Just as Lin Li and other main camp leaders headed towards the coal mine, a shadow suddenly appeared stealthily at the edge of Chixian City.

It was a middle-aged man around forty years old, not tall, with extremely ordinary features.

Coupled with his tattered clothes and foul stench, he looked every bit a quintessential post-disaster refugee.

But there was something peculiar about his eyes.

Not in the sense that he possessed some supreme bone in his pupils, but that his eyes lacked the numbness and emptiness typical of common refugees.

In the field of micro-expression psychology, saturated expressions often indicate that a person's mental state is relatively affluent, or rather, their material conditions are not so dire — akin to the expression of those enthusiasts when they see an illustration of their waifu.

A similar scenario happened a long time ago, where the protagonist was Yu Lian, who is now an ordinary waiter in Ziqiong City, serving as Squad Leader Yu.

Back then, Yu Lian was ordered to infiltrate Chixian City as a refugee, bringing a significant amount of intelligence for the rabbits, while also confirming the existence of Extraordinary powers in the Damo Realm.

Coincidentally, this little brother's task today is similar to Yu Lian's — to play a role in the Damo Realm's "Half a Million."

His name is Yang Hengjun, from Sheepback City.

The direct distance between Sheepback City and Chixian City is roughly over 140 li, approximately 70 kilometers, with a population of nearly 40,000.

It's worth noting that Chixian City's population before the beast tide was just over 10,000, nearly 20,000 at most.

And the structure of the Damo Realm is pyramid-shaped; the base population can typically support or "sustain" a Cultivator, basically a connection between basic productivity and the superstructure.

Thus, population can often reflect the number and realm of Cultivators in a city.

This means Sheepback City is somewhat stronger than Chixian City.

Indeed, it is so.

Sheepback City now has seven Foundation Establishment Cultivators, one of whom went to guard the demon gate according to the demon gate covenant, leaving six Foundation Establishment combat power in the city — the reasons Chixian City need not send guards to the demon gate have previously been explained, attributable to the legacy of Wei Siming.

Among these six, the highest realm is a Foundation Establishment Eighth Layer Cultivator, along with two at the Foundation Establishment Sixth Layer, the remaining three varying from Foundation Establishment First to Fourth Layer.

Moreover, Sheepback City has over two hundred Qi Cultivation level Cultivators, nearly three times that of Chixian City.

In the previous beast tide centered around Celestial Fate City, Sheepback City was fortunate enough not to be attacked by the beast tide, leaving their high-level combat power unscathed.

Yet the same holds.

No beast attack means no revenue from beast materials in the coming years!

And this portion of Spirit Stones is absolutely a core income pillar for any Cultivator Clan.

Regarding the regional beast tide this time being more fierce than usual, with ten cities and five destroyed, they chose to selectively ignore it.

This bizarre self-confidence exists both domestically and in other realms, especially in the face of enormous profits.

Under these circumstances.

If it were other cities, they would naturally practice economy measures in the following years, trying to increase the output of their advantageous goods or spirit materials, while simultaneously reducing their cultivation resource expenditure appropriately.

Yet Sheepback City's Mo Family is different, it is a classic example of such a that-what family.

The Mo Family's attitude towards civilians and refugees is almost oppressive, with city civilians' taxation exceeding sixty percent, and refugees even lack human rights.

Especially in the early years when the Mo Family discovered a medium-sized iron mine, every year a significant number of refugees perished on that mountain.

Now, many refugees in Chixian City fled from Sheepback City, with tragic cases of entire families fleeing, only for three or four members to survive upon reaching Chixian City out of eleven or twelve.

The pain is naturally painful.

But if you ask them if they regret it, the answer is invariably no.

Because the likely outcome of staying in Sheepback City is that the entire family would perish.

The rule of Sheepback City, to put it plainly, is somewhat akin to the local black shop, not relying on return customers, but on the benefits brought by transient populations.

And infuriatingly enough, these black shops often do well before being eradicated.

However, now lacking Spirit Stone income, Sheepback City's attention naturally turned to other surrounding cities, pondering mischievous ideas.

Hoping to see if there are any opportunities to take advantage, if they could merge some, even better — Sheepback City achieved its current scale thanks to an 'amalgamation' carried out by their ancestors over a hundred years ago.

Of course.

Due to the slow information transmission in the Damo Realm, gathering various information relatively takes more time.

Therefore, while collecting city intelligence, Sheepback City also performs an annually common practice:

Recruit refugees.

No choice, the iron mine needs manpower, and more than in previous years.

Although iron is a resource available even to civilians, it is also extensively used in the cultivation field, though its unit price is low, its volume is substantial.

In the current absence of beast material sales, the output of the iron mine becomes very important – after all, one can never be sure if they'll encounter an opportunity to exploit a city, though the term 'exploit' possesses a very high ceiling, it equally holds an extremely low floor.

Thus, the Mo Family must be prepared on both fronts.

And the common people, those "fat sheep," must not be moved unless absolutely necessary. The usual sixty percent tax burden is already very harsh. If they are made to mine at the cost of their lives, their morale would completely collapse.

This is the rare rationality—or perhaps a cumulative experience benchmark—from long-term oppression among the cities similar to Sheepback City.

So, mining must be left to the refugees.

According to the experience of Sheepback City in past years, after a beast tide, there will certainly be a large number of refugees fleeing to escape.

At such times, with a bit of effort, a large number of refugees will inevitably be absorbed into the city, voluntarily or passively, becoming low-cost labor.

Especially this year, under the backdrop of five cities out of ten being broken, the number of refugees will certainly be more than in previous years.

As a result, the people sent out by the Mo Family searched for quite some time, but aside from gathering some refugees at the beginning, they found nothing at all!

However, although no large groups of refugees were found, the Mo Family did make some unexpected discoveries:

For instance, someone once saw some large cube vehicles transporting refugees in columns of dozens, continuously moving in a certain direction, stirring up Genggeng dust along the way, with quite a scene.

And someone else saw strange flying magical artifacts passing overhead, using amplifying magic from afar, speaking words that were hard to hear clearly to the refugee groups.

As the pieces of information came together, the Mo Family analyzed carefully and finally focused their attention on three cities in the direction of the vehicles.

These three cities are less than two hundred miles from Sheepback City, including Chixian City.

The Mo Family making these decisions isn't due to the rabbits' poor confidentiality nor is the Mo Family's brains particularly clever.

Rather, such hundred-kilometer-level irregular refugee searches are bound to expose some traces.

After all, the appearance locations of refugee groups are uncontrollable; you can't just set their gathering point with a click like in the Imperial Era.

Additionally, there are only so many transport vehicles, and the refugees' physical conditions cannot deliberately cooperate with taking distant routes to set traps, so it's very normal to be noticed by some people along the way.

In fact, the command department already anticipated this and even prepared sufficient contingency plans, hence not panicking at all.

But the Mo Family of Sheepback City knew nothing of these matters. Meanwhile, after determining the three suspected targets, the Mo Family quickly thought of another anomaly:

The city collecting refugees must have discovered some kind of mineral vein, iron or gold, it's possible, and there's even the possibility of... a Spirit Stone vein!

Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible to gather so many refugees.

Well, the Mo Family overanalyzed the matter, guessing about halfway right in the end.

Then, a few days later, another piece of intelligence returned:

Among the three target cities, the southernmost Cangnan City was broken during the beast tide, with less than one in ten cultivators surviving.

The remaining two cities also paid a certain price but both held out until the beast tide retreated.

Besides this, the Mo Family also noticed one more point:

The strongest Foundation Establishment Eighth Layer cultivator in Chixian City unexpectedly fell during this beast tide!

This news greatly delighted the Mo Family—within several hundred miles, Chixian City has an excellent reputation, while Sheepback City is notorious.

The seventy-plus kilometer distance isn't exactly close, nor is it too far.

So, this and that, the Mo Family and Wei Family ended up in single-sided conflict.

Now, hearing that Chixian City suffered a big loss while there's a high suspicion of mineral resource discovery within the city, combined with Sheepback City's lack of income in the following years...

Given these reasons, the Mo Family couldn't resist!

This led to Yang Hengjun's departure.

Upon receiving the order, Yang Hengjun first rode with a Mo Family convoy to a spot ten kilometers outside Chixian City.

After disembarking, he took multiple twists and turns through a small path, ultimately becoming unnoticed as a typical refugee along the pipeline, leisurely walking to outside Chixian City.

Yang Hengjun personally selected his outfit. His entire body was filthy and disheveled, even mixed with quite a bit of survival rations.

Belonging to the kind that city guards would cover their noses at sight, impatiently saying "move, move" about his appearance.

As he pondered, Yang Hengjun's lips curled into a confident smile.

No one understands disguise better than me. JPG.

Arriving outside Chixian City, seeing the line of refugees entering the city, Yang Hengjun smiled even more brightly:

Goodness, the beast tide has passed, yet they still aren't isolating the refugees outside the city? Aren't they afraid of some security incident occurring?

Now, should I first look for the refugee gathering point or go outside the Wei Mansion for a look?

However, just as Yang Hengjun lined up behind the entry queue plotting his next move, Zhang Tianyue from the Special Service Department inside Chixian City's station was making a report via the internal line:

"Report, an anomalous target detected, highly suspected to be a disguised individual!"

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