"How long do you think that guy will take to come here?" In the hideout of the northern tribes, one of the men spoke.
"We don't even know if he's going to come or not." The second man said.
"We'll wait for two days more. If he doesn't come by then, we'll tell the elders. No use in wasting time on him. We have other assets to make use of anyway." The man who seemed to be the leader, stated.
"Yeah! Besides, our deal was with his mother, not him. We are already doing a favor to him by staying here this long. The council is going to act soon. We need to prepare for their smooth passage." A female tribe member spoke this time.
"The passage should be fine. We only need to do a final check, which we'll do by default if that prince keeps up. Once he's paid the cost and crossed over, our duty here will be done, too. Soon, our people will have the debt repaid." Another man spoke.
"Kaja, go and watch out for the signal. It will be night time soon. Who knows if that prince will even follow instructions or not. He might light it early." The leader of the group spoke.
"Alright." The man named Kaja said and left through a small opening at the edge of their hideout.
The top of it was covered with snow, making it impossible to see the opening with naked eyes.
~shua~
Unknown to them, a man was currently listening to all that was being spoke about. Lin Mu appeared some distance away from there and continued observing. The man named Kaja climbed up on top of a tree and kept his gaze locked towards the direction where the prince was supposed to be.
While it was still autumn, the temperature this far north was always like that of winter. The snow here was every present and the northern tribesmen easily hid taking advantage of it.
They wore thick beast furs that were either naturally white, or were dyed white. This made it simply to hide within the snow. Kaja couldn't even be seen on top of the tree. He laid on a branch such that, there seemed to only be a pile of snow accumulated on it.
"Are we going to kill them?" Little Shrubby asked.
"No… why would we do that, when we have a bigger target." Lin Mu said.
"What do you mean?" Little Shrubby asked.
"If their words are true, then there must be a secret passage the northern tribes would be using to cross over. If we kill them now, the tribes would find out and change their plans.
Instead of that, if we let them go for now, the tribes will follow through with their plans, allowing us to ambush them." Lin Mu explained for the beast.
"Oh! I understand!" Little Shrubby replied, finding the plan to be good.
If it was good for his master, then it was good for him too.
"Oh yeah, when you were hunting the northern tribe people before, where did you go? Was it in this area?" Lin Mu asked.
"No, I took a different path. Jing Luo told me which one to take and I just followed that. It is far to the west from here." Little Shrubby replied.
'Far to the west?' Lin Mu thought over it and guessed that it must be the second route that went to the frontier.
"But I just went over the mountains directly. There were a few beasts at the Dao Shell realm, but they ran away after a fight." Little Shrubby replied.
"Oh?" Lin Mu knew that there were Dao Shell realm beasts in these mountains who actually served as another barrier for intruders.
"Yeah, I only managed to kill two. The rest were able to run away or hide. I could have found them, but the enemies would also find out about it from the noise. The mountain snow falls down if I fight too much." Little Shrubby confirmed.
"I see…" Lin Mu nodded his head, finding it impressive that little shrubby actually did the mission well, avoiding avalanches.
It was the correct choice as well, since a battle between Dao Shell realm creatures was almost always loud and would attract attention with ease.
Lin Mu moved his mind back to the task at hand and asked Little Shrubby for something else.
"See if you can find the location of the passage. They probably hid it with formations, but there might still be some scent left. " Lin Mu asked.
"Okay!" Little Shrubby replied, and returned to his full form.
He went in one direction to search, while Lin Mu went in the other. His spirit sense was used at its full potential, scanning for any spirit Qi fluctuations that might be present in the area.
But after two hours of no results, Lin Mu took a pause.
"Hmm… this might be harder than I thought." Lin Mu muttered.
"If they are going to use this passage as their main entry point, then they are definitely using their best formations to hide it." Xukong spoke up.
"You might be right, senior." Lin Mu nodded his head.
"You should just head back. It will be midnight soon. Save your energy and let the others show it to you themselves." Xukong suggested.
"Yeah, it's close to midnight anyway." Lin Mu agreed and called back Little Shrubby.
The two of them returned to the hideout of the northern tribe members and waited till midnight before the smoke signal could be seen in the distance. It was dark, but the sharp eyes of Kaja accurately spotted them.
"They're here…" he took out a jade slip and sent a message to his companions.
~SHUA~
The snow parted and the four northern tribe members popped out of the opening.
"Let's go pick our guests up." The leader said before taking the lead.
The prince and the people accompanying him were certainly shocked by the sudden appearance of the tribesmen. They weren't even allowed to speak and were gestured to follow them in silence.
