"I killed Liu Zhentian, why aren't you dead? Didn't you say you signed a human-master contract with him?"

"This...this is impossible. Could it be that the wrong person was killed? My life is in your hands, young master. How could I dare to lie to you?"

Xia Tianqiong didn't explain. The main body outside the chessboard took out a human head from the mirror space and put it into the chessboard.

In the chessboard space, a human head suddenly fell from the sky.

It landed right at the feet of the courtesan in red.

"Take a closer look? Isn't that Liu Zhentian?"

The courtesan in red knelt down, cradled the head with its eyes wide open, and examined it closely.

Gradually, her embroidered eyebrows furrowed.

“He looks exactly like Liu Zhentian, but it’s definitely not him.”

Are you sure?

Xia Tianqiong looked unwell, suspecting that Liu Zhentian had tricked him into a false sense of security.

The courtesan in red nodded repeatedly, her tone very certain, "The contract on my body still exists. If this is really Liu Zhentian, I would already be gone."

"The contract still exists? Then you can sense his location, right?"

"It won't work here. This place is isolated from the outside world. We need to go outside to be able to sense it."

"Okay, I'll take you out now and help me find him."

...

About a hundred kilometers southwest of the capital, there are several inconspicuous hills.

Unknown to outsiders, one of the mountains is hollow inside, housing a quaint little town with tens of thousands of inhabitants.

At this moment, at the only passage leading inside, Liu Zhentian was directing a group of people to block the passage with a large amount of rubble, completely isolating them from the outside world.

“Father, I still think it’s unnecessary to completely isolate ourselves from the outside world.”

The speaker was a middle-aged man, and if Xia Tianqiong were here, he would be greatly shocked.

It was Liu Zhengguo who committed suicide in the haunted realm of the red-clad courtesan.

“We have no choice but to isolate them, otherwise some of our people will definitely sneak back to the prosperous world. I know that letting them live here for decades is like being in prison for them.”

But there's no other way. Our Liu family has already been defeated. This last bit of our foundation is our hope for continued existence, and we must not let outsiders discover it.

Two lines of tears streamed down Liu Zhentian's old eyes, revealing a mixture of resentment and helplessness.

This place is a secret location that the Liu family has been operating for thousands of years. It stores a large amount of resources, enough to sustain ten thousand people for decades.

They wanted to isolate themselves from the outside world for the time being, develop quietly, and return to the outside world once they had cultivated a formidable force with sufficient strength and a large enough number of people.

This is also why the Liu family has escaped extermination multiple times.

When the passage was completely blocked by rubble, Liu Zhentian led everyone back to the town.

As I was walking, I suddenly stopped in my tracks!

His eyes widened, filled with confusion and shock.

"The courtesan in red isn't dead? She suddenly appeared in the capital and is approaching here!"

Liu Zhengguo, who was standing to the side, was also stunned. "How is this possible? Even if it's not dead, it shouldn't suddenly appear, right?"

"It may have betrayed our Liu family and is bringing people over."

Liu Zhentian's expression changed drastically. Suddenly, he thought of a possibility. "Quickly, open the passage and let me out. We absolutely cannot let outsiders discover this place."

However, the passage was blocked by rubble and could not be cleared in a short time.