C344 – Sneak In
Posted on March 22, 2019 by AzureOrchid92
Shao Xuan stayed in the wine house for four days. In these four days, he also learned a lot of things directly from the three wine house slaves. They were also part of the few people with a little bit of small rights near the city’s main palace. Naturally, their knowledge were more than those lower slaves.
Soon after returning from Beast City, Snowfield City went to war with Fire Hill City. The slaves who hunted the tribesmen were also called back to fight, but their number of defeats was more frequent. Once in a while, when they were about to win, the people of Rock Tomb City would add their own attack, turning the situation around. Then, Snowfield City would be defeated again.
In about twenty days, the number of people in this snowy plains has been reduced by more than one-third, which was only a rough estimate. The specific number was even a lot more. However, for the slave owners, the life of the slaves was not an important life. When it decreased, they could make up for it later. The important thing now was to turn things around.
“I heard that the king’s lost treasure was still not found,” said a slave, lowering his voice.
“I heard that the people of Fire Hill stole it. Perhaps, there are people from Rock Tomb involved.”
“Alas, when will this war stop? I don’t want to go to war,” sighed the slave who had been silent.
If it continued like this, the three of them would be transferred. The situation now was getting more and more serious. The defeat has left the Snowfield King with no light on his face, his anger soaring everyday. There were slaves who had been implicated, getting killed because of his wrath, that bodies were being carried out of the palace constantly.
Just then, someone from outside came looking for them.
The faces of the three slaves became tight, afraid that it was a messenger about to make them go to war. Fortunately, when they returned after going out for a while, their expressions were much easier.
“It turned out to be an order to send wine. Ah, that scared me…”
“Just send the rest of the wine to the palace tomorrow. No, I have to drink a little. Send it away after we drink, then I want to drink again. I don’t know how long we could wait for our next one.”
The man who had just sent the message asked them to send the rest of the wine to the palace tomorrow. The king would reward the wine to the guards of the palace.
“Being a guard of the palace is good. I hear that they can eat and drink a lot of good things.”
“Good is good, but recently, a number of people have also been killed by the king. There are also many guards who have died as a result of his anger, which has given the slave guards more or less some other thoughts in their hearts. This time, the king had the wine house send the rest of the wine to the palace in order to appease the guards’ feelings.”
The trio were drinking and talking, while Shao Xuan, who was hiding in the cluttered room, was also in a deep thought. So far, he had been waiting for an opportunity. Finally, this chance was worth a try, otherwise, he might miss it, not knowing how long it would take to get another opportunity.
Before night came, the three slaves put all the big and small barrels of wine into two large wooden boxes. Since they had drank some privately, the amount wine in several barrels was different. Anyway, these wines were to be given to other slaves. There was no need to pay more attention to it.
After the wine was loaded, the three slaves went to bed. Shao Xuan added something inside their house while they were sleeping to make them sleep more soundly. Fortunately, in order to sneak into the city, Shao Xuan had prepared a number of desert medicinal plants along the way.
When the three people were finally asleep, they only made slight movements but did not wake up. Hence, Shao Xuan went to the box with the wine on the other side, took out the wine placed inside, then cut the wooden board to make room of a suitable size. He put barrels of wine inside the free space to check it out until he was satisfied.
He put in the bottles on top of the board again and Shao Xuan himself stood inside the wooden box, then held up the wooden board with the wine bottles. Something like this was nothing to Shao Xuan. It was much lighter than the stones he had lifted before. [E/n: I’m not quite sure what he did here, but I tried to edit what I understood from the MTL.]
He slowly squatted down, then using his hands and feet, he carefully placed the wooden board on top.
After hiding inside, he also put the planks and bottles in place. Shao Xuan moved a finger and the sound of a thread tweaking followed. The box cover has now accurately covered the wooden box.
Taking back the silk thread, Shao Xuan took a little rest, waiting for tomorrow to come.
The next day, the three slaves were still sleeping. Because of Shao Xuan’s doings, the three not only slept soundly, but also woke up later than in the past. Therefore, when the handlers came over, the three slaves inside the wine house were still sleeping.
Some of the slaves who moved the wine were the guards of the palace. It was rare to hear that the king would reward them for something, so naturally, they were feeling very positive and specially brought their own people over to move the rewards. Seeing that the three people inside the wine house were still sleeping, they gave a kick to open the door, rudely waking up the three. Regardless of the confused looks on the three, they directly went to the area where the wines were placed to look. Seeing the already prepared two large boxes, they were satisfied, but also opened the lid to take a look inside. They then complained that the wine was a little less than expected. Eventually, the wine the three people hid were turned over and all were thrown inside the wooden box. Soon, the wooden boxes were stuffed full.
When the guards took the wooden box away, Shao Xuan could not see the expressions on the faces of the three people from the wine house. However, he thought that the three people must be sad and disappointed. They had tried hard to hide a few of the bottles, but it was unexpectedly discovered and taken away.
Because it was the guards of the palace carrying the wine, the palace gate guard had not strictly checked the boxes. Instead, they also laughed together with the guards carrying the wine, discussing when to split the wine.
The wooden boxes were carried to the storage room. Although the guard slaves were eager, they knew that the reward was still to be arranged by the slave owners. They would be scolded if they arranged it themselves, though they did secretly took two small bottles of wine from the box and hid those in their clothes and left.
When the porters left, Shao Xuan listened to the movements outside. Once he was sure no one was around, he then came out of the box.
It was difficult to sneak out from under a box that has wine bottles stacked on top, but Shao Xuan’s strength was enough for it. The bottles remained stable, which could not be achieved if one changed the balance of even a small point of force.
However, when he came out, a bottle nearly fell to the ground. Shao Xuan, with his quick eyes, used his foot to cushion the fall and let the bottle safely land with no big sounds.
Although the time he had used to get out of the wooden box was not much, the difficulty was quite large. After he was out, Shao Xuan had a sheen of sweat.
He put the planks in an inconspicuous corner, returned the bottle inside the wooden box, then covered the box with the lid. Shao Xuan slipped out the room afterwards when there were no guards outside.
The palace of Snowfield City was larger than that of Luoye City’s. The layout was not clear to Shao Xuan, so he just walked around, avoiding the patrolling slaves . For those areas that have layers of guards, Shao Xuan temporarily avoided them. Those places should be where the slave owners were.
Observing the layout of the palace, he knew that basically, only a few places have key guards. In other places, only a small number of slaves were there to guard. They were also guarding loosely, with weak morale and no spirit.
Where there were few guards, Shao Xuan found a small circle of people. He heard a young man and woman whispering about the stone chamber with records inside it. Shao Xuan quietly followed them.
The two were not husband and wife, but they behaved intimately. They did not let their slaves follow them all the times they went to the stone room where the records were placed.
This place was supposed to be something like a book house. By the stone room’s door, there were three slaves guarding, two were relatively young while the other was old and blind.
“Second Young Master!” The trio bowed respectfully.
The man, known as the second young master, waved his hand, referring to the blind old man, “You stay, the others get out.”
The three slaves seemed to have known that this would happen. Without the need for the second young master to say more, the other two hurried away, leaving only the old blind slave to follow the man and woman into a room past the stone room.