Bai Ling-er's thought

Bai Ling-er watched as a man she had never met before walked into the clearing she had made.

At first when she found him she was simply wary of him. But after he told her about the fact that he overhead them she started to panic. They initially thought about ignoring the entire thing or reporting it to Bai Qing, but they realized that neither was an option for them. It was only when he gave the cultivation technique that she started to consider joining forces with him.

After he explained the entire plan to them Bai Ling-er was finally sure that maybe there was a chance that it would work. For the first time, Bai Ling-er felt hope. Hope that not only would it be possible to get the supreme weed fruit, but it might even be possible to change their lives.

The plan that he came up with was simple, but it covered almost everything due to it being flexible enough. Once the plan was set in motion, the most important thing was to stick to the main points. As long as they were kept, it would be fine.

The trio spend the entire afternoon preparing for the plan. As they made various traps and false trails necessary for the plans, the stranger also explained on different techniques necessary for the plan. The movement technique that he explained was much simpler than the one spread by the clan for low leveled people in the clan, despite being much faster. But even though it was simpler, only Bai Ling-er was able to properly learn it by the time night came. Since she was already faster than most people of her cultivation stage, this meant that she was much faster than almost everyone in the clan by now.

Surprisingly Bai Shi quickly took to a technique that hid one's presence. This technique was also necessary for the plan. With the two of them practicing the new techniques, it was up to the stranger to plant the traps and trails. Once it was done, he gave them a pair of dark robes that hid their appearance very well. Since the perception of qi step practitioners were not strong enough, this could easily hide their identities.

When it neared midnight, after mildly threatening them on what would happen if they tried to double cross him, the stranger went inside the cave. As Bai Ling-er and Bai Shi stood outside the cave, they started to wonder if the plan was indeed a good idea. But they had no choice at this point. They had made a deal with the devil.

Bai Ling-er quickly made way to a place near the cliff edge. Then, using the cliff, they climbed a little to the top, until their heads were almost out of the grass canopy. They were trying to spy on anyone who would be coming to the cave. It was possible to see any movements in the grass and see if was caused by a person. The important thing was that they had to see when Bai Qing was coming as well as whether he had left someone behind as a scout. It would be disastrous if the stranger was to be trapped at both ends when running away.

"Do you think that this will work?" Bai Shi asked.

"I don't know?" Bai Ling-er replied. "But if it fails, we are all going to hell anyway. At this point, we have no choice but to co-operate."

"But what if he failed to get the fruits. Or is caught by prince Qing."

"If he fails then that's that. But if he is caught, then we are all dead."

"Can we trust him?"

"Of course not. I guarantee you that his name is a lie, and how exactly are we supposed to find a person just by his face from the entire clan. The only consolation for us is that if everything fails, then we can deny everything, and prince Qing probably won't kill us. He is much more tactical and less brutal than some other princes."

A somber mood fell upon them as they contemplated the results of their actions. As they waited for Bai Qing to show up, they took turns keeping watch and practicing their techniques.

A while later, they saw some movements in the grass. The movements stopped for a while before it headed towards the cave. The couple took a deep breath, and strengthened their resolve. Bai Qing had come.

The couple waited for a while before Bai Shi started to quietly move towards the cave. He was going to check if there was a scout. He used the newly learned technique to approach the area. After a while, Bai Shi found a scout standing near the cave entrance. He was at the seventh stage of the qi condensation realm. The two of them waited for a while after that, keeping watch on the scout from the cliffs.

As they watched the scout, they saw him stopping some of the beasts that were on their way to the cave. But due to the large number of beasts that were trying to enter, only a few ended up being stopped. Most of the beasts that entered quickly came running out anyway.

As the moon started to creep towards midnight, they finally moved from their position. With only a few minutes left till midnight, the duo finally made their move.

They quickly ran up to the scout. Since the two of them were no longer concerned about hiding their presence, they were quickly found out. The scout turned towards them and shouted, "Halt. Prince Qinq is carrying out an operation here. Leave immediately."

The duo simply disregarded the threat and attacked him without any warning. As people who had grown up poor, they had reasonable fighting experience. The two of them attacked as one. They had a lot of experience working together and did not have any problem coordinating their attacks.

The scout was also pretty decent. Even while shouting a warning he had gotten into battle mode, and responded to their attack properly. There were no useless ones in prince Qing's entourage. "Do you know what you are doing? Once we find out about your identities, your lives will be a living hell."

The duo ignored the words and continued the attack. Bai Shi attacked the person from the front while Bai Ling-er supported him by attacking from the sides. This was a pattern that they had used for a long time. They quickly included the new techniques that they had learned into their attack pattern.

Living up to his name of being a follower of Bai Qing, the scout was still stronger than either of the duo. But Bai Ling-er was much faster than before, and her quick succession of attacks left not much time for him to focus on Bai Shi. And once Bai Shi was given enough time, he would use his new technique to hide his presence and then suddenly deal a strong blow to the scout, which he had to hastily defend against. Thus their combination left the scout in a perilous situation.

Since the couple knew that their only job was to tie up the scout, the two of them simply held their advantage and did not press for more. As midnight came and went, the three of them maintained the balance and did not make any drastic changes. Suddenly they heard some noises coming from the cave entrance.

As the trio watched, the young man who made plans with the couple suddenly emerged from the cave. Of course, the only thing that they could see was that someone was rushing towards them. As the duo watched the black clothed person rush towards them, they smiled under their robes. From his speed, it was obvious that he had succeeded in securing the fruits.

It only took a second for the person from prince Qing's group to understand what happened. A look of determination flashed in his eyes, before which he forcefully pushed aside the couple using an extreme force. Then he quickly turned to face the stranger.

The stranger closed the distance with the group in an instant and then, before any of them could react, blew the scout away. The scout, who was tired after fighting the duo for so long was unable to stand up to him. He was down in a second.

The stranger slowly walked up to them. He took out a storage ring and passed it to them. As they waited, in a short while, a few people came out of the cave. They could sense Bai Qing as well as a few others. The moment they entered their range, the three of them split up and ran in three directions. As they hoped when the plan was hatched, Bai Qing went after the stranger, leaving the weaker ones for them.

There were four sixth stage qi condensation cultivators after them. After they split up, the group was stunned for a while before they also split up into two groups and each followed one person.

Bai Shi ran near the cliff edge, hugging it. He ran straight towards the meetup point. They had set up some fake trails in the afternoon so that the people chasing them would be misled.

Bai Ling-er on the other hand had run away from the cave in a different direction to the meet up point, drawing the pursuers behind her. She ran until she reached the place where the fake trails had been set up and then sharply changed the direction towards the meet up point. As she ran through the new route, she pulled a rope behind her.

The stranger had set this up during the night. If she had run through the weeds at full speed to escape the pursuers, then the weeds she passed through would have been damaged. This trail of destruction would lead to them and when caught, they would have no defense.

So during the night, the stranger had set up things so that the route was partitioned and there was a path for them to run through to reduce the damage to the weeds. Once they did so, they simply had to pull on the rope that held together the contraption and the route would close up behind her and the proof would disappear along with her. Of course, it was not perfect and an expert tracker would easily find the truth.

Both Bai Shi and Bai Ling-er had been of the opinion that all of this was unnecessary. The group, even though were made of very intelligent and competent people, had grown up in the clan itself and had no tracking abilities whatsoever. They were sure that simply with the new techniques taught to them they could easily escape the pursuit. But the stranger had wanted to be safe and did it anyway.

The new techniques taught to them allowed Bai Ling-er to be much faster than before, and also helped Bai Shi to hide his presence very well. They could easily escape the search area of the group and move on.

As she ran, she heard some noises as well as some shouting from behind her. They had fallen into some of the traps that they had placed along the fake tracks. Bai Ling-er smiled as the sounds persisted. It seemed that there was a tracker with them, and it had worked against them.

The fake tracks, the traps and the new techniques were all there so as to buy them time to group up and prepare for the next part of the plan.

The two of them reached the meet up point at nearly the same time. They both quickly changed out of their black robes, and stuffed them as well as the ropes inside the storage ring, and hid it inside a bundle of weeds that they had plucked just minutes before. Then the entire bundle was stuffed inside the cliff, into a deep hole that they had excavated earlier, and then closed up the entrance of the hole with the rock they had broken off. The cliff side had gained some resistance to perception due to the years it had stood beside the weed valley. Along with the bundle of weeds, it made it very difficult to find the storage ring.

Once this was done, the couple walked away, and did not look back.

It was time for the second part of the plan to begin.