Chapter 342: Escape
The rope lowered from the platform was already in bad condition. It would break with the slightest pull and was completely unable to support a person.
Ji Yunyan went to the baskets piled on the platform again, pulled out several coils of rope, and examined them one by one. Without exception, they were all tattered. Not to mention the ropes, some of the baskets fell apart when they were lifted.
After searching for a long time without finding anything, she threw the rope off the platform in anger.
Shen Yuexi didn't expect Ji Yunyan to find any good rope. After so many years, all ropes would become rotten.
Meidai looked up at the cliff, as if trying to estimate its height. Then she shook her head, walked to the edge of the platform, and threw the torch down.
Soon, a "plop" sound came from below. Mei Dai looked down and turned to the two men, saying, "I know how deep it is. Let's go back to the basement. There are plenty of beds and beddings there. Just tie them together to make a rope."
Shen Yuexi also reached the edge of the platform and looked down at a small red light illuminating the weeds and rocks. It was probably about five or six stories high. Feeling a little dizzy, she quickly turned back to the platform and said, "Let's do it now."
The three of them returned to the passage and entered the underground cave from under the stone wall.
Shen Yuexi came to a room and carefully rolled up the dusty top sheet of the bed. Sure enough, the sheet underneath was intact. She pulled it out and hung it on her arm, then went to search in other rooms.
After working for a long time, both of her arms were covered with bed sheets, which felt like they weighed five or six kilograms.
When I went out to look over there, I saw Mei Dai also carrying an armful of sheets and clothes. Ji Yunyan was carrying a large bundle of chair and table legs, probably weighing dozens of kilograms. For Ji Yunyan, a martial artist, this weight was no problem at all.
Shen Yuexi came up to the two of them and said, "Sister Ji, why are you making so many chair legs? What are the table legs for?"
Ji Yunyan grasped the straps tightly with both hands and nodded towards the platform. "The Queen knows that my sister will get dizzy at heights. Let's use these things to make a rope ladder. It will be more stable and safer."
Shen Yuexi pondered for a moment, figured out Mei Dai's method, and praised: "Sister Mei is really amazing."
This was why she admired Mei Dai. Unlike her, she didn't always rely on the universal manufacturing machine to save her life. Instead, she solved problems based on the actual situation. That was the kind of person she admired. What was there to brag about if she always relied on cheats to crush others? It was the cheats that were powerful, not her.
She muttered to herself: I've been relying on Big Bear all the time, and my brain has gone crazy. It's better to use it less.
But thinking back, when she defended Shengjing, she used an ice slope to block the attack of the Xirong. Later, when she and Xiao Zhuo were fleeing together, she caught the powerful pheasant without the help of the big bear, which shows that she is not stupid.
One day, she will encounter difficulties that Big Bear cannot help with, and she must make her brain flexible in advance, just like Mei Dai.
The three of them sat on the ground at the intersection. Mei Dai piled all the clothes and sheets in her arms in front of Shen Yuexi, and handed her dagger to Shen Yuexi, saying: "Sister, Yunyan, you two will choose sheets of the same length and cut them with the daggers. I will be responsible for tying the sheets to the wooden sticks."
"Okay." Shen Yuexi picked up the dagger, pulled out a bed sheet, and cut it in half with the dagger. Ji Yunyan sat next to her, picked up the bed sheet and copied the same thing with her long sword.
Shen Yuexi handed the cut sheet to Mei Dai. Mei Dai twisted half of the sheet into a rope and tied one end to a chair leg. She tied the other half to the other side of the chair leg. This made one rung of the rope ladder.
This task seemed simple, but it required extreme meticulousness. In the underground cave, there was no sunlight, and no timekeeper. The three of them worked for who knows how long, until Shen Yuexi's stomach growled, before they finally built a rope ladder over ten meters long.
"That should be enough," Mei Dai picked up one end of the rope ladder, "Let's move the ladder to the platform."
Ji Yunyan said, "Queen, it's probably dark outside now. Why don't we rest here for the night and go downstairs at daybreak?"
Shen Yuexi also had this idea. After working for half a day, she was very hungry and had no water to drink, so her mouth was dry.
Before Mei Dai could reply, a dinging sound suddenly came from the direction of the entrance, as if something were knocking against it. Then another ding sounded, and a faint voice could be heard.
Shen Yuexi had been trapped underground for so long, and when she saw someone coming, she happily said, "Someone is here to save us?"
Mei Dai frowned and said, "This place is only known to Doctor You. I'm afraid the people here have bad intentions. Quickly put out the torches in the corridor and let's leave."
Shen Yuexi also reacted, and quickly stood up and picked up the rope ladder, then turned to Ji Yunyan and said, "Sister Ji, let's go to the platform quickly."
The three men were busy extinguishing the torches in the corridor. They had only half of them when a beam of light shone from the entrance and their voices grew louder: "Go in! Leave no one alive!"
Shen Yuexi had heard this voice before; it was the Tongliao County Magistrate. Mei Dai was right; the Tongliao County Magistrate had brought his men to hunt them down.
Unexpectedly, Doctor You was so cruel. Not only did he lock them up, he also brought people to kill them all.
The three men ran to the half-open stone gate holding the rope ladder. There, yamen runners and officials holding swords and knives were already rushing down the steps shouting. There were more than twenty of them, holding torches and searching everywhere, lighting up half of the underground room.
Ji Yunyan stood in front of the stone gate, drew her sword and said, "Queen, you two should leave quickly. I will hold off the pursuers."
Mei Dai grabbed her arm and pulled her back, saying, "Don't be so stubborn. You can't handle so many people."
Shen Yuexi had already passed the stone gate and waved from below, "Come here quickly. We need to stop the pursuers. Wouldn't it be easier to stop them here at the stone gate?"
Mei Dai and Ji Yunyan passed the stone gate one after another and pulled the rope ladder over.
At this time, the fire at the bottom of the stone gate was getting brighter and brighter. In the light on the ground, black shadows were twisting and turning, and there were noisy sounds. It was clearly coming towards this side.
"They are on the terrace passage, go over there quickly!" a man shouted.
Ji Yunyan waved the sword in her hand and said, "Queen, sister, the two of you quickly go to the platform to put down the rope ladder. I will cover your retreat."
The door was only half open. If the other party wanted to pass through, they could only crawl from the bottom. She could handle it calmly.
Mei Dai nodded and said, "Be careful." Then she picked up the rope ladder and called to Shen Yuexi, "Sister, let's go quickly."
Shen Yuexi looked back while running, and heard shouting from the other side of the stone gate. Then several heads popped out from under the stone gate. Before she could look up, Ji Yunyan had wielded the sword like the wind, and struck each head with the sword. The few people who crawled over first were killed on the spot.
There was a commotion at the stone gate. Dead bodies were blocking the door, and living people could not get through. They had to drag the bodies back first. Then dozens of spears and short knives stretched out and slashed around, trying to hurt Ji Yunyan.
Ji Yunyan took two steps back, standing out of the reach of the spears, and said with a smile, "If you know what's good for you, don't chase us anymore. Otherwise, if you come close, you'll die one by one, and if you come close as a pair, you'll die a pair."
The Tongliao County Magistrate, standing across from the door, angrily shouted, "You useless bunch! You spend your days eating and drinking, just fattening yourself up. Now that we need you, you can't even handle a woman."
"Sir, the door is only open a little, we can't get through." Someone complained.
Doctor You's voice rang out: "Everyone, get out of the way. I'm going to see what's wrong with the mechanism."
Seeing that Ji Yunyan was able to hold her own against ten thousand men, Shen Yuexi finally felt relieved and ran to the platform with Mei Dai.
The sky outside was full of stars and the mountain wind was cold, which made her shiver. She hunched her shoulders and raised the torch to light the way for Mei Dai.
Mei Dai tied the rope ladder to the crooked tree and threw it down the cliff. She picked up the torch and said to Shen Yuexi, "Sister, I'll go down first, and you follow behind."
Shen Yuexi stood at the edge of the platform and saw Mei Dai grab the crossbar of the rope ladder. Her figure disappeared on the platform and the ball of light went down little by little.
She was afraid of heights and stood there hesitantly. Mei Dai shouted from below, "Sister, the rope ladder is very strong, come down quickly."
"I...I'm a little scared." Shen Yuexi shouted.
If he got dizzy in the middle of the fight, he would fall to the ground like a meat patty, and if he wasn't careful, he might even knock Mei Dai down with him.
While he was still hesitating, Ji Yunyan shouted from the other side of the passage: "Hurry up, they've fixed the door!"
This sentence worked. Shen Yuexi immediately stopped hesitating and quickly squatted down, grabbed the rung of the ladder with both hands, stretched out one foot, stepped on the solid ground, and then went down one step at a time.
The sound of swords clashing could be faintly heard from the passage above. Ji Yunyan had already started fighting with the other party.
She didn't dare open her eyes and climbed all the way down. The rope ladder was wobbly and the wind blew her hair and clothes around, making her feel like she was in a small boat on huge waves.
She went down countless steps, but when she reached down, she couldn't find the horizontal bar. She didn't dare open her eyes, so she just stretched her foot and pointed everywhere, shouting, "Sister Mei, I... I can't find the ladder anymore."
"Sister, we're already on the ground," Mei Dai's voice rang out from below her. "You're only three feet from the ground. Just jump down."
After hearing what Mei Dai said, Shen Yuexi finally opened her eyes and looked down with relief. Sure enough, she was only one meter above the ground, and Mei Dai was holding a torch and looking up at her.
She let go and jumped down without hesitation, but she didn't land firmly and fell flat on her butt with a yelp. She didn't know what she was sitting on, but it was hard and round and hurt.
"What is that?" She squatted up and looked back at what was below her, shuddering with fear.
She had just sat on a skull, which had been half buried in the ground. Now only half of it was exposed, facing her with a sinister look.
Fortunately, I had been scared by a large group of skeletons before, and Mei Dai was there, otherwise I would have been scared to death if I saw it in the middle of the night.
Before she could ask Mei Dai, she heard shouting above her head and saw flames on the platform. The pursuers had already reached the platform.
"Where is Sister Ji?" Shen Yuexi looked at Mei Dai hurriedly.
Mei Dai raised her head and looked upwards, holding the torch, and shouted, "Yunyan, come down quickly."
"Get out of the way, both of you!" Ji Yunyan's voice came from the air.
Shen Yuexi took two steps back and looked up, only then she noticed that Ji Yunyan had actually jumped down from the platform. She was upside down and rushing straight down.
Wouldn't it be a direct fall to death if he jumped down like this? Shen Yuexi couldn't help but shout: "Danger!"
Ji Yunyan took her time. After falling a few meters, she reached out and grasped a horizontal bar. She drew a semicircle in the air, firmly planted on the bar. After catching her breath, she hooked her feet around the bar, twisted her body another 180 degrees, and continued to fall. She repeated this three times before landing firmly on the ground.
This display of skill not only made Shen Yuexi clap her hands, but even Mei Dai cheered loudly: "Excellent skills."
After Ji Yunyan stood up, several heads popped out from the platform above, holding torches. The county magistrate's voice rang out, "What are you still standing there for? Hurry and get down the ladder."
As soon as the words fell, someone stepped on the rope ladder and climbed down. Shen Yuexi shouted, "Sister Mei, they are chasing us down."
"It's okay." Mei Dai smiled slightly, raised the torch and walked forward to light the rope ladder.
The rope ladder was made of sheets, clothes and wood. When the torch was lit, it immediately ignited a raging fire, burning directly into a fire belt. The people who were about to climb down saw the rope ladder on fire and quickly climbed back up.
The people on the platform saw that the rope ladder was burned and there was no way to come down. After shouting and cursing helplessly, the light on the platform disappeared.
Seeing that the danger was over, Shen Yuexi felt relieved. Now she had time to look around.
By the light of the fire, she saw a skeleton in palace attire lying under a tree. Women's clothing was exposed in the soil, and human bones were scattered in the weeds. She looked at Mei Dai and asked, "Sister Mei, who are these people?"
"These were probably women who wanted to escape, but they didn't make it," Mei Dai said, sweeping the ground with her torch. "Twenty years have passed, and we can still see some of the events that happened back then."
Looking at the scattered bones on the ground, Shen Yuexi remembered that over twenty years ago, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Pei Jingyun had climbed down a rope from a platform, attempting to escape the dark dungeon. Perhaps due to insufficient strength, or perhaps the rope snapped, she fell to her death. Not long after, another woman tried, only to become the pile of corpses beneath her feet.
Ji Yunyan said from a distance, "Come and see, this is Madam Lin's husband, right?"
Shen Yuexi and Mei Dai came to Ji Yunyan and saw a corpse wearing men's clothes lying in the grass, only a few meters away from where they came down.
All the prisoners in the basement were women, and this was the only man, obviously Mu Zhongren.
"He still couldn't escape successfully," Mei Dai sighed, "His legs were broken and he couldn't leave."
Shen Yuexi's eyes fell on the skeleton on the ground. She saw that both of the skeleton's lower leg bones were completely broken, and the white bones were exposed outside the trouser legs.
"No matter what, he didn't abandon his wife and children. We wronged him." Mei Dai squatted down and rummaged through the skeleton. She found a bag. The bag was tattered and dull silver was visible inside.
Mei Dai put the silver away and said to the skeleton, "I will bring the silver to Madam Lin. We don't have the tools to bury you. Farewell for now."
"Sister Mei, Sister Ji, let's go see Madam Lin first." Shen Yuexi said.
They had previously escorted Doctor You back to Daliang Village and left the horses with Madam Lin.
Now they have figured out that Pei Jingyun is indeed alive, and Xiao Zhuo's mother is actually just the daughter of a poor family, Wen Yi. But no matter who Xiao Zhuo's mother is, the fact that Xiao Zhuo is the son of Emperor Ming of Qi is not false.
The three of them found a way out of the valley. Ji Yunyan led the way, walking and resting along the way, and returned to Daliang Village.
When we arrived at Daliang Village, it was already late at night, but the whole village was extremely noisy. Lights were on in every household, and many villagers were standing in groups of three or four on the street talking. There were also many soldiers on horseback in the village.
Shen Yuexi was extremely surprised when she saw the familiar figure. She quickly ran over and shouted, "Feng Zhang, Yang Cong!"
Hearing the call, Feng Zhang and Yang Cong rode their horses quickly and stopped in front of Shen Yuexi and the other two.
"Why are you here?" Shen Yuexi asked.
Feng Zhang said, "Master, the military advisor is worried about you, so he asked Congmei and I to come to Daliang Village..."
"Idiot, it's already late, there's no point in saying this!" Yang Cong interrupted Feng Zhang by slapping him on the shoulder, then turned to look at Shen Yuexi.
"Madam, Emperor Ming of Qi has passed away!"
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