Ziqing cleared the path ahead, while Xuanyuan Lige and Baili Weisheng shielded Jun Beiyue, who directed their route. Working together, the group made their urgent retreat along the outermost path within the palace.
Yet even after fighting their way through for a full two hours, they still hadn’t caught sight of the palace’s rear gate.
“Jun Beiyue, are you sure you haven’t led us the wrong way!”
The first to lose her temper was none other than Ziqing herself, whirling around to demand furiously, punctuating her anger by punching an approaching poison corpse so hard it went flying, leaving Baili Weisheng and the others watching in stunned alarm—belatedly realizing that this woman truly wasn’t someone to be trifled with.
“The palace is enormous. This path circles around it—half a mile further, and we’ll reach the rear gate,” Jun Beiyue answered loudly. Having grown up in this very place since childhood, how could he possibly not know it well?
He’d been calculating the timing this entire way, naturally taking Ziqing’s stamina into account as well.
With Jun Beiyue’s assurance, Ziqing pressed forward with renewed confidence. But when they’d covered the half mile, they still hadn’t found the back of the palace at all—instead, they came face to face with a solid dead-end wall!
In that instant, everyone froze in shock. The poison corpses ahead of them still hadn’t been dealt with, and the ones Ziqing had knocked down behind them had all risen back up again, swarming in from behind in waves to surround them.
With no path forward, hundreds of poison corpses closing in from behind, and towering walls higher than mountains on both sides, they had, without a doubt, fallen into a hopeless dead end!
Ziqing remained remarkably composed, immediately clearing away several dozen poison corpses directly ahead, knocking them down one after another and kicking them aside, making room for Jun Beiyue and the others to press against the wall—at least eliminating one direction of threat, buying them a bit more strength to work with!
Yet even so, they remained trapped in a dire situation. Without question, someone had clearly tampered with this palace!
And by this point, Ziqing could say with complete certainty—within this illusion of Lament of Parting, there must exist some other force, standing in direct opposition to the Nanzhao musician.
This very palace had likely been infiltrated by that opposing force!
As this thought crossed her mind, a name flashed through Ziqing’s head. But she had no time to dwell on it further, facing the ever-growing, ever-tightening army of poison corpses closing in—even without a solution, they had to find some way forward!
“Keep fighting our way out! There’s no other choice!” Baili Weisheng said coldly, stepping forward. “I’ll clear the path!”
“No!” Jun Beiyue immediately stopped him, because he’d just noticed that poison corpses were now pouring out not only ahead of them, but from the high walls to the right and from the palace structures to the left as well. If he wasn’t mistaken, the entire palace was filled with poison corpses, and every single one of them had them surrounded!
They were facing an entire army of poison corpses!
Against such indestructible enemies, fighting head-on would only exhaust their strength, putting them at an increasing disadvantage.
“We can only outsmart them!” Jun Beiyue said seriously.
“How exactly! If you can actually think of something, I’ll be genuinely impressed!” Baili Weisheng said urgently. If a solution truly existed, surely the four of them, pooling their wits together, would have already thought of it by now.
“There is one,” Jun Beiyue said, with unexpected certainty. “Abandon me.”
Abandon him?
The moment these three words left his mouth, Ziqing’s head snapped around sharply, her small face, her eyes, filled with a terrifying fury.
Abandon him?
Among them all, he alone feared poison. If they abandoned him, they could genuinely move with far greater ease, and the poison corpses couldn’t do anything to the rest of them at all.
Abandoning him truly would be an excellent solution.
But asking Ziqing to abandon him—was that even remotely possible?
For a moment, even as the poison corpses closed in ever closer, everyone fell into silence. Xinyun watched Jun Beiyue’s earnest expression, then looked at Ziqing’s furious face, a complicated look flickering in her eyes, as though she wanted to say something but held her tongue, falling silent once more.
And it seemed, at this very moment, the poison corpses had closed in completely!
Ziqing suddenly exploded with rage, slapping one poison corpse aside while driving her other fist forward with brutal force, her eyes never leaving Jun Beiyue. “Just try it, and see what happens!”
At that exact moment, countless poison corpses atop the high walls and rooftops nearby suddenly leaped down all at once. Panic swept through the group, forcing them to retreat, dodge, and scramble out of the way.
What none of them had anticipated, though, was that at the very same moment, the poison corpses surrounding them seemed to receive some kind of command, surging forward in dense clusters, deliberately separating the group, isolating each of them one by one.
The sheer number of poison corpses instantly split the five of them apart into complete isolation, each unable to see any of the others!
Where was Jun Beiyue?
Who was protecting him?
In that instant, amid the chaos, a single anguished cry rang out from Ziqing. “Jun Beiyue, if you dare die on me, I will never, ever forgive you!”
There was no telling where Jun Beiyue was—for a long, long moment, there came no answer at all.
“Jun Beiyue! Where are you! Where are you!!!”
Ziqing was crying now, her wailing sobs suddenly filling the entire palace, so heartbreaking it could shatter anyone’s heart to hear.
“Ziqing is crying!”
“Little Qingqing is crying?”
Surrounded by countless poison corpses, Xuanyuan Lige and Baili Weisheng both came to an abrupt stop at almost the exact same instant, letting the poison corpses around them strike and lunge freely, both men standing frozen, utterly unresponsive, listening to Ziqing’s anguished cries.
It took a long moment before they truly registered it. Han Ziqing was crying.
They’d seen her shed tears before, but never like this—never had she cried this way. She truly was crying. Yes, she was truly crying.
She’d always hated crying more than anything, always believed tears were the most useless thing in the world. She’d always asked people who cried easily—what good does crying even do? What’s the point?
But at this very moment, how desperately she wished crying could actually do something—how desperately she wished that if she cried hard enough, Beiyue would somehow be all right!
Yet she still hadn’t heard any response from Jun Beiyue at all. Ziqing fought on like someone possessed, heedless of everything, unable even to tell which direction was which, sobbing out Jun Beiyue’s name over and over while wildly striking and crashing through everything in her path!
Around them, Baili Weisheng and Xuanyuan Lige snapped back to themselves, only to find they were both trapped by well over a hundred poison corpses each, with absolutely no way to break free. Neither man could afford to think of anything else now, fighting with everything they had.
But poison corpses were poison corpses—their numbers alone were already overwhelming, and every time one was knocked down, it would simply rise back up again before long. If this continued, they’d exhaust themselves completely before anything else happened!
Before long, the scent of fresh blood reached them, and the moment Baili Weisheng caught it, he knew immediately it was Ziqing’s.
Indeed, Ziqing had cut herself, hoping her own blood might poison these corpses to death—but it had absolutely no effect at all!
“Han Ziqing, calm down! These are poison corpses—only the one who cultivated them can kill them with poison! Please, calm down!” Baili Weisheng shouted at the top of his lungs. Having once cultivated poison corpses himself, he understood everything about them all too well.
But Ziqing gave no response at all.
Hearing Baili Weisheng’s voice, Xuanyuan Lige finally managed to orient himself, realizing Baili Weisheng was the closest to him. He knew he needed to stay calm now, more than ever.
He fought his way desperately toward the right, toward Baili Weisheng—together, the two of them could conserve some strength by combining forces.
The moment he reached Baili Weisheng, Xuanyuan Lige found that this normally carefree, unserious man had also worked himself into a frantic state. A memory flashed through his mind—words Baili Weisheng had once spoken to him, back in that cave on Yuqiong Mountain in Nanzhao. Xuanyuan Lige shook his head helplessly and grabbed hold of his hand.
Only then did Baili Weisheng, his eyes red with fury, finally begin to calm down, turning to find Xuanyuan Lige right beside him.