Just when everyone thought Cheng Liangyi had turned into a pile of bones and was heartbroken, the fourth door was suddenly slowly opened from the inside.

"General Cheng..." Someone exclaimed in surprise when they saw Cheng Liang, whose face was charred black from the fire, emerge from the door. He was carrying a long sword, and behind him, in the secret room, there was only a thick layer of Night Swallow corpses.

For a moment, all the guards were speechless, exchanging bewildered glances. Then, regaining their composure, they bent down and lifted Cheng Liang high into the air, cheering, "General Cheng... General Cheng..."

The cheers, born from the bottom of their hearts, rose like towering waves, each one louder than the last.

Just as everyone was cheering for Cheng Liang's quick thinking and courage in escaping death, the fifth door was quietly opened without anyone noticing...

While everyone was still immersed in joy, Cheng Liang, though being held high, still spotted the person who was trying to escape. The figure sneaking out of the fifth door was the mysterious person who had just tried to assassinate Lan Xiang with a poisoned needle.

Cheng Liang came to the pavilion in the backyard of Wanjiao Pavilion again because he was tracking the whereabouts of this mysterious person.

Presumably, he was acting under orders but failed in his assassination attempt and was afraid of being exposed. However, he was cornered by the guards that Cheng Liang had carefully positioned outside Wanjiao Pavilion, leaving him with no choice but to escape to this secret room in Wanjiao Pavilion.

Clearly, this person was extremely familiar with the layout of the secret room. Not only could he open the door, but he also knew all about the mechanisms and traps inside. Otherwise, he wouldn't have put them through so many perilous situations.

However, once he was forced into the secret room, no one in the tea room above could help him restore the mechanism to open the door, which allowed Cheng Liang and the others to discover the mechanism to open the secret room without lifting a finger.

Thinking of this, Cheng Liangyi quickly raised the long sword in his hand and threw it forcefully at the mysterious man who was about to step onto the stairs. The sword struck the man's right shoulder, and his right hand immediately lost its strength.

Upon hearing the sound, the guards immediately put Cheng Liang down steadily. Then, they turned around and surrounded the mysterious man who was clutching his right shoulder and howling in pain. At the same time, someone stepped forward and pressed him to the ground, pressing his face tightly against the cold floor of the secret room, and then wrapped his arms around his back to firmly control him.

Cheng Liang then slowly walked over, placed a large foot heavily on the man's head, bent down slightly, and glared fiercely at him, demanding, "Where do you think you're going? Tell me, where is Tuoba Zeren?"

"Who are you people? What law have I broken? What are you talking about, eight or nine? I don't know what you're talking about!" The mysterious man arrogantly rambled on and denied everything.

Cheng Liang was taken aback, but then he used his foot to grind the mysterious man's head with even more force, and said fiercely, "Well, now do you know what I'm talking about?"

The man suddenly screamed in pain, pleading, "Kill me! I don't know anything!"

Upon hearing the man's pig-like screams, Cheng Liang immediately guessed that he was a paper tiger. He slowly reached out and touched the sharp sword that he had just thrown and embedded in the mysterious man's shoulder, and snorted, "Hmph, do you think this general really wouldn't dare to kill you?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the man he was firmly standing on let out a heart-wrenching scream, "Ah!" and the gleaming longsword had somehow returned to Cheng Liang's hand from the man's body.

Cheng Liang raised the sword high, placing it before his eyes, and stared intently at the bloodstains on its tip. He said with a tone of great regret, "Tsk tsk tsk... What a pity. Such a sharp sword should be offered the freshest blood every day. But now, I don't even know how long it has been since it accompanied me to the battlefield to kill the enemy and tasted that dripping blood. It must be very, very hungry. But today, I intend to make it up to it and let it drink its fill."

Cheng Liang spoke these words with utmost nonchalance, yet the mysterious man stared at him with a distorted expression and trembling fear. As soon as Cheng Liang finished speaking, the mysterious man asked him in terror, "What do you want to do?"

Cheng Liang spoke calmly, "Whatever this general wants to do, isn't it all as you wish?... Guards, use this general's sword to execute him by 'cutting him into a thousand pieces.' If you want to die, this general will grant your wish, but you must first be able to endure this punishment."

"To be torn to pieces?" the mysterious man exclaimed in surprise.

The guard beside him smiled slyly and explained, "The so-called 'thousand cuts' punishment involves hanging the prisoner upside down in mid-air, and then using extremely sharp swords to cut or slice his entire body, cutting only the flesh but not the bone, a thousand or ten thousand times, until he dies. In the end, his whole body is basically like a blooming red flower, unrecognizable, covered in blood and flesh, a truly gruesome sight. The scene is extremely beautiful."

"No, no, no, I don't want to be torn to pieces. I'll talk, I'll talk, I'll tell you everything..." The man listened while swallowing hard, seemingly terrified, and finally gave in.

Cheng Liang then removed his large foot from the man's head and face, allowing him to explain in detail.

After a long while, Cheng Liang listened intently, his thick eyebrows and big eyes widening in shock. He asked, "You mean that behind that last door wasn't a dark room, but a secret passage, and that Tuoba Zetian escaped through the passage before dawn?"

The man nodded.

Cheng Liang's mind went blank for a moment. He thought to himself, 'I'm too late again.' He then anxiously asked, 'What about the mechanism for opening the last door? Is it the same as the others?'

The man shook his head. "The door to the secret passage can only be opened once. It can only be opened once, and then it can never be opened again. Unless..."

"Unless what?" Cheng Liang hurriedly asked.

“Unless the entire Wanjiao Pavilion is razed to the ground, it is highly likely that it will also cause the entire secret passage to collapse,” the man said in a deep voice.

"Despicable! How could you commit such a vicious act on my Western Qin land?" Cheng Liang said indignantly.

"This was Tuoba Ze's personal design. He said that even if he couldn't escape one day, he would drag the people of Western Qin down with him to their deaths," the man explained.

"Damn it, utterly despicable, utterly despicable! It's outrageous! Those are just ordinary people who can't even kill a chicken!" Cheng Liang gritted his teeth and roared angrily. The guards around him were also stunned and unable to move. The man also stopped talking and seemed to be unwilling to let Tuoba Ze do this.

"Who did Tuoba Ze escape with?" After a moment, Cheng Liang asked.

After a moment's recollection, the man said, "Oh, isn't it because the King of Western Qin surrounded Wanjiao Pavilion so tightly that he left his personal guards to cover his retreat and handle the aftermath of Wanjiao Pavilion? So he only took one girl with him on his journey, and I don't know her name. However, the girl was quite pretty, but for some reason, she always wore a veil."

"Oh no, it must be Miss Yi." Before Cheng Liangshang could speak, the guard beside him hurriedly said.

Cheng Liang already knew that he had caused a huge disaster again. He wondered how his master would deal with him if he found out that Yi Shangyun had been taken to the secret passage alone by Tuoba Ze, a beast worse than a pig or a dog.

Having finally caught such a spies who valued their lives so much, he naturally had to suppress all the anger in his heart and continue to pretend to be calm to find out everything in order to make up for his various mistakes.

Thinking of this, he hesitated for a moment, then asked, "In Wanjiao Pavilion, there is a woman named Yu Niang. Do you know where she is now?"

"Oh dear, I'm just a guard watching the secret passage. How would I know what's going on in front of Wanjiao Pavilion? If it weren't for the impending disaster, the shortage of manpower, and the willingness of the higher-ups to offer a large reward, I certainly wouldn't be risking my life to run to the front hall to do this at this critical juncture," the man said, seemingly sincerely.

"Think about it again. Yu Niang was originally in the front hall of Wan Jiao Pavilion, but she was moved a few days ago. She shouldn't have left Wan Jiao Pavilion. I heard she's in a secret room in Wan Jiao Pavilion," Cheng Liang reminded her.

After a moment's thought, the man exclaimed in surprise, "Could it be...could it be her?"

Cheng Liang hurriedly asked, "Who is it?"

The man said, "A few days ago, a frail woman was brought in. She seemed to be unconscious and had to be carried in. Later, another woman came in. Oh, that's the girl with the veil. Tuoba Ze's personal guards specifically instructed that they be locked up together so that they could catch up, saying that the woman who came in first didn't have much time left and was probably going to die soon."

"Where is that woman now?" Cheng Liang asked hurriedly.

The man said, "She's in the first secret room. Last night, the orders were given not to give her any food or water, to let her fend for herself. Actually... she wasn't given much food or water anyway, so she's probably a mess now. A beautiful woman, gone blind just like that, sigh..."

"Open the door now! If anything happens to her, you're dead too!" Upon hearing Cheng Liang's words, the man immediately scrambled towards the door of the first secret room.

With a creak, the door to the first secret room opened.

Then, a warm candlelight slowly shone in. Yu Niang, who was starving and thirsty, was already lying on the ground, on the verge of death.

"Yu Niang, Yu Niang..." In a hazy, indistinct, and ambiguous state, Yu Niang suddenly seemed to see a tall and straight male figure slowly approaching her.

She couldn't help but murmur to herself, "Am I already dead? Is this heaven or hell? There is warm light here, and this man in front of me... could this man be... could this be my husband who is safe and sound? This must be heaven."

Cheng Liang knelt down to check on her and found that Yu Niang was already exhausted. So he shouted to the man, "Quickly, bring me water!"

The sound startled the man, who trembled and rushed out to fetch water. He quickly returned, saying, "The water's here! The water's here!"

Cheng Liang hurriedly took the teacup and quickly helped Yu Niang sit up a little, then smoothly and slowly fed the water into Yu Niang's mouth.

After a short while, Yu Niang finally regained consciousness and slowly realized that the man who was taking good care of her was not her beloved husband Zhao Ping'an, but Cheng Liang, the deputy general of Prince Qin Xuanyuan Han, who was helping her devise strategies in the Prince Qin's mansion.

Suddenly, Yu Niang's eyes widened in shock as she stared into Cheng Liang's eyes, which immediately filled with tears that welled up in her eyes. She said, "General Cheng, is it really you? Is it really you? I thought I would die like this in this dark room for the rest of my life. I never expected this, I never expected this..."

Before she could finish speaking, Yu Niang finally couldn't hold back her fear of being on the verge of death and burst into tears.

Upon seeing this, Cheng Liang pulled her into a tight embrace, his face full of regret, and said apologetically, "Yu Niang, it's me, it's Cheng Liang. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have let you risk your life and come to this den of wolves and tigers."

At this moment, even a thousand words cannot compare to a strong, warm embrace, which can soothe the fear of being imprisoned in a closed room for so long.

After a while, Cheng Liang said affectionately in her ear, "Come on, let's go home. Grandma and Ling'er are still waiting for you at the Qin Prince's Mansion!"

After saying this, Cheng Liang helped Yu Niang to her feet and ordered his men, "Take this Northern enemy back to His Highness..."