This seven-story tower is known as the Madman's Tower because it is said that anyone who tried to get close to it to decipher the secrets returned as mentally unstable, so no one dared to approach it anymore.
For over twenty years, no one has known what's inside that tower.
Before Jiang Chuting went, he asked passersby for directions. When they heard that he was going, they looked terrified and tried to dissuade him.
"Young master, don't be so skeptical. That place is truly eerie and strange; there isn't a single living creature for miles around. Everyone who went there before went mad. Why ruin your future for your own curiosity?"
After thanking him, Jiang Chuting still left. Just as the kind passerby had said, the closer one got to the Madman's Tower, the more desolate it became; there wasn't a single living creature, not even the wind had stopped, and all was silent.
Jiang Chuting could only hear her own breathing and footsteps.
After walking a little further, the road ended. Jiang Chuting looked up into the distance, and through the swirling, thin mist, she could vaguely see the spire.
Jiang Chuting drew his sword, ready to chop down the withered grass and branches blocking his path, when he suddenly heard a man's sobbing coming from the side. The sobbing drifted intermittently through the once quiet mountain forest, sounding rather eerie.
Jiang Chuting paused, his hand gripping his sword still, and followed the sound to the side. He eventually found a middle-aged man with a gray cloth shirt and a scruffy beard behind a hillside.
He knelt on the ground, his eyes red and his face haggard, pouring wine onto the ground as he cried, seemingly there to mourn someone.
But why did he choose this place that ordinary people wouldn't go to? Is there some unspeakable reason?
Jiang Chuting walked silently, immersed in his grief, unaware that he was bowing several times in a certain direction with tears streaming down his face.
"For over twenty years, I truly couldn't think of a way to rescue you. Rest in peace, please don't blame me, I was forced into this situation... Waaah..."
He cried for a long time and was about to get up when he caught a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He turned around abruptly, and was so frightened that he sat back down on the ground. He screamed twice in fear and scrambled away to escape.
There was some mist in the forest, and Jiang Chuting was wearing light-colored clothes and a mask. In addition, the atmosphere of this place was already eerie. At first glance, how could one not feel a chill run down one's spine and be frightened?
"A ghost! A ghost!!!"
Jiang Chuting said in a clear and cold voice, "I am a human, not a ghost."
The man retreated behind a tree, covered his head, and cried out several times, "Don't come looking for me, don't come looking for me, it's not my fault, I didn't mean to, please don't come looking for me..."
Jiang Chuting repeated, "Don't be afraid, I'm human."
The middle-aged man finally heard this and timidly peeked out from behind the tree. Jiang Chuting took two steps closer and said to him, "I heard there's a strange madhouse here, so I came to investigate. I didn't expect to hear you crying here."
The man had just wiped away his tears and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this. He was so shocked that his eyes widened, and he struggled to his feet, leaning against the tree trunk as he said, "What were you doing there? Didn't you hear what they were saying outside?"
Jiang Chuting replied, "I heard about it, which is why I wanted to come and see."
The man glanced at the sword in his hand, sighed softly, and said hoarsely, "Don't think you can just barge in recklessly because you have martial arts skills. Be careful not to get yourself into trouble if you don't find out the truth."
Jiang Chuting countered, "Then why are you here?"
He paused, startled. "I...I..." He didn't seem very good at lying, and after stammering "I" for a long time, he couldn't come up with a coherent answer.
Finally, he said, "You don't need to worry about me. I've already given you my advice, and if you insist on going, there's nothing I can do about it."
Jiang Chuting paused, looking him over: "You just said, 'I can't think of a way to get you out,' who do you want to save? Perhaps I can help you."
Unexpectedly, he heard everything. The man's expression suddenly became flustered and evasive, and he did not reply.
Jiang Chuting took a step closer, her tone becoming more serious as she stared at him and continued, "You said you wouldn't blame me, that you didn't do it on purpose. Did you make some mistake in the past and want to make amends? Also, the direction you were kneeling in just now was exactly towards the Madman's Tower. Are you involved in any way? In other words, do you know what happened in this tower?"
Jiang Chuting spoke calmly and slowly, without any aggressive tone, but inexplicably gave people a sense of pressure that they would be doomed if they didn't answer.
The man turned to run, but Jiang Chuting moved with lightning speed, striking his acupoint. He immediately froze on the spot, unable to move.
Jiang Chuting walked around to stand in front of him. He had a mournful face, looking both surprised and frightened: "What, what exactly do you want to do?"
Jiang Chuting chuckled and said, "Don't worry, as long as you tell the truth, I'll let you go. But if you refuse to tell..." He looked around and sighed, "Then I'll have no choice but to leave you here to keep you company through the long night."
The man's lips trembled, and he lowered his eyes. After a long while, as if making a decision, he suddenly raised his head, gritted his teeth, and said, "Fine, since you're so eager to know, I'll tell you everything!"
Jiang Chuting said, "Speak."
He took a deep breath and began to recount his story: "My name is Liu Guang. I was originally just a hunter, an orphan, living alone at the foot of the mountain. Twenty-five years ago, one day after returning home from hunting, I inexplicably fainted. When I woke up, I found myself in that tower..."
Of course, at that time he had no idea where he was, and the first thing he did when he woke up was to be scared half to death.
Because the people who arrested him wanted him to have sex with men.
Although he wasn't married yet, all he could think about was a fragrant, soft woman. Even with a knife to his throat, he trembled with fear but couldn't react at all. Finally, he was given a potent drug, and within half an incense stick's time, he was completely out of it, no longer caring whether he was holding a man or a woman down.
There are many men like him who were captured, and many men like him who were forced into sexual acts; they were all captured.
Normally, Liu Guang and his group were on the second, third, and fourth floors, each with a small, cramped room. The others were on the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors. Every day at a fixed time, people from the upper floors would be dragged down, one to each room, sometimes even two or three. People would patrol back and forth at the door, watching them do their work. After they were done, they would be dragged back.
That scene was absolutely inhumane.
Aside from eating and sleeping, all of them were forced to have sex like animals every day. Liu Guang only saw some of them once and never saw them again, while others saw them a few times and also never appeared again.
He knew that these people were also forced into it. He lived in constant fear, self-blame, and guilt.
At this point, Liu Guang was already in tears: "I didn't want to either, but... but if I didn't do as I was told, I would die too..."
It was utterly unimaginable what a terrifying hell it must have been. Jiang Chuting's hand, gripping the sword, was already trembling. He was certain that the Madman's Tower was definitely related to the things he was investigating. He asked, "And then?"
Liu Guangdao said: "At first, I thought the people who captured us were having some kind of fun to torture people and I didn't know their real purpose. But later I vaguely realized that they seemed to be using us as test subjects for drugs. Although I don't know why they had to test drugs in that way... Anyway, new people kept coming in, but almost... they all died."
Jiang Chuting suddenly asked, "Have you ever heard a baby cry?"
Liu Guang clearly didn't understand why he asked that question, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, "That's right, I haven't heard of it."
"Yes, there shouldn't be any." Jiang Chuting's expression was solemn.
Twenty-five years ago, not long after Lin Xuan began conducting drug trials, those drugs were from the very first batch and their properties were unstable. In order to test the drug properties quickly and efficiently, she went so far as to lock people in the tower and use them as her test subjects.
Liu Guang just said that he has no parents. She probably only kidnaps people like him who have no relatives or friends. Even if she disappears, no one will care, which saves a lot of trouble.
The drug was still in the early stages of development, and success was simply impossible. Anyone who went in would have been throwing their lives away in vain!
Lin Xuan is completely disregarding human life; his viciousness and cruelty are unparalleled!
There are countless undiscovered "crazy towers" in this world.
Jiang Chuting felt a wave of suffocation. After a moment, she asked again, "Among the leaders who used you as test subjects, did you see a woman who was very thin, had a very pale face, and looked at people with a cold gaze...?"
“No. I’ve only ever seen one man, and he was the one in the tower most of the time. He had a bad temper, and we often heard him cursing from the lower levels.” Liu Guang recalled, then suddenly said, “Oh right, I remember very clearly, he had a black mole on the side of his mouth.”
Jiang Chuting blurted out almost immediately: "Qin Ye!" The Valley Master of Miyue Valley, the main force in alchemy, and Lin Xuan's lackey.
Liu Guang asked in surprise, "You, you know him?"
Jiang Chuting took a deep breath, raised her hand to untie his shin, and said, "I came to explore this madman's tower to investigate things related to him. I didn't expect to run into you."
Although Liu Guang could move again, he remained frozen in place, unable to believe it: "Really?"
"Hmm." Jiang Chuting was still a little puzzled: "Then how did you escape back then?"
Liu Guang seemed to remember something bad, sighed bitterly, and then said, "That man, oh, I should be Qin Ye, whom you mentioned. He failed several times in his drug trials, and almost all the people who were captured from the upper floors died. He went mad and ordered everyone in the tower to be killed, including us. I survived... thanks to my mother, who gave me my heart on the right side. After I was stabbed, I fell to the ground and pretended to be dead. While they were all going up to kill people, I got up and ran away desperately. But I was injured and couldn't run far, so I found a place to hide and passed out."
"I don't know how much time passed before I woke up and heard two people talking not far away. One of them said that they should set the tower on fire, while the other disagreed, saying that he believed in karma and was worried that his family would be in turmoil in the future. He wanted to find someone to use talismans and formations to suppress the soul of this person here, so that they could never get out and could never be reincarnated. After arguing for a while, they finally decided not to burn it."
Therefore, there is nothing in the Madhouse except for mountains of bones.
“I was afraid of being discovered, so I didn’t dare to move. I waited until they were long gone before I dared to get up and find some herbs in the cave to apply to my wounds. After that, I vaguely remember running away and fleeing far away from this place. But, but… I could never find peace in my heart. I did such a thing, I was sorry to them, they died without ever being able to be buried. A few years later, I couldn’t bear it any longer and mustered up the courage to run back, only to hear that the tower had become the so-called Tower of the Mad, and no one dared to approach it anymore. I couldn’t retrieve their remains, so I could only come here once a year to pay my respects and comfort their wronged souls…”
Jiang Chuting asked, "Didn't you think about reporting it to the authorities?"
Hearing his question, Liu Guang hurriedly replied, "Actually, I did report it, but as soon as the officials heard it was about the madhouse, they didn't even let me finish speaking before kicking me out and giving me a severe beating. They're all scrambling for lucrative positions, and they don't care about troublesome matters like this that could get them killed."
The words had barely left his lips when he heard the clear and firm voice of the person in front of him: "I'll take care of it."
Liu Guang stared at him intently. Jiang Chuting thought for a moment, then softened his tone and asked, "If I need you to be a witness in the future, to recount your experiences and what you saw and heard back then, would you be willing?"
Liu Guang's hands trembled, and he stared at him with wide eyes, speechless for a moment.
He understood from his past experience that the mastermind behind it must be an extremely powerful figure, and he was already incredibly lucky to have escaped with his life. Now, being involved again would inevitably bring countless risks.
But what about those innocent victims back then...?
Liu Guang gritted his teeth: "I'm willing."
Jiang Chuting nodded: "That's good." She then reassured him: "Don't worry, I will protect you."
Jiang Chuting told him about an inn and asked him to wait there. But he still planned to go and see what Qin Ye had done to prevent people from getting close.
Liu Guang was very worried: "Sir, are you really going?"
Jiang Chuting said, "Don't worry, I'm just going to take a look first, I won't force my way in."
After parting ways with him, Jiang Chuting walked alone for a while, then suddenly took out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and covered his lips and nose. Qin Ye was skilled in herbal medicine and might very well start from that point, so he took precautions just in case.
Sure enough, as Jiang Chuting approached the Madman's Tower, he discovered large patches of *Mushu* grass on the ground. He might not have recognized this grass if he hadn't traveled extensively.
It is a highly poisonous herb, not only because of its pungent smell, but also because it contains toxins.
Therefore, whether you smell it for a long time or get scratched by its sharp leaves, it can lead to confusion and damage to the brain.
This is the only way through, and the reason why those who come out of curiosity to unravel the mystery will go crazy is definitely because of it.
Jiang Chuting held his breath and leaped several times before breaking through the excessively long barrier, landing lightly on the ground.
But the scene before him ultimately stopped him in his tracks.
The trees were teeming with venomous snakes, and the ground was crawling with them. Drawn by the scent of the wood ear grass but unable to climb over it, they all gathered here, so densely packed that it was terrifying.
This place is practically a snake pit; forcing our way through is simply wishful thinking.
Jiang Chuting took two steps back and decided to leave first and think of a solution later.
Upon returning to the city, Liu Guang was indeed already waiting for him at the designated inn. Jiang Chuting wrote him a letter to take to the Nine Heavens.
Jiang Chuting instructed, "When you get to the mountain gate, just say my name and give this letter to the sect leader. They will let you stay. It's safe there. Just stay there for now. I will come back to find you when I have enough evidence."
Right now, this is only enough to involve Qin Ye, far from enough. He can only arrange for Liu Guang to be placed in a place where he can feel completely at ease.
"Nine Heavens?" Liu Guang was not ignorant either. He asked in astonishment, "The Nine Heavens? Great hero, are you one of them?"
Jiang Chuting nodded. Liu Guang suddenly seemed much more relaxed and said honestly, "In that case, I don't seem so scared anymore."
Jiang Chuting saw him off onto the carriage and watched him leave.
Perhaps feeling saddened by the wronged souls, Jiang Chuting felt a tightness in her chest and decided to go out for some fresh air.
Liyun City is surrounded by water, and many buildings in the city are built along the waterways. Large and small boats come and go on the waterways. Jiang Chuting casually boarded a small boat. When the boatman asked him where he was going, Jiang Chuting whispered, "Wherever it takes me."
Jiang Chuting stood at the other end of the boat, holding his sword and deep in thought.
The well-known way to deal with snakes is to use realgar powder. But there aren't just one or two snakes there; realgar powder is probably far from enough. It seems we'll have to find another way.
Moreover, once this hurdle is overcome, who knows what other traps and mechanisms await us?
The boatman probably thought he was there to pass the time and sightsee, so he rowed very slowly. Before he knew it, it was getting dark and the number of boats on the river was decreasing.
A cool autumn breeze blew, and the setting sun cast a warm glow upon him. He took a breath, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, his heart skipped a beat.
It's as if something unpredictable is about to happen.
Seeing that he remained silent, the boatman tried to strike up a conversation: "Young master, would you like to dock and have dinner before coming back?"
Jiang Chuting said softly, "Let's stop at the shore ahead."
The boatman replied, "Alright!"
Jiang Chuting was preoccupied and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, so he didn't notice the large ship approaching from the left side of the river.
On the large ship, a young man in purple slowly walked out and stood on the deck to clear his head. He should have been a bright and cheerful person, but now only gloom and despondency remained in his eyes.
Except for the few months he was bedridden due to illness, he spent almost every day searching for that person. But he really searched every corner, yet he still couldn't find that person.
Deep regret and loss, intertwined with a longing and yearning that seeped into his very bones, tormented him every moment.
He was on the verge of going mad. But he couldn't go mad yet; he had to find Chu Ting.
These days he has no definite destination, just going wherever the road takes him. This trip to Chestnut Cloud City by boat was also a sudden decision.
Originally, he was just staring intently at the houses of varying heights along the riverbank, but almost as if possessed, he suddenly turned his head and looked to the other side.
His unfocused gaze had clearly swept across a spot, but his pupils suddenly contracted and snapped back. He lunged at the railing, fixing his eyes on the small boat leisurely moving forward in the distance.
A figure stood tall and straight at the bow of the boat, dressed in green with black hair, wearing a mask, his clothes and hair ribbons fluttering in the wind. Bathed in the setting sun, he looked like a fairy from a painting.
Lin Zhi's eyes, filled with shock and ecstasy, dared not blink, for fear that what she was seeing was just an illusion caused by excessive longing.
It's him, it really is him! There's absolutely no mistake! It's not his imagination!
Lin Zhi's heart pounded, her eyes reddened, and tears streamed down her face.
"Chu Ting, Chu Ting..." His throat was burning and painful, and he could barely make a sound.
Large and small boats came and went, about to pass each other. Lin Zhi was frantic, gripping the railing tightly. A surge of bloodlust rose within him, and his throat, sharp as a knife, finally broke through his chest, letting out a hysterical scream: "—Chu Ting!!!"
This soul-tearing scream instantly resounded across the entire river.
Jiang Chuting froze abruptly, remaining silent in place without turning around at the sound.
Was that Lin Zhi's voice? He could hardly believe it.
"Chu Ting! It's me, turn around and look at me!!"
"Please, Chu Ting!!!"
"Chu Ting, turn around, turn around!!!"
Jiang Chuting's breath hitched; it wasn't a hallucination after all.
It's been over two years since we separated, and I'd buried him deep inside, somewhere I rarely touched upon. I never imagined we'd meet again so unexpectedly.
Jiang Chuting's heart was already churning with turmoil, but he remained calm on the surface, restraining his emotions as he spoke gently to the boatman, "Old man, I'm in a hurry, please hurry."
The words had barely left his mouth when a clear, distinct "thump" of water splashed out from a distance behind him.
Jiang Chuting paused for a moment, then finally turned around and saw a faint purple figure in the water, trying to swim over with all its might.
The boatman was shocked to see this: "Young master, it looks like he's coming this way. Do you know him?"
Jiang Chuting withdrew her gaze and said calmly, "I don't know her. Let's go."
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