Chapter 103: Stealing Someone at Midnight
Wen Yao hadn't expected this, she hadn't expected it at all. She had only guessed that Xin Man had somehow become a loyal servant of Prince Yong, and was being used by him. Prince Yong couldn't openly support such a feared Gu Master, so he had hidden her in the Eastern Palace. Unexpectedly, the situation unfolded in a different way.
"She was forced?" Wen Yao's tongue touched his teeth, and a trace of doubt filled his heart: "What's going on?"
"When she saw me, she was quite happy to go with me." Jiang Qiaosheng said, "I told her that Wen Yao would personally bring her out tonight."
After confirming that the person was in the East Palace, the group headed back home. Not long after, Zhao Xuanxu also returned from the palace with Bai Rang. Although he looked normal, Bai Rang behind him was sweating profusely, looking like he had lost his soul.
Like all elders in the world, Wang Fu couldn't stand Bai Rang's cowardly behavior and slapped him hard on the back: "What a freak you are! I think you are not going to see the emperor, you are going to see a ghost!"
"Almost, almost." Bai Rang said sheepishly. He raised his hand and touched his neck, confirming that his head was still attached. "Master, the emperor is in a coma because he was poisoned. They say that knowing too much about the royal secrets can easily cost you your life. Can I really guarantee my own safety in the future?"
Wang Fu slapped him on the head again, making Bai Rang's head buzz: "You are useless!"
"Yes." Wen Yao looked at Zhao Xuanxu as he approached and said, "Xin Man is indeed in the Eastern Palace. It was Prince Yong who sent her to assassinate her. Now it seems her target wasn't me, but the Prince of Qin."
The Royal Villa's guards were lax, and given the circumstances at the time, Xin Man might have succeeded in killing them. However, upon seeing Wen Yao, Xin Man's attention was instantly distracted, and he was severely defeated by the Xingyi sword, failing to kill either of them.
Zhao Xuanxu stood behind Wen Yao, skillfully stretched out his hand to twiddle her hair, and said, "I'll go with you tonight."
"No." Wen Yao refused flatly, saying, "Xin Man and I have something else to deal with, and I want to solve it with her."
Zhao Xuanxu smoothed her frizzy hair and said, "Okay. Come back early and I'll save some plum blossom soup cakes for you."
It's certainly tough to be awake in the middle of the night and have to fight and rescue someone, but it's wonderful to have someone at home with a light on and a meal ready for you.
Wen Yao was happy and nodded: "Okay!"
A dark and windy night is the perfect time to jump over rooftops.
Wen Yao was quite adept at this task. She strolled into the East Palace and headed straight for the garden's back lake. Following Jiang Qiaosheng's instructions, she unlocked the bamboo grove by the lake and slipped through a hidden door. She treated the steep, narrow steps as nothing, slipping down them without even touching the ground. Upon landing, she looked up, met with a pair of eerily quiet, black eyes.
The eyes were very close to her, so close that Wen Yao could hardly bear it. She took a step back, shrinking her neck, and sighed, "This is weird. Why would they build such a long staircase?"
Are you expecting to come down and have mouth-to-mouth sex with the person tied up here?
Xin Man was standing opposite her. Upon hearing this, he swung his arms, and the heavy iron chains on his limbs and even his neck all rattled.
She was tied to a large stone pillar, which was very close to the steps, only two steps away. The dungeon at the bottom of the lake was also very small. There was a toilet in the compartment, a bed outside, and a table with a few plates of cold food on it. There was nothing else.
Xin Man threw the chain aside and said with a hint of complaint, "She said you would come, but you're so slow. I'm almost going to sleep."
Wen Yao walked straight to the table and picked up his chopsticks to stir. "The food is not bad. I gave you a good meal, but you only gave you this kind of environment. What are you and Prince Yong doing?"
"It wasn't like that before. He locked me up after we broke up." The food on the table remained untouched. Xin Man's eyes were fixed on Wen Yao, and he turned around to follow her movements. He took the initiative to speak, "He captured my sweetheart, and I'm helping him because I want to save him."
Wen Yao put down his chopsticks and turned his head. "Sweetheart? The person you like? Why did Prince Yong arrest him? Did he get rescued?"
After a series of questions, Wen Yao's expression did not relax, and doubts were woven into his heart.
Xin Man shook her head, the chain around her neck rattling again, making her look a bit like a dog tethered to a stake. "He's from the Central Plains, and I accompanied him here to take the exam. A while ago, he was arrested for causing trouble at the Emperor's gate. I went home and didn't see him, so I went to the prison to rescue him, and was recognized by Prince Yong's men."
The world is so small. Xin Man’s sweetheart turned out to be one of the candidates who had caused trouble at Fengming Gate.
Wen Yao stood two steps away and watched her for a while, then walked forward, drew his sword, and cut the chains that bound Xin Man into pieces like cutting tofu.
Clearly, King Yong had sent Xin Man, but he was also extremely wary of her. The chains binding her were incredibly thick, nearly as thick as a man's calf. They pressed against Xin Man's wrists, ankles, and even neck, leaving circles of deep purple bruises that rubbed bloody.
But Xin Man seemed to be completely oblivious. After her arms and legs were free again, she stretched her neck and waved her hand. A giant scorpion, its microneedles erect, scurried out from the corners of the room, crawled along Xin Man's trouser legs, and climbed up her back, where it lay still in her hair.
"Even now, you're still helping him." Wen Yao raised an eyebrow. "Besides, those candidates who were previously selected were not imprisoned at all. They were released after being detained for a short while. The law does not punish the masses. Prince Yong is deceiving you."
"Of course there's more to it than that."
"If I help Prince Yong kill his brother, he'll make my sweetheart a high-ranking official." Xin Man said expressionlessly, "It's not easy for people in the Central Plains to study. When he was in Nanzhao, my sweetheart spent ages writing in the bamboo hut every day, reading so many books that his hands were covered in chilblains. Even so, he could only hold a minor position. With just one word from Prince Yong, he can stay in Bianliang and live the life he wants."
Wen Yao was amazed after hearing this and said, "Are you going to kill the King of Qin because of this?"
"Yes." Xin Man took it for granted. "I'll marry him, worship the mountain god, and stay together forever until we die and return to the mountains. Naturally, I have to treat him well. If he doesn't want to stay in Nanzhao, I won't stop being a priest and accompany him out. If killing a prince can make him a high official, I'll kill that person and pave the way for him."
"If you love him so much, why do you want to leave with me now and break up with Prince Yong?"
Xin Man glanced at her and corrected her, "I loved him before, but not anymore. The last time I came back from Tangshan, I killed him."
The development of the story is not surprising.
Wen Yao: “Ah?”
"The mountain god hates those who break their oaths, and so do I." Xin Man's voice was calm and sinister. "Outsiders don't keep their word. He swore to the mountain god that he would spend his life with me, but when he arrived in Bianliang, he forgot and instead made a marriage contract with his teacher's daughter. The woman was unaware of this and had no sin, so I let her go. But he had the audacity to deceive me and betray the mountain god, and he will die."
She circled her hand around the scorpion's back, sneered, and said, without a trace of the friendship she once had, "I'll chop him into small pieces and feed them to the wild snakes in the mountains."
Wen Yao quickly absorbed all of Xin Man's thoughts, from the moment they married to the moment she murdered her husband. According to Tianshui law, murder meant death. But according to the primitive, bloodthirsty ideologies of the Nanzhao drug den, there was nothing wrong with Xin Man killing the man who had betrayed her.
Wen Yao didn't say anything. She just looked at the scorpion with its tail raised towards her and waved to Xin Man to hurry up.
Xin Man pursed his lips, lowered his head and took a step forward.
As soon as she moved, Wen Yao immediately realized how she had been captured by King Yong. As a warrior skilled in the use of poison and possessing a deep inner fear, Xin Man's gait was vastly different from the last time they'd met her. Not only was she walking extremely slowly, but her entire body was trembling uncontrollably from her ankles to her calves.
Wen Yao crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head, her black hair cascading down her chest as she moved. "What's wrong with your foot?"
Xin Man opened his mouth to speak, but his face turned pale, and he gasped softly, looking a little painful.
Wen Yao crouched down, ignoring the scorpion's sharp tail sting as it charged, and reached out to examine Xin Man's ankle. Between the fabric of the shoe and sock, she saw a hint of metallic sheen. Two thin, nail-sized awls had been hammered into the cracks between Xin Man's ankle bones.
Wen Yao's eyelids jumped immediately: "How long?"
"I don't know." Xin Man lowered his eyes to look at Wen Yao's soft hair and said, "Someone has sent food here twenty times."
That means it's been at least six days. Given the conditions in this dungeon, the wound must have become festering and inflamed.
Wen Yao raised his head and glanced at Xin Man.
Her face looked really ugly... If it weren't for her ugly face, just by listening to the tone of her voice, Wen Yao would have thought that Xin Man had been refining the Gu to the point where she didn't feel any pain anymore.
"You're amazing. You can still walk and stand like this." She tiptoed and called for a direction. With her back to Xin Man, she urged, "Come up. I'll take you first."
Xin Man didn't move.
"Let me tell you something. Prince Yong is in charge of Bianliang City right now. If you dare to release bugs to bite me, and we get caught along the way, who knows who will suffer the most." Wen Yao said seriously, "No bugs allowed. Alright, come up quickly."
Xin Man naturally knew Wen Yao's exceptional lightness skills; she had personally experienced them. Back then, to avenge Zoya, she'd chased Wen Yao all the way out of the village, having been thrown off several times by her, practically walking away. But this was the first time she'd seen him, hunched over her back, the two of them gliding gracefully through the still night.
The king scorpion remained motionless in her arms. Xin Man felt the long-lost wind of freedom and clarity blowing towards him, and suddenly asked, "What do you want me to help you with?"
She is not stupid. Based on her past conflicts with Wen Yao and the deep hatred between them, it would be strange that Wen Yao would come to save her for no reason.
"The girl who came to see you today." Wen Yao held Xin Man's knees with a steady hand, breathing evenly, and slid a long distance on the eaves with a tap of his toes. "She's poisoned, and you need to plant blood in her body to kill the poison."
Xin Man didn't know the secrets of the Ghost Lantern, but she wasn't interested in the principle of using Gu to detoxify. After Wen Yao said this, she remembered the man who had come in during the day, so she nodded and said, "Okay. But the Blood Killing Gu is difficult to raise. Even if I use my own blood, it will take at least half a year for it to mature."
"Okay." Wen Yao immediately decided that after autumn, she and Zhao Xuanxu would go to the Western Dynasty to see Jinyun off to get married, and let Jiang Qiaosheng and Xue Ke stay in Bianliang honestly.
After crossing another eaves, she landed lightly in the courtyard of Prince Yan's mansion, Xin Man on her back. Several people stood across from them. Zhao Xuanxu stood under an old tree, lantern and food box in hand. Jiang Qiaosheng yawned, but was dragged out of bed by the uncontrollably excited Xue Ke, who was now standing there waiting for someone in the middle of the night.
Wen Yao didn't let Xin Man get off. Without even looking up, she called out, "Someone, go get Bai Rang's wooden wheelchair and move it over here. Thank you so much."
As soon as she finished speaking, several figures flashed in the darkness. Not long after, a secret guard came over carrying a wooden wheelchair.
Wen Yao walked forward, turned around, bent his knees and put Xin Man down.
Jiang Qiaosheng perked up a bit, looking Xin Man up and down, his gaze lingering below her knees. He asked, "Yaoyao, why did you break her legs? Was she trying to run away?"
"It wasn't me who did it. It was Zhao Xuanfeng who beat me up. That fake Buddha of his is so vulgar." Wen Yao patted the wheelchair, looked down at Xin Man, and said fiercely, "You'll live here with Wang Fu and his apprentice, and I'll treat your foot while you're at it. Once the poison is cured, you can go wherever you want. Before that, you can't leave the Prince of Yan's Mansion, or I'll really break your legs."
Xin Man raised his head and looked at her in surprise, then nodded after a while.
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