Before Hongshan Water Prison, Zhu Yuanqing was leading a group of Penglai disciples in desperate resistance, surrounded by masses of black-armored soldiers. These men were fierce and tall—clearly not southern troops. Qing Xia frowned slightly, gave a few orders to the Penglai disciples behind her, then charged forward as the vanguard.
Suddenly, tremendous noise came from behind. Zhu Yuanqing’s heart stirred, knowing reinforcements had arrived. He immediately shouted loudly, his silver sword filling the sky as he fought bravely and invincibly.
Thunderous explosions erupted as black-armored soldiers were thrown about, bloodied and mangled. Qing Xia led the Penglai young men with long guns and short swords, bows, crossbows, and war blades, charging into battle like mad tigers!
Under attack from both inside and outside, the black-armored soldiers were routed like a tide, quickly retreating and fleeing toward the valley entrance. Zhu Yuanqing arranged for pursuit while following Qing Xia and the others down into the most dangerous place in Penglai Valley—Hongshan Water Prison.
However, just as everyone stepped into Hongshan Water Prison, suddenly a tremendous impact struck. The earth rumbled, everything shook. Qing Xia’s face went pale as she exchanged glances with Zhu Yuanqing, both seeing unconcealed terror in each other’s eyes.
With a thunderous crash, heaven and earth turned upside down, rocks flew chaotically. As the entire world plunged into darkness, Qing Xia thought with relief: At least Chu Li didn’t come in. All around was pitch black. Qing Xia tightened the wound on her arm that had just scabbed over but was bleeding again from her leap, using her teeth to bite a piece of cloth wrapping the wound and pulling it tight to temporarily stop the bleeding. She spat out the mud and sand in her mouth, feeling an unbearable metallic taste suddenly rise from her stomach. Qing Xia knew this was because she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for three days.
Raising her head, she saw the distance was still pitch black without the slightest light. Fortunately, Qing Xia had extraordinary endurance and specialized training, long accustomed to seeing in the dark. Otherwise, just the complex terrain here would be enough to kill her.
Today marked her third day of escape in this deep underground cavern.
On that day, when the entire Hongshan Water Prison exploded and collapsed, the Nine Marshes flood gates burst open, walls tough as iron immediately crumbled, and vast waters instantly flooded in. Under such terrible natural force, all martial skills and intelligence became useless. At the critical moment, Qing Xia kicked Lin Mubai, who had followed her in, out to safety. She herself finally lost the ability to escape due to complete exhaustion of strength, letting the torrential waters with tremendous force crash down, filling the entire Hongshan Water Prison into a vast ocean.
Perhaps fate decreed she shouldn’t die, perhaps the gods protected her. In any case, when Qing Xia awoke again, she surprisingly hadn’t drowned in Hongshan Water Prison’s surging floods, but was lying alone in an even more sinister cave.
Feeling the ground beneath her feet was somewhat damp, Qing Xia looked down to see water dripping lightly from a cave opening ahead toward where she lay. She carefully poked her head out, only to be stunned by what she saw.
When the massive waves rolled in, Qing Xia had been struck by a huge stone and could no longer support herself. In her last moment of consciousness, she could only find the nearest prisoner’s cell cave to hide in—this was the last effort she could make for her survival. Afterward, she fell into complete unconsciousness.
But now, she wasn’t in the cave itself, but rather in a more hidden tunnel inside the cave. This tunnel was smooth and flat, feeling quite warm to the touch, completely as if artificially polished, over twenty meters long. Qing Xia was greatly astonished, searching around in the tunnel and actually discovering piles of stone tools, mostly in the shape of small knives and spades. Seeing this, Qing Xia suddenly understood—these must be tools made by prisoners who had lived here before, used to carve out an escape passage through the cave’s stone walls. The twenty-meter-long tunnel was that person’s masterpiece.
Thinking of this, Qing Xia couldn’t help but be shocked. To know that those people had problems just surviving in such a cold environment, their bodies weak, yet they could still use such methods to attempt escape showed how strong this person’s will to live must have been.
But now, all this had benefited Qing Xia. Hongshan Water Prison claimed to be the most formidable prison under heaven, holding those who over thousands of years had accidentally discovered Penglai’s secrets but were unwilling to live here forever. Penglai was secluded in a deep ravine—those who could descend from above and survive the ordeal were all extraordinary. Therefore, to confine these people, Penglai naturally made all precautions very thorough, and these prisoners’ cells would naturally be inspected regularly. So this prisoner had made his escape tunnel extremely hidden. Several large stones were arranged in twists and turns in front, though they could accommodate one person’s entry, they looked like normal rocks from the outside without any flaws. It was precisely this terrain that prevented much of the torrential seawater outside from rushing in, allowing Qing Xia to escape death.
She carefully poked her head out to see a vast ocean outside. The entire Hongshan Water Prison was like a wine flask, its interior completely filled with liquid. Though Qing Xia was inside the flask, being in the curved spout section, she escaped the fate of being submerged. However, escaping from the flask would be more difficult than ascending to heaven.
After exploring and groping around, Qing Xia finally understood that the prisoner hadn’t been foolishly attempting to move mountains or shake trees by trying to carve through the mountain to escape. Because behind this thick stone wall was actually hollow!
This discovery excited Qing Xia. It turned out this prisoner had long discovered this secret. This cave location was different from others—tapping lightly would produce hollow echoes, proving this definitely wasn’t a solid wall, though where the other side led was unknown. Still, rather than being trapped here, it was better to go out and look. After all, there was still hope on the other side.
So, the stone wall that the prisoner had worked on for decades with crude stone tools while preventing others from hearing, unable to break through, was completely opened by Qing Xia in less than an hour after she had recovered some strength. When Qing Xia excitedly poked out to examine it, she was immediately dumbfounded.
But since there was a path, it was better than waiting here, so Qing Xia bid farewell to Hongshan Water Prison that had brought her continuous misfortune and embarked on the escape route seeking freedom and light.
More than once, Qing Xia desperately suspected whether this exit was actually a hole dug by a large rat beneath Hongshan Water Prison. Because the terrain in this tunnel kept going downward—in many sections, Qing Xia almost had to climb down headfirst. If she hadn’t been such an enthusiastic rock climbing enthusiast in her previous life, she might have become Military Intelligence Division 9’s first super agent to die from falling headfirst.
The taste of traveling for long periods through such narrow, damp, dark corners made Qing Xia wish she could immediately turn around and swim up from the hundred-foot-high Hongshan Water Prison. Many times, Qing Xia had to compress her entire body like a noodle, crawling on the ground and minimizing her body as much as possible in the cramped space.
For the first time in her life, Qing Xia felt that being able to run freely in wide open spaces was also a kind of happiness.
At this moment, she no longer thought about what had caused Hongshan Water Prison’s sudden collapse, or what changes would occur after the prison’s collapse. Because if she died here, everything she thought about would be meaningless. The dangerous environment had stimulated all her fighting spirit—the legendary Military Intelligence Division 9 super agent 003 was resurrected once again in this dark, lightless crevice!
So when three days later, the exhausted and weak Qing Xia finally crawled out of that dark, narrow tunnel of unknown length, even someone as tough as her couldn’t help but burst into loud laughter. Now, she was more confident than at any moment in the past three days that she could escape alive. Having conquered such an environment, there was no reason she would fall here.
Her clear laughter echoed thunderously in the underground cavern even deeper than Hongshan Water Prison. Just as Qing Xia was laughing until she almost couldn’t breathe, a voice several times louder and full of magnetism also thundered: “Where did this stinking girl come from, making such a racket and disturbing my sleep!”
Qing Xia’s ears suddenly roared as countless amounts of dirt fell down under the vibration of this shout, covering the already disheveled Qing Xia from head to face. Tremendous air currents rampaged through the air, stirring up flying dust and rumbling boulders.
Qing Xia’s mouth immediately gaped wide open, unable to close again. How could she have ever imagined that in such a rat hole-like cave, there would actually be someone living here? Unable to help herself, she mustered her courage and shouted coldly with a fierce expression: “Who are you? Come out immediately! If this lady is in a good mood, I’ll spare your life!”
“Haha!” That magnetic voice laughed heartily: “You bragging stinking girl, running onto someone else’s territory and still daring to be so arrogant!”
The strangest things in the world were nothing compared to this. Qing Xia never would have thought there could be human existence in a cavern hundreds of meters below Hongshan Water Prison. She immediately mobilized all her alertness, looking around cautiously, slowly drawing her dagger from her boot, being fully on guard like a fighting leopard.
“Haha! I’ve been staying under this Hongshan Water Prison for decades. I never expected heaven would send such a silly girl today to entertain me. Haha, wonderful! Wonderful!”
The voice like bronze bells and great bells rang out roughly in the air again. Qing Xia was shaken by his shout and stumbled, then raised her head and shouted angrily: “If you’re a man, stand out! What kind of hero keeps hiding!”