CH 23

Chapter 23: Beginner’s Base Defense Blueprint

On a certain forest path as the sun was setting, there was several horses along with a bunch of people.

“Left… Left, right… Right.” Gao Feibao continuously barked out orders.

“Can’t you just get off the horse and lead them.” Gao Feihu couldn’t hold himself back from remarking.

“No, I’m at the very least someone with a horse. If I got off, people will thing me a mere carriage driver or something.” Gao Feibao retorted.

Gao Feihu had no words with which to reply to that.

Gao Feibao rode on one blind horse as he lead the other one by the reigns. Each was blind in one eye, making it easy for them to start turning as they moved. The past few miles had worked him to the point of being covered in sweat.

He wiped off the sweat off of his brow and let out a long sigh as he gazed up at the setting sun, “Such a scenery can’t help but bring out the poet in me.”

“Shut up already. You think you can make any decent poetry with your scholarly abilities.” Sometimes, Gao Feihu had a hard time dealing with this little brother of his.

“Big bro. Do you think there really is an Art of Five Thunders in this world?” Gao Feibao suddenly asked.

Gao Feihu’s mind seized for a moment. He knew that his brother was thinking the same thing as him.

“Supposedly, it’s real. We’ve also seen it for ourselves, so how could it be fake.”

“We were too far away that day, plus there was fog, so I didn’t see it clearly at all.”

“For that, let’s wait until the Strategist gets back. He’s much more worldly, so he must know.”

“Right now, there are a lot of food in the Toad Camp.” The moment Gao Feibao finished those words, he immediately went back to his, “Left… Right, left…”

Four people hid down in the bushes some distance away.

The landowner of the Li Village hid there. He had already switched to the rough-spun clothing of the poor, and his three sons followed behind him.

“Dad, are there really gods in the world?” His first son asked.

“Of course there is! Where else did those two horses of Li Gosheng’s family came from? The only possibility is that the gods gave it to them.”

“But we’ve waited here for so long now, but we haven’t seen any gods at all.” His second son spoke.

“Wait a bit longer. This kind of thing requires patience and sincerity.”

As he spoke, the sound of hoofs came from up ahead. Li Zhuang eyes lit up, “They’re here. Wait here and properly watch and listen to my performance.”

“Bro, stop acting mad already. When we get back, we’ll get our women to cook up some food and we’ll drink some wine.”

“Big bro, say, if we were to try to sell these two horses will there be anyone who will want them?”

“Probably… There’s no one who’s as dumb as you.”

“Mercy, oh bandit king. Mercy oh bandit king…”

Suddenly four figures charged out and dropped to their knees before the two of them.

Gao Feibao was quite surprised, and he reacted by shouting angrily, “Who are you people?”

“Oh great king, we’re just poor people from down the mountain. Do you have any wheat in need of harvesting? If you have any horses, then you can just randomly give us ten or twenty of them in exchange…”

Those two sentences stabbed deeply into Gao Feibao’s heart. He used wheat to trade for a horse, and who knows how many bandits of the Blackbull Mountains were laughing at him for that. He only had two blind horses, and these people are trying to get horses from him… And ten or twenty of them at that!

He got off his horse and dropped Li Zhuang to the ground with a kick before holding his saber to Li Zhuang’s throat, “Talk. Who sent you here to piss me off.”

Li Zhuang’s mind blanked as he sweated profusely. Why did things turn out so different from what he had though? He could only beg for his life, “Mercy oh great king, mercy… We’re all just poor peasants, we don’t have anything on us…”

“Wait a moment.”

Gao Feihu got off his horse and pinched at Li Zhuang’s face. Then he pulled open Li Zhuang’s outer rough-spun clothes, revealing the silk underclothing he had beneath it.

“This so called poor person’s got quite delicate skin. And he’s also able to wear silk.”

A minion came up and spoke as he stared at Li Zhuang’s face, “Boss, this seems the landowner of the Li Village, Li Zhuang. We’ve tried to rob him before, but his place has tall walls and lots of men, so we didn’t dare t actually attack. Haha, how did he run up into the mountains on his own today…”

“This must be because I’ve been such a good samaritan all this time, so the gods took pity on us. This is our just rewards.” Gao Feibao let out a long sigh before waving, “Brothers, tie him up. Have his family pay his ransom.”

…

The gachapon appeared in Chen Dalei’s mind, the capsules within it constantly spinning about.

Cheng Dalei was so nervous that his heart was about to leap out of his chest. Previously, he really did go overboard grinding the BUG, so he’s been worried the whole time that he system might purposefully take revenge for that. His next lottery drawing may very well just yield him a [Thank you for playing]. He also doesn’t know if his misfortune has left him yet. System, I won’t ask for much, a BK-1990, a tank, or helicopter. Any of those is fine.

A capsule popped on out. At the same moment, Cheng Dalei received a system message.

Beep. Congratulations on receiving a beginner’s base defense blueprint.

Eh? The reward this time isn’t like the last one. In the end, Cheng Dalei managed to find the system’s reward blueprint from the cabinet next to the fireplace.

That a bandit camp needs a defensive setup is completely natural. Before, the camp only had five individuals in it, and there was nothing there, so no one would even bother robbing them. But it’s different now. The camp now has over 50 thousand pounds of food. Plus, they’re located among the bandits of the Blackbull Mountains. At this point, who knows how many people were staring at them, drooling.

The trick with the thunder isn’t likely to fool them much longer either. Although there aren’t a lot of smart people among the bandits, they do still exist.

It’s absolutely necessary to build up the camp’s defenses before they can realize this. Otherwise, he’s no different from a bank, and all those 50,000 pounds of food are just stuff he’s keeping an eye on for others.

Since the system gave him a blueprint as a reward, then he should take advantage of that to build up the camp defenses. This however brought up a second problem: There aren’t enough people in the camp.

Even adding in Huang Sanyuan, at this point the camp only has six people in it. He’s dreaming if he thinks that they can properly build the defenses with just those few people.

And he himself just so happened to have a quest active, and that is to recruit more people. When the camp’s population reaches 100, the system will reward him with another lottery drawing.

However, just where is he supposed to recruit people from?

As he thought on that, Cheng Dalei was rather worried. Population, or rather work force, is a major limiting fact to the development of a bandit group. As he was thinking about that, Cheng Dalei opened up the system menu and checked the current status of the camp.

Base: Toad Camp (Ruined starter camp)

Leader: Cheng Dalei

Population: 6

Skills: Unity, Healing

The night was quiet. Cheng Dalei thought on his own about how to grow the camp, as well as in which direction to further develop the camp.

Truth be told, no matter the era, bandits tend to be some of the least welcomed people. Chen Dalei would love it if he managed to draw a strategist like Zhuge Liang or a warrior like Zhang Fei, but even putting aside the question of whether or not the system will let him draw someone like that, even if he did manage to draw them, would someone of that level really be willing to help as a bandit?

Hah. Zhou Cang had tried to get Guan Yu’s attention with all he’s got, and in the end, even gave his life for Guan Yu. However, even at the point of his death, he was merely Guan Yu’s weapon carrier following behind him.

Cheng Dalei doesn’t want to be anyone’s weapon carrier though.

And this world… Even if Cheng Dalei only had a limited understanding of this world, he still knew that a turbulent era is imminent. This doesn’t mean that Cheng Dalei is all that smart or anything, but at the very least has a basic understanding of five thousand years of history. Although he can’t be said to be that well versed in he, he can still basically understand the general trends of history. The current empire has enemies watching on the outside while showing signs of fracture on the inside. The house that is the Wu Dynasty has long since become ridden with holes. It desperately needs to be demolished and rebuilt.

The end of the Qin dynasty, the end of Han, the end of the Sui, Tang, Song… In those turbulent eras, it’s all filled with the dying, the dying, and the unceasingly dying.

B the time that the actual chaos has arrived and heroes all around attempt to take dominion of the world, how is a little bandit like him supposed to stay alive in that world.

By now, he is already attached to this camp like it’s his home. Qin Man, Lin Shaoyu, Xu Shenji, Xu Linger… They’re already like family to him by now. He wants to keep this camp safe, and not allow anyone to take it from him.

But there really isn’t that much time left for him though.