As the two were talking, they heard Situ Yebai's voice from below:
"Lan Wuxie, open the basement door."
Around the corner was a large rock. The three of them quietly climbed up, hoping to get a better view of what was happening below. Hua Chongyang was at the top. Looking down, he first saw Bo Jiang and his group hiding in a crevice below. Further down, he saw Lan Wuxie and Situ Yebai. At that moment, Lan Wuxie walked to a stone door and slowly raised his hand.
There was a circular hole in the stone gate. He took out a silk package from his sleeve, opened it, and a golden light flashed.
Hua Chongyang was taken aback.
What Lan Wuxie held in his hand was actually a purple-gold phoenix-wing hairpin. He pinched the head of the hairpin, inserted the hairpin tip into the round hole, and pressed and turned it.
The cave was quiet until a click was clearly heard.
The stone gate roared loudly.
Hua Chongyang vaguely remembered that a year ago, when she wore the phoenix wing hairpin, she noticed a strangely shaped barb on the hairpin head; at the time, she thought it was just to hook her hair, but little did she know that it was because it contained a hidden mechanism and could also serve as a key to the cave entrance.
The two stone doors slid open slowly.
Hua Chongyang frowned slightly. Behind the cave entrance, he saw layer upon layer of niches, each containing stacks of scrolls.
Situ Yebai smiled slightly and stepped forward to examine the items.
"What's Rose up to now, leaving you with so many scrolls—or is the real treasure map hidden in these books—"
He paused, his hand frozen on a book:
"This is--"
Lan Wuxie stood behind and sneered:
"These are the things hidden in the treasure vault. If I'm not mistaken, Prince Ningjing, these books should be those you annotated when you were young. Didn't Your Highness want a treasure map? Why not search carefully here? I just wonder, what did my mother mean by leaving these things behind?"
88. Battle Situation
"Lan Wuxie, do you think I'm a three-year-old child, trying to play these tricks on me?" Situ Yebai casually picked up a scroll, smiled, and turned around. "The underground caves in Suzhou and Nanjing each contain tens of millions of taels of silver and millions of taels of gold, not to mention what you took. Yet this place is completely empty? Besides, why would Rose leave my book for you? What a joke."
"Whatever Your Highness thinks is up to you."
"Having known Rose for over twenty years, how could I not know?" Situ Yebai tossed aside the book in his hand, his gaze deep and his eyebrows raised. "If she were willing to bow down and leave these things to ask me for favors, she wouldn't be herself."
He walked straight up to Lan Wuxie, picked up a pair of phoenix-wing hairpins, took out the second one, and was about to put it into the round hole when Lan Wuxie stopped him:
"Prince Ningjing, it was agreed that you would hand over the map in one hand and the person in the other. And Anping's antidote."
Situ Yebai turned around and nodded.
The guard standing behind Anping immediately took out a pill from his pocket and stuffed it into Anping's mouth. The group remained locked in a stalemate for a long time. After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, Anping vomited a mouthful of black blood, and his previously pale face returned to normal. Situ Yebai turned to look at Lan Wuxie and then put the hairpin tip back into the round hole.
Lan Wuxie took a step back.
It was impossible to see how Situ Yebai's hands moved, but the stone cave door, which was already open, remained unmoved. However, with a loud crash, all the stone walls on the left side of the cave door collapsed.
Hua Chongyang felt a sudden light up his eyes.
Liu Da and Chu San, who were standing next to him, both gasped.
The stone wall contained rows of wooden shelves, neatly arranged with silver bars, their silvery light shimmering and dazzling. Liu Da, knowledgeable and experienced, whispered:
"This amount of silver is at least a million."
Situ Yebai glanced at it, sneered, turned around, put the two hairpins together, inserted them into the round hole, and turned them again.
The stone wall to the right of the cave entrance collapsed again with a crash, this time revealing gleaming gold. Hua Chongyang could hear Liu Da gritting his teeth:
"My goodness... just how much did Princess Guoyue hide for Lan Wuxie? No wonder Bo Feng was tempted to betray him. Even a fraction of it would make him richer than a country."
Chu San whispered:
"What a pity, Situ Yebai is too greedy. He's already taken most of it, and he won't even let go of the last bit. I wonder what Lan Wuxie will have to offer to marry Chongyang in the future—"
The two whispered to each other, but Hua Chongyang couldn't hear a word, his eyes glued to Lan Wuxie's expression.
She couldn't shake the feeling that Lan Wuxie wouldn't let Situ Yebai take the things away for nothing. Given Lan Wuxie's personality, with national and family feuds separating him from Situ Yebai, even if he didn't want them, he wouldn't let Situ Yebai have them so easily.
To everyone's surprise, Situ Yebai was still not satisfied. He looked around and then turned back:
"Lan Wuxie, where exactly is that thing?"
Those around were stunned.
Lan Wuxie didn't even look at him, and turned around:
"Everything is already here, what more does Prince Ningjing need?"
"That painting." Situ Yebai's expression was icy. "Rose always carries two things with her: the phoenix-wing hairpin and that painting. Now that you have the phoenix-wing hairpin, do you still intend to hide it?"
"Is Your Highness referring to a treasure map?" Lan Wuxie's expression remained calm as she raised her arm. "I already showed it to you; it's tattooed right here."
"Stop beating around the bush," Situ Yebai said sternly. "That's a portrait. You don't even recognize your own mother's portrait?"
"The prince himself said it's a portrait of my mother," Lan Wuxie said, her face as cold as ice. "You have no relation to Princess Guoyue, so why bother asking about this?"
Situ Yebai's expression changed.
"At home, she obeyed her father; after marriage, she obeyed her husband; after her husband's death, she obeyed her son. Her husband was Shangguan Ping, and her son was Shangguan Rongzhi. Throughout her life, what relationship did she have with you?"
Before he could finish speaking, Situ Yebai struck him with his bare hand.
It was clear that Lan Wuxie had touched a raw nerve in his heart.
Hua Chongyang almost cried out "Watch out!" but fortunately, Chu San reacted quickly and covered her mouth, pressing her down. On the other side, Lan Wuxie leaped aside and retaliated with a palm strike, his powerful internal force turning a pile of books behind Situ Yebai into dust. He didn't stop there, but instead launched seven or eight more palm strikes, forcing Situ Yebai back more than ten feet.
Gold and silver rained down from both sides of the cave, the sound crisp and clear. Situ Yebai, his face pale, raised the phoenix-wing hairpin in his hand and laughed three times loudly:
"Back then, I put a hairpin in your hair, and you smiled and said you'd spend your life combing her hair... Xie Qiangwei, if I die, I'll search the heavens and the underworld to find you! I'll ask you face to face why you betrayed me! Why, even on your deathbed, did you still harbor thoughts of killing me? Could it be that offering you my heart and my entire world couldn't earn even a sliver of your true affection?!"
Upon hearing this, Hua Chongyang was startled. Before he could speak, Chu San whispered beside him:
"...Situ Yebai has clearly gone mad! Did he already have no intention of leaving alive?"
Seeing Lan Wuxie closing in step by step, Situ Yebai didn't dodge or evade. Fortunately, a guard nearby reacted quickly and pushed him away, but he ignored the shouts and pleas around him, holding the purple-gold phoenix wing hairpin, laughing almost maniacally:
"Lan Wuxie, do you think I'm afraid of death? If I kill Hua Chongyang right now, you'll know what it means to be neither happy in life nor bitter in death."
Hua Chongyang felt a chill run down his spine upon hearing this.
Lan Wuxie's expression grew colder, showing no intention of letting Situ Yebai go.
The surrounding guards were all sent flying. Situ Yebai was clearly somewhat out of his mind, sometimes dodging and sometimes retaliating with a palm strike, but he never let go of the phoenix wing hairpin in his hand. Lan Wuxie sent him flying against the stone wall with a palm strike. The phoenix wing hairpin slid to the ground. He leaped to the side, his wide robe and sleeves brushing the ground, picked it up, and then turned around and raised his hand to retaliate.
With a resounding palm strike, a square rock, more than ten feet in size, where Bo Jiang and his group were hiding, shattered in half in an instant.
Situ Yebai's martial arts skills are indeed astonishing.
Bo Jiang and his group could no longer hide, and five or six of them slowly stood up.
The most surprising thing below is the orchid:
"...Isn't this Miss Bo?"
Ever since the martial arts tournament, the insults exchange between Huang San and Bo Jiang somehow got out, and Bo Jiang gained the nickname "Miss Bo." However, Lan Wuxie and Situ Yebai had no time to pay attention to it at the moment. The two figures darted around in the stone cave, and in the blink of an eye, more than a hundred moves had passed.
Several guards around Situ Yebai joined the battle one after another; a moment later, about ten people surrounded Lan Wuxie and attacked at the same time. His moves were so fast that they could be described as lightning.
Hua Chongyang was dazzled by the sight.
In the past, Lan Wuxie had never made more than ten moves in a row; having known Lan Wuxie for so long, this was the first time Hua Chongyang had witnessed his martial arts skills. She had always thought that her own martial arts skills were not bad, and although she knew that Lan Wuxie's martial arts skills were higher than hers, this was the first time she realized that Lan Wuxie's martial arts skills were so high that they were almost abnormal.
Just as I was getting frustrated, Chu San next to me said in a low voice:
"...They could have finished this quickly. Lan Wuxie's fighting them like this is either an attempt to slowly wear down Situ Yebai, or a way to buy time."
89. Anping
Just as I was getting frustrated, Chu San next to me said in a low voice:
"...They could have finished this quickly. Lan Wuxie is fighting them like this either to slowly wear down Situ Yebai, or he's trying to buy time. If it's the latter, why is he delaying? What is he waiting for?"
In the blink of an eye, three of the black-clad guards protecting Prince Ningjing, who were surrounding Lan Wuxie, fell to the ground, their heads lolling to the side and bleeding from the corners of their mouths; they died instantly. Liu Damiao glanced at them and sighed:
"Tsk. I didn't believe it when people said Lan Wuxie was the best in the world. But today I do."
Seeing the black-clad guards around Situ Yebai fall to the ground one by one, dying, Hua Chongyang realized that Lan Wuxie really wanted to slowly kill Situ Yebai.
He had been waiting for this day for who knows how long.
He didn't care about anything. Hua Chongyang had observed that Lan Wuxie had a habit of never asking for anything on his own initiative. His clothes were all made by Anping or Lancao and left there for him to choose from; his food was also arranged by Anping and Lancao at their discretion.
However, he wouldn't be picky about things he didn't like; he wouldn't touch food he didn't enjoy. Hua Chongyang had heard Lan Cao mention once that when he first started working with Lan Wuxie, he prepared a table full of dishes, but Lan Wuxie picked up his chopsticks, took only one bite, and then put them down, saying he didn't want to eat. At the time, he genuinely thought Lan Wuxie had no appetite, but later Anping told him that it was just a sign that he didn't like the food.
He seemed to care about only two things: practicing martial arts and seeking revenge.
Second is her.
In just over fifteen minutes, most of the black-clad guards around Situ Yebai were dead, and the remaining few were scattered and broken. Lan Wuxie suddenly stopped and retreated to a large protruding rock in the corner of the cave, coldly staring at the clearly exhausted Situ Yebai:
"Situ Yebai, are you deliberately courting death? Your martial arts skills are far superior to what you're displaying now."
Situ Yebai just kept laughing:
"Hahahaha! Kill me if you want, Lan Wuxie. Haven't you wanted to kill me for a long time?"
Hua Chongyang and Liu Dachu were hiding behind the outermost rock when they noticed Bo Jiang in front of them peeking out anxiously, and they couldn't help but sneer.
Bo Jiang and his group must have been waiting for Lan Wuxie and Situ Yebai to fight each other, inevitably resulting in one of them being injured, so they could take advantage of their numbers and reap the benefits. Clearly, Situ Yebai's lack of resistance surprised them, and it seemed their plans had been disrupted.
Lan Wuxie glanced at Situ Yebai and stopped what she was doing:
"You want to die? I'll make sure you do."
With a flick of his wrist, he pulled a silver needle from his sleeve:
"This needle is poisoned, called 'Heartbreak Powder.' Those who ingest it become stiff but do not die, suffering heartbreak every night, with no antidote. Situ Yebai, you showed no mercy to the Shangguan clan, who were responsible for over a thousand deaths. From this day forward, you will suffer three years of heartbreak, allowing you to slowly repay your debt."
The moment he finished speaking, he shot out a silver needle.
Situ Yebai dodged, landing behind the stone cave entrance with a cold, indifferent smile:
"As expected of Rose's son, Lan Wuxie, you truly possess ruthless methods."
Lan Wuxie silently leaped up and flew over the Moon Cave Gate, then shot out a string of silver needles, intending to force Situ Yebai out of the cave. Situ Yebai had no choice but to leap out, and halfway through, he flicked his sleeve to throw away the silver needles, but unexpectedly, the purple-gold phoenix wing hairpin in his hand flew out with it.
His face paled almost instantly, and he leaped back to retrieve the hairpin.
In the blink of an eye, a row of silver needles pierced his chest. Lan Wuxie landed back on the ground. Situ Yebai used his inner energy to dislodge the needles, but at the same time, he coughed up a mouthful of blood and staggered back two steps to grab the stone cave door. Lan Wuxie looked at him, expressionless and coldly said:
"Your heart meridians are sealed by poison, and your vital energy and blood are completely depleted. Situ Yebai, you still think you can escape?"