Fu Xuan immediately led the Yulin Guards in protecting Emperor Jianhong as they retreated farther inside. Great Sir stepped forward and leaped through the air, deliberately bringing the tip of the Red Dragon King closer to his face. “Very well. This old man would like to see how you intend to defeat me.”
His body slowly rose into the air. White clouds churned overhead while sand and stones flew across the ground, as though some invisible force were stirring Heaven and earth.
“Once one enters the Martial King Stage, Heaven and earth themselves change! Below Martial King, cultivation level may not mean everything. Above Martial King, there are still opportunities to kill someone above one’s level. But Martial King itself is a dividing line. Above and below it are worlds apart!”
As he spoke, Great Sir raised his palm and brought it down toward Pei Yuan Jin’s head.
That palm seemed to contain the vastness of the sky and the weight of Mount Tai. Even while it was still three chi above Pei Yuan Jin’s head, its overwhelming momentum already seemed to leave him nowhere to escape.
Pei Yuan Jin’s sleeves whipped violently in the wind. The gale blowing directly into his face gradually disheveled his hair, yet his expression never changed. His eyes remained like the surface of a lake, calm and cold as he stared at the enormous palm that seemed ready to blot out the sky.
The Red Dragon King gave a soft, eager hum in his hand. Pei Yuan Jin turned his wrist, and the true qi within him blazed like a raging fire, igniting his boundless fighting spirit along with it.
At that moment, forget a Martial King standing before him—even if it were a Martial God, he would still dare meet them sword in hand!
The Red Dragon King rose against the wind. Sword qi surged like a rainbow as Pei Yuan Jin swung, striking directly into the center of the slowly descending palm.
A faint ripple appeared in Great Sir’s palm, spreading like a wave across water. With effortless leverage, it dispersed the sword qi, then shifted slightly and deflected the Red Dragon King aside before descending with thunderous force onto the top of Pei Yuan Jin’s head—
and giving him a light pat.
The force was heavy enough to weigh a thousand jin, instantly shattering Pei Yuan Jin’s crown, yet light as a feather, leaving him completely unharmed.
His long black hair spilled loose. Several strands drifted across his face, obscuring eyes as sharp as sword blades.
Great Sir looked at him calmly. “For your father’s sake, withdraw.”
Pei Yuan Jin raised his head. The fierce wind swept the hair from his eyes. “Heh. Even now, you still intend to hide your true martial arts?”
Great Sir froze.
Before he could speak, Pei Yuan Jin’s eyes turned blood-red. His entire body seemed to ignite, the flames spreading from his palm all the way into the Red Dragon King. Man and sword appeared to merge into a single mass of scorching fire, blazing as brilliantly as the midday sun and almost impossible to look at directly.
“The Extreme Yang Sacred Body?” Great Sir frowned slightly and started to retreat.
The sword had already descended toward his head.
It tore through layer after layer of obstructing spiritual energy and struck the lucky-child mask covering his face.
The true qi protecting the front of the mask was severed for an instant.
The mask split with a crack, revealing Great Sir’s startled face.
In the next moment, Great Sir drew his arms in across his chest and rose. The phantom of an enormous hammer wreathed in seven-colored light appeared around his body. The hammer obscured the sunlight, and the brilliance of the heavens themselves seemed to radiate from him.
“So what if it is!”
With that shout, the enormous hammer descended from the sky and smashed viciously toward Pei Yuan Jin.
Great Sir’s hammer seemed to have been forged directly from the spiritual energy of Heaven and earth, gathering the power of the world itself. Even the Weight-Sensing Divine Soil spread inside the palace gates surged into the air, joining his power and forming a roaring whirlwind around him.
Compared with his earlier palm strike, this attack was more than a hundred times stronger!
Yet Pei Yuan Jin was neither dazzled nor intimidated by the magnificence of the hammer. Completely composed, he raised the Red Dragon King before him to block. The flames surrounding his body burned even more fiercely, and the instant blade and hammer collided, the Red Dragon King let out a long draconic cry.
The sound rolled outward in waves, striking everyone within ten li.
Fu Xuan and the others watching nearby hurriedly circulated their cultivation.
Yu Shuang Xi was still all right, but Fu Xuan opened his mouth and spat out blood. The other Yulin Guards fared even worse; only a handful were still standing. Emperor Jianhong, on the other hand, merely looked startled and remained completely vigorous.
“Your Majesty?”
Meeting Fu Xuan’s worried gaze, Emperor Jianhong waved a hand to indicate that he was unharmed.
The emperor possessed everything beneath Heaven. Naturally, he would be carrying a spiritual artifact capable of protecting him. Once Fu Xuan realized this, he stopped asking.
On the other side, the giant hammer manifested by Great Sir gradually suppressed the flames. The spiritual energy surrounding Pei Yuan Jin was being stripped away, forcing him to sustain himself entirely on true qi, and eventually he fell into a disadvantage.
But his sword intent had not weakened.
That unstoppable momentum still drove straight ahead.
The Red Dragon King roared again. Pei Yuan Jin forcibly withdrew the sword, braced himself with his left shoulder, and swung once more with his right—
To cleave the heavens!
Red flames surged several zhang outward, forcibly cutting a vacuum through the surrounding spiritual energy and driving Great Sir back by one chi. Pei Yuan Jin seized the opportunity to land. Turning his wrist, he sent a blade of sword qi toward Emperor Jianhong.
It struck directly into the plaque bearing the words “Yanying Hall,” carving a deep, charred gash across it.
Before Great Sir could attack again, Pei Yuan Jin cleanly withdrew his sword and stepped out of the battle. “Heavenly Hammer Song Qi Yun, first disciple of the master of the Heaven-Earth Mirror. Great Sir Song certainly lives up to his reputation.”
Song Qi Yun floated lightly to the ground as the seven-colored radiance around him faded. “As expected of Palace Master Pei’s son. The younger generation is truly formidable!”
For an Artifact Path practitioner, the Manifestation Stage was equivalent to the Martial King Stage of the martial path. Song Qi Yun had been forced by Pei Yuan Jin, who stood an entire major realm below him, not only to lose his mask but also to reveal his signature technique. In terms of face, he had already lost.
Elio’s Notes: The Artifact Path is a cultivation system distinct from the martial path. Its Manifestation Stage is equivalent to the martial path’s Martial King Stage.
Song Qi Yun asked, “But how did you realize that what I cultivate is not the martial path?”
Among all cultivation systems beneath Heaven, the martial path stood supreme.
For one thing, it possessed the greatest variety of techniques. For another, compared with other systems, it was relatively easier to cultivate. Song Qi Yun had studied under Shi Yi Ming, master of the Heaven-Earth Mirror, and was an orthodox Artifact Path practitioner. Yet after imitating a Martial King for so many years with almost perfect accuracy, this was the first time anyone had exposed him.
Pei Yuan Jin said, “You have no martial-path pressure.”
Realm suppression was one of the martial path’s defining characteristics.
Every major realm carried a pressure that could suppress martial artists below it. That pressure was not merely an application of true qi, but also a response on the level of one’s state of mind. Song Qi Yun could manipulate spiritual energy to imitate true qi, but he could not reproduce that mental resonance.
Song Qi Yun had not expected Pei Yuan Jin to remain calm enough while facing him to notice such a minute detail. He could not help reassessing the heir of the Immortal Treasury Palace.
Pei Yuan Jin calmly endured his scrutiny. “I challenged you two years too early.”
Meaning that two years from now, he might not lose.
Song Qi Yun showed neither pleasure nor anger. “For someone at the Dao-Entry Stage to force me to use the Artifact Path’s ultimate techniques is indeed impressive. But I will say the same thing again: the Martial King Stage of the martial path and the Manifestation Stage of the Artifact Path are both boundaries. Cross that boundary first. Only then will you be qualified to speak of victory and defeat. I’ll be waiting.”
The corner of Pei Yuan Jin’s mouth curved slightly. “Today’s battle was thoroughly satisfying. Unfortunately, Great Sir Song cannot remain stationed in the imperial palace forever.”
He glanced toward the sword mark he had carved into the plaque of Yanying Hall, then cupped his hands toward the emperor, whose face had turned black and purple with rage.
“A momentary slip. Since Fu Xi Yan has entered the Ministry of Justice, I must trouble Your Majesty to take good care of him. Farewell.”
He put away the Red Dragon King. His loosened black hair fell smoothly down his back as he departed at an unhurried pace.
Emperor Jianhong stared after him, his eyes red with fury. “He is warning Us!”
Song Qi Yun remained silent.
According to his intelligence, this Northern Zhou emperor secretly possessed a mysterious private force, every member of which had strength at the Mortal-Shedding Stage or above. Song Qi Yun had actually had an opportunity to block Pei Yuan Jin’s sword strike just now, but deliberately chose not to because he wanted to see that private force for himself.
Unfortunately, even at such a life-or-death moment, not one member had appeared.
Either Emperor Jianhong had hidden them extraordinarily well—or they did not exist at all.
Song Qi Yun looked at the scattered Weight-Sensing Divine Soil on the ground. “I’ll put it back.”
Emperor Jianhong said, “Great Sir’s identity has been exposed. Will that cause difficulties?”
“Pei Yuan Jin is not someone who talks excessively. What matters is whether Your Majesty can control the eyes and ears inside this palace.” Song Qi Yun pulled another identical lucky-child mask from inside his robes. With a light wave of his hand, he gathered the airborne Weight-Sensing Divine Soil and drifted away with it.
Emperor Jianhong looked toward Fu Xuan.
Fu Xuan hurriedly said, “Your Majesty may rest assured. Everyone stationed inside and outside Yanying Hall today is one of my trusted men. No one will speak of what happened.”
Emperor Jianhong said darkly, “Whether they speak or not is no longer important.”
He sighed and turned toward Yu Shuang Xi. “Notify the Ministry of Justice immediately. Confine Fu Xi Yan alone and permit no one to approach him until this case is concluded!”
Under the “escort” of the Yulin Guards, Pei Yuan Jin swaggered openly out of the palace gates and entered his carriage.
The carriage slowly began moving.
Pei Yuan Jin pressed a hand to his chest.
With a sudden urk, he spat out a mouthful of blood.
Yu Su Huan’s expression changed dramatically, and she hurriedly supported him. “How were you injured?”
Pei Yuan Jin said, “Song Qi Yun is already a half-step Weapon Venerable.”
For an Artifact Path practitioner, Weapon Venerable was equivalent to Martial God on the martial path. A half-step Weapon Venerable had practically touched the highest reaches of martial cultivation attainable in this world.
“But he was still hiding his true strength, so he held back. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten away with only spitting up that mouthful of blood.”
Song Qi Yun had hidden himself far too deeply. Had Pei Yuan Jin not split his mask with that sword strike, Song Qi Yun probably would have continued pretending to be a Martial King to conceal his identity.
Yu Su Huan said, “The master of the Heaven-Earth Mirror has only two disciples in total. Tang Gong was accepted because of Willowwood Manor’s reputation for righteousness, but his aptitude was too poor for the Artifact Path, so he followed the ordinary martial path instead. Song Qi Yun is the true inheritor. Great Sir Song has been famous for nearly forty years. It is not surprising that he has reached half-step Weapon Venerable.”
She continued worriedly, “Breaking into the imperial palace this time was far too dangerous. Song Qi Yun has never concerned himself with mundane affairs. If he came out of seclusion, it was most likely at the request of either the master of the Heaven-Earth Mirror or Mo Xiao Ran. If either of those two had also been inside the palace, you might not have escaped unharmed. If the Immortal Treasury Palace loses you, it loses its future. Given Mo Xiao Ran’s cunning and ruthlessness, he might well take that risk.”
Pei Yuan Jin answered something entirely different. “I have remained at peak Dao-Entry Stage for too long.”
Yu Su Huan froze. “Then should we speak with Count Yongfeng and arrange for you and Fu Xi Yan to marry as soon as possible?”
Ever since Shou Nan Shan had bluntly exposed the nature of their relationship, she had simply gone along with it and begun openly discussing the matter instead of hinting around it.
Pei Yuan Jin shook his head. “I have remained at this realm not merely because of that. My state of mind is also not yet ready to open the path to Martial King.”
Yu Su Huan did not practice martial arts, so naturally she could not understand the subtleties involved.
Pei Yuan Jin explained, “True Origin, Bone Forging, Vajra, and Mortal-Shedding are all about tempering the body. Dao-Entry is where cultivation of the state of mind truly begins. My father placed the Immortal Treasury Palace in my hands because he wanted me to hone my state of mind by rooting out abuses and cleansing them at their source.”
Yu Su Huan thought for a moment. “Could it be that the Palace Master already knew what Zhao Tong Qu was doing?”
Perhaps… he had not merely known, but had even quietly encouraged the situation, allowing Zhao Tong Qu to become nothing more than a whetstone for his own son’s cultivation of the mind.
Pei Yuan Jin did not answer.
What he cultivated was an invincible sword path founded upon “sweeping aside all before him” and “advancing without hesitation,” so his temperament was naturally resolute.
The reason Fu Xi Yan had caught his attention in the first place was precisely because, beneath his soft exterior, he had his own calculations and convictions. He was not some ordinary man who meekly obeyed others and muddled through life.
In Pei Yuan Jin’s view, a person’s road was something they had to walk on their own two feet. If someone allowed another person to lead them around by the nose, then even if they lost, they could only blame their own feet for being too obedient.
Besides, everything Zhao Tong Qu had done had not been because someone else ordered him to do it. It had come from his own ambition.
He was hardly innocent.
Pei Yuan Jin therefore had no reason to show him mercy.
Yu Su Huan asked, “So breaking into the imperial palace this time was also meant to temper your state of mind?”
Pei Yuan Jin said, “I wanted to see the emperor inside the palace. Once that thought arose, I had to carry it through. If I hesitated and worried about consequences, I might instead develop an inner demon. That was the first reason.”
“Second, by entering and leaving the imperial palace at will, I showed the emperor that killing him would not be difficult. If he is intelligent, then even if he refuses to release Fu Xi Yan, he will do everything he can to keep Fu Xi Yan alive.”
“Third…”
Yu Su Huan looked surprised. “There’s a third?”
“The battle between Song Qi Yun and me caused too much commotion. The palace cannot possibly keep it hidden.” Pei Yuan Jin said, “The Rong family is currently struggling against the emperor. Once they learn of this battle, they will have a choice.”
“What choice?”
“They can cooperate with me first and kill the emperor, removing the danger hanging over them—or they can kill Fu Xi Yan and make enemies on two fronts.”
Yu Su Huan thought about it and smiled. “Unless they’re fools, anyone would choose the first option. That means the Young Madam’s life will be safe.”
Pei Yuan Jin raised his hand and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his dark gaze drifting toward the window.
The Ministry of Justice was only a hundred zhang away from the carriage.
Rong Rong sat on the steps outside Shicui Hall, amusing herself with a tiny green snake.
Since the beginning of the New Year, she had been leaving the hall frequently and no longer sat before a mirror lamenting her own fate. Shicui Hall, once lonely and desolate, had been filled with strange flowers and exotic plants, gaining a little of the warmth of ordinary human life.
But the only person she ever spoke with remained herself.
“Wang Yu knows I want to kill Fu Xi Yan, so he deliberately delivered him into my hands.
“But Pei Yuan Jin frightened him into backing down again.
“What should I do? Follow his wishes, reveal my trump card, and kill that bitch’s son so he can sit back and reap the fisherman’s profit? Or simply cooperate with the Immortal Treasury Palace, kill him first, and then come back and kill that little bastard?
“There are so many hateful people in this world. No matter how many I kill, there are always more… hehehe…”
As she laughed, red tears of blood unexpectedly began flowing from her eyes.
Inside the Ministry of Justice prison.
After Fu Xi Yan was transferred to another cell, an indescribable unease settled over him—especially since Tu Mu remained sitting in the corner, staring at him with sinister eyes.
Fu Xi Yan sat against the wall at the opposite end of the cell and attempted to break the oppressive silence. “How many days has Lord Tu been here?”
Tu Mu stared at him and slowly said, “I came in on the first day of the New Year. What day is it now?”
Fu Xi Yan remembered his Lantern Festival plans with Pei Yuan Jin and could not help sighing. “Should be the fifteenth.”
“Then it has been fifteen days.”
Fu Xi Yan had only been there two days and already felt uncomfortable all over, desperate to visit a bathhouse and scrub himself from head to toe.
Fifteen days?
Has Tu Mu started growing fleas yet?
At the thought, Fu Xi Yan shifted a little farther away.
Tu Mu stared fixedly at him for a long time before suddenly asking, “Do you remember your mother?”
Fu Xi Yan froze. “What?”
“Your biological mother.”
The Prefect of the Capital knew my mother? Could this have something to do with my maternal grandmother’s case?
Fu Xi Yan said, “She died when I was very young. Did you know her?”
Tu Mu smiled.
There was something indescribably sinister in the expression.
“Your mother was very beautiful. Many men knew her.”
Fu Xi Yan frowned slightly. “Has Lord Tu been imprisoned so long that your mind is beginning to fail?”
“Wasn’t your mother called Bai Ping?”
“My mother entering Count Yongfeng’s Estate was never a secret. It wouldn’t be difficult to investigate.”
“Your mother had a tear mole. A sign that her life would be full of hardship.” Tu Mu slowly closed his eyes, his expression nostalgic and almost savoring the memory. “I used to love touching that mole…”
Fu Xi Yan stared at him for three seconds.
Then he abruptly turned around and pounded hard on the iron door.
“Someone come! Lord Tu has gone insane! Lord Tu says he wants to strip naked and eat shit!”
Even while shouting, Fu Xi Yan never took the corner of his eye off the man behind him.
At some point, Tu Mu had opened his eyes again.
A strange smile appeared on his face.
He suddenly lunged.
Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang, who had been prepared all along, appeared simultaneously behind Fu Xi Yan and flung out a shower of concealed weapons.
Tu Mu did not even seem to notice them. He allowed every weapon to strike his body.
Clink, clink, clang, clang!
Not a single one pierced his flesh.
Fu Xi Yan used Shattered-Star Afterimage to dodge while simultaneously throwing out Soft-Gentle Fist. His fists fell like rain, striking seven or eight times in an instant without missing once.
Yet the force that shifted from softness into hardness vanished the instant it struck Tu Mu’s body, disappearing without so much as a ripple.
Tu Mu’s eyes slid sideways toward him.
Half of the black in his pupils had somehow disappeared, exposing enormous stretches of white.
“Bastard spawn. You deserve to die.”
His fingers crooked like claws and hooked around Fu Xi Yan’s arm, dragging him violently toward his body.
“Young Madam, be careful!”
In a panic, Xiao Sang struck the lock on the cell door with one palm.
The lock had been forged from refined iron, and when the Ministry of Justice constructed it, qi-dissolving stone powder had been mixed into the metal. True qi striking the lock was rapidly neutralized.
Xiao Zhang threw another handful of concealed weapons at Tu Mu.
They bounced harmlessly to the ground again.
Unable to stop his forward momentum, Fu Xi Yan could only shield his face with one arm before crashing headfirst into Tu Mu’s chest.
He punched directly at Tu Mu’s true-origin core and shouted, “Go get help!”
Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang exchanged a glance.
Xiao Sang immediately ran outside.
Xiao Zhang drew a dagger, aimed it at the center of Tu Mu’s back, and hurled it with all his strength.
Tu Mu seemed to have eyes in the back of his head.
In an instant, he exchanged positions with Fu Xi Yan.
Caught completely off guard, Fu Xi Yan had no time to activate his golden-bronze Vajra skin across his back.
A violent pain exploded behind him.
The blade plunged into his flesh, and the agony twisted his face.
Fuck! The back again?!
Tu Mu said quietly, “The people protecting you are the ones who hurt you. How does that feel?”
Fu Xi Yan stubbornly raised his head. “Compared with someone like you… all alone with nobody at your side? Feels… fantastic.”
As he spoke, the dagger was suddenly forced back out of his body and shot into the cell opposite them.
The wound it had left behind was already healing at astonishing speed.
Fu Xi Yan felt the pain rapidly fading but kept his face twisted in agony, hoping to lower Tu Mu’s guard. “It’s fine. I’m at least… at the Vajra Stage. Let it heal for a while and… I’ll be fine.”
Tu Mu’s expression darkened. “Then I’ll destroy your true-origin core.”
His claw suddenly plunged toward Fu Xi Yan’s core.
A light flashed in Fu Xi Yan’s eyes.
Not only did he refuse to evade, he deliberately leaned into the attack.
The instant Tu Mu’s hand touched his true-origin core, Fu Xi Yan was already preparing to absorb a nice big wave of energy and recharge himself.
Yet even after Tu Mu’s fingernails pierced his body, the imagined Star-Absorbing Great Art still failed to appear.
Instead, his true origin seemed to sense hostile intent and suddenly released a massive torrent of true qi in an attempt to resist.
Elio’s Notes: Star-Absorbing Great Art is another famous fictional martial art from Jin Yong’s wuxia works. Its defining ability is absorbing another person’s internal energy, which is why Fu Xi Yan jokingly uses the name for the strange energy-absorption phenomenon he has experienced before.
Tu Mu’s eyes moved strangely as he looked downward. “This is…”
Blood flowed steadily from Fu Xi Yan’s abdomen along Tu Mu’s fingers.
Fu Xi Yan suddenly threw a punch into Tu Mu’s heart.
A vast torrent of true qi erupted from his fist, smashing into the other man’s heart meridians with unstoppable force.
Yet Tu Mu merely tilted his head.
An excited smile appeared on his face.
His fingers drove even deeper.
The tips finally touched Fu Xi Yan’s true-origin core.
Fu Xi Yan heard his true origin seemingly release a terrified, piercing scream—
Pop.
Tu Mu’s head flew backward.
It slammed into the wall, bounced onto the floor, rolled several times, and finally stopped beside Fu Xi Yan’s feet.
Fu Xi Yan pushed lightly at the now-headless body.
The corpse toppled backward stiffly.
Holding his abdomen, Fu Xi Yan retreated several steps before turning to look behind him.
Xiao Zhang lay unconscious on the ground.
Outside the cell stood a man dressed entirely in snow-white robes. A golden mask covered his face, leaving only a pair of eyes so deep they seemed like an abyss.
Fu Xi Yan hurriedly removed his outer robe and pressed it over the wound on his abdomen, terrified that someone might notice the secret of his unnaturally rapid recovery.
“Words cannot express my gratitude for saving me. May I ask this honored gentleman’s name?”
“This is the second time.”
The man’s voice was deep and resonant like a cello, magnetic and exceptionally pleasant to hear.
Fu Xi Yan looked up in confusion. “What?”
“I hope there will not be a third.”
With both hands clasped behind his back, the man’s figure blurred.
He was gone.
Fu Xi Yan hurriedly tried to check Xiao Zhang’s pulse, but the distance was too great. Even stretching his arm through the bars, he could not reach him.
He could only confirm from the faint rise and fall of Xiao Zhang’s chest that he was still breathing.
Fu Xi Yan breathed a sigh of relief, then turned toward Tu Mu’s corpse.
Cold sweat instantly appeared on his forehead.
The scene before him was almost identical to what had happened at Yong’an Canal with Chen Wen Ju.
The difference was that Fu Xi Yan had killed Chen Wen Ju himself.
He had not killed Tu Mu.
A flash of realization struck him.
He suddenly remembered that there had indeed been another occasion when someone secretly saved him—the six assassins killed outside the Censorate prison.
He rolled Tu Mu’s corpse over.
The fatal wound was still at the throat.
This time, however, the attacker had used considerably more force and had simply sent the entire head flying.
But this time, Fu Xi Yan was locked inside the cell with the corpse. There was no way to destroy the body and erase the evidence.
When Liao Shang arrived, how was he supposed to explain this?
Lord Tu, the incompetent Prefect of the Capital who was imprisoned for being useless, suddenly transformed into an expert and nearly killed me. Then an even stronger expert appeared and knocked his head clean off?
The story sounded so “truthful” that even Fu Xi Yan himself could not stand listening to it.
And the hardest part to explain remained—
Where are my wounds?
Liao Shang did not even need to open his mouth.
Just imagining the interrogation made Fu Xi Yan feel he might as well confess on the spot.
He could say his hatred of evil ran too deep, that seeing a useless official like Tu Mu occupying a post without doing his duty made his eyes bleed, and in a fit of righteous fury he decided to carry out justice on Heaven’s behalf…
In any case, the white-robed man had acted for his sake.
Taking the blame would not be completely undeserved.
“Young Madam!”
Xiao Sang’s anxious voice sounded from outside.
Fu Xi Yan immediately perked up. “Come here, quickly!”
Xiao Sang appeared before him.
Meng Da Ye was behind him.
“This subordinate arrived too late to protect Young Madam. Please for—”
“Forgive me for being blunt, but time is short. Let’s deal with the corpse first.”
Fu Xi Yan pointed toward Tu Mu’s body behind him.
Meng Da Ye said, “A trivial matter.”
Members of the Lightning Division behind him pushed some sort of cloth through the bars. Fu Xi Yan could not tell what material it was made of.
Following their instructions, he placed both the head and corpse inside and wrapped everything tightly before pushing the bundle toward the bars.
Meng Da Ye poured the contents of a bottle into the cloth.
The corpse immediately softened.
They then pulled it effortlessly through the bars.
Fu Xi Yan watched with his scalp prickling.
Meng Da Ye handed the bottle to Fu Xi Yan. “Young Madam, pour the liquid in this bottle over the bloodstains.”
Fu Xi Yan’s wounds had already healed, but blood still remained on the floor and his clothes.
Fu Xi Yan hurriedly said, “I need to change my clothes too.”
Meng Da Ye did not understand. “Once Tu Mu disappears, everyone will assume someone broke him out of prison. It would be perfectly natural for Young Madam to have been injured in the process.”
“I’m not injured.”
Fu Xi Yan simply stripped off his clothes, wiped the remaining blood from his body, and tossed them through the bars.
Only then did he realize that everyone outside had turned around in alarm and dropped to their knees.
“Young Madam, you…”
Fu Xi Yan looked down at his naked body and said impatiently, “Stop dawdling. You’re the biggest one here. Hurry up and give me your clothes.”
Meng Da Ye hastily removed his outer robe and pushed it through the bars.
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