Futile Devices Scans

Sun Ye, along with several hundred elite soldiers behind him, chased all the way until nightfall, yet they still found no trace of Mu Xueshi.

Sun Ye guessed that Mu Xueshi had already left the capital, or perhaps had never set out from the Ice-Fire Cave at all. If he had left the capital, that would be best. If he had not departed from the cave, it was still better than being intercepted midway.

The horse beneath Sun Ye was clearly growing exhausted. He glanced back—the few elite soldiers behind him still wore expressionless faces, as if they did not even know what fatigue was. Looking at their expressions, Sun Ye couldn’t help but feel they resembled people who had cultivated some kind of demonic martial art—like walking corpses.

Sun Ye guided his horse to a pond, letting it drink and rest briefly before continuing. Otherwise, even if he could endure it, the horse certainly could not.

After drinking some water himself and filling his waterskin, he looked around. The place was desolate, with only a single path. Earlier, he had deliberately checked the ground and noticed a line of hoofprints—he wasn’t sure if they belonged to Su Ruhan’s horse. But even if they didn’t, at least it confirmed that no pursuers had come along this route.

He stood up and walked toward his horse.

After traveling a bit further, Sun Ye began to feel something wrong with his body. Pressing his waist, he felt a dull pain. Not long after, the horse beneath him suddenly stumbled and collapsed heavily to the ground.

Sun Ye quickly leapt off. The horse appeared to go mad, rolling wildly on the ground. After a few convulsions, it stopped moving entirely.

The same thing happened to the other horses ridden by the elite soldiers—they fell one after another. What terrified Sun Ye most was that some of the soldiers themselves began to show abnormalities. Their already lifeless faces turned ghastly pale. Some even let out strange, agonized howls.

A chill ran down Sun Ye’s spine. He glanced at the waterskin at his waist and immediately understood the cause.

The sound of galloping hooves began to echo from behind, growing clearer and closer. Narrowing his eyes slightly, Sun Ye looked into the distance. His vision was beginning to blur, but he could still tell—the pursuers had arrived.

He took out a small bottle from his robe, poured out two pills, and swallowed them. The pills could cure many poisons—though he didn’t know whether they would work on the poison in his body. There was no time to think. He plunged forward on foot through grass over a meter tall, moving at great speed.

No matter what, he had to leave this place first. The pursuers were close—he had to do everything possible to reach the canyon before they did. At the very least, if he encountered Su Ruhan and Mu Xueshi resting somewhere along the way, he could urge them to keep moving. Best of all would be if they had already left.

As he ran, he heard the clashing of weapons behind him. Turning his head slightly, he saw through the grass that the pursuing force was not very large. Although more than half of his own men had been poisoned, the remaining ones could still hold them off for a while.

It seemed the enemy was also unsure of Mu Xueshi’s exact location. A portion of them had come after Sun Ye, while the larger group must have gone after the Third Prince. If their true goal was to capture the Third Prince, then luring out Mu Xueshi as leverage would serve them perfectly.

Sun Ye could only pray that Mu Xueshi had already left. According to their plan, they were supposed to depart today. If nothing had gone wrong, Mu Xueshi should have already been far from the capital by now.

Seeing no one nearby, Sun Ye leapt up into the tallest tree and scanned the surroundings. As he looked, he suddenly noticed a small moving black dot in the distance, heading in this direction.

His heart sank.

There was only one set of hoofprints on the road—at this time, who else could be coming back?

He immediately jumped down and dashed toward that direction at full speed. The pursuers were still far behind, seemingly locked in combat. Hopefully, his men could eliminate them—so that even if he met misfortune, the corpses along the way would at least warn others of danger ahead.

Sun Ye moved like the wind, sweat soaking his face, still hoping he had simply misseen things. His strength was clearly not what it used to be—the poison in his body had not been fully neutralized.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced his shoulder. He sucked in a breath and looked—an arrow had struck his left shoulder.

Not good… had he been discovered?

Clutching his shoulder with one hand, he continued moving while scanning his surroundings. Then he sensed a shadow above. Reacting swiftly, he dodged the attack—but more shadows followed. By the time he stopped, over a dozen black-clad figures had surrounded him.

A fight broke out almost instantly.

Individually, none of them were a match for Sun Ye. But attacking together—and with Sun Ye already injured—they gradually began to overwhelm him. He searched for an opening to escape, but in a moment of distraction, he failed to avoid a sword strike from behind. Twisting his body, he kicked one attacker several meters away, but could not break free from the encirclement.

He felt the blade pierce into his ribs—not too deep. Seizing the moment, he bent his body and collapsed to the ground, feigning unconsciousness.

The black-clad figures instinctively paused.

In that instant of lowered guard, Sun Ye shot out like a shadow between two of them—and vanished into the grass.

Sun Ye suddenly felt his vision flicker between clarity and blur. Then, a cold laugh rang sharply in his ears.

A sharp pain struck his chest. He abruptly realized that another arrow had pierced him—this one driven all the way through.

What followed was even more brutal. Sun Ye sensed someone approaching from a distance, drawing closer step by step, while more and more arrows lodged into his body. He knew there was no chance of survival left. Most likely, he would die here in the grass tonight, like a human pincushion.

Suddenly, the figure that had been laughing wildly swayed and collapsed heavily to the ground.

Another person, dressed in coarse cloth and with an indistinct face, lifted Sun Ye from the ground and carried him onto a horse.

All along this path, every pursuer—and the elite soldiers Sun Ye had brought with him—now lay on the ground, their lips purple, their eyes bulging outward.

The person who placed Sun Ye on the horse tossed his water flask onto the middle of the road. Two packets of antidote were also thrown onto the nearby grass. Then, his figure vanished completely.

Su Ruhan and Mu Xueshi were hurrying back at full speed. Before long, they came upon a scene littered with corpses.

Although it was already pitch dark, Su Ruhan immediately spotted the flask on the ground, along with the two packets of antidote. He picked up the flask and examined it closely—it was a vessel from the imperial palace. If he guessed correctly, it must have belonged to Sun Ye. Then he looked at the antidote, opened one of the paper packets, and caught a whiff of a foul, fishy stench.

“Master, what’s going on here?” Mu Xueshi stood there blankly, staring at the scene before him.

Su Ruhan, however, handed one packet of antidote to Mu Xueshi and said, “Swallow it.”

Mu Xueshi took the packet in confusion. As soon as he brought it near his nose, he smelled the stench and quickly pushed it back. “I’m not eating that—it stinks!”

“No. You must take it.” Su Ruhan’s tone turned commanding. “This area has been poisoned with gu toxin. If you don’t take it, you won’t make it back alive.”

Hearing this, Mu Xueshi reluctantly took the packet again. Looking at the small granules inside, he had no idea what they were. Gu poison was something all too familiar to him—he still vividly remembered how those tiny creatures had once tormented him to the brink of death. The mere thought of that pain made him shudder. Pinching his nose, he swallowed the medicine in one gulp.

“Master, give me water—otherwise I’m going to throw up!” Mu Xueshi stuck out his tongue and reached for the flask in Su Ruhan’s hand.

Su Ruhan tossed that flask aside and took out his own from his bundle, handing it over.

Only then did Mu Xueshi feel a bit better.

Surveying the surroundings, Su Ruhan had already pieced together most of what had happened. Sun Ye must have drunk poisoned water along the way and met with disaster. As for this gu poison—it was clearly meant to save lives, because Su Ruhan noticed that the Lubei soldiers who died later had all succumbed to gu poison.

But where had Sun Ye gone? Su Ruhan rode around the area searching, yet found no trace of him. A hint of worry crept into his heart.

“Master, these are all Lubei soldiers. They must have been poisoned while chasing us,” Mu Xueshi said with some certainty.

Su Ruhan was somewhat pleased that Mu Xueshi could recognize Lubei soldiers, though his conclusion wasn’t entirely correct. Not all of them were Lubei troops—although they wore Lubei uniforms, there were clear signs of internal fighting among them. Moreover, some of the elite soldiers had bodies that were distinctly abnormal. They had been poisoned twice, yet had not died.

Su Ruhan already understood—there would likely be danger ahead. And Sun Ye must have been sent by the Third Prince to deliver a message. The Third Prince had probably drawn another group of enemies elsewhere, since there were not many pursuers here, nor any traces of a major battle involving skilled fighters.

……

As for the Third Prince, he had already reached another entrance to the Ice-Fire Cave.

Alone, with hundreds of pursuers behind him, arrows continued to rain down. His shoulder had been grazed, but the wound was minor. For now, he was relatively safe—those pursuers would not act rashly as long as he remained mounted. Once he entered the Ice-Fire Cave, it would be far more difficult for them to strike.

This entrance was wide enough for dozens of people to pass through at once. After the Third Prince entered, nearly half of the soldiers surged in after him. His figure quickly vanished into the cave. The soldiers spread out to search, but to proceed cautiously, they first sent one man ahead to scout while the rest followed carefully.

“If there’s anyone inside, bring them out alive. If not, investigate everything thoroughly.”

Upon receiving the order, the soldiers began searching. This was not a single cave, but a network of interconnected caverns. As they wandered deeper, they became increasingly disoriented. The interior grew darker and darker. Some soldiers lit torches and groped their way forward.

Suddenly, one soldier shouted, “Look! There seems to be someone over there!”

His voice echoed sharply through the cave. Immediately, more than a dozen others began asking, “Where? Where?”

“Over there!” one soldier pointed.

Soon, most of them saw it—a shadowy figure not far away, curled up in a corner. The hair was long, the face indistinct, but the body seemed to be trembling.

One soldier cautiously approached while the others remained still, carefully watching the ground for traps. Fortunately, nothing happened as he advanced. Just as he reached out to grab the figure, he suddenly slammed into something invisible.

Only then did he realize there was a wall in front of the figure—transparent and colorless, almost impossible to detect unless examined closely. It was a clear stone door.

He pushed with force and heard a faint sound, but when he looked again, the gap he had opened was no wider than a finger. He immediately called over dozens of nearby soldiers to help push it open.

However, before they could even reach it, the ground beneath them suddenly gave way and collapsed.

Moments later, another stone layer slid out from the sides and sealed the pit, as if nothing had happened. Then, the next group of unsuspecting soldiers who wandered there met the same fate.

The stone layer beneath had been hollow—capable of bearing the weight of at most two people. Liehuo and Hanbing disliked being disturbed, so they had set up this mechanism. The other entrance was even more restrictive—only wide enough for a single horse to pass through.

Thus, when the Third Prince reached the other entrance, only a handful of people stood before him. Shangchuan Hong stood at the center, smiling faintly at him.

The Third Prince had expected someone to find the other entrance—but he had not expected it to be Shangchuan Hong.

Then where was Hao Lin? Could it be that the people who had been following him all along were not the same group that had withdrawn earlier?

In the next moment, the Third Prince noticed that Shangchuan Hong was wearing Hao Lin’s clothes. Seeing the few soldiers behind him, the doubts in his heart were finally resolved.

“Third Prince, I originally had no intention of chasing Mu Xueshi. Why did you have to reveal your hiding place to me? Besides, I didn’t even know that Mu Xueshi was leaving today. Yet you insisted on sending Sun Ye to tip me off—making it impossible for my men not to pursue.”

The Third Prince let out a cold laugh. “Reveal it? I was merely going on my way—you were the ones who insisted on chasing. As for Xueshi, he is mine. Even if you hadn’t pursued him, I would still have sent people to protect him.”

Hearing the words “he is mine,” Shangchuan Hong felt as if countless needles were stabbing into his heart. With a mocking smile, he said, “Indeed. If he weren’t yours, Your Highness wouldn’t have been so anxious that you even mistook Hao Lin for someone else.”

The moment those words fell, Shangchuan Hong made his move. The Third Prince hadn’t expected him to strike so quickly. But whether sooner or later, a fight was inevitable—it might as well end this obsession of his once and for all.

The Third Prince’s martial skills were superior, so in fewer than thirty exchanges, Shangchuan Hong was already at a disadvantage. The Third Prince realized that their intentions in combat were entirely different—he fought to repel Shangchuan Hong, while Shangchuan Hong’s every move was vicious, aimed solely at injuring him.

Just you… think you can kill me?

A sharp glint flashed in the Third Prince’s eyes. His figure shifted, appearing behind Shangchuan Hong. With a backward strike of his elbow, he hit the man squarely in the back. Then, taking advantage of his weakness, he flicked his hand and knocked the sword from Shangchuan Hong’s grip.

By the time Shangchuan Hong reacted, his body was already firmly restrained.

“Don’t worry—I won’t kill you just yet,” the Third Prince murmured near his ear.

Once Shangchuan Hong was restrained, the soldiers behind him rushed forward. More than a dozen charged at once, only to fall to the ground in an instant like scattered leaves.

At that moment, another soldier burst in, shouting excitedly, “State Preceptor! That Young Master Xue has already been captured!”

The Third Prince’s heart tightened abruptly. At the same time, Shangchuan Hong struck back with lightning speed, plunging a short dagger—barely a finger’s length—into the Third Prince’s abdomen. Not only that, he pulled it out immediately and sheathed it, preparing to retreat.

Only then did the Third Prince finally understand why Shangchuan Hong had pursued him all this way—it was for a few drops of his blood. He had almost forgotten that he himself had once placed such a cruel poison on Mu Xueshi.

How utterly ridiculous…

Who is the fool here—Shangchuan Hong, or myself?

“Such deep devotion between master and servant…” the Third Prince sneered, ignoring the wound in his abdomen as he charged straight at Shangchuan Hong.

The two engaged again. This time, the Third Prince truly fought with ruthless intent. Not only did his strength not falter, but every move was lethal, forcing Shangchuan Hong to retreat step by step. Shangchuan Hong, however, seized every opportunity to strike at the Third Prince’s wounded abdomen. Before long, streaks of blood stained the ground.

The Third Prince’s gaze darkened, his expression growing increasingly sinister. With a flick of his sword, he hooked down the dagger at Shangchuan Hong’s waist and pinned it beneath his foot.

Shangchuan Hong froze for a moment, then tried to retrieve it—but the Third Prince kicked him hard, forcing him onto one knee.

“You want this dagger? Fine. Crawl to my feet and call me ‘Master.’”

How could Shangchuan Hong endure such humiliation? He grabbed the Third Prince’s ankle fiercely, attempting to force him to loosen his grip with internal energy. The Third Prince responded by kicking him down completely with his other foot, then struck his face with the scabbard at his waist. Shangchuan Hong’s vision went black, his body unable to resist at all.

Yet the Third Prince showed no mercy. His attacks were brutally relentless. Bones cracked repeatedly—there was not a single part of Shangchuan Hong’s body left uninjured. Several times he struggled back to consciousness, only to faint again instantly.

Even so, Shangchuan Hong’s hand clutching the Third Prince’s ankle never loosened.

With a cold smile, the Third Prince raised his sword high and swung down toward that arm—but midway through, he heard a familiar voice.

“Master, hurry!”

The sword slipped from his hand and clanged sharply against the ground.

Shangchuan Hong opened his eyes. Seeing the hesitation in the Third Prince, he immediately seized the chance—pulling out a pouch of mist powder from his sleeve and scattering it into the air.

At the same moment, he realized the Third Prince’s foot was no longer there. Without time to think further, he snatched up the dagger from the ground and disappeared into the vast darkness of the night.

Mu Xueshi practically tumbled off the horse, barely able to stand. The deeper he went, the stronger the scent of blood became. His legs trembled uncontrollably, his mind completely blank.

At the cave entrance lay over a dozen corpses—not only there, but scattered through the grass as well. Seeing the bodies strewn in all directions, Mu Xueshi felt as if all the blood in his body were flowing backward.

By the moonlight, he spotted the Third Prince’s sword. He recognized it immediately—but the Third Prince himself was nowhere to be found. Looking around at the bloodstains everywhere, Mu Xueshi lost control and broke down in loud sobs.

As he cried, he searched among the fallen bodies. Each time he found one that wasn’t the Third Prince, his crying would briefly stop—only to start again before checking the next body. In this way, he seemed to mourn each one before turning them over, leaving Su Ruhan beside him both helpless and amused.

At last, when he failed to find the Third Prince among them, a small sense of relief crept into his heart. Turning toward the cave, he suddenly thought that perhaps the Third Prince was inside. He quickly got up and ran into the cave.

But after searching every chamber, there was still no sign of him. Just as Mu Xueshi was about to shout, he saw someone standing at the entrance.

……

“What are you looking for?” the Third Prince asked quietly, gazing at Mu Xueshi.

At that moment, the Third Prince had already managed to stop the bleeding from his wound and had changed into clean clothes. He stood before Mu Xueshi as elegant and composed as ever, a long-lost smile appearing on his face.

Previous

Main

Next