Although dressed like a servant, Leng Changxi still showed a kind of majesty that specially belonged to a royal descendant because of his handsome face, persistency and dignity.
“Grandma, I’m sorry for making you worry about me.” Leng Changxi stepped forward and cupped his hands towards Old Madam. Then, he turned to Queen Mother, who stared at him all the time, and said, “Your Highness, thank you for your care.”
It was reflected from her eyes that Queen Mother was moved. Leng Changxi nominally was Prince Ning’s exalted son, but actually, he was her grandson, which was to say, he was her most beloved daughter’s child.
Queen Mother nodded and showed no expression. However, she was really emotional inside and couldn’t calm down.
Leng Changxi turned back and took a look at Sima Han who didn’t look as dull as he was in the palace just now but smart and firm.
“I knew it was you who sent the message.” Sima Han nodded and said.
Standing near the bed to check Emperor Zhaoxuan up, Leng Changxi frowned and said, “Last night, I took my 18 shadow guards to the palace. But we were late to stop everything from happening. When we arrived, Your Majesty got angry in the Qiankun Palace, ordering to imprison Prince Qiu in the Imperial Court. Princess Jing forced Infanta Zhaojing to come back to their mansion. Then Your Majesty felt heart pain, went faint and fell to the ground. When I noticed dangers and tended to take shadow guards to leave, we were already trapped. But we had prepared for this in advance. Thus, all my guards have escaped successfully, although they are not together now. Of them, Leng Wu is most seriously injured while some have minor injuries.”
“Why would you take risks to come here?” Old Madam couldn’t help worrying about that Leng Changxi would be caught.
Leng Changxi pulled on Emperor Zhaoxuan’s eyelids and found from his eyes that he had no vital signs. Under such circumstances, he was either dead or temporarily losing the sensory perception, a result of taking a high dose of ecstasy powder.
“It is because I knew Yunuan would come to find me out of worry.” After he finished, Old Madam sighed. He was right. Qin Yunuan indeed went here too, but she was missing. “You two,” Old Madam shook her head and continued, “You both are worrying.”
Leng Changxi felt Emperor Zhaoxuan’s pulse and concluded, “Your Majesty is fine, but he has been controlled by some unknown drugs.”
“You mean?” Sima Han stepped forward and asked.
Leng Changxi squinted and looked serious, “It is a kind of mind-control ecstasy drugs from the Western Regions. It is made of five kinds of poisonous insects. People can use some special instructions, an action, an instrument or some scent for example, to control the drug taker. So when Your Majesty wakes up, it’s highly possible that he is already under someone’s control. We can’t believe what he says.”
“It must be Sima Ray doing this.” Sima Han said immediately. “We should carefully check what strange objects he has latter.”
“He disdains to do this by himself.” Leng Changxi knew Sima Ray very well. “Don’t you remember Doctor Zhao, Sima Ray’s loyal henchman? I assume that it is Doctor Zhao who takes the object which can issue instructions.”
“But I wonder how Sima Ray managed to put the drug in father’s meals that several eunuchs had tasted for safety and that many guards were protecting.” Sima Han was confused. “Does he have some secret trump cards?”
Leng Changxi shook his head. Although it was unclear how Sima Ray did this, one thing for sure was that he was a human, and every human had weak points.
Right at this time, eunuchs outsides reported that Doctor Zhao was going to serve the emperor with the new medicine.
People inside looked at each other. Then Leng Changxi put on the mask made of human skin. After walking in, Doctor Zhao saw Queen Mother, who sat near the bed, looked miserable and worried, which was right what Sima Ray expected.
“Doctor, the emperor is…”
Doctor Zhao bowed and said, “Your Highness, don’t worry. Your Majesty is just taking a nap and he will wake up soon after I insert the needles.”
As usual, Doctor Zhao took out a bunch of medical silver needles from his case and inserted them to the emperor’s Baihui acupoint. His sleeve was sweeping over the emperor’s nose. Soon, the emperor woke up but seemed to be in a daze as if he was still dreaming.
“Your Majesty, you are awake.”
“You all leave here. I’m tired.” Emperor Zhaoxuan looked dull, and the first thing he did was to ask people around him to leave. They wouldn’t be willing to do so if they didn’t hear what Leng Changxi said. But now, they all understood that Doctor Zhao had controlled Emperor Zhaoxuan. All people in this palace had worked for Sima Ray now so they could do nothing.
Emperor Zhaoxuan repeated to ask people to leave in a dull way. Queen Mother shook her head and seemed helpless. “Fine. Send me back.”
Duofu, who Leng Changxi disguised as, followed the crowd and got out of the Qiankun Palace.
“You. Wait.” Sima Ray stood near the palace gate. At the very beginning, he thought this servant was unusual. After all, Leng Changxi’s every move and temperament were so distinct even if he changed his appearance and voice.
“Are you the servant working in Prince Fu’s mansion?” Sima Ray asked loudly.
When Leng Changxi, who lowered his head, was going to answer, Du Sheng walked in hurriedly and whispered to Sima Ray. Exerting his inner energy, Leng Changxi barely heard a few words like “tunnel” and “runaway”. Hearing what Du Sheng said, Sima Ray had no mood to interrogate Leng Changxi and just murmured, “Damn. Qin Yunzhuang.” Then he directly headed to the Jingchen Palace.
In the Jingchen Palace, Qin Yunzhuang looked at the empty East Side hall in a trance. She kept asking inside, “Where is Qin Yunuan?”
“What are you doing here?” Sima Ray shouted in a cold way. Qin Yunzhuang was terrified, and she directly dropped the pastries she held.
“I…” Qin Yunzhuang had nothing to say and stammered, “I’m afraid that Yunuan will get hungry after staying here for a long time, so I bring her some pastries.”
“Bring her pastries?” Sima Ray angrily stamped on those delicate osmanthus pastries. “You actually want to add something to the pastries, right? I know it is you that ask servants to break this door. Qin Yunzhuang, I know what you want to do. This is the last time I warn you. If you dare to hurt her, I will kill you.”
While saying this, Sima Ray chocked Qin Yunzhuang and pressed her against the padauk-made carved door. The delicate makeup on her face was already massed up. Sima Ray was so indifferent and didn’t stop chocking her. Moreover, she couldn’t believe that she was the loser at the very beginning, namely before she married to him. She didn’t expect that she would fail to earn Sima Ray’s favor even after she helped him so much to trick people and usurp power. He still loved that bitch.
“Get out.” Sima Ray heavily kicked Qin Yunzhuang and ordered Du Sheng to take her back to the bedroom. Then, he rushed to the tunnel entrance which was on the wall.
Only a few knew this entrance, and most of them already died. Last time, Sima Ray took Qin Yunzhuang to walk through this tunnel to the lotus pond, letting her see how Qin Linfeng was drowned in person. But at that time, he didn’t take her directly to the destination. Instead, he covered her eyes and took a detour. He knew that Qin Yunzhuang wouldn’t be that smart to figure out where the existence of the tunnel was.
The switch used to open the tunnel was placed on a painting on which a garden in Spring was drawn. Sima Ray twisted the switch which was on the branch of a kapok tree. When the heavy flagstone tunnel door opened, he took a deep breath. He started to secretly build this tunnel after he was adopted by Empress Chen and lived in the Jingchen Palace. It was finished three years ago, and in all, he spent ten years on this project.
This tunnel was connected to many places, including the emperor’s Qiankun Palace, Empress Chen’s palace and a path through which people could directly go out of the palace. Qin Yunuan must have escaped through this tunnel. It was fine if she just ran away from here. If she found out the biggest secret here, it would…While thinking of this, Sima Ray walked faster.
The passage in the tunnel grew narrower and narrower until it reached a giant dug hole from which a cold breeze came. This three-meter-high hole was spacious, but people still could smell some copper-made objects and the stink of rotten wounds. From time to time, a kind of deep and lowering roar could be heard. It sounded as if a trapped monster was growling.
Sima Ray walked in slowly. There was a dirty beast tied up with four arm-thick iron chains, of which a round lock was on the end. In the middle of the lock was the sharp and thin iron spike. Spikes had stabbed into the beast’s lambs, and in this way, it was locked up.
As the beast struggled, its blood would fly along the iron chain, feeding bloodsuckers on the wet wall of the one-meter-deep hole under this “cage”. These bloodsuckers were already full enough.
Covering his mouth and nose, Sima Ray took a look at the hole. When he made sure everything was fine and was ready to leave, a cold female voice suddenly came to him. “Good trick. If I didn’t see this in person, I would never believe that the General Meng, who was training soldiers in the suburbs, was a fake. The real general should be here.”
Sima Ray turned back abruptly and found that Qin Yunuan had followed him all the time. He squinted and knew he was tricked. This woman really got something. Before he opened the tunnel, she might merely know there was a tunnel but didn’t know where it was, let alone the terrifying cage in it.
Qin Yunuan knew Sima Ray was skeptical, so the first thing he would do after coming into the tunnel was to make sure everything was fine. However, he didn’t notice that Qin Yunuan followed him and saw everything.
Sima Ray put on a murderous look. “Even though I love you, I won’t easily set you free now that you have seen everything here.”
