Chapter 163: Once and for all
"Ming Tao?" Pushed out of the lips of the a beast woman, not the same one that locked eyes with him and asked the question, but someone by her side.
The beast woman who caught Ming Tao red handed wanted to say something but caught sight of his subtle movement. The mighty cheetah raised his hand up to his face and stretched a finger up high at the centre of his lips. The beast lady understood the gesture immediately, he wanted her to be quiet about it. She immediately turned to the other beast lady who seemed confused and quickly did a counter.
"Yes, apparently, we do not know what the mighty cheetah Ming Tao has been up to these days. He is barely ever anywhere." She immediately said as calmly as she sounded before.
Did that work? The beast woman thought as she stared at the other lady. By her side were three cheetah beast women and Hye Yang. If the Mighty Cheetah was at Hye Yang’s residence and wanted to be quiet about it, then it was her duty as his subject to do her best to keep his secret. She did not know why he was there nor what he was doing but her cheetah blood kicked in to take his side.
"That is true." The other beast woman said. "We never really see him these days."
The beast woman who saw Ming Tap changed direction of where they were going. If they kept heading straight, they would catch the mighty cheetah and she did not want that.
"What are you two talking about?" Hye Yang asked amidst laughter. She was involved in a conversation with the other two cheetah beast ladies that she did not hear what the other two companions by her side had said.
"About the Mighty Cheetah and his recent absence." The beast woman who did not see Ming Tao blurted out.
"Li Yi," Hye Yang called, talking to the beast woman who responded to her. "Haven’t you heard the rumour? The Mighty cheetah is repulsed by his wife and has sought comfort within the bosom of someone else." Hye Yang lied. Now that she had the chance, she wanted to spread a bad seed in the hearts of the beast ladies so the news spreads like wildfire.
Hye Yang knew the beast people in the cheetah clan loved and accepted her, so getting to be the wife of their ruler would not be something that they would frown upon considering they did not like her sister, Mira Yang.
Li Yi gasped. "Really? I wonder what the wife of the mighty cheetah has done. You should have seen the way he took her side in front of all the beast adults in the farm."
A sly grin formed on Hye Yang’s lips. She was there that day. In fact, she saw the lion king approach and it was then she knew that revealing herself without taking care of Jia Hao would be a big problem so she immediately brought up a second plan to get rid of him.
"Well, sadly, I guess my sister could not help but be herself and chase her own bounded husband away. That poor king, I cannot imagine the horror he must have been through." Hye Yang feigned sadness.
Li Yi walked to Hye Yang’s side and gripped onto her arm. "The wife of the Mighty Cheetah sure have been of good behaviour recently. Solving our problems and helping us. Are you sure what you are saying is true?"
The other three beast women listened to the conversation. Among them was Shu Hua. Shu Hua did not tell either of them why she asked them to join her to keep Hye Yang company and now that she was here and they were having this conversation, she found that to be a good thing. Shu Hua could see with her own eyes the bad omen Hye Yang wanted to sew and she could not help but feel repulsed. Now she understood why Mira Yang wanted Hye Yang far away from her.
Hye Yang’s brows furrowed slightly and her teeth sunk into her lower lip. She grit her teeth against her lower lip before immediately changing her facial expression. "Maybe it was all pretense." Hye Yang muttered.
The beast woman who caught Ming Tao immediately went in front of Hye Yang and the other ladies. "Enough talking. All of this long walk and talk makes me want to have some water. Let us go to a river." She uttered, this was her way of making all of them vacate the area so the Mighty Cheetah would not be anywhere near being caught or perceived by any of them.
"That sounds like a plan. I am way too thirsty too." Shu Hua chipped in. Li Yi nodded her head, her hands were still wrapped around Hye Yang’s arm so she turned both of them around in the direction of the nearest river.
"I concur." Li Yi said. The other two beast woman agreed to tag along and not too long after, all of them headed away from Hye Yang’s resting place.
When there was no sight of any of them at all, Ming Tao let out a heavy sigh. That was a close call, he had almost been caught and that would have been the worst possible thing to happen. Ming Tao brought out the things he secured from underneath the fur skin after digging so much.
He let his eyes run through the ones that were unwrapped. Ming Tao squinted. He saw the big leaves but saw nothing on it. It was then he felt even more confused.
Why would Hye Yang go as far to hide leaves in the ground and wrap it in certain attire? Ming Tao asked himself, unless there was something inscribed in them that eyes could not see.
Ming Tao did not know where the thought came from but it clicked almost instantly. When he was hypnotised, he remembered Hye Yang whisper certain words to trigger the hypnosis even more. He did not know what those words were but maybe it was linked to these leaves.
Ming Tao ran his eyes over the untidy space before him. Now that everyone was gone and his cheetah sister was buying him time, he would take his time to check every single portion of this place that he could and find whatever he could find.
If there were some things hidden in these leaves or if they were ingredients to something even worse, then this would be more than enough to charge Hye Yang with a crime. All Ming Tao needed to do now was find more stuff to prove this.
A half grin formed on Ming Tao’s lips. His heart was still thumping violently in his rib cage but he felt a sense of thrill. He was glad that his search did not end up being futile. He was a step closer to getting rid of that evil, deceitful woman and he could not wait to gather all the evidence he needed.
Very soon, his people would near the wolf and hopefully, Alpha Wolf Wei Jie would send someone back to Ming Tao along with his people.
Ming Tao took gentle steps back to the fur skin that was laid messily on the ground and raised it all up completely, this time, he discarded the things that were on top. They were already messily placed on the fur skin so Ming Tao found no reason to try to be careful with the items any further.
Just as Ming Tao expected, there were so many patches on the ground that looked like someone had dug into them then covered them back with sand. Just great. Everything was aligning way too easily for him.
Ming Tao began to dig out all of the patched ground little by little, taking his time to remove whatever it was that were buried and finding alternative stones in equal size and similar shape to replace the things he dug out. Be buried the stones.
There were so many things he found that he knew he needed to take his time going through but here was not the place.
Ming Tao laid the fir skin back on the ground after taking everything he was sure he needed without leaving anything behind. Now, he arranged the area to the best of his ability. With one last look, he studied the environment before leaving.
He took a path where no cheetah typically passed through back to his home since he had nothing to put the items he retrieved in. He hoped after all of this, the other men he sent would at least come back to him with some good news.
News like finding the Lion King and putting an end to Hye Yang’s evilness once and for all.