He Lingchuan dashed out and plucked the eyeball spider from the treetop—he had placed it there several days ago.
The fire was about to spread up the hill. Snail-toads despised heat and dryness, so it burrowed into the earth and swiftly slipped away.
……
He Lingchuan and Dong Rui made their way back to the foot of the hill, where they saw hundreds of soldiers encircling the low mound, as if terrified that a single fish might slip through the net.
They were already the army of Peng Kingdom.
One squad consisted of a dozen or so soldiers. Their squad leader had grabbed a man and was hauling him into the shadows, well away from the main force.
This person was gaunt and sallow, dressed in ragged clothes, clearly not a soldier.
"Get lost!" The squad leader pointed into the distance. "There's nothing left for you here!"
Seeing the squad leader turn to leave, the man panicked and grabbed his arm. "Officer, you haven't given me the fifteen taels of gold yet! The fifteen taels of gold for the bounty!"
Hidden in the darkness, He Lingchuan and Dong Rui exchanged a knowing glance.
*So this is the informant? He looks like a beggar.*
When no one else could track down Consort Mei, how had he managed to discover her?
The squad leader’s gaze turned sinister. He abruptly kicked the man’s leg, and once the man hit the ground, followed up with several more stomps, sneering all the while. "I gave it to you long ago, and you dare come back asking for more? You greedy scoundrel! A lazy wretch who has the greed to take money but not the life to spend it!"
Writhing in agony, the man curled into a ball and screeched, his cries sharper than an owl’s.
The other soldiers merely stood by watching, their eyes cold and laced with ridicule.
Only after working up a sweat did the squad leader finally stop. He demanded, "Did you take the money or not? Did you take it just now, huh?"
"I took it!" The man was already kicked bloody, two teeth knocked loose from his mouth. Splayed on the ground, weeping through snot and tears, he bawled, "I took the fifteen taels of gold! I was greedy! I won't dare ask again!"
"At least you know what's good for you." The squad leader spat on him, turned, and led his squad away.
The man struggled on the ground for a moment before slowly crawling to his feet and limping away.
As he looked back, he cursed the squad leader venomously, his eyes burning with resentment.
……
Summer vegetation was thick and lush. In just over two hours, the low hill had been burned completely bald, wisps of blue-gray smoke rising everywhere.
The Peng army did not depart until daybreak, having ascended the hill twice in the interim to inspect the fire scene.
Only then did He Lingchuan and Dong Rui return to Ji Town, bringing their captive into the guest room for interrogation. The old gatekeeper had vanished without a trace long ago.
The black cloak had fallen away, revealing a soft, exquisite face.
Because of her presence, the desolate, dilapidated room seemed noticeably brighter.
"Consort Mei, we meet again."
The shadowed figure was indeed Consort Mei. Her hands were bound, her fine hair disheveled, and her clothes dusted with soot—the very picture of a fair maiden in distress.
She looked left and right, then extended both hands forward. "This is uncomfortable. Won't you please untie me? I am merely a weak woman; where could I possibly flee?"
Her fair wrists had already been chafed red by the rope.
"There's a ward; she can't get out." He Lingchuan nodded, and the ghost ape on Dong Rui's shoulder instantly leaped over to untie the cords binding her hands.
Consort Mei rubbed her wrists, found a chair of her own accord, and sat down.
"How did you know I would come to White Hill?"
Her tone was so easy, as if she were intimately familiar with both of them.
"We probably thought along the same lines as the new king, You Enguang." Dong Rui pointed in the direction of the solitary hill. "That was your masterpiece; you'd naturally want to take another look."
He Lingchuan had wagered that Consort Mei would come to admire the fruit of her labor.
Yet even he had not anticipated witnessing such a gruesome spectacle:
She had gouged out the King of Bo's heart and eaten it.
Watching such a vivid beauty swallow a rotting heart bite by bite like a dessert was visually shocking, to say the least.
What kind of deep-seated hatred must that take?
Consort Mei offered him a gentle smile, as if the person who had eaten a raw human heart moments before were not her at all.
"What are you looking for me for?"
"To find the person pulling the strings behind this entire sequence of events." He Lingchuan let out a breath. "You Enguang was eager to kill you, which means he was in league with you."
"Now that you know, is it of any use?"
He Lingchuan shook his head. "You Enguang has already ascended the throne; all of Peng Kingdom belongs to him. Even if you expose him now, it won't change the Mou Emperor's mind."
"Why?" Consort Mei tilted her delicate head slightly, as though genuinely puzzled.
A beauty showing confusion was all the more charming. Dong Rui could not resist staring a moment longer. Yet when he recalled what this beauty had done just earlier, a chill ran through his heart.
*A fair face with a ruthless heart.* He had to chant it to himself a few more times: *fair face, ruthless heart.*
"The Mou Emperor needed to prop up a regime here that leans toward Mou Kingdom. You Enguang was clever; he defected before the battle with the utmost sincerity," He Lingchuan said flatly. "He knows how to serve the greater picture and adhere to the overall situation. With no better alternatives, he was naturally chosen. By comparison, what do a few dead Shadow Tooth Guards matter?"
Such a minor loss was not something the Mou Emperor would ever care about.
"You were originally part of You Enguang's faction. He worried that your theft of the Bright Lantern Cup and your framing of the Shadow Tooth Guard would come to light and displease Mou Kingdom, which is why he wanted to silence you," He Lingchuan said to her. "He used you, but he wasn't clever enough—or perhaps he was overly cautious. Otherwise, he would have realized that killing you was entirely redundant."
"It doesn't matter." Consort Mei let out a soft sigh. "I only ever intended to use him as well."
She did not mind being used in the slightest.
A person had to possess value to be used in mutual exploitation; neither side harbored good intentions anyway.
"You caught me." A ray of morning light filtered through a hole in the window paper, brushing against her face and highlighting an air of innocent vulnerability. "What do you intend to do with me?"
A frail, helpless beauty slumping in a dilapidated room in a ghost town, asking what you intend to do with her…
Even if one originally had no intentions, being asked like that was bound to stir up stray thoughts.
Dong Rui had just warned himself that she was a venomous viper, yet hearing those words, he swallowed his saliva again.
He Lingchuan appraised Consort Mei and asked, "The King of Bo said you harmed the royal family. Just what kind of deep-seated blood feud is there between you?"
This woman certainly knew how to exploit her strengths.
"He slaughtered my entire family and seized my father's foundation." Consort Mei spoke with breezy indifference, as though the family that died belonged to someone else entirely. "I paid him back eye for eye, tooth for tooth, slaughtering his family and destroying his foundation. Quite fair, wouldn't you say?"
Her voice remained as sweet and gentle as honey laced with deadly venom.
Dong Rui immediately chimed in, "Fair. Very fair."
He Lingchuan, however, asked, "Did the Second Prince's bout of madness have anything to do with you?"
Consort Mei's delicate brows relaxed. "Oh? Just now, you referred to it as 'Mou Kingdom'?"
Shouldn't someone from Mou Kingdom refer to it as "our kingdom"?
This woman had a remarkably sharp eye for detail. "I ask the questions; you answer them. How much do you know about the Bright Lantern Cup?"
Consort Mei lowered her gaze slightly and tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. "Why do you ask?"
"The Second Prince suffered cultivation deviation and lost his mind. The newly appointed Imperial Physician Chen petitioned that the Bright Lantern Cup could save him, and conveniently, the Bright Lantern Cup matured around that very time. When so many coincidences pile up, it becomes an inevitability—an inevitability engineered by you." He Lingchuan looked at her steadily. "You seem remarkably familiar with the uses of the Bright Lantern Cup."
Consort Mei answered indifferently, "My understanding of the Bright Lantern Cup goes no further than that ancient volume, which is now in Imperial Physician Chen's hands. Why don't you just go take it from him?"
Chapter 1134