With the three people that were pretending to be injured as a sudden addition, Mei Chao Bing's group was unable to continue traveling that day and had to stay at the same place where they had set up camp last night. Needless to say, he wasn't happy about that at all.
Having to deal with Yang Wu Huang and his people was bad enough. But not being able to continue on the way to the other two sects also meant that those two sects would get the information they were supposed to bring them at a later point in time. With that being the case, they would have less time to investigate and prepare for whatever it was the demonic practitioners were planning and might suffer more casualties later on.
Naturally, Mei Chao Bing didn't want to see that happening. If he could change things somehow, he would definitely do it. Unfortunately, there was no such way. Well, unless he was willing to bear the responsibility of leaving Yang Wu Huang and the other two here without help.
He could probably do it. After all, Di Huan Bo had been given medicine already while the other two weren't too badly hurt and at most had a few scratches. He could probably justify it. Or maybe he could leave those two troublesome junior martial brothers with them so they would at least be five people. On one hand, he wouldn't have to deal with them anymore, and second, he could also say that he had done his best to ensure that Yang Wu Huang and the others would be safe. After all, they would have slightly more protection while his own group wouldn't be inconvenienced too much. It could be counted as a win-win situation.
Unfortunately, he still couldn't bring himself to do so. He wasn't like Yang Wu Huang who would disregard the lives of others. Letting those three or five leave would definitely end in bloodshed. Either because the demonic practitioners really attacked them while they were vulnerable or because Yang Wu Huang would try to pull another stunt and maybe sacrifice these two juniors if he really left them with him. He knew that that was a possibility even if things looked good on paper and he just couldn't bring himself to risk that.
Thus, despite his personal feelings about the matter, Mei Chao Bing had to let them stay for the time being and just continued as if he had originally decided to stop here. In small groups of three people, they went on to patrol the area around their camp.
He didn't bother to ask either Yang Wu Huang or Ao Jing to help with this. While he could probably do so, he just didn't trust them enough. Even compared to Song Mu, they were worse. So he definitely wouldn't take any chances.
In the evening, it was finally his own turn to go out again. He brushed back Yun Bei Fen's hair and gave him a smile. "Take care of yourself while I'm away. I'll be back in an hour." He leaned forward and kissed Yun Bei Fen's cheek before getting up and going over to where Tan Xin and Nian Tao, the younger one of those insufferable junior martial brothers, stood and waited.
Yun Bei Fen watched him leave, feeling a bit unhappy that he wasn't able to accompany him. But just like Yi Ju, both Mei Chao Bing and Song Mu had decided that it was better for him to remain in the camp. They wouldn't be able to notice much outside anyway and might even get into trouble if there was an attack. That kind of patrol really wasn't helpful.
Sighing to himself, he played around with Xiao Hui who had been sitting next to him, gnawing at the root of some herbs that it had found while they rested here.
Yun Bei Fen had only one thought: He had to get stronger. When he reached the next level, Mei Chao Bing might be willing to take him along. Just why hadn't he been able to reach it earlier? He always trained hard when he was in closed-door cultivation ...
Yun Bei Fen considered that question for a while and couldn't really come to a conclusion. He felt that he hadn't been slacking off. He might be a little slow on the uptake but when he did understand something, then he was willing to put in the time and effort. Otherwise, he never would have reached the level he was at right now. In fact, was he really that bad?
He looked up and glanced around the others, wondering just which level they had. Most of them had mentioned it when Mei Chao Bing asked them about their specialties at the beginning when the group was formed. But while he had listened, he also hadn't consciously tried to remember. He only knew that Yi Ju's cultivation level was about the same as his. As for the others, they all seemed to be of a higher level.
Wondering for a moment longer, Yun Bei Fen got up, still pressing Xiao Hui to his chest. Since he didn't know the others too well, he went over to where Yuan Lei and Yi Ju were sitting and discussing how to distinguish some traces.
He crouched down next to them, listening silently for a while. Looking at the traces that Yuan Lei was drawing on the ground though, he really couldn't see any difference. Thankfully, he had never tried to learn how to read traces. It seemed that there was actually something he would be even worse at than cultivation. He wasn't quite sure if he should be happy about that or sad.