Supply problems

¨Oh¨ Xiao Fan looked over to Zhuan An. He had almost forgotten her whole existence today. Nonetheless, why was she so upset? Was there something wrong?

¨You are going to keep working? I haven't seen you at all today¨ She spoke her mind.

¨A day? A day too long for you?¨ He asked, trying to think why was she so upset. Usually, she would be upset a little if he didn't give her attention and time, but why now?

¨It's not that. I'm worried for your condition¨ She said why she was so worried while coming close to him and grabbing the red and black robe that, in her opinion, had been ruined. Also, she couldn't but, stroke a burn on Xiao Fan's cheek.

'Ah, she's just concerned for my health' Xiao Fan realised why Zhuan An was this straightforward in her wants 'Maybe seeing me fight Fei Sun had made her scared or something. Not bad' Of course, he was happy to see this.

¨What about your friend?¨ After the hand had come off his face, Xiao Fan spoke how Zhuan An hadn't asked anything concerning her best friend.

¨Talk about her later...¨ When it came to this Zhuan An didn't sound too happy, even a little angry.

¨How about this. You go and get everything ready while I go and do my job before I come home?¨ The home he was referring to was a very basic wooden box built for the two of them have some privacy.

¨Come quickly...¨ She wasn't much happier after this, yet she wasn't strong enough to ask for more.

¨I'll be sure to come the first second I get¨ Xiao Fan promised that he wouldn't be working a second day in succession.

After that was done, Zhuan An made her way to the home, they had gotten, and Xiao Fan continued what he had been doing.

¨Who of you should be responsible for this group?¨ First things first, he needed to know the command structure of the group.

¨I am¨ A voice came from the group, and slowly a girl with glasses came to the front, slowly as in the weak frame of hers didn't have an easy time trying to make her way over the others.

¨Nice to meet you...¨ There was no way Xiao Fan knew this girl's name, so he waited for her to tell it.

¨Yi Meihui¨

'Her family name is Yi? Did I fuck up already?' Hearing her be a part of the Yi Family he was afraid that this wasn't proper, and he surely didn't want to have bad first impressions with her.

Thankfully it seemed that he didn't fuck up ¨From a branch family, no need to know or remember my name¨ She spoke like she had become used to people getting afraid when hearing her surname, yet as told, she was from a branch family.

¨We'll be working together, so knowing others name is good¨ Xiao Fan replied ¨Yi Meihui, do you have the inventory?¨ After the introductions were over, he asked to see how much stuff they needed to haul.

¨Yes, of course¨ She then scrambled to look for the paper amongst many ¨Here, this is everything we got all the way here¨ Her voice of tone was very shy, too shy for Xiao Fan's liking, he didn't like people who sounded like they were apologising with every sentence.

¨Are you saying that some items aren't here anymore?¨

¨Yes, here's the list of all the items we came into this place with¨ She gave out another paper from the stack ¨The original inventory¨

Xiao Fan only thanked, yet after that, he took a look at the two lists and compared how much stuff was missing 'So many items... So many that I think they need to be recovered if possible' Looking at the list he couldn't but, stroke his chin and think that although many of the things that were lost were cheap, they still needed them. They were now over a thousand men strong, so the amount of food they needed...

¨With the current inventory, how long can we feed ourselves?¨ He could count it himself, but Yi Meihui should know it already, and to be honest, he was exhausted.

¨Two weeks? Three weeks with two meals per day¨ The answer she gave wasn't something Xiao Fan was expecting.

¨I'm not seeing something...¨ Xiao Fan took another look at the papers 'Two weeks? I must have gone over something important' Two weeks was way too little; moreover, they needed some to start farming for the eyes of the others.

Yet as he was trying to find what they were missing Yi Meihui came next to him and pointed it out ¨We lost all the energy bars on the way here¨ Her finger pointed out two places. One was telling the original amount of energy bars they had, the second one showed zero...

¨How?¨ Xiao Fan exclaimed ¨The one thing we need the most to survive, the one thing you needed to take care off¨ Xiao Fan couldn't but get angry at Yi Meihui, who to him seemed to have botched the job.

Yi Meihui getting yelled at reacted the same way Yi Xiaojian did, well not to the same point, but the idea was the same.

¨What? Aren't you telling me?¨ With things being like this, he might need to go and use the teleporter to request Yi Lin to send them more, or they will starve, yet doing so would undoubtedly raise alarms.

However, before he got her to crumble one of the others came up to him, whispering something that wasn't for the public to be heard ¨It was Yi Xiaojian who caused us to lose almost everything we have lost¨ Sure, the information he gave wasn't something to be said aloud.

From hearing that Xiao Fan realised that he might have yelled at the wrong person ¨Now, now. You must have done well, getting these things so far¨ He tried to get Yi Meihui's mood back up by praising her 'Why was this Yi Xiaojian in charge of anything? To cause frustration and pressure on others to perform perfectly' He, like Wang Geming, didn't see at all what Yi Lin had in her mind.

¨It was not my fault¨ Yi Meihui spoke out, though she still looked at the ground, blocking her face with the stack of papers she was holding.

¨We can talk about it later, for now, let's get going. Let's get you out of here¨ He tried to calm down her more while also trying to save the face of Yi Family. Yi Meihui might be from the branch family, but she still presents the name, so her crying or breaking down in front of everyone wasn't desirable.

Thankfully Yi Meihui was co-operative and started to move towards the forest where they had left all of their equipment and the stuff they couldn't move with them, like siege weaponry. Why they had siege weaponry? Why not?

But before Xiao Fan could get so far, he needed to make the order for everyone else to start moving behind him and Yi Meihui, who he was helping to move on with one arm.

Getting to the forest where none could see them clearly, Xiao Fan opened up ¨What happened to all of those supplies? Did Yi Xiaojian abandon them or what?¨ Still, if he wanted to get those items back, he needed to know if they had fallen down a ravine or were they simply burned.

¨They were left behind. Yi Xiaojian spoke that we could leave them behind, as we for some reason needed to move faster¨ Yi Meihui told why they had lost so many supplies.

They were coming towards the spot where the caravan had stopped, and Xiao Fan saw that there was still siege weaponry amongst everything ¨You ditched to food, yet dragged ballistas?¨ Now that was some foolishness.

¨Please trust me that I said we shouldn't do so. Everything would have been okay if we continued at our current pace!¨ Yi Meihui now fairing a little better tried to defend herself by blaming Yi Xiaojian for everything.

Though it wasn't hard to believe ¨I have to discuss this with the others...¨ Yet, on the other hand, he couldn't simply say that he believed her over him, there needed to be some investigation or discussion concerning this.

'Or there will not be' He said to himself when realising that the man, who might have taken the blame was dead.

Yes, Yi Xiaojian had been killed, most likely by the Holy Coalition ¨Some of them must have fleed to this direction¨ He spoke to the people around him ¨Everyone! Prepare for battle!¨ Then he alarmed everyone by ordering them into a battle stance.

Which they did, and a minute later they had formed a circle with multiple layers. In the middle of it, Xiao Fan was giving more orders ¨Send a message to the tower¨ He didn't like this at all. The people left behind to guard the leader might have been few, but high cultivation members 'Too many things, focus, focus' He was thinking of many things yet again with the usual overthinking of small facts.

In the end, the worst-case scenario was a small scale ambush that they could solve by themselves. Nothing major could be here, there was nothing indicating that, nor would the Holy Coalition do so. Most likely was that a couple of looters had come here stolen something, killed Yi Xiaojian and left.

The messenger left the circle, yet was shot down quickly. It only took the time for a bowman to prepare an arrow for the man to be shot down after leaving the circle.

¨We are trapped here...¨ At this point Xiao Fan didn't have the energy to curse out aloud, yet in a way, thanks to this, his thinking was much calmer.

He didn't panic, for he didn't care for that ¨Do we have a bowman?¨ And as he was calm, he came up with an idea on how they could send a help request.

¨I'll go get them¨ Yi Meihui didn't waste time, hearing him ask for them, she went to look for them wherefrom she knew they would be.

Moments later Yi Meihui came back with two men who had all the equipment that an archer would ever need ¨Can you shoot over that wall?¨ Having them here, he didn't waste time and got straight to the point by pointing at the bedrock wall that hadn't vanished anywhere.

The archers took a quick look at the wall and evaluated for a moment ¨Sure thing¨ Both of them soon gave out a positive answer.

¨Good. Shoot a flaming arrow over it¨ The plan was to shoot a flame arrow towards the tower, it would surely garner attention from the Bald Eagle Dynasty troops camping outside the tower.

¨Sure thing boss¨ The archers didn't talk more and following that they took out a flame arrow from a quiver and lit them afire.

Soon two arrows were shot towards the top of the wall 'Heh, so easy' Xiao Fan laughed inwardly while witnessing how his plan was working out just like he wanted.

'?' Though as he was doing so, he noted that both arrows were shot down before they reached the top of the wall...

'Well, that's not nice, not nice at all' Xiao Fan seeing that the ambushing snipers were foiling his plan was a little saddened 'I don't have the time to be pinned here!' For the first time during this ambush, he got back to cursing, his frustration taking hold of him.