護花近衛 - 第1328章 有人竊聽 - 翰墨軒

Qiu Lingshan's heart gave a sudden lurch, and inwardly she counted herself lucky. She had still been too rash; if not for Wei Zhao's quick reaction, she would likely have given them away already. A moment ago she had meant to say: the Flying Swallow Sect's Heroine Yan was actually Yu Xiaoke — was she not the female thief she had been sent to catch?

She believed that once those words were spoken, their identities would be exposed, and what followed would be submachine guns' worth of Old Hei's men closing in around them. Even if the three of them managed to escape by their own strength, the mission would have failed.

"Xiaotian, check the tent — see if anyone has tampered with it!" Having finished what he had said before, Wei Zhao suddenly ordered Chen Yuxuan, as though something had just occurred to him.

"Yes!" Chen Yuxuan began rummaging about the tent in an ostentatious show of searching. Finding the bug at once would have looked far too staged, so he searched about for a while before taking the device down.

And while he was at it, he would check whether other parts of the tent had been tampered with as well.

At that very moment Old Hei was holding a listening device, listening to the conversation between Wei Zhao and Qiu Lingshan. He had just reached the crucial part when he heard Wei Zhao tell Chen Yuxuan to check the tent for tampering, and he was instantly annoyed. So the Couple Bandits really did keep their guard up against everyone else.

Still, no wonder. In this line of work, who did not guard against others? Sending his men to plant bugs in other people's tents while everyone was gathered for the discussion — was that not done to guard against others too?

Earlier, hearing Wei Zhao's words, Old Hei had finally understood why Wei Zhao had been so confident in demanding twenty percent. So he had a trump card after all — he had actually gotten hold of information on this ancient tomb! And hearing what Wei Zhao said about the mechanisms, Old Hei felt a chill of dread in his heart. It was a good thing he had agreed to Wei Zhao's terms; otherwise, if the man decided to play dirty, would they not all die inside the tomb? And then he would have taken the whole profit for himself — what a loss that would have been.

Before long, it was clear that the male bandit's follower, that Xiaotian, had found the bug. There came a creaking sound, and the earphones went silent — the listening device had been destroyed.

"Did not expect the Couple Bandits to keep an ace up their sleeve. No wonder they are so cocky!" said one of Old Hei's trusted men, who was also in charge of monitoring the other tomb robbers. The others, though, had said nothing of importance, and had all prudently torn out the bugs as well.

Clearly, no one who could make it here was a fool; every one of them had their own tricks.

Old Hei shook his head. There was nothing to be done about it. Though they had all spoken fair words earlier and the division of spoils had drawn no objections, who could say whether tomorrow would bring some fresh complication?

Yu Xiaoke had not brought a tent, but Old Hei had provided her with one — that had been agreed in advance. Yu Xiaoke had no money to buy anything off the supply truck; that truck belonged to another faction within the Tomb-Robbing Sect.

Inside the Tomb-Robbing Sect there was a group of people who took no part in the robbing themselves, but wherever there was tomb robbing, they went to sell the necessities of life — food, clothing, shelter, and transport, the whole lot — though their prices were absurdly high. This trade had existed for a very long time, and had also won the blessing of several of the Sect's most respected elders.

These people's credit was excellent as well. Though the goods they sold were outrageously expensive, whatever you needed you could basically buy; and most important of all, they kept their mouths shut tight and never let word leak out.