In the deep and quiet tunnel, the husband and wife pair moved a large pile of wood in front of Yu Qing.
Sun Ping asked: “What do we do next?”
Yu Qing pressed his hand down, signalling the two to put the things down. He turned and walked away. “Just leave it here. Follow me.”
The three did not know what he meant, so they could only follow.
Yu Qing spoke again with his back to them. “Take the body away. Throw it into the molten lava lake to destroy all traces. Clean up the bloodstains on the ground as well. Those people will not find the body later. This can make them puzzled for longer and buy us more time to escape. As long as the people from Jian Yuan Zhai do not know that Cheng Shanping is already dead, if they chase after us again, we can make use of the way Cheng Shanping left road markers to confuse the enemy.”
Destroy Cheng Shanping’s body? Sun Ping and his wife looked at each other. They were hesitating when Tie Miaoqing firmly refused. “No!”
Yu Qing stopped. He slowly turned around to face the three and stared at Tie Miaoqing. “I have already done the evil deed and taken the bad name. Boss lady, what exactly do you want?”
Tie Miaoqing stayed silent for a moment and gave her explanation. “If they do not know Cheng Shanping is dead and he just disappears like this, it will easily be seen as him running away. Jian Yuan Zhai will be furious and will definitely not let his mother go. If they know he was killed and that he died for Jian Yuan Zhai, then making things difficult for a useless old lady will lose all meaning. They might even release the old lady. Leave the body behind. I beg you!”
The husband and wife were moved by the reason. They both looked at Yu Qing. Sun Ping sighed. “Miss is right. Ah, Shi Heng, after all he has known us for many years and we have some friendship. This time he betrayed us for internal reasons. He was implicated and forced into it with no choice. If there is no absolute need, let us follow miss. If we can leave a way for his old mother to live, even if he died by your hand, his spirit in heaven will not blame you.”
A dignified Xuan level cultivator had even come to beg him. Yu Qing curled his lips and said nothing more. He changed to a new torch, lit it, and turned to continue deeper into the tunnel.
Tie Miaoqing and the other two breathed a sigh of relief and followed.
They did not walk far before they saw Xu Fei and Chong Er who had been obediently staying in one place after their torch went out long ago.
The two saw the firelight and people again and felt greatly relieved. Staying long in silent darkness did not feel good.
Tie Miaoqing recognised this place. She immediately recognised it from the burnt incense butts stuck in the cave wall. She picked up the metal jar on the ground to check it first.
The two fire crickets inside the jar, which had paused their collisions, started banging against each other again when the jar was moved.
Sun Ping and his wife both heard that the collision sound was wrong. After asking, they learned there were two. After confirming, they were both very surprised.
Yu Qing ignored the looks they gave him. He asked Xu Fei and Chong Er and confirmed they were fine. Then he took out three more incense sticks, lit them, and observed the movement of the green smoke again.
Escaping was the most important thing now. Seeing Yu Qing stop, Sun Ping urged: “What do we do next?”
Yu Qing pointed his hand at Tie Miaoqing, which left several people stunned.
Tie Miaoqing also found the pointing strange and was about to speak when Yu Qing waved his hand to signal. “Do not block. Stand aside. There are cracks in the cave wall. Feel them with your hand.”
As soon as he said this, Tie Miaoqing immediately turned around. Sun Ping and Zhu Shangbiao also brought their torches close to illuminate the details of the cave wall.
Sure enough, upon close inspection they found several cracks of varying thickness on the cave wall. In this dark tunnel it would indeed be hard to notice without careful checking.
The three almost reached out at the same time to feel. They immediately sensed faint air currents seeping in thread by thread along the cracks. It was especially obvious when feeling with the back of the hand.
The three then quickly pressed their palms against the cave wall and used their skills to probe. Zhu Shangbiao was the first to turn back to look at Yu Qing. He said in surprise: “There is another space behind this?”
Tie Miaoqing and Sun Ping also detected it. The cave wall was only about one foot thick and there was indeed empty space behind it.
Yu Qing said: “There is a passage leading to the outside behind here. Breaking open the cave wall should allow us to escape.”
Zhu Shangbiao asked doubtfully: “Are you sure it is a passage and not a closed space?”
Yu Qing could not help rolling his eyes. “You really are quite bold. Show me a closed space with airflow.” After standing in an undefeated position, the confidence in his speech was indeed different.
“…” Zhu Shangbiao was speechless and understood something.
Sun Ping pulled him aside, stood in front of the cave wall and asked: “Break it open directly?”
Yu Qing sighed: “We can only break it open. Break it and leave quickly.”
Sun Ping immediately pressed a palm against the cave wall, used his skill and pushed hard. The cave wall collapsed at once, and he controlled the noise.
The spreading smoke and dust immediately blew towards everyone from the dark opposite side. The master and servant who could not use skills to resist immediately became covered in dust.
What was blowing over now was no longer faint airflow but could be considered a light breeze.
Zhu Shangbiao jumped to the other side, held up his torch to look around and said with slight joy in his tone: “Correct, it is a passage. There really is a passage!”
Yu Qing was not surprised at all. It was precisely because he had unintentionally discovered the existence of this passage earlier that he had dared to slowly deal with Cheng Shanping’s matter. When the people lying in ambush outside came to kill, the people from Miao Qing Hall would resist them while he had a way out and could slip away first.
“There are obvious traces of digging. It was dug by people. I really did not expect that there would be another passage just one wall away. We have come back and forth several times but never noticed it. I am afraid even the people who dug it back then did not know.”
Zhu Shangbiao excitedly chattered on the other side.
Sun Ping and Tie Miaoqing looked at each other and finally understood why Yu Qing had asked them to cut a tree and bring it into the tunnel. It was to buy more time for everyone’s escape.
Yu Qing waved to Xu Fei and Chong Er to come over. He never forgot to bring the two along. The group immediately switched to the underground passage.
A stretch of evening glow lay across half the sky, with thick, heavy coloured clouds and absolutely beautiful light and shadow.
Beside the official road crossing the mountains, inside a large post station, the team from Lie Zhou heading to the capital for the imperial examination had just arrived. The settling in of people and horses and the moving of items made it lively for a while.
The soldiers were still arranging things while the candidates who had already found their rooms came out in twos and threes to enjoy the scenery.
It had to be said that the scenery along the ancient tomb wasteland route was quite nice.
When the team had just suffered an attack, a group of candidates were frightened by every blade of grass and tree. No matter where they went they did not dare go out. It took several days before they gradually recovered. In addition the court had sent people to comfort them and announced good news to calm their shock. Only then did they truly come back to life.
“Hey hey hey, what are you doing lighting a fire next to the stable? What if you ignite the fodder? Do you want to burn down the entire post station?”
A group of candidates were burning paper next to the stable. When the post station staff discovered it they were scared enough and suspected the group of candidates had gone mad. They hurriedly ran over to angrily scold them.
After some flapping the fire was put out. The gathered candidates also ended up covered in dust. Some accompanying officials also came to ask what happened and questioned why the candidates were lighting a fire there.
The group of candidates naturally hurried to explain. It was not lighting a fire but mourning the dead candidates.
In recent days, after everyone had recovered, Su Yingtao, Fang Wenxian, Zhang Manqu and Pan Wenqing suddenly had a strange idea. They encouraged and pushed Zhan Muchun as the leader and called on the candidates to write elegies for the dead candidates. The four of them became Zhan Muchun’s capable assistants in this matter.
Thus, while travelling during the day a group of candidates would ponder mourning poems and verses. After arriving at the station they would write them down and hand them to the five led by Zhan Muchun. After review they would burn them for the spirits in the afterlife.
Over these few days it had become somewhat interesting. Who would have thought the rough people at this post station did not understand the mood and shouted loudly, greatly spoiling the scene and making the group very embarrassed, insulting everyone’s refinement.
The official who came to inquire also felt this was an elegant matter and did not blame them. He only said the group had been careless and had not stopped the burning of elegies. He told them to burn in another place and asked the post station staff to point out a suitable location.
So the group moved to behind the fence near the main gate. The post station people specially brought over a fire basin.
“Brother Zhan, look, here is another piece written for brother Xu Fei. The mourning feelings between the lines are moving.”
Pan Wenqing handed over an elegy he had read to Zhan Muchun for his review.
Since the matter of writing elegies started, quite a few expressed missing Xu Fei.
Not necessarily many were truly missing him. It was really because there were many candidates and it was impossible to know all of them well. Xu Fei had stood out and everyone had noticed him. Having an impression and observation made it naturally easy to write. How could they write about the dead who left no impression?
Moreover, that was after all the number one personally chosen by the prefect. If one still wanted to pursue an official career, how could one not pay respects to the prefect’s good judgement?
At certain times, the dead also had use value to certain people.
Of course, many people did truly feel it was a pity Xu Fei died. He had finally had a bright future in his grasp yet his life was so short. It made one sigh that this was fate.
Among the candidates, Zhan Muchun had previously been the one with the most complicated feelings towards Xu Fei. In a word puzzle Xu Fei had overshadowed him and the prefect’s favour had clearly shifted from him to Xu Fei. His heart had indeed felt uncomfortable.
Now that Xu Fei was dead, all the unhappiness had become past sighs. Naturally he had the grace and held the elegy while reviewing it. He nodded slightly and sighed: “Heaven did not grant him more years. Heaven did not grant him more years!”
“Brother Xu… Xu… Xu…”
Su Yingtao, whose head had been broken by a stone and was still wrapped in white cloth, had just wanted to echo a couple of sentences when he suddenly heard horse hooves outside. He casually looked out and his gaze froze. The words that had started in his mouth also stuttered.
Five riders came galloping swiftly. It was no one else but Yu Qing and Tie Miaoqing’s group, arriving with the wind and dust of the jianghu.
After crossing from the ancient tomb wasteland to the official road, they found a post station, paid a heavy sum for riding horses, and the six then galloped all the way, constantly changing mounts at post stations, travelling day and night without stop. They finally arrived before the examination team was about to leave the ancient tomb wasteland.
It was not only to catch up with the examination team. Tie Miaoqing and the other three were also anxious to escape in time. By now Jian Yuan Zhai must have already discovered that Cheng Shanping was dead.
Outside the post station gate, the five riders urgently reined in. Chong Er rode together with Yu Qing, holding onto his back and jolting all the way.
It was for a reason. Chong Er did not know how to ride a horse. Tie Miaoqing and Sun Ping were women and it was inconvenient to ride with him. The people from Miao Qing Hall indeed had no need to ride with him. In principle Xu Fei’s book boy should be managed by Xu Fei, but Xu Fei’s build was large and a horse on long distance travel already struggled with that weight, let alone adding another person.
To save energy and avoid accidents, Yu Qing unhesitatingly brought along this burden.
Thus Chong Er increasingly felt that Young Master Shi Heng was a good person and did not find the jolting along the way tiring.