Chapter 145
The afternoon sun was so bright that it was a little dazzling. Fan Changyu looked up at the young man sitting on the high wall and was distracted for a moment.
Hearing Xie Zheng's question, he felt a little embarrassed that his thoughts had been discovered.
Her long eyelashes, shining like a small fan, fluttered twice. The sun was strong after walking around the Dali Temple. Her fair face was slightly pink, and the fine hairs were clearly visible. But she put her hands behind her back and pretended to be calm. "Why are you here?"
Xie Zheng smiled, jumped down from the wall, and landed right in front of Fan Changyu: "I saw someone walking around the wall of Dali Temple from the Yanchi Pagoda, and he seemed to be trying to be a thief. I came to see who this thief is."
Hearing these teasing words, Fan Changyu unconsciously clenched one hand into a fist and glared at Xie Zheng with a warning, as if she was going to use force if he made fun of her again.
Xie Zheng knew when to stop and asked, "Do you want to visit the prison at night?"
Fan Changyu thought of his plan and glanced around. Even though he confirmed that no one was around, he still took two steps closer to Xie Zheng for safety reasons and whispered in his ear, "I heard that the person pretending to be Yu Qianqian will be interrogated later. I'm afraid she will reveal that Sui Yuanhuai is not dead and plan to rob the prison."
She lowered her voice to a very low level, and her clear breath sprayed on Xie Zheng's earlobe as she spoke, making it feel numb and tingling as if a bug was crawling along the edge of his ear.
Xie Zheng cooperated by leaning slightly to listen to what Fan Changyu said. His face looked normal, but the tips of his ears had begun to turn slightly red. The knuckles of one hand behind his back were unconsciously clenched, as if he was forcibly enduring something.
Fan Changyu didn't notice at all. After he finished speaking, he raised his head and looked at Xie Zheng: "What do you think?"
In order to establish her authority in front of outsiders, she is used to putting on a cold face. However, when she talks to people close to her, her big, clear eyes still reveal a bit of honesty and naivety, like a fat cat or a tiger rolling in the snow.
Combined with what she said, it really was stupid and fierce.
Xie Zheng stared at the girl in front of him with her bright eyes. It took some effort for him to move his gaze away from her slightly dry lips. The hairband tied around his wrist seemed to be hot. The remaining bit of rationality allowed him to barely understand the meaning of her words.
He said, "You hijacked a serious criminal from the imperial court who was being tried by the three courts. Aren't you afraid of being investigated?"
Fan Changyu blinked twice with his open eyes: "If you want to be suspicious, shouldn't you be suspicious of Wei Yan? In the art of war, this is called... diverting the evil water eastwards!"
Xie Zheng couldn't help but chuckle, "Is this the military strategy you created yourself?"
Fan Changyu was stunned for a moment. She couldn't remember what to call this plan, so she made it up. After hearing what Xie Zheng said, she suddenly felt embarrassed.
She coughed twice and said, "That's what I mean."
Xie Zheng leaned against the wall with his eyes half closed, and said slowly: "The guards outside the Dali Temple will change shifts at 3 p.m., and there are only 18 jailers on night watch in the prison. But as soon as they find someone robbing the prison, the jailers on duty will ring the golden bell, and all the exits of the prison will be locked. The officers and soldiers outside the prison will also form a three-layer iron barrel with three layers inside and three layers outside."
Fan Changyu was stunned for a moment, grabbed a handful of hair with a headache and asked: "What you mean is, the prison robbery is not going to work?"
Xie Zheng raised his eyelids slightly and said, "Robbery."
Fan Changyu: “…”
-
The night was cold and dewy. A dog barked somewhere, startling a crow from the dead tree branch and causing it to fly up.
The Dali Temple, lit with two dim lanterns, looks like a quiet and towering tomb in the night.
There were torches in the alcoves deep in the prison, and the smell of pine resin mixed with the moldy smell caused by the prison not seeing sunlight for years drifted in the air, making people drowsy.
The Dali Temple prison cells were arranged in a "cross" shape. Each fork was extremely deep, with about twenty to thirty cells inside. Four jailers were divided into groups of two, patrolling back and forth in this single passage.
At the confluence of the four main roads in the middle, there are torture chambers and a guard room. The jailer and deputy jailer usually wait here to receive high-ranking officials who come to the jail to interrogate prisoners. If there are jailbreakers, once they hear any movement, they can ring the bell in the guard room in time.
The jailer and the deputy jailer sat at the square table that night and yawned countless times.
"No, I have to go wash my face with cold water to wake myself up." The deputy warden yawned and stood up.
The jailer was also drowsy, resting his elbow on his hand. He said, "Bring me a basin of water. It's so easy to get sleepy in this harsh winter."
The deputy warden responded and went out to fetch some water.
The jailer yawned again with sleepy eyes, and when he closed his eyes he found a tall black shadow covering him.
The jailer's heart sank, but before he could turn around, he was chopped on the back of the neck by a knife. His eyes turned black and he fainted.
The two patrolling prison guards came to the fork in the road and were about to speak when they heard the sound of wind approaching. Then they felt a pain behind their neck and fell to the ground. There was also a faint sound of dislocated joints.
Xie Zheng knocked the jailer unconscious, and when he turned around, he saw Fan Changyu, dressed in night clothes, squatting on the ground and straightening the bones of a prison guard.
Facing his puzzled look, Fan Changyu said awkwardly, "I wasn't paying attention. I hit him too hard and dislocated his shoulder."
The moment his arm was reattached, the prisoner woke up from the severe pain. However, before he could even utter a cry of pain, he was slapped in the face and fainted.
The deputy jailer, who had returned with a basin of cold water, saw this and dropped the basin in his hand in shock. He opened his mouth to shout that someone was robbing the prison, but the man in black standing next to the jailer approached him like a ghost in an instant, pointed his finger at his throat with his sword, and then lifted the falling basin up with his toes.
The deputy jailer felt a pain in his throat and could not utter a single sound despite his hysterical screams. The basin of water that nearly fell to the ground was easily caught by the man in black. Even the water that had splashed out was returned to the basin without a drop left.
The deputy jailer was terrified and tried to run away, but Fan Changyu, who came to help, leaped up and hit him on the back of the neck with his elbow. The deputy jailer rolled his eyes and fainted.
Fan Changyu exhaled lightly and said softly, "The last one."
Before coming to the guard room, they had sneaked in through the window and knocked out other prison guards who were patrolling the prison.
Xie Zheng took out a bunch of keys of different lengths from the prison boss and said, "I am imprisoned with my family in Cell A9."
Fan Changyu followed Xie Zheng to the cell corridor marked with a number plate with the letter "A".
There were torches every few feet in the passage, so they didn't need to carry a lantern.
Sui Yuanhuai's concubine and only son were imprisoned in a small cell as important criminals.
The iron chain tied to the cell door was as thick as a baby's arm. Xie Zheng could only try the large bunch of keys one by one. The slight sound of the iron chain woke up the prisoners in the large cell next door.
But they didn't dare to make a sound because they were not sure whether the people who came were here to kill them or to save them.
The mother and child who were imprisoned solitary, the woman looked even more dishevelled than when Fan Changyu first saw her. When she held the child tightly in her arms, the thin fabric of her clothes was stretched tightly, and she was so thin that one could almost see the protruding joints on her back.
She looked at Xie Zheng and Fan Changyu outside the cell. There was no hope in her eyes, only fear. Even her hands holding her child were shaking.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, Fan Changyu did not say anything and just stood in front of the alley to keep watch for Xie Zheng.
Unexpectedly, in a cell opposite, a gray-haired old man suddenly shouted hysterically: "It's a jailbreak - murder -"
There was a flickering glow of fire coming through from the egg-sized holes on the roof of the cell that were used for ventilation. Apparently the old man's screams had been heard by the guards outside the prison.
Xie Zheng's eyes turned cold, and Fan Changyu also became nervous instantly.
Originally, they relied on releasing a light dose of incense to knock out the jailers in the prison without anyone noticing, and they had plenty of time. But now, because of that old man's shout, the entire exit of the Dali Temple would soon be cordoned off.
There is not enough time to try out the keys one by one.
Fan Changyu gritted his teeth, and while Xie Zheng was still calmly trying the key, he rushed over and said, "Let me do it!"
She couldn't break the iron chain that was as thick as a baby's arm, but when she kicked the pillars of the cell with great force, the wooden pillars that were as thick as fists were broken.
Relying on the physical advantages of men and women, Fan Changyu squeezed in like picking up chicks, and carried the woman and the child out in each hand.
At the uneven gap in the cell, he stuffed the frightened child into Xie Zheng's hands, picked up the woman, and shouted to Xie Zheng: "Let's go!"
Xie Zheng looked at the kid stuffed into his hands and the woman carried on Fan Changyu's shoulders. He wanted to say that he would carry the woman, but considering that the woman was only wearing a single piece of clothing, he didn't say anything. He just held the child in one hand and followed Fan Changyu to the exit quickly.
When the old man saw Fan Changyu and the others kidnapping Sui Yuanhuai's "concubine", he was not sure whether he really didn't know that the mother and son were fake, and he was eager to protect his master, or for some other reason, he was extremely emotional. He grabbed the wooden pillar of the cell with both hands and kept shouting: "Someone come! Rescue the prisoner——"
Xie Zheng frowned slightly, and before leaving, he cast a cold glance behind him.
-
When the guards outside Dali Temple heard the cry for help coming from the prison, they swarmed into the prison. When they entered the prison, they found that the jailers had been knocked down. They shouted something bad and walked straight to the cell where Sui's family was detained. They found that there were many servants and generals who had been arrested. However, when Sui Yuanhuai's concubine was missing, cold sweat was dripping from his forehead.
The head of the guard shouted, "Guard all exits, and dig deep to find the man!"
But when he saw the irregular wooden pillars of the cell that had been kicked in pieces by the light of the torch, he couldn't help but feel shocked.
With such divine power, who is this god in hell?
-
After surveying the terrain during the day, Fan Changyu carried the woman and quickly found the part of the wall with the weakest defense. He then climbed over with a nimble figure.
Xie Zheng carried the child and jumped out closely behind him.
When they got outside, fearing that the woman would find the way, Fan Changyu took out a sack that he had prepared early in the morning and put it directly on the woman's head with cotton cloth stuffed in her mouth.
Then he took out a small one and handed it to Xie Zheng, "Put it on the child as well."
The skillful movements made Xie Zheng silent for a moment.
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