“The rebel traitor is hidden among the mountain forest farmhouses. The duration of imprisonment ranges from as short as five days to as long as a month.” Pei Di softly repeated.
He carefully removed the black outer robe from his body and handed it to Ting Feng.
Ting Feng respectfully received it and asked in a low voice, “Master, have you discovered something suspicious?”
The corner of Pei Di’s lips curved into a cruel arc. “Two mice in pink clothes… have slipped in.”
People from mountain forest farmhouses would not be willing to spend money on pink garments, and after being imprisoned in the dungeon for a long time, their clothes could not possibly still retain such a pink color.
When he had just entered the dungeon, he had unintentionally caught sight of two pink-colored figures in one of the cells.
Let him see, who could it be?
Pei Di casually drew the saber from a soldier’s waist at his side. The blade reflected the dim firelight, tracing a cold arc. His steps were steady, yet carried a pressing killing intent as he walked straight toward the corridor near the dungeon entrance.
Huang Youcai hurried to follow, his heart trembling with fear as he watched Pei Di’s gaze sweep across a row of cells before suddenly turning toward the corridor in the opposite direction.
He was filled with shock and suspicion, yet did not dare to ask a single word, only silently following Pei Di toward another corridor.
Huang Youcai’s heart pounded wildly, his eyes darting around in all directions, afraid that Pei Di would truly find the “mouse” in pink clothes he spoke of, yet also afraid that if Pei Di failed to catch that “mouse,” he might instead uncover the “playthings” he had long since grown tired of.
At that point, his life would likely be in danger.
The corridor was dim, with only the occasional crackling sound of torches bursting. Suddenly, a series of neat yet deliberately subdued footsteps approached from afar, traveling from the other end of the corridor and striking directly against her heart.
Lu Dantao clenched her hands tightly, her nails almost digging into her palms. She pressed half of her face against the cold, damp ground, holding her breath as she peered out through the gaps in the pile of corpses ahead.
The footsteps grew closer and closer, and Dantao’s heart pounded even more violently.
At last, several shadows stretched long by the firelight, twisting as they were cast upon the mottled stone walls.
Among them, one shadow was tall and upright, holding a long saber, advancing step by step… toward the very cell where they were hiding.
Lu Dantao shut her eyes tightly in fright, even her breathing coming to a halt.
She truly did not dare to look.
A soft “ka-cha” sound rang by her ear.
The door was opened.
Pei Di’s tall figure bent as he entered, the soles of his boots stepping onto the filthy ground. His cool gaze fell upon the two pink figures tightly huddled together in the darkest corner of the cell.
Without the slightest hesitation, without a single word of interrogation. The tip of his blade lifted lightly, carrying the sound of slicing through the air as it stabbed fiercely and decisively toward the chest of one of them!
“Pa.”
The body clad in a pink dress fell in response.
Revealing a face already bluish-purple and stiff with death.
Tsk.
The corner of Pei Di’s lips curved faintly, tinged with a trace of cat-and-mouse mockery. It ran quite fast.
Interesting.
His indifferent gaze swept over the other corpses piled within the cell. With a rise and fall of his blade, several heads rolled away. Before the filthy blood could splatter, he had already straightened up neatly and exited the cell.
A thick, nauseating stench of blood mixed with the odor of decay surged over from the neighboring cell.
Lu Dantao felt her stomach churn violently. She bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from retching, holding her breath as her heart pounded nonstop. Only after quite a while did she dare to slowly open her eyes to a slit.
That scared her to death!
Lu Dantao’s gaze swept toward the long saber in Pei Di’s hand.
Just a little more.
Just a little more, and the head rolling on the ground would have been hers.
Fortunately, the male lead was clever enough to guess that Pei Di would grow suspicious of their pink clothing. He had thought of switching clothes with the corpses and hiding among the pile of bodies in the neighboring cell, allowing them to escape this disaster.
Lu Dantao silently praised him. Otherwise, how could the male lead and the villain possibly fight each other to the very end?
As expected, the way a domineering king’s mind worked was the same.
Lu Dantao silently let out a breath of stale air. Just as she was about to turn back and give Xue Yao an air high five to celebrate surviving the ordeal, Pei Di’s cold voice sounded again from the corridor:
“Lord Huang.”
Her heart tightened as she quietly lifted her eyes to look. She saw Pei Di casually toss the blood-stained long saber to a guard, then lightly flick his sleeve as if brushing off dust that did not exist. Looking at Huang Youcai, who came running over with his body trembling, he said, “Go. Bring every single one of the Xue family rebels you have rounded up to this official’s residence. Not a single one may be missing.”
His gaze scraped across the dark cells around them inch by inch, not sparing a single corner. “This official will interrogate them properly.”
Huang Youcai lowered his eyes, a flash of delight crossing them. He could hardly believe that Pei Di would choose to take the people away. Heaven knew how terrified he had been just now that his things would be discovered.
A trace of delight also flashed through Lu Dantao’s eyes. She could not believe that Pei Di would actually withdraw just like that. She pricked up her ears, listening as Huang Youcai shouted orders, dragging several people out from the cells on the other side and lifting them onto stretchers.
She then listened as the footsteps and voices of the group gradually faded into the distance, until the dungeon returned to a deathly silence, and the torch on the wall crackled with a “pa,” bursting with a spark.
She still could not believe it. Pei Di had really left so easily?
She focused and listened carefully for a moment, hearing the sound of Xue Yao pushing aside the corpses and getting up. Only then did she scramble up from the ground with a roll, fumbling as she hastily pulled off the outer garment she had stripped from a corpse.
Who knew what that clothing had been contaminated with, or how many germs it carried. Just the thought that there might be wriggling worms crawling on her body made Lu Dantao’s scalp go numb.
“Don’t take it off.” Xue Yao had already nimbly slipped out from their hiding place, bending slightly as he walked out of the cell. He glanced at her disheveled state. “That pink dress is too conspicuous. You absolutely cannot wear it again. Besides, it’s already dirty.”
Following his gaze, Lu Dantao looked toward the next cell. The ground was a complete mess of mangled corpses, and even her originally bright pink dress had been stained with mud and blood.
She retched a few times, her shoulders slumping as if she might cry but had no tears left. She collapsed weakly onto the ground, only to suddenly remember that there might be maggots beneath her. As if electrocuted, she sprang back up.
She hurried over to Xue Yao, who was standing in front of the Xue family army’s cell, sniffed, and spoke in a hoarse voice after retching, “I feel like something’s not right…”
Before she could finish, she suddenly paused. Her nose twitched as she sniffed around in confusion. “Why does it smell like something’s burning? Could it be… a fire?!”
Hearing this, Xue Yao lightly inhaled. Amid the rotting stench of the dungeon, there was indeed a faint but increasingly distinct acrid scent mixed in, the smell of wood and cloth burning.
The corner of his mouth tugged slightly, a trace of understanding flashing in his eyes. That damned traitor was using this trick again, fond of waiting for the prey to come to him.
Lu Dantao was both angry and alarmed. “I knew it, there’s no way he would leave so quickly. He’s trying to force us out by setting a fire! He’s probably blocking the entrance right now. What should we do?”
Xue Yao’s gaze flicked toward the corridor on the right. “Head west. There’s an exit.”
“Got it!” Lu Dantao nodded vigorously, the mnemonic flashing through her mind instantly, ‘Up is north, down is south, left is west…’
“Left!” Without hesitation, she dashed toward the corridor on the left.
Xue Yao, who had already taken several steps to the right, abruptly stopped. “…?”
He turned back in shock, his narrow phoenix eyes widening in rare disbelief as he stared at that slender figure rushing without hesitation in the wrong direction.
In his nineteen years of life, this was the first time he felt a strong, almost absurd speechlessness—
She… she actually could not even tell the most basic directions of east, south, west, and north?!
A vein throbbed at Xue Yao’s temple. In a single stride, he rushed forward, precisely grabbing her wrist. His grip allowed no refusal as he half dragged, half pulled her toward the correct passage.
Lu Dantao was pulled along as she ran. The corridor was dim and winding. She ran until she was out of breath, her lungs burning painfully, and she only felt that the stench of blood and decay around them seemed to grow even stronger.
After twisting through several turns, Xue Yao suddenly pulled her into a room even more eerie than any they had seen before.
The ground was covered in dried, blackened bloodstains, and all around hung various instruments of torture.
Lu Dantao frowned tightly, standing on tiptoe as she carefully avoided the blood beneath her feet like she was hopping between squares. She looked around and asked, “Is there a hidden door here?”
Xue Yao did not answer. He simply used the tip of his foot to precisely kick aside an inconspicuous wooden bucket in the corner, revealing an extremely narrow opening behind it.
Lu Dantao leaned over to look. The opening was about half a person’s height, just wide enough for an adult to curl up and squeeze through. The edges of the opening were coated in thick, black grime.
This was a sewage outlet.
Lu Dantao looked at Xue Yao in shock. She had wanted to ask this for a long time. “How did you know about this place? Have you been here before?”
“A dungeon must have a sewage outlet, usually located at the lowest and deepest point.” Xue Yao’s tone was casual as he explained, but a trace of complex, unreadable gloom flickered deep within his eyes.
Not to mention… when he had escaped from the Eagle Guard’s dungeon back then, this was the very path he had taken.
Thinking of that slip of paper that had guided him to escape, Xue Yao’s thoughts shifted.
If this was not Pei Di’s scheme…
Then who could it be?
Pulling his thoughts back, he glanced at Lu Dantao and jerked his chin toward the opening. “Get in.”
Lu Dantao frowned, pinching her nose shut with her fingers. “You go first.”
Xue Yao swept his gaze over her from head to toe. Though he said nothing, his eyes clearly conveyed, “At a time like this, what are you being picky for?” The corner of his lips twitched as he bent down decisively and, without hesitation, crawled into the filthy passage.
Lu Dantao gritted her teeth and followed close behind. After crawling in a couple of steps, she suddenly remembered something and hurriedly backed out on hands and feet, moving the wooden bucket back into place to barely block the opening.
The last trace of light disappeared.
It was pitch black, where one could not see their own hand. The inside of the sewage outlet was even narrower and lower than the entrance, and in most places they had to crawl forward on their stomachs.
Lu Dantao could not see where Xue Yao was ahead of her, nor could she see the condition of the tunnel walls. She could only hear the hollow echo of water dripping from cracks in the stone above, feel the chill of filthy water soaking into her knees, and sense the slick ground beneath her hands, coated with a layer of slime.
Darkness often gave rise to many imaginations, such as the worms now filling her mind.
Lu Dantao was almost on the verge of tears, her voice choked with a thick nasal tone as she called, “Yan Yun.”
Xue Yao was clearing the way ahead. He had originally intended to ignore her, but hearing the tremor in her voice, and fearing that her panic might cause trouble, he responded, “Mm.”
“How much longer?”
Xue Yao crawled ahead, his nose catching a trace of an extremely faint, crisp scent belonging to the mountain forest amidst the stench. He replied, “Almost there.”
Almost there, how long was that?!
Lu Dantao very much wanted to ask, but the moment she opened her mouth, the surging foul odor rushed straight into her throat, choking her until tears instantly welled up in her eyes. She could only bite her lip hard, forcibly suppressing the rising urge to vomit.
Time lost its meaning within the stench and darkness.
Who knew how long they crawled. Just as Lu Dantao felt she was about to be overwhelmed by the stench, her eyes finally caught a glimmer of light. At the same time, a thin yet extremely fresh mountain breeze broke through the foul air, reviving her for a moment.
The next second, she unexpectedly fell straight into a pool of icy shallow water.
Lu Dantao splashed at the surface with both hands.
A river! They had come out!
The wild joy of surviving had not yet had time to surge up when a warm and powerful hand suddenly seized her wrist, yanking her fiercely into his embrace.
Lu Dantao only felt a sharp gust of wind brush past her.
By the time she was steadied after being pulled and turned under his protection, she realized that in the water where she had just been standing, there was a sharp arrow embedded, its fletching still trembling.
“Heh, so it’s you, this little mouse.” A cold voice laced with amusement rang out along the silent riverbank.
Lu Dantao’s face changed drastically. She hurriedly peeked out from behind Xue Yao, sticking out half her head to look.
Flames suddenly flared up.
Pei Di sat upright on horseback, his posture as straight as a pine. In his left hand, he held a bow, while two cold, gleaming arrows were casually pinched between the fingers of his right hand.
His eyelids lifted slightly. In one smooth motion, he set an arrow and drew the bow, steadily aiming at Xue Yao.
However, at the very instant the arrow was about to be released, his gaze inadvertently swept past the disheveled little face behind Xue Yao.
Time seemed to freeze at that very moment.
Pei Di appeared as if struck by a thunderbolt from the nine heavens. His pupils contracted sharply, and the cruel, playful expression of control on his face instantly stiffened and shattered, replaced by an overwhelming shock that was hard to believe.
He stared fixedly at Lu Dantao. That face, that mole between her brows, had appeared countless times in his dreams.
Was it her?
Xue Yao keenly caught this unprecedented loss of composure from Pei Di. He quickly glanced back at Lu Dantao, who was still shaken, and a meaningful curve rose at the corner of his lips.
His chin lifted in provocation as he met Pei Di’s shocked gaze. With a swift motion, he tightly seized Lu Dantao’s wrist, dragging her as he turned and dashed straight toward the vast, dense mountains behind them!
The youth gripped her hand firmly, the force leaving no room for escape. As they ran, the night wind howled, their long hair flying wildly behind them, tangling together.
“Little Immortal.”
A faint, almost ethereal call echoed through the mountain forest.
It carried an indescribable familiarity, as if it had been deeply engraved in the furthest depths of her mind, as though she had been called this way in countless hazy moments before.
Lu Dantao’s heart trembled violently, and she could not help but turn back to look.
The heavy night blurred her vision, and she could not make out the expression on Pei Di’s face.
She could only see that solitary figure standing alone within the firelight.
The mountain wind howled, whipping his robes into motion, like a deity abandoned by divine punishment, cast alone into a boundless hell, his entire being shrouded in an inescapable loneliness and… an almost shattered confusion.