When the junior received the signal, he immediately withdrew from the room as though he was pardoned. Just as he was about to step out of the door, Lu Wenshu"s voice echoed in his ears again.
"I"ll personally take over the mission tomorrow. I shall spy on her personally. As for you, bring some juniors to scout out the surroundings of the Desolate Region. Do not let anyone else into the Desolate Region." Lu Wenshu instructed.
"Yes." The junior hastily acknowledged and slipped away quickly as he could. It was as though he was afraid Lu Wenshu would make things difficult for him. He was also afraid Lu Wenshu would give him more work to do.
The reason why Lu Wenshu wanted to personally keep tabs on Bai Luochu was because he was afraid his junior had already been exposed. He also wanted to keep an eye on Pei Rumo and Bai Luochu as he noticed that Pei Rumo had a thing for her. Moreover, with his understanding of Bai Luochu, she definitely had her reasons for backing off. She probably wanted to wait for the situation to calm down before exploring the ruins.
He casually ignored that fact that he was keeping an eye on her because of his feelings for her.
At the borders of the Desolate Region, the soldiers had also received the message from Pei Rumo. The hundred-men captains were all gathered in the main tent and they started to discuss with each other.
"Everyone should have read His First Highness" report. I want to seek everyone"s opinion on this matter as we need to make a proper decision." The hundred-men captain who had been serving for the longest time spoke up. He was a just a fair captain and everyone listened to him when Pei Rumo wasn"t around. If they were to be successful in this campaign, he would immediately rise to become the vice-general in Pei Rumo"s army.
"Big Brother Di, if you have any ideas, please share them with us. Us brothers are not as experienced as you and it will be troublesome if we miss out on some important points."
"His First Highness had already separated us into groups previously. Now that there is a change of plans, why don"t we split up into two groups again? The first half will stay behind while the other half will scout the borders of the Desolate Region. There is one rule we need to follow and that is for the scouting group to return before sunset. The Desolate Region is a strange place and things might go wrong if we get separated.”
The rest of the captains looked at each other and agreed as they couldn"t think of a better idea.
The next morning, Bai Luochu and Pei Rumo departed to the edge of the Desolate Region"s central zone.
It wasn"t too difficult to scout out the Desolate Region as there was nothing noteworthy in it. There were no landmarks or places of interest. However, this also made it confusing as no one knew where they were and it was difficult to draw a map.
There was almost no way of finding any useful information.
In fact, Bai Luochu had actually dug into the ground. Before Pei Rumo could react, Bai Luochu was playing with a handful of dirt.
"What are you doing?" After seeing Bai Luochu"s vulgar actions, Pei Rumo was shocked. He felt that her actions were unacceptable. Let alone playing with soil, a well-bred lady in the capital city would even disdain their feet getting wet when it rained. Pei Rumo never expected Bai Luochu to disregard her image just to gain some clues.
Pei Rumo didn"t know if it was a good thing that Bai Luochu didn"t give any regards to her own image in front of him. She might even be treating it as though he wasn"t there.
As for Bai Luochu, she didn"t care about Pei Rumo"s impression of her. After all, the only thing that mattered was clues about the Desolate Region.
Bai Luochu wasn"t able to find anything and she quickly moved over to another location. When her clothes changed from a pristine white color to that of brown dirt, she finally made some progress.
"Your First Highness, come over here." Bai Luochu reached out her hand and beckoned for Pei Rumo to come over. She then pointed at what she discovered, "Look, there are hoofprints and footprints."
Pei Rumo squatted down to take a close look and discovered there were indeed signs of hoofprints and footprints. He then commented, "That doesn"t prove anything..."
Bai Luochu shook her head and said, "Why don"t Your First Highness take a look at the path that we came from and see if there are tracks left behind?"
Pei Rumo did as Bai Luochu suggested and turned back to where they came from. He wasn"t able to find any clues even after some time. Without a choice, Pei Rumo imitated Bai Luochu and used his hand to fiddle with the surface of the soil. When he was still unable to find any tracks, he ran back and asked Bai Luochu, "What is going on? There are no tracks from the direction we came from! This isn"t logical!"
"There is nothing illogical about it." Bai Luochu stood up and explained, "This is the Desolate Region and the soil here is very loose. The path that we took earlier definitely wouldn"t leave behind any tracks. Even if we dug a pit in the ground right now, it would be quickly covered by the sand and dirt. There is something different about this spot."
Bai Luochu muttered for a moment before continuing her explanation, "Someone pa.s.sed through the Desolate Region in the rain. After the rain stopped, the temperature of the Desolate Region rose and the moisture in the ground evaporated. The tracks were imprinted into the ground and after looking at the messy tracks, we can conclude that a large group of people entered the Desolate Region in the past.”
"It seems like those people are more knowledgeable about the Desolate Region than us." Pei Rumo couldn"t help but sigh with sorrow.
They didn"t know that their actions were noticed by Lu Wenshu.
Lu Wenshu felt that he should find an opportunity to travel together with the two of them again. If they were to continue investigating like headless flies, they might actually get somewhere.