Chapter 1032 Whom did you originally intend to lure the snake to kill?
Shang Ruyi hesitated for a moment, but still stepped forward—of all the people who had emerged from the stone chamber, Lei Yu was in the best condition. Especially after washing herself and changing her clothes, she was clean and calm, as if she had never experienced that life-or-death ordeal.
All of this was, of course, thanks to Ashina Zhuxie.
Seeing that she was safe and sound, Shang Ruyi smiled and said, "You were waiting for me."
"..."
Lei Yu didn't speak immediately, but looked down at her hand. There was still a thin bandage wrapped around the tiger's mouth, but it was obviously just for that minor injury. Judging from Shang Ruyi's brisk and energetic appearance, everyone knew that she had not been poisoned by snake venom.
Or rather, even if she had been infected, she would have had a way to deal with it and thus escaped death.
Lei Yu asked, "Whom did you originally intend to lure the snake to kill?"
Hearing this sentence, which was almost like directly exposing her shame, Shang Ruyi remained calm and simply smiled and said, "You still speak like this, so straightforward and without any pretense."
Lei Yu said, "I thought there was no need for us to hide anything from each other."
Upon hearing this, Shang Ruyi's expression finally calmed down. She glanced around and saw that the guards in the distance were cooking over a fire, and the Turkic soldiers were drinking and roasting meat. Some of them had seen the two of them, but none of them dared to come closer.
Shang Ruyi said, "I also thought that you wanted him dead."
"...!"
Upon hearing this, Lei Yu's expression shifted slightly.
Her breathing faltered, but she didn't respond to that question. After a moment of silence, she said, "So, you really are going to kill him?"
"Um."
"On that stick—"
"I mixed some medicine with snakeberry and secretly applied it to that stick. This medicine is specifically designed to attract silver-ringed venomous snakes."
“Just as I thought,” Lei Yu said in a deep voice, his eyes widening slightly. “I found it strange at the time. That stick was meant to scare away the snake. There’s no reason why the snake would climb up the stick and bite someone.”
Shang Ruyi smiled.
Lei Yu immediately frowned again and said, "But didn't you expect him to notice something was wrong? Even so, you could have found a chance to throw it away. Why did you continue to use that stick? You knew it would attract poisonous snakes."
"..."
"Could it be—"
At this point, she gasped sharply, as if she had just remembered something.
Seeing the fleeting glint in her eyes, Shang Ruyi lowered her head as if feeling somewhat guilty; and seeing her like this, Lei Yu understood even more, and said in a deep voice: "Being bitten by a snake was also part of your plan?"
Shang Ruyi lowered her head, nodded again, and lowered her head even further.
She said, "Mm."
A light seemed to flicker in Lei Yu's eyes: "Why?"
Having come this far, there was no way to avoid it. Besides, it was her own doing, so she had to be responsible for it. Shang Ruyi took a deep breath, finally raised her head to look at Lei Yu, and said in a low voice, "I have three plans. One, of course, is to lure the snake. If he dies because of this, then the crisis in Xiazhou will be resolved, and I can also get rid of a major threat and a powerful enemy for the Great Sheng Dynasty."
"..."
Lei Yu frowned, looking at her with a complicated expression, without saying a word.
Shang Ruyi paused for a moment after seeing her like this, and then continued, "But judging from our previous interactions, Zhu Xie Khan is a very cautious person. My plan may not work. So the second plan is to follow this strategy and let myself be bitten by a snake and fall into a coma."
Lei Yu's eyes turned cold, and he said, "So you think you can just slip away from this whole thing about finding Zuo Gong's suspected tomb?"
Shang Ruyi replied, "Yes."
Lei Yu said, "But how did you know we would go through all this? Zuo Zhen wouldn't have colluded with you beforehand, would she?"
Shang Ruyi shook her head: "Of course not. I've never seen him before."
"and you--"
“I’m just guessing. After the destruction of Wanggang Village, my brother kept asking his master for information, trying to find out the whereabouts of Zuo Gong’s suspected tomb. Although he didn’t get the exact location, he deduced from various sources that the most likely place for Zuo Gong’s suspected tomb was Tian Ding Mountain.”
"..."
"And Zuo Chen'an is a more cautious person than Zhu Xie Khan."
"..."
"If he could put so much thought into choosing the site for his own mausoleum, how could there possibly be no precautions at all in the mausoleum itself?"
Lei Yu immediately understood: "If Zuo Chen'an's tomb is still here, there must be traps and mechanisms inside to prevent tomb robbers. Did you get away from this matter so that they would be ambushed when they went to search for it?"
Shang Ruyi nodded: "That's right."
"..."
"Although I didn't expect that Zuo Gong's suspected tomb would have been buried deep underground long ago, things have come to the same conclusion by different means."
Lei Yu chuckled softly, "Yes."
Although they did not descend into the suspected tomb of Zuo Gong, but rather a tomb passage and burial chamber that Zuo Zhen had dug himself to bury his brother Zuo Heng, they were indeed in danger. In the end, Wang Shaoqiu died there, and they escaped only after experiencing nine deaths and one life.
Isn't it true that different paths lead to the same destination?
Lei Yu stood there quietly. Under the moonlight, her appearance was still stunning, but the coldness in her eyes added an indescribable, heart-wrenching fragility to her beauty.
After pondering for a long time with her head down, she finally raised her head, looked at Shang Ruyi with bright eyes, and smiled, "People often say that a scholar should be looked at with new eyes after three days of separation, but I know that I don't need to do that for you."
"oh."
"Because I've always known you're very smart, a heroine who's no less capable than any man."
"I can't accept that."
"But this time, I have to look at you in a new light."
"Why?"
"because,"
Lei Yu looked at her, his smile unchanged, but in this cold night, surrounded by the rustling of pine trees, yet between them it was like a mountain peak where not a sound could be heard. Instead, it was like a mask. Lei Yu said calmly, "Because from beginning to end, you never thought of telling me what you were going to do."
A single sentence added even more chill to the already quiet night.
A gust of cold wind blew between the two of them at just the right moment.
Shang Ruyi felt a chill in her hands and feet. She subconsciously pinched her fingertips, then looked up at Lei Yu, hesitated for a moment, and said, "No."
"Um?"
"It's not that I never intended to tell you; I did. It's just—"
"But you changed your mind."
"yes."
"When did you change your mind?"
"..."
Shang Ruyi was silent for a while, then slowly raised her head, her bright eyes looking at Lei Yu. She said in a low voice, "When you said that you didn't want to save Xiazhou because it was the territory of the Eastern Turks."
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