The journey to Capital City went smooth as they were currently only a couple miles away from reaching the Capital City. To spend time, Shenyan and Wang Lei chatted about various things like how they were feeling about journeying to the Capital City for the first time and how they felt currently as they would be taking the academy's examination in a couple of days.
…
Meanwhile, in a forest not far from where Shenyan and Wang Lei's carriage were, a group of individuals were stationed in the bushes near the road, their aim unknown but clearly with bad intentions.
These individuals were wearing leather armor and a cloak but what was surprising about this group of individuals were that among them, there appears to be a cultivator— who also happens to be their leader.
The leader of this group ordered his men to not approach any luxurious looking carriages as those carriages had guard among the passengers since their current strength cannot tackle any unexpected variable.
The leader had a solemn expression on his face at this moment as he gave instruction to his men, "Xiao Fei, Xiao Niu, Mo Hei, you three better be on your guard, as we don't know if the enemy had sent scout or something— for now, we proceed according to plan and only attack carriages that do not have luxurious appearance after all only commoners ride on those and even though they are not rich like the truly rich family they still have money!"
""Yes, Leader Mo!!"" They all replied in unison.
The name of their leader was Mo Fan, he was unbridled and unscrupulous individual who takes advantage of the fact that commoner carriages do not usually have guards since it cost a lot of money to hire one and attack their carriages.
Although some bandits were daring enough that they will attack rich family carriages, those people usually have the strength to back their confidence but unlike those people, Mo Fan's group is too weak so they can only attack this commoner carriages to make a living. A while later, one of the members of Mo Fan's group spoke.
"Big brother, are you sure that a commoner carriage will pass through here?" The voice asked unconvinced.
"Of course, why else would we be standing here for? Do you think I am fool like you who don't check before acting?" Mo Fan said to the owner of the voice in a scolding tone. This individual was Mo Fan's little brother— Mo Hei; the two of them were the founders of their bandit group and took the position of the leader and vice-leader, respectively.
Right now, they were currently standing next to the road that leads to the Capital City waiting for their prey but after waiting for a couple of days there has not been a carriage that appears to belong to commoners as all of them were from rich families; not a single commoners carriage seems to pass by. So, everyone was antsy about whether they should call it quits or not.
Seeing this, Mo Fan could not help but sigh said, "I know what you are all thinking, although it appears that there aren't any commoner carriages now but later there would be a lot of them— the reason why we haven't seen them yet is because their carriages are slow, so they tend to lag behind unlike fast carriages used by rich families." Mo Fan said as he hoped to calm their nerves for the time being. And he was right, after listening to his explanation everyone calmed down and proceeded to wait for their prey on the side of the road.
…
Back in the carriage, Shenyan and Wang Lei both closed their eyes while taking a short rest since they were not able to sleep well throughout their journey to the Capital City, so after knowing that they will be reaching the Capital City in a couple of days they relaxed their nerves and decided to take some rest.
Of course, during the journey they stop multiple times on the road to take rest but they barely slept since they are not sure whether someone will attack them in their sleep or not, so they were mostly awake throughout the journey causing them a lot of fatigue mentally rather than physically since both— no, Wang Lei is a cultivator and Shenyan has an unusual tolerance so he was able to stay awake alongside Wang Lei.
And although Wang Lei found it strange that for someone who cannot cultivate, Shenyan was able to stay up without sleeping but he soon dismisses this thought as it is good that he would not be alone while the other party slept.
A few hours later, as they pass through the forest leading to the Capital City, they suddenly heard the wolves pulling the carriage growl before the coachman stopped the carriage.
Following that, four individuals came out from the bushes as they stopped their carriage.
They all held weapons in their hands— the leader was holding a sword and the rest held axe, sword and spear.
After the carriage stopped all of a sudden, both Shenyan and Wang Lei who were asleep jolted up from their sleep to access the situation only to find that they were surrounded by four individuals who appears to be bandits.
Wang Lei's heart skipped a bit after realizing that one of them was a cultivator as he noticed the aura coming the leader of the bandits.
"Get off the carriage if you don't want to die!!" A fierce sounding voice resonated across the surrounding followed by a baleful and suffocating killing intent.
"W-Wait, d-don't kill me, I-I am just a coachman!" Said the coachman in a terrified voice as his face began to pale.
"Shut up and get down from the seat!" Mo Hei kicked the old coachman from his seat as he fell on his face flat on the ground.
Wang Lei was thinking about running away like his father had said they should, but upon seeing that the other party was ruthless he was afraid they would die quicker if they chose to run instead.
Thus, Wang Lei and Shenyan both got out of the carriage. Subsequently, they were tied up by the other members of the bandit group.
The bandits proceeded to check their carriage to see if they will find anything of value as that was their main goal for attacking them.
A few moments of searching later, they only found some gold coins and nothing more which was enough for them but considering that they had waited for so long for them and only received a few gold coins, and not even a single spirit stone— they were furious, especially Mo Hei.
"You only have this much—" Mo Hei said, not sure whether he was asking or speaking to himself. His voice containing a hint of anger.