Chapter 301 – An Unprecedented Fifth Rank Breakthrough - Part 3
The next evening.
Er Bao guided his ox cart toward the compound, humming under a clear, moon‑bright sky. Suddenly, his wrist felt the icy bite of a human-skin shackle. He jumped and swore, but before the next curse left his mouth the other wrist was cuffed the same way.
A web closed around his very soul, linking him to the man behind him, a perfect double of himself—Li Yuan.
Er Bao finally turned, bowed, and said respectfully, “It is an honor to serve, Master.”
“Stay in that tree for a while,” Li Yuan ordered. “Don’t make a sound; I’ll deliver your meals for you.”
“Yes, Master.”
Li Yuan left the bound man on an old tree no one had approached for half a month, then cracked the whip of the ox cart and rolled through the Blade Seekers compound. At the entrance, he lifted a limp hand and tilted his head just so; the guards, long used to the sight, waved him in without a word.
Li Yuan’s performance was flawless—until he reached Zhao Chunxin’s cell. There he paused a heartbeat, then shouldered the food box and stepped inside exactly as Er Bao would have done.
Inside the hidden cell, Zhao Chunxin had chained herself with specially forged shackles and locked her bulk inside an iron cage.
Hair wild, cheeks quivering in the half‑light, the scar at her eye ridge bulging with each glare. She looked every bit the demon.
“AAAH! It hurts, feed me! I need to eat!”
The moment Zhao Chunxin spotted Er Bao, she scrambled across the floor and flung herself at the bars like a starving ghost from hell.