The First Order

In the settlement, Jin Lan suddenly ran madly towards Ren Xiaosu and said, “Boss, Boss, those people delivering the stuff are here!”

Ren Xiaosu wondered, “What do you mean by those people delivering the stuff?”

“The people who previously gave us the firearms and motorcycles.” Jin Lan yelled, “I saw their convoy from the hillside. They’re almost here!”

“Let’s go and take a look.” Ren Xiaosu and Jin Lan headed east. Without needing to say anything, Yang Xiaojin started to choose a sniping spot in case the two parties got into a conflict.

During this period, Ren Xiaosu had frequently been hearing from the bandits that there were people delivering food and weapons into the valley. However, he had not seen it for himself yet.

Ren Xiaosu stood on a mound and looked at the approaching convoy. There was no logo on the bodies of the vehicles. He realized the convoy seemed to be very familiar with the valley, as they knew exactly where the locations of the gullies and rivers were.

It seemed this group of people had been keeping themselves rather busy in the valley for the past few years.

Before the convoy arrived, the people in the vehicles were waving from afar when they saw Ren Xiaosu and the others. They were acting in such a friendly manner that it seemed as though they had spotted their fellow villagers.

However, the convoy did not approach them and stopped just under a loess slope in the distance. 30 people jumped out of the vehicles and walked slowly towards them. The group looked to be moving free and easy, but they constantly maintained an attacking formation. The soldiers on both flanks were aiming their guns and already had their weapons cocked in case they needed to open fire at any time.

Ren Xiaosu felt that the disposition of these soldiers was extremely familiar.

All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu thought the group’s leader looked a little familiar, but he couldn’t recall where he had seen him before. After these people slowly got closer, the leader smiled and said, “Hey, buddy, who’s in charge here?”

Ren Xiaosu chuckled and said, “I’m in charge here. Who are you?”

The leader said with a smile, “I’m here to deliver firearms and supplies to you all.”

The sincere look he portrayed was like he was from the consortium dropping by the stronghold’s factories to hand out rice to the workers there.

Ren Xiaosu looked him over. “You’re from the Qing Consortium?”

The leader raised an eyebrow and said, “Nope.”

“Why do I find you so familiar-looking?” Ren Xiaosu wondered, “Have we met before?”

The leader smiled and said, “I also find you rather familiar. Perhaps it’s fate that brought us together.”

During the conversation, the soldiers behind the person speaking started making some subtle movements as everyone placed their right index finger onto the trigger of their rifle. The atmosphere did not feel right. It was like they could get ambushed at any moment!

Ren Xiaosu glanced at them and saw the atmosphere was getting more intense, so he decided to be direct and said, “I’m Ren Xiaosu.”

Off to the side, Jin Lan and the others were all confused. What was their boss doing?

To their surprise, when the leader heard the name “Ren Xiaosu,” he suddenly froze. After that, he carefully sized up Ren Xiaosu and asked, “You’re Ren Xiaosu?”

Jin Lan and the others’ jaws dropped. Was their boss this famous? It looked like the bandits themselves still did not understand their boss!

Ren Xiaosu asked, “How do I prove it?”

The leader gave it some thought and said, “What has Boss Luo given you before?”

Ren Xiaosu hesitated for a moment before answering, “A banner…”

“Hahaha.” The leader burst into laughter. “So it’s really you. Hello, my name is Xu Man.”

Xu Man appeared to be very polite. Meanwhile, Jin Lan and the others were totally confused by the developments. What was this banner they were talking about?

Jin Lan asked, “Boss, did you used to be a doctor?”

As far as Jin Lan and the others knew, only doctors would receive banners these days.

Ren Xiaosu looked at Jin Lan and the others and coughed. “Y’all’ve also used the black medicine to treat your wounds.”

It was Xu Man who had discovered Ren Xiaosu’s presence in the Jing Mountains back then. The two of them had clashed before.

But it was late at night back then, and the two of them did not engage in close combat. Furthermore, Ren Xiaosu’s face was really dirty at that time. So they did not recognize each other even though they were talking face to face.

Xu Man continued, “Back then, you were also in the Jing Mountains. But I probably did not see you because you did not enter the ruined city. I was tasked with capturing Xu Xianchu that night.”

Ren Xiaosu immediately understood.

Then Xu Man said, “But you still look very familiar to me. Have we met before?”

“Hahaha, I don’t look familiar, I really don’t.” Ren Xiaosu laughed. “I got the wrong person earlier.”

Of course he couldn’t fucking look familiar to Xu Man. Otherwise, Qing Zhen, Luo Lan, and Xu Xianchu might just find out what really happened that night!

Xu Man wondered, “But you really look familiar! Wait, you’re…”

Ren Xiaosu began sweating. He quickly changed the subject and asked, “What’re you doing here? Don’t tell me the Qing Consortium is supplying all the guns into the valley?”

“Oh, this has been going on since some time ago. I only started coming here in the last year.” Xu Man said, “At that time, Mr. Qing Zhen had been placed under house arrest, and our men were separated when they got assigned out to the other combat troops. I received Mr. Qing Zhen’s instructions and secretly came to the valley to take over the duties here.”

Ren Xiaosu suddenly realized it was Qing Zhen who had planned everything here, not the Qing Consortium!

But if it happened several years ago, then he must have gotten all of the plans in the valley started while he was still under tight watch by the Qing Consortium’s Board of Directors.

He had planned really far ahead!

The Yang Consortium, the Li Consortium, and the Zong Consortium were really unlucky to encounter such an opponent. Initially, the Zong Consortium wanted to take control of Stronghold 178 from within during the absence of Zhang Jinglin. In the end, Qing Zhen purposely sent Zhang Jinglin back to Stronghold 178. He wondered whether the Zong Consortium’s people had seen red when they learned about that.

Xu Man suddenly said, “Boss Luo has specifically instructed us to inform you if we met you that we’re ready to take action. Of course, even if you can’t make it back in time, he’ll still help you bring your brother and the others out.”

“Is Qing Zhen preparing to rescue Luo Lan?” Ren Xiaosu wondered, “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll betray y’all after you tell me this?”

“Boss Luo said you can be trusted.” Xu Man said with a smile, “As subordinates, we just follow orders.”

Ren Xiaosu smacked his lips. The feeling of being trusted was quite nice.

He asked Xu Man, “Then what about all y’all? What are your plans? Are you going to attack the Zong Consortium?”.

Since Qing Zhen had prepared backup plans for the north, they would be put to good use when the time arrived, right?

Xu Man explained, “We’ve only managed to rope over some of the bandits in the north to our side, so it’ll be impossible for us to defeat the Zong Consortium. Mr. Qing Zhen’s plans here were not made so that he could send us to our deaths by taking on the Zong Consortium.”

Ren Xiaosu started to get curious. “Then what are y’all doing here?”

Xu Man hesitated for a moment before saying, “The peak of the upstream floods of the river will be here in about ten days. At that time, we’ll destroy all the bridges in the valley to stop the Zong Consortium from coming further south to aid the Yang Consortium. Meanwhile, we’ll have our other men head south to destroy all the factories outside of the Yang Consortium’s strongholds.”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. He felt that Qing Zhen’s plans were somehow all linked to one another.

It was like Qing Zhen had been planning to incorporate the entire Northwest and Southwest into the Qing Consortium’s territory since several years ago.