A’Shui and the carriage drivers entered the forest, calling Yu Tuan’er’s name along the way. However, aside from the howling wind through the trees, there was not a sound in the forest. Suddenly one driver let out a muffled “hmm,” and the sound of dragging immediately erupted from his side. A’Shui was greatly alarmed. Swinging her torch, she watched helplessly as something dark in the forest swiftly dragged away a driver, disappearing instantly among the grass, trees, and rocks! The other driver screamed, “Mountain ghost! Mountain ghost!” and ran backward with his head covered, rustling as he too vanished into the forest. A’Shui stood alone holding the torch, looking at the flickering tree shadows in all directions. Behind every cluster of shadows seemed to lurk mountain ghosts capable of taking human lives. She remained rigid for quite a while before finally summoning courage, tremblingly raising her torch and slowly walking toward the direction where that strange, kidnapping shadow had departed.

If there were man-eating monsters in this forest, then… perhaps Yu Tuan’er had also been dragged away by this creature.

She gripped the torch tightly, her face deathly pale, walking forward step by step. After a few steps she paused—she thought perhaps she should return first to report, but—

But if during the time she spent returning, “it” devoured Yu Tuan’er, wouldn’t that be a lifelong regret?

A’Shui’s face grew even paler. Gripping the torch tightly, she quickened her pace forward.

The deeper into the forest she went, the denser the trees became, the darker everything around her. Her heart felt ice-cold. Wind rustled the leaves, drowning out the sound of her footsteps on fallen leaves. “Tuan’er?” she called softly. “Uncle Ma?”

Uncle Ma was the driver who had been dragged away by the dark shadow. She called “Uncle Ma” several times with no response. In this short time, if he hadn’t been dragged somewhere too far to hear her calls, then he was already unable to answer.

“Uncle Ma? Tuan’er?” She continued walking forward step by step. Suddenly her foot found empty air, and with a crashing sound, she fell into a cave of moderate depth.

This cave was filled with withered branches and dead leaves, permeated with a foul, putrid stench. When she fell, she landed on something warm and soft—a human body. The torch in A’Shui’s hand hadn’t gone out. Raising the torch, she saw two people in the cave, one male and one female—exactly Yu Tuan’er and Uncle Ma.

However, these two lay on either side, motionless. A’Shui felt both their pulses—weak and faint, but she couldn’t tell what had injured them. There were no bloodstains on their bodies, nor any obvious wounds. They had probably been poisoned by some strange beast’s venom. Feeling completely at a loss, she couldn’t help raising her head and calling toward the top of the cave, “Young Master Tang…” Even knowing he wouldn’t come, in despair she still hoped he might be there.

Just as she raised her head to call, the torchlight flickered, and she saw exposed black fresh earth on both sides of the cave opening.

This cave had been newly dug.

She suddenly turned the torch around. Among the withered branches and dead leaves at the bottom of the cave, something was faintly glittering.

She bent down and gently touched it.

It was a net.

A net woven from extremely fine black iron wire, seemingly invisible in the darkness.

No beast would use iron wire to make nets—this was definitely a trap!

This was human work, not ghosts!

This net was spread at the bottom of the cave. After brief contemplation, A’Shui understood—Uncle Ma and Yu Tuan’er were the bait and mechanism in this net. Something crucial was probably pressed beneath them. If someone fell into the net and reached out to lift the people, this strange black net would spring up and ensnare everyone in the cave together.

She had fallen here without triggering the mechanism because she simply hadn’t thought to move those two people.

She closed her mouth, no longer calling for Young Master Tang, and slowly extinguished her torch.

Darkness enveloped everything.

Perhaps the person secretly orchestrating this had let her fall into the trap precisely to lure her into calling loudly for help, drawing Tang Lici here. But she had no desire whatsoever to draw Tang Lici here. His injuries hadn’t healed yet, his state of mind was too chaotic. If he fell into this net… she thought… he would certainly be ambushed.

A’Shui closed her eyes. Yes, he would certainly be ambushed. Young Master Tang never feared entering dragons’ dens or tigers’ lairs, and though he would surely manage to rescue them safely, she never again wanted to see him struggle, never again wanted to see him encounter any danger.

She thought… at this moment, even the slightest additional burden would be torture for him.

Though Tang Lici had never expressed such things.

Unable to see her hand before her face, she was confused for a moment, then slowly groped to Yu Tuan’er’s side and embraced her. She laboriously held her and turned over. Dimly, there was some hard object pressed beneath Yu Tuan’er, but the iron net didn’t activate. She breathed a sigh of relief, gently pushing Yu Tuan’er, but Yu Tuan’er remained unconscious and silent. A’Shui reached out to examine her body, wanting to know exactly what injury she had suffered and why she remained unconscious.

Suddenly her finger felt cold, touching something icy and hard. She was greatly alarmed, then her finger hurt as something bit down firmly on her finger, biting so forcefully that the creature’s teeth trembled violently against her hand. She jerked her hand back, and the thing immediately coiled around her arm—a snake!

There was a snake on Yu Tuan’er’s body! She suddenly understood that the strange stench in this cave was actually the smell of snakes. Their unconsciousness was probably due to snake venom, and since she had been bitten by a snake, she probably would also… Just as she was at a loss, a sinister low laugh suddenly echoed from outside the cave.

“Ha…”

Just one low laugh, but she felt this laugh was different from ordinary people’s. Gritting her teeth, though she didn’t want to implicate Tang Lici and wanted to escape by her own means, she couldn’t let Yu Tuan’er and Uncle Ma die from snake venom because of this. However reluctant, she had no choice but to raise her voice and call for help: “Young Master Tang—Young Master Tang—”

No one prevented her from calling for help—obviously, this was indeed one of the methods to lure Tang Lici into ambush. A’Shui called for help while mustering her spirits, slowly turning and rolling to one side.

With a “buzz” of vibration, the hard object she had been pressing was released as she rolled aside, and the black net in the cave suddenly closed, firmly binding all three people inside the cave. She revealed a faint smile. Her entire body had become paralyzed from snake venom and she could no longer make a sound. She closed her eyes.

What she could do might all be futile, but she had done her utmost.

The person outside the cave who had just laughed said “Hm?” in surprise that A’Shui had actually triggered the mechanism herself. This black net was made of dark iron, difficult to damage with swords or blades. Once a person fell into the net, even with heaven-reaching abilities, escape was difficult—that’s why it was used against Tang Lici. Yet it had been triggered early by a mere maid.

Was this intentional or accidental? The person frowned. That cold laugh had used internal energy techniques and could travel far—Tang Lici must have heard it. Combined with this maid’s several calls for help, in the quiet night, it would be strange if he couldn’t hear.

But even if the mechanism was broken, it didn’t matter. The person reached into the cave, pulled up the black net in one motion. The three people inside were tightly bound together, their life or death unclear. He reached into the net, casually grasping one person’s neck, and called out in a sinister voice: “Tang Lici, I know you’ve already arrived. Come out!”

In the forest, leaves rustled softly with no reply, only darkness.

“Tang Lici, I’ll count to three. If you don’t appear by one, I’ll kill one person. If you don’t appear by two, I’ll kill the second person. If you don’t appear by three, all three in this net will die together…” Before the person could finish speaking, he suddenly heard a light “crack” from his own neck, and then… everything went quiet for him.

A soft palm rested on the back of his neck.

That palm had just gently shattered his neck bone.

After a moment, with a “slap,” the person’s body fell straight to the ground, revealing someone who had somehow stood behind him like a ghost.

“If you don’t appear by one, you’ll kill one person…” that person said softly. “You simply talk too much.” He coughed lightly. “I’ve never had much patience.”

The newcomer wore white clothing, pale as a ghost in the pitch-black forest where one couldn’t see their own hand. As the corpse with the shattered neck fell, the black net binding the three people came into his hands. He used his fingers to stroke the smooth dark iron wire of the black net extremely lightly, his pale fingers slowly penetrating the net along the iron wire, and like the previous person, casually grasped someone’s neck.

A’Shui’s neck.

She had shielded Yu Tuan’er behind her, Yu Tuan’er curled tightly behind her. When the black net closed, she had forcefully spread her body to shield Yu Tuan’er, with Uncle Ma lying crosswise at their feet—so whoever reached into the net would easily grasp her exposed neck.

He stared intently at A’Shui, his fingers slowly sinking into her neck.

Just a little force would make her disappear forever.

However, after a long while, he loosened his fingers inch by inch, gently lifted his hand, and touched her face.

A’Shui’s face was ice-cold, but there were no tears.

His hand slowly withdrew from her face. He quickly lit a fire starter, searched the dead person on the ground, looked around briefly, found no more people in ambush, then picked up the three people in the dark iron net and hurried back the way he came.

His ability to navigate was excellent. Even in the forest where one could barely see anything, he moved swiftly with almost no obstruction, soon returning to the earlier campfire.

However, beside the campfire was only the campfire.

Flickering weak flames danced on charcoal nearly turned to ash. The person who should have been waiting nearby was nowhere to be seen, completely gone without a trace.

Tang Lici set down the three people in his hands. All around was silent except for the sound of leaves. Within a radius of thirty feet, there was no trace of any living beings.

He had made a mistake.

He should have let these two burdensome women die, then taken Liu Yan to Shaolin Temple.

That would have cut through the chaos swiftly, forcing Yu Konghou to be caught between concerns and quickly resolving the Fengliu Shop matter.

But he hadn’t.

The night wind in the forest was ice-cold. The campfire flickered dimly, unable to provide much warmth. Liu Yan, Se Lin, and Fengfeng had obviously fallen into enemy hands while he was away.

Luring the tiger from the mountain.

He had seen through it but made no decision, then followed Liu Yan’s arrangement to search for people, and then obviously… Liu Yan had made an incorrect decision according to the normal patterns of his life.

He looked down at the pile of campfire and slowly sat down, his snow-white sleeves placed beside the charcoal fire. The dying flames quietly licked up his sleeves, burning quietly at the hem.

The people who took Liu Yan and Se Lin had unknown backgrounds. If they were Yu Konghou’s people, obviously they meant to prevent him from going to Shaolin Temple to see Puzhu. He thought very clearly… if Yu Konghou could spare personnel to come here and abduct people to prevent him from going up the mountain, then he should have persuaded Puzhu to leave Shaolin Temple beforehand, so that even if he could abandon the hostages and reach Shaolin Temple, there would be no result. But currently too many people in the jianghu hated him to the bone. He couldn’t determine which faction the enemy came from. He had offended too many people. People hated him in the name of justice, besieged him in the name of eliminating evil. He thought he didn’t care…

Or rather, not long ago, he didn’t care.

But recently… some things in him had fallen apart, other things had left him. He faced each person with a smile, trying to be the same as before. He had even managed to achieve most of it.

However, his shattered soul craved quiet, yearned for stillness. It needed time and corners to lick its wounds with feigned strength. It had been burned to ash by him, and with any more disturbance, perhaps nothing would remain.

He thought… perhaps having nothing left wouldn’t actually be so bad.

After that night when his heart demons ran wild, the fear and reverence of hundreds and thousands of people could no longer satisfy him, while any person’s slightest malice could leave him riddled with wounds.

The flames quietly died out at his sleeve hem.

The three people in the net remained unconscious.

Tang Lici sat quietly for quite a while, finally blinking and turning to look at the three people on the ground.

That large black net still tightly bound the three people together. He pinched the iron wire with two fingers and pulled—the black net didn’t budge at all. It was no ordinary item. Suddenly with a “snap,” something sprang from A’Shui’s body and viciously bit his wrist.

A snake? With a flip of his wrist, he killed the foot-long small venomous snake and tossed it aside. Mere snake venom naturally couldn’t kill him. In that instant, Tang Lici understood—if the people who abducted Liu Yan and Se Lin were accomplices with those who set this dark iron net trap, then they weren’t Yu Konghou’s people.

Because Yu Konghou had long known that snake venom couldn’t kill Tang Lici.

The three people on the ground had definitely all been poisoned by snake venom. He looked coldly at the poisonous snake on the ground. The snake showed a strange grass-green color with an extremely large head—this was a type of venomous snake he had never seen before, definitely extremely poisonous.

A’Shui’s face had already turned blue-green, not to mention Yu Tuan’er and Uncle Ma who had been poisoned earlier. But if this were a fast-acting deadly poison, these three would have died long ago and couldn’t have lasted until now. This indicated that the remarkable aspect of this snake venom wasn’t instant death upon contact with blood—there must be something else strange about it.

This woman in the net who protected others… he had once been quite fond of her, because she vaguely resembled someone he imagined, because she always attracted men, because she was so patient and quiet, struggling hard to survive—however—

After that night, he suddenly felt she resembled no one—she was only herself, she had always been only herself. He had never thought of treating her kindly, because she was a prostitute who could be anyone’s wife. Shattering her dignity and confidence was such a pleasurable thing, like slowly and continuously tearing apart an exquisite silk painting. The aesthetic of complete destruction was wild and stimulating. But he had torn, shattered, even personally destroyed her, yet that painting still remained.

She actually hadn’t been destroyed. She was still there, exactly the same as before… not even harboring the slightest resentment. He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear… that he had been hurt, pained, lost composure, gone mad, even killed in front of her… He had shown countless strange and hideous aspects, he had erred, failed, fallen apart… all sorts of ugly states, unable to be omniscient and omnipotent, never perfect, while she remained unchanged.

This was truly… unbearable.