Chapter 70 He killed the maid in a fit of rage over the severed head.

"So many of you, plotting for so long, and you still couldn't kill him. What can I do? I can't even protect myself, and my senior brother almost lost his life too. You're not still pinning your hopes on me, are you?" Lin Shutang looked away.

“Of course not,” Shen Xiuyan replied naturally.

"If you really wanted Shen Yun dead, you wouldn't have delayed lighting the fireworks on Xiwu Mountain that day." Thinking of this, Shen Xiuyan scoffed.

"Then I'm also very curious. Since you wish him dead, why did you tell me about the matter at Xiwu Mountain? If the Third Prince succeeds and Shen Yun truly becomes a rebel, shouldn't you be happy to see that happen?"

Lin Shutang had only intended to respond to his contempt and hadn't expected him to give any answers. However, tonight he seemed extremely patient and was actually willing to answer her questions word by word.

"Because I know Shen Yun isn't so easy to deal with. Everything went too smoothly. I know him too well—how cunning and despicable he is. Only those fools like the Third Prince would believe that Ji Huaiyi was truly tricked into being transferred to the Northern Frontier. They can't defeat him. My feigned allegiance to them was actually a huge gamble on you, Lin Shutang."

He smiled with great interest, "Only you delivered the most fatal blow to him. You and he have a blood feud, we are truly on the same side."

"It's just a pity that you still chose to stand on Shen Yun's side in the end."

He clicked his tongue and shook his head slightly.

"Stop pretending. Whether the fireworks were lit or not is irrelevant to this situation. The Third Prince's defeat is inevitable. You seem to have given me a choice to influence the situation, but that's only for Shen Jun. No matter which option I choose, it will be a betrayal for Shen Jun. He won't let me off the hook."

During his time at Jingyuan Residence, Lin Shutang had already figured out most of what was happening on Xiwu Mountain.

How could the Third Prince's faction entrust her with the task of lighting fireworks to send a message, given the importance of such a matter involving the heads of nine generations of their family, and gamble on her hatred for Shen Yun?

Otherwise, Shen Xiuyan wouldn't have been able to escape unscathed in such a short time and still hold a position in the Shenji Battalion.

"You're quite clever." Shen Xiuyan showed no embarrassment or annoyance at being exposed, and looked at Lin Shutang with his eyes raised to the side. "But you still have no choice today, don't you? Even if you know that running away with me now is a betrayal of Shen Yun, you will still get on my big ship."

Lin Shutang took a light breath and fell silent.

Shen Xiuyan is right, she simply had no other choice.

Seeing that she had compromised, Shen Xiuyan was in a very good mood. Perhaps in order to prevent the plan from going wrong and to make Lin Shutang more willing to help him, Shen Xiuyan decided to be merciful and tell Lin Shutang something.

He moved a little closer to Lin Shutang. "Don't be so reluctant. There's something I need to tell you that you'll find very interesting."

"What is it?" Lin Shutang asked expressionlessly.

"about……"

Shen Xiuyan did not lose interest because of Lin Shutang's indifference. He seemed to be very certain that Lin Shutang would be interested, and he even paused deliberately, keeping her in suspense.

In the moment his speech slowed down, he carefully examined Lin Shutang's expression, "Madam Zhou's."

When he saw that Lin Shutang's aloof face indeed showed some wavering, he couldn't help but smile even more happily.

"What do you know?" Lin Shutang turned to look at him.

Shen Xiuyan finally straightened up from the car wall, quite satisfied with Lin Shutang's performance. "Whatever you want to know, I can probably give you the answer."

"For example, why did she say those things on the pleasure boat that day? For example, why did she fall ill as soon as she saw you? And for example..." He looked at Lin Shutang's somewhat nervous expression, leaned forward slightly, and asked with a smile in his voice, "What exactly is Shen Yun hiding from you?"

...

The carriage gradually drove away from Yujing. After leaving the city gate, it sped south. The roads in the outskirts of the capital were very uneven, and the carriage was traveling too fast, causing it to sway and shake constantly.

Lin Shutang was so shaken that he felt dizzy and his ears were ringing.

Shen Xiuyan's words still echoed in her ears. She gripped the edge of the soft seat beneath her, her fingertips digging into it to suppress the nausea rising from her stomach.

Suddenly, the carriage stumbled violently, and Lin Shutang was thrown forward. Fortunately, Shen Xiuyan reacted quickly and grabbed her arm just as she was thrown off balance.

Only then did I notice that Lin Shutang's face was extremely pale.

Shen Xiuyan shouted outside, "What happened?"

The guard driving the carriage hurriedly said, "Young master, it's the young master's men who have caught up with us."

Lin Shutang was still somewhat dazed and wished he could jump out of the car.

Hearing what the guard said, he instantly became much more sober.

Seeing her startled reaction, Shen Xiuyan helped her sit up before letting go of her, then lifted the curtain and walked out of the car.

He ordered his subordinates to go down and stop the people behind him, while he himself rode the horse.

The sound of blades clashing came from behind, and in an instant, it was all gone in the howling wind.

With no one chasing them, the carriage became much smoother. Shen Xiuyan drove the carriage into the mountains, and with the help of his familiarity with the terrain and the cover of the bushes, he soon reached the mountainside and stopped in front of a bamboo house deep in the forest.

"You should stay here for now. Shen Yun's people will surely think I have sent you away and will definitely search for your whereabouts in various cities around the capital." Shen Xiuyan pushed open the gate of the courtyard surrounded by fences and walked in. "There are few people in this mountain. Most of them are woodcutters who come up the mountain to cut firewood. You will not attract attention if you stay here."

He said, and was about to turn around to remind Lin Shutang a few more words, when unexpectedly, a stick suddenly swung towards him.

Shen Xiuyan immediately felt a buzzing in his ears, his head felt like it was about to explode, and his vision went black in patches.

He fell to the ground, blood trickling down his forehead and eyelashes. He looked up at the blurry figure in front of him in disbelief, his voice filled with anger, "What are you doing?"

He probably never expected that Lin Shutang, who had always been as obedient as a lamb in his eyes, would suddenly hit him on the head with a stick. If he weren't so weak at the moment, he probably would have been jumping up and down in anger.

Lin Shutang looked down at him, tossed the blood-stained staff aside, wiped his hands, and gave him his usual sarcastic look. "Don't worry, this little bit of force won't kill you."

"Lin Shutang, you..." He tried to stand up, supporting himself on the ground, but a series of increasingly severe dizziness hit his head, and he fell backward again.

"I forgot to tell you, I hold grudges. Three years ago, you sold me to Shen Yun, and Jiu Li Mountain also wanted to use me as a bargaining chip. How can I still trust you?"

She feigned innocence.

Shen Xiuyan had no strength left and collapsed to the ground. Through his blurred vision, he could only watch helplessly as that beautiful figure walked away.

A sense of resentment rose in his heart, but a smile slowly crept onto his lips.

His last thought before losing consciousness was, "No wonder it gave Shen Yun such a headache; he's really cunning!"

-

Shen Xiuyan regained consciousness when he was splashed with a bucket of cold water.

He opened his eyes trembling, his vision still blurry, and saw a round, bulging thing fall into his arms.

The smell wasn't very pleasant. He wiped the water droplets from his eyelashes and took a closer look at his chest, only to be met with a pair of lifeless white eyes!

What he held in his arms was a bloody human head!

Shen Xiuyan screamed and threw the thing away. Even though he had seen too many corpses on the battlefield, he was so frightened by the horrifying scene in front of him that he stopped breathing.

He looked up with lingering fear and saw that the small courtyard was packed with people.

Shen Yun, dressed in black, stood before the people, looking extremely gloomy, as if he had blended into the night.

His eyes were lowered, his face devoid of any emotion, and his voice was icy, like the chilling wind that seeped into one's collar, "Where is she?"

Shen Xiuyan was panting heavily, his usual composure gone. He slumped to the ground, brushing a stray strand of hair from his forehead. "You killed that maid to vent your anger, shouldn't you have shown it to Lin Shutang? To warn her not to run away again. What do you mean by throwing her to me?"

"She's yours."

"So what!" Shen Xiuyan said dismissively. "Lin Shutang already knew."

Shen Yun had no time for idle chatter. The blood-dripping sword tip was still pressed against his throat, and his dark eyes held a cold, bloodthirsty gaze, looking at him as if he were a dead object.

The tip of the sword slid down his Adam's apple, leaving a shocking trail of blood.

"If you don't like things in the manor, you can go to the prison."

Shen Xiuyan frowned in pain, understanding the unspoken meaning in his words, and couldn't help but feel a little irritated.

Although his relationship with the Third Prince was merely a facade, he had still done a lot for him. With Shen Yun handling the Third Prince's case for some time, it was inevitable that he would leave some leverage over Shen Yun.

These words served as a warning to him.

Remembering how he had deliberately betrayed the Third Prince's whereabouts to transfer Shen Yun away in order to help Lin Shutang escape, he was now pleasing neither side. Thinking about what Lin Shutang had just done, he felt a fire burning in his chest. He turned his head away and said, "I don't know. She hit me with a stick and then ran away."

As soon as he finished speaking, the sword blade flipped and lashed out at Shen Xiuyan's chin. The sharp sword energy sent Shen Xiuyan tumbling several times on the ground before suddenly stopping. His dusty head was then kicked back into Shen Xiuyan's arms.

Shen Yun glanced at him and said, "Brother, you should accept this gift properly."

Shen Xiuyan felt as if his whole body was falling apart, and the nauseating earthy smell filled his nostrils again. Almost reflexively, he wanted to throw her away, but before he could make a move, the longswords drawn by the people around him suddenly cut him off.

Shen Xiuyan was escorted back to the capital. His head fell heavily into his arms, and the pus flowing from the severed wound soaked a large part of his clothes. The nauseating smell lingered like maggots clinging to his bones.

That night, the person developed a high fever and vomited profusely.

-

After knocking Shen Xiuyan unconscious, Lin Shutang went down the mountain along the path.

As Shen Xiuyan said, Shen Yun probably already thought that he had sent him away, and that at dawn tomorrow, all the city gates, official roads, and ferry crossings would probably be his people.

She needed to leave as quickly as possible before Shen Jun's men caught up with her.

For her right now, the best way would have been to cross the mountain directly, and then figure out a way once she got to the foot of the mountain. But by then, the road would be long and arduous, and it wouldn't be easy for Shen Yun to find her.

But she was ultimately just a weak woman with no strength to even kill a chicken; she had no way of dealing with what was in the deep mountains.

They could only quicken their pace, hoping to leave by river before Shen Jun discovered Shen Xiuyan's whereabouts.

Lin Shutang's mind was in turmoil, especially with Shen Xiuyan's words constantly echoing in her ears. She was restless, and the mountain path was difficult to walk on, causing her to fall countless times along the way.

But she seemed completely oblivious, immediately getting up after falling, dusting herself off and continuing to walk, her knees and palms covered in countless bruises and cuts.

Her mind was blank, like a wind-up puppet, numbly rushing on her way, like a walking corpse.

They feel no pain, nor do they think.

Even in the quiet depths of the mountains and forests at night, the most primal fears vanish.

Therefore, when he saw the firelight in the distance, Lin Shutang remained strangely calm.