The afternoon sunlight was dazzlingly bright, almost blinding. Fan Changyu tilted her head back, gazing at the young man sitting on the high wall, momentarily lost in thought.
Hearing Xie Zheng’s question, she felt a twinge of embarrassment at having her thoughts discovered.
Her long eyelashes, rimmed with sunlight, fluttered like small fans. Having walked around the Court of Judicial Review and with the sun being fierce, her fair cheeks were tinged with a faint pink. The fine down on her face was visible, yet she clasped her hands behind her back, trying to appear composed. “What are you doing here?”
Xie Zheng smiled and leaped down from the wall, landing right in front of Fan Changyu. “I saw someone circling the walls of the Court of Judicial Review from Yanchi Tower, looking like a thief. I came to see what kind of little thief it was.”
Hearing this teasing remark, Fan Changyu unconsciously clenched one hand into a fist, glaring at Xie Zheng with a warning look, as if ready to fight if he continued to joke about her.
Xie Zheng knew when to stop and changed the subject, “Are you planning to infiltrate the prison at night?”
Thinking of her plan, Fan Changyu glanced around. Even after confirming that no one was nearby, to be safe, she took two steps closer to Xie Zheng and whispered in his ear, “I heard they’re going to interrogate that woman impersonating Yu Qianqian again. I’m afraid she might reveal that Sui Yuanhuai isn’t dead, so I’m planning to break her out of jail.”
She kept her voice extremely low. As she spoke, her soft breath brushed against Xie Zheng’s ear, causing a tingling sensation as if insects were crawling along his ear.
Xie Zheng obligingly leaned in slightly to listen to Fan Changyu, his expression unchanged, but the tips of his ears were beginning to redden. The hand behind his back involuntarily tightened its grip, as if forcibly restraining something.
Fan Changyu, completely oblivious, looked up at Xie Zheng after finishing, “What do you think?”
These days, she was accustomed to putting on a cold face in front of others to establish authority, but when speaking to those close to her, her clear, bright eyes still revealed a touch of honest simplicity, like a fierce tiger rolling in the snow with the demeanor of a fat cat.
Combined with her words, she truly appeared both naive and fierce.
Xie Zheng’s dark eyes gazed steadily at the bright-eyed young woman before him. It took some effort to shift his gaze from her slightly dry lips. The hair ribbon tied around his wrist seemed to burn. The remaining bit of rationality barely allowed him to grasp the meaning of her words.
He said, “Breaking out an important prisoner under joint investigation by the Three Judicial Offices, aren’t you afraid of being investigated?”
Fan Changyu blinked her clear, innocent eyes twice. “If they suspect anyone, shouldn’t it be Wei Yan? In military strategy, this is called… called diverting disaster eastward!”
Xie Zheng couldn’t help but smile, “Is this your military strategy?”
Fan Changyu froze for a moment. She couldn’t recall what this tactic was called and had made it up on the spot. Being called out by Xie Zheng, she immediately felt embarrassed.
She coughed twice and said, “Well, that’s the general idea.”
Xie Zheng leaned against the wall, his eyes half-lowered, and slowly said, “The guards outside the Court of Judicial Review change shifts at dusk. There are only eighteen-night guards inside the prison, but if anyone is discovered breaking in, the guards on duty will ring the golden bell. All exits in the prison will be locked, and the soldiers outside will form an iron-clad defense in layers.”
Fan Changyu was stunned for a moment, then grabbed her hair in frustration and asked, “So, breaking her out is impossible?”
Xie Zheng lightly raised his eyelids: “We’ll do it.”
Fan Changyu: “…”
The night was cold and dewy. A dog’s bark came from somewhere, startling crows from the bare tree branches.
The Court of Judicial Review, lit by two dim lanterns, stood like a silent tomb in the night.
Deep in the prison, torches were inserted in wall niches. The smell of pine resin mixed with the musty odor of years without sunlight, floating in the air, making people drowsy.
The prison cells in the Court of Judicial Review were laid out in a cross shape. Each branch of the cross extended deep inside, with about twenty to thirty cells. Four jailers, divided into two pairs, patrolled these single corridors back and forth.
At the intersection of the four corridors were the torture chamber and the guard room. The head jailer and deputy head jailer usually waited here, convenient for receiving high officials who came to interrogate prisoners. If there were any jailbreakers, they could quickly ring the large bell in the guard room upon hearing any disturbance.
On this night, the head jailer and deputy head jailer sat at a square table, having yawned countless times.
“I can’t take it anymore. I need to splash some cold water on my face to wake up,” the deputy head jailer said, yawning as he stood up.
The head jailer, propping up his chin with his elbow, was also drowsy. He said, “Bring me a basin of water too. It’s so easy to get sleepy in this cold winter.”
The deputy head jailer acknowledged and went to fetch water.
As the head jailer yawned again with bleary eyes, he suddenly noticed a large, dark shadow looming over him.
The head jailer’s heart jolted, but before he could turn around, he was struck on the back of the neck with a karate chop. His eyes went black, and he passed out completely.
Two patrolling jailers at the intersection were about to speak when they felt a wind near their ears. Then they felt a pain in the back of their necks and collapsed limply to the ground, with a faint sound of bones dislocating.
Xie Zheng knocked out the head jailer and turned to see Fan Changyu, dressed in black night clothes, crouching on the ground, setting the bone of one of the jailers.
Faced with his puzzled look, Fan Changyu said awkwardly, “I wasn’t careful and hit too hard. I dislocated his shoulder.”
The moment the arm was put back in place, the intense pain woke the jailer. But before he could even cry out in pain, he was knocked unconscious again with a slap.
The deputy head jailer, returning with a basin of cold water, saw this scene and was so shocked that he dropped the wooden basin. He was about to shout that someone was breaking into the prison when the black-clad figure standing beside the head jailer moved like a ghost, instantly approaching him. Using his hand like a sword, he jabbed the deputy’s throat, while his toe flicked up the falling water basin.
The deputy head jailer felt a pain in his throat and could no longer make any sound, not even a hysterical scream. The water basin that was about to fall to the ground was caught effortlessly by the black-clad figure, who even managed to catch every drop of water that had splashed out back into the basin.
The deputy head jailer was terrified and tried to run, but Fan Changyu, who had rushed over to help, leaped forward in one swift move. Her elbow struck the back of his neck, and he fainted, his eyes rolling back.
Fan Changyu let out a soft breath and said quietly, “The last one.”
Before coming to this guard room, they had already sneaked in through the windows and knocked out the other patrolling jailers in the prison.
Xie Zheng took a string of keys of varying lengths from the head jailer and said, “The Sui family members are held in cell A9.”
Fan Changyu followed Xie Zheng toward the corridor of cells marked with the letter “A”.
Lighting torches were placed every few zhangs in the narrow passageway, so they didn’t need to carry lanterns.
Sui Yuanhuai’s concubine and only son, as important imperial prisoners, were held alone in a small cell.
The iron chains on the cell door were as thick as a baby’s arm. Xie Zheng could only try the keys one by one. The faint sound of the iron chains alarmed the prisoners in the nearby cells.
However, they dared not make a sound, unsure if the newcomers were there to kill or save them.
The mother and child in the isolated cell—the woman looked even more disheveled than when Fan Changyu first saw her. As she tightly hugged the child in her arms, her thin clothes stretched taut, revealing the protruding bones of her back.
She looked at Xie Zheng and Fan Changyu outside the cell, her eyes showing not hope, but terror. Even the hands holding her child were trembling uncontrollably.
To avoid complications, Fan Changyu remained silent, only keeping watch at the front of the passageway for Xie Zheng.
Unexpectedly, in the cell opposite, a white-haired old man suddenly shouted hysterically, “Jailbreak! Murder!”
Through the egg-sized round holes near the top of the cell used for ventilation, a flurry of torch lights could be seen, indicating that the old man’s shout had alerted the guards outside the prison.
Xie Zheng’s eyes turned cold, and Fan Changyu also tensed up immediately.
Originally, they had plenty of time, having knocked out the jailers in the prison unnoticed by using a light dose of sleeping incense. Now, because of that old man’s shout, all exits of the Court of Judicial Review would soon be surrounded.
There wasn’t enough time to try each key individually anymore.
Fan Changyu gritted her teeth. While Xie Zheng was still calmly trying the keys, she rushed over and said, “Let me!”
She couldn’t break the iron chains as thick as a baby’s arm, but with a few powerful kicks to the pillars of the cell, she managed to break the wooden posts as thick as fists.
Taking advantage of her larger male physique, Fan Changyu squeezed in and grabbed the woman and child from the cell, one in each hand, like picking up small chickens.
At the uneven gap of the cell, she thrust the stunned child into Xie Zheng’s arms and hoisted the woman onto her shoulder. She shouted at Xie Zheng, “Let’s go!”
Xie Zheng looked at the small child thrust into his hands and the woman on Fan Changyu’s shoulder. He wanted to say he would carry the woman, but considering the woman was only wearing a thin garment, he remained silent. He simply held the child with one hand and quickly followed Fan Changyu towards the exit.
The old man, seeing Fan Changyu and the others taking away Sui Yuanhuai’s “concubine,” became extremely agitated. Whether he truly didn’t know the mother and child were impostors and were eager to protect his master, or for some other reason, he kept shouting while gripping the wooden bars of his cell: “Help! Jailbreak!”
Xie Zheng frowned slightly and cast a cold glance back as they were about to leave.
After hearing the cries for help from the prison, the guards outside the Court of Judicial Review rushed in en masse. Upon entering the prison and finding all the jailers knocked out, they knew the situation was dire and headed straight for the cells holding the Sui family members. They found that none of Sui’s servants or captured subordinates were missing, but Sui Yuanhuai’s concubine was gone. Cold sweat broke out on their foreheads.
The head guard shouted, “Guard all exits! Search every inch, even if you have to dig three feet into the ground!”
But seeing the irregularly broken wooden pillars of the cell in the torchlight, he couldn’t help but feel shocked.
Such superhuman strength—who on earth were these jailbreakers?
Having scouted the terrain during the day, Fan Changyu, carrying the woman on her shoulder, quickly found the weakest part of the surrounding wall and nimbly climbed over.
Xie Zheng, holding the child, leaped over right after her.
Once outside, fearing the woman might recognize the route, Fan Changyu took out a sack she had prepared earlier from her bosom and swiftly covered the head of the woman, whose mouth was already stuffed with cotton.
She then took out a smaller one and handed it to Xie Zheng, “Put this over the child’s head too.”
The practiced ease of her movements gave Xie Zheng a moment’s pause.