers who had escaped from the Northern Barbarians. After Su Qing confirmed they were not Qiu Yongkang, she ordered people to return them to the Northern Barbarians.
From the northwest to the southeast, they discovered that they were a group of commoners who had escaped from the northern barbarians. They had brought their families with them, just like they had escaped famine back then.
These people looked like honest herdsmen, but after being caught by the Xiao Family Army, they were so scared that they knelt on the ground and trembled. Su Qing checked them one by one and made sure that Qiu Yongkang wasn’t among them; then he said to them,
“Go back. As long as you behave yourselves, I won’t kill you.”
Hearing Su Qing’s promise, the herdsmen looked at each other. Then why are they still running? No place was better than home, so they dragged their children back.
Su Qing continued to chase in the direction of the south and found that they were also nomads who had escaped from the Northern Barbarians.
Su Qing stood in the snow and looked around. There was white snow everywhere, and she could not see the end. She had found all the people Xiao Qi had found using heat, but Qiu Yongkang was still not there.. Could he have been buried in the cave when he blew it up?