Wu Youren remained at the quarantine station until midday, but the experience points still had not stopped flowing. He truly could barely endure it any longer.
The youth packed up his supplies, gathering them into a fairly large backpack.
Seeing this, the quarantine station staff member stared blankly for a moment. "You're finally heading out again?"
Wu Youren stroked Xiao Ha on his shoulder and smiled. "The little fellow's been cooped up for too long. Taking him out for some fresh air."
*As if I'd believe you!* The staff member nodded, but the moment Wu Youren walked out, he immediately raised his communication wristwatch and dialed.
Over a foot of snow truly made for arduous walking.
After trekking for more than a kilometer, Wu Youren took two folding wooden boards from his pack, opened them, and fastened them securely.
They were a pair of crude skis. He snapped off two tree branches to use as poles, propelled himself forward, and glided away.
He had only skied for a few minutes when his wristwatch began to vibrate. It was Kenpa contacting him. "Why did you sneak off on your own again? Wait for me!"
During the previous snowfall, Kenpa and Rossi had formed a team with others to venture out, but their haul had been mediocre at best. Since then, they had been keeping a close eye on him, waiting for him to leave.
"I'm dodging trouble," Wu Youren replied, offering an excuse ready at hand. "In this kind of weather, hunting Guizu is no easy task."
Kenpa remained unwilling to let it go. "Dodging what trouble? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Nonsense from Jin," the youth answered, leaving the middle-aged knight utterly speechless.
Wu Youren glided for a while, feeling his proficiency rise swiftly. He banked into a turn and headed straight for the Rust Belt.
Although he did his utmost to circulate his inner breath to lighten his body weight, obvious tracks were still left behind in the snow.
Arriving before an abandoned building, he found a patch beneath the broken roof that was free of accumulated snow.
The youth removed his skis and packed them into his bag, then switched off his wristwatch, took it off, placed it into a small iron box, and buried it in the ground.
A moment later, he drew a deep breath, kicked lightly off the snow with his toes, and dashed off.
Of course, he had not reached the level of treading snow without a trace, but a faint, shallow pit in the snow was impossible to notice without paying close attention.
Crucially, a tiny round depression offered no indication of the direction of force.
Anyone tracking him would not only spend far longer doing so, but would also struggle to determine whether he had moved forward or backward.
He circled the surrounding area on tiptoes for more than four hours before finally darting into a dilapidated house.
Those last four hours had consumed a tremendous amount of his inner breath, but he had no choice; traveling in snowy weather was simply that inconvenient.
Next came digging a shelter to camp. There was little need for words—hollowing out the frozen, rock-hard ground was exhausting even with magic arts.
By midnight, he had finally dug out a cellar. Wu Youren squeezed inside, pulled the cover shut, and let out a long sigh of relief.
Strangely enough, the experience points still had not stopped arriving. Though the influx had weakened considerably, it continued unabated.
He truly had no idea what monumental event had occurred.
***
Meanwhile, inside the New Army's main camp on the outskirts of Tianjing, over a dozen officers were gathered in a spacious chamber.
Commander Jeff was among them, though he did not occupy the head seat, nor was he even seated right beside it.
At the head of the room sat a middle-aged man whose aura was completely restrained, revealing no trace of cultivation.
With heavy eyelids drooping lazily, he spoke. "Count Pingnan committed suicide in the imperial prison. The pilot program in the south may now begin."
"His Majesty's will must be resolutely executed. Is anyone willing to head south to provide local security?"
Among the dozen or so officers, not a single person spoke.
The middle-aged man waited a moment, then gave a soft snort. "Li Hu, you won't go either?"
"Reporting to the Army Commander," Commander Jeff stood up and addressed him with utmost deference. "Your subordinate also oversees Mount Xuanling."
"Furthermore, once the pilot program begins, there will be many plans requiring implementation. My recommendation is that the local authorities handle their own coordination."
Another officer nodded in agreement. "Regarding this matter, I also suggest waiting to see how events unfold. If Tianjing intervenes too heavily, the pilot program will lose its original intent."
When all was said and done, they wanted to egg on the low-ranking knights into launching a bottom-up movement.
Breaking ingrained mindsets was difficult, yet this was fundamentally something that benefited low-ranking knights.
If the people involved were unwilling to fight for it themselves, it was their own ignorance, and no one else could be blamed!
Moreover, the points this officer raised were entirely valid. Since it was a pilot program, its broad applicability had to be ensured.
The higher-ups could attach great importance to it, but if they interfered excessively and micromanaged every step, it would become an isolated special case rather than a pilot.
Yet the middle-aged man merely smiled upon hearing this. "Every single one of you is slacking off and cutting corners. Are you all simply reluctant to leave His Majesty's side?"
Those words struck straight to the heart, yet they were not wrong. Going down to strive at the grassroots meant removing oneself from the court's center of attention.
Proximity brought advantage, and the New Army was a brand-new organization to begin with.
The New Army's promotion rules operated outside the imperial court's traditional hierarchy, and the only reason they were riding so high right now was the King of Liang's staunch backing!
To leave Tianjing and do drudgery at the grassroots—just how out of one's mind would someone have to be to choose that?
A grand knight with an extraordinarily burly build spoke in a thick, muffled voice.
"Commander, I'm just a rough man. Fighting and killing are no problem, but if I head down there, I'm afraid I won't handle the affairs properly."
After a moment of silence, the Army Commander waved a hand. "Dismissed. Some people still haven't put their hearts into their duties; I won't name names today."
Commander Jeff walked out the door, his face as black as the bottom of a wok.
The officer who had spoken up on his behalf stepped forward, smiling as he clapped a hand on Jeff's shoulder. "Haha, the Commander said he wasn't naming names."
Jeff shot him a glare. "You're the Wise Tiger. If he was naming anyone, it was probably Karajan."
"Tch, I've got so much on my plate," Karajan chuckled. "How about the two of us trade?"
"Sigh." Jeff shook his head and walked off briskly.
***
Wu Youren held out until the latter half of the night before the torrent of experience points finally began to subside.
He simply focused on cultivating until he could stay awake no longer, drifting into a heavy sleep.
When he woke, it was already late the following night, and Xiao Ha was chirping hungrily.
After youth and bird ate their fill, they emerged from the cellar. A blanket of white stretched all around; even in the dead of night, visibility remained clear.
The youth began moving across the snow with focused care. Doing so served to train his movement techniques while also littering the surroundings with small indentations, making him far harder to track.
He spent the next few days in the same fashion.
It was not until the dusk of the fifth day that he finally dug up the buried communication wristwatch and switched it on.
A flood of messages poured in, three of which were from Liu Jingming.
The first stated that His Highness was indeed unwell, and Hostage Manor had begun recalling the hostages placed across the various martial academies.
The second noted that the hostages at Red Pine had also received notice to prepare for their return.
Officials from the Jin Court of State Ceremonial had even made special inquiries into why a certain baronet's grandson was absent!
However, for the present Wu Youren, Hostage Manor held very little sway over him.
The third message was Liu Jingming happily announcing that he didn't need to return—he was being left behind to handle communication with Hostage Wu!
*He's slightly indisposed, so everyone else has to return?* No matter how Wu Youren racked his brain, he could not fathom what kind of maneuver this was.
Could they be up to some secretive nonsense like that Hidden Dragon Plan?
The wristwatch the Guard Captain had given him was buried back in the vegetable garden. If he wanted to check whether Hao Wei had contacted him, doing so was out of the question for now.
He would wait until spring... assuming he could hold out that long.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, another message popped up on the screen, once again from Liu Jingming.
"Tell me, what possessed you to go using my name?"
*Not good!* Wu Youren instinctively shut off the watch. *Damn it... did they pinpoint my location the moment I turned it on?*
At that very moment, inside the greenhouse, Commander Jeff was smiling as he patted Liu Jingming on the shoulder, a cucumber crunching between his teeth.
"See? I've always believed that Liang-Jin friendship wasn't just empty talk... These cucumbers are quite good. Fetch me a few more."
A moment later, however, his expression froze slightly. He lifted his wrist to check his watch.
"Forget it, save them to sell for money. Let's move—right now!"
Climbing into the off-road vehicle, he muttered under his breath, "Just who taught that brat his counter-reconnaissance skills?"
***
Wu Youren buried the wristwatch once more. After a moment's thought, he gathered a few tree branches from the surroundings, dug a pit in the corner of the wall, and lit a fire.
Lighting a fire at night was generally taboo, but with snow blanketing the landscape in white, it was not necessarily easy to spot from a distance.
Then he took out the felt from his backpack, arranged it briefly, and pitched a tiny, single-person tent against the wall.
More than two hours later, an oppressive aura swept past. Moments later, several whooshing sounds broke the silence.
Outside the courtyard wall, several white figures appeared, unexpectedly riding skis as well.
One of the figures glided up to the front of the house and made an abrupt hockey stop, sending a spray of snow sweeping toward the corner.
The next instant, the figure let out a soft exclamation of surprise and flashed away at blinding speed.
Immediately after, a deafening blast tore through the air, sending earth and stone detonating into the sky where the figure had just halted.
"Heh," a soft chuckle drifted over. "Little Wu, your temper has gotten considerably worse!"
The youth's figure appeared on the opposite side of the house. He looked at the arriving men. "That outfit... quite professional."
"Indeed." Commander Jeff bent over and unfastened the straps over his boots.
Next, he raised a hand to undo his white cloak, revealing the greatsword strapped to his back.
"In snowy weather, white clothing makes killing people or Guizu very convenient."
"I'm quite envious," the youth said at an unhurried pace. "My mistake. I should have acquired a set myself."
"Join the New Army, and you can have as many sets as you want," Commander Jeff gave a dry laugh. "That blast just now—remote-controlled?"
"I didn't recognize you at first," the youth replied calmly. "I thought an enemy had come knocking."
The man's sweeping spray of snow had been meant as a show of force, but it could just as easily be interpreted as hostility.
So an accidental detonation on his part was perfectly normal, wasn't it?
"Commander..." one of the accompanying knights protested, clearly unwilling to stomach this.
"Shut up," Commander Jeff said offhandedly, then turned back to ask, "Why didn't you run?"
The youth had turned his wristwatch on and then immediately off, clearly having realized something, and it had taken Jeff some time to rush over.
"Could I have gotten away?" Wu Youren asked blandly in return. *You're a commander of the New Army!*
Jeff shook his head. "How did you think to come here?"
He had assumed the youth would hide out in the wilderness. While the Rust Belt was relatively safe, resupply was a massive problem.
The youth answered with a question of his own. "Sir, have you repaid the debt you owe Hong Da?"
Hearing this, Jeff grew annoyed. "What does that have to do with you?"
"Oh, I see." The youth nodded slightly and said no more.
His attitude, however, was already unmistakably clear: *Where I go—what's that got to do with you?*
Chapter 207