A double dose of tranquilizer darts—enough to fell an adult elephant.
Hui Ren’s body wavered, the overwhelming fatigue and numbness surging along his meridians, eroding his internal power.
He knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
The “youngster” before him was frighteningly calm, and the man inside the carriage, Zhao Jingzhan, was the very target he had to eliminate.
He could not fail. More importantly, he could not allow the target to survive!
In a flash of desperate madness, Hui Ren released his grip on the iron chain, abandoning his attack on Shen Qingzhu, and concentrated all his remaining strength into his left palm.
“Buddha’s Wrathful Fire Lotus!”
A roar escaped him. Ignoring all caution, his gaunt hand unleashed a palm strike, the heat distorting the air, aimed straight at Zhao Jingzhan inside the carriage!
If he was going to die, he would take this culprit down with him!
Zhao Jingzhan’s pupils constricted.
The chain bound him, leaving no way to evade!
In a moment of life-or-death, he yanked the chain toward himself, pivoting his body, and with his back braced, absorbed the devastating strike with sheer force.
“Thud—!”
A dull, crushing impact.
Zhao Jingzhan’s body slammed into the wooden railing on the other side of the carriage, splintering it instantly.
A spray of blood, bright and shocking like crimson plum blossoms, stained his pristine prison garb.
In the split second when Hui Ren’s old power had been exhausted, and new force had yet to manifest, his body stiffened from the recoil.
Shen Qingzhu seized the opportunity. Raising her tranquilizer gun once more, she aimed at Hui Ren’s back.
“Pfft!”
“Pfft!”
Two enhanced darts struck precisely.
Hui Ren finally collapsed, unable to maintain his stance. His wide-open eyes mirrored disbelief and unwillingness, before going limp.
Shen Qingzhu, however, did not relax.
Never trust an enemy is dead unless confirmed personally.
She quickly retrieved a small ceramic vial from her space, pried open Hui Ren’s mouth, and poured the dark, potent poison inside.
Even then, she wasn’t satisfied.
From her sleeve, she drew a dagger and drove it mercilessly into Hui Ren’s heart.
“Shhh—!”
The blade sank fully, hilt included.
The world finally fell silent.
Shen Qingzhu wiped the blood from the monk’s robe and began systematically searching his body.
As expected, she found several darts she had fired earlier, tips blackened—part of the toxin neutralized by his protective qi.
Besides these, there was a small token engraved with the character “德” in archaic script, and a few pieces of broken silver.
She tucked everything into her sleeve, then turned to the carriage.
By the firelight, Zhao Jingzhan leaned against the broken railing, face pale almost translucent, blood on his lips enhancing the broken, dramatic effect.
His chest rose and fell unevenly; his breathing was heavy—he had suffered severe internal injuries.
“You…” he looked at Shen Qingzhu. His usually impassive phoenix-like eyes betrayed shock, and a hint of… complicated emotion.
He had just witnessed this “youngster” efficiently and calmly kill a half-step grandmaster.
“Go.” Zhao Jingzhan’s voice was hoarse, weak. He coughed twice, a thread of blood following. “Don’t worry about me… this cage is forged from celestial iron and meteoric metal. The ‘Eight Treasures Linked Lock’ of the Internal Affairs Office—without the key, even a grandmaster can’t force it open. Their target is me. You take your family and go—there’s still a chance.”
Shen Qingzhu regarded him quietly.
Go?
If not for his intervention earlier, she would already be a corpse.
Shen Qingzhu never owed anyone favors, especially not life-saving ones.
Moreover, abandoning a severely injured, top-tier ally to face unknown dangers alone would be sheer foolishness.
“We’re grasshoppers on the same string,” she said, stepping closer to the carriage, crouching to meet his gaze.
Her voice was soft, yet carried unshakable certainty.
“So, I must save you.”
“You…” Zhao Jingzhan frowned, clearly puzzled by her stubbornness. “You can’t.”
“Did I ever say,” Shen Qingzhu’s lips curved slightly, “that I’m ever out of ideas?”
Before he could respond, she produced something from her sleeve.
A black leather case, opening to reveal a dozen or so metal rods of various lengths and intricate designs.
Shen Qingzhu picked two of the thinnest, and under Zhao Jingzhan’s watchful, curious gaze, aimed them at the seemingly unbreakable “Eight Treasures Linked Lock.”
“Just a universal key—opening a lock, that’s all,” she explained casually, though in her mind, she considered backup options: if these failed, there was always the rechargeable angle grinder in her space—loud, but effective.
Silence fell over the dungeon.
Only the faint click of metal rods probing the lock echoed.
Zhao Jingzhan unconsciously held his breath.
He watched her delicate, steady hands, her focused profile illuminated by flickering firelight, long eyelashes quivering slightly.
Time seemed to stretch infinitely.
And yet, in an instant—
“Click.”
A crisp, clear sound.
The supposedly unbreakable “Eight Treasures Linked Lock” had opened.
Shen Qingzhu didn’t pause. Using the same method, she freed the three remaining locks binding Zhao Jingzhan’s wrists and ankles in under a minute.
The last heavy shackle fell with a soft clang, yet Zhao Jingzhan remained seated, unmoving.
For the first time, his usually impassive face showed true, raw astonishment.
“All right.”
Shen Qingzhu stood, clapped lightly, and extended her hand toward him.
“Get up. We have to go.”
Her hand, white and slender in the flickering firelight, fingers clearly defined.
Zhao Jingzhan regarded it, hesitated, then slowly lifted his own hand to meet hers.
The moment their hands clasped—
Shen Qingzhu’s brow twitched imperceptibly.
Ice.
Bone-chilling ice.
This was no ordinary body temperature. It didn’t feel like holding a hand—it felt like gripping a piece of jade taken from a thousand-year ice cellar.
A sudden, extreme cold shot up her fingers, racing through her meridians.