Chapter 105: Reverse Escape?

At this moment, both Lu Yunze and Qian Yao had the same thought in their hearts: Why has this woman shown up here again?

When the news of Li Zhixiong’s arrival came, Zhi Chen was still bathing. Lu Yunze had no choice but to remove his headphones and entertain the uninvited guest in the living room.

Just thinking about what might happen if Jiang Sui was left alone, Lu Yunze couldn’t help but get a headache. But ever since he saw Li Zhiyan’s wooden expression, he felt more shock than annoyance.

It had clearly been less than two days since their last meeting, yet Li Zhiyan had completely changed. Her cheeks were sunken, her complexion pale as a sprout, her facial lines drooping, and the dark circles beneath her eyes were even more pronounced.

She looked as if she had been gravely ill. She seemed utterly drained, her outward vigor all but vanished. She was so thin, she was practically skin and bones.

Had she always been like this before?

While Lu Yunze was still puzzled, Li Zhiyan, who had been muttering to herself, suddenly let her voice take on a sorrowful tone.

“What’s wrong, Ms. Li?” Out of courtesy, Lu Yunze asked.

“Brother, it’s about the family’s old matters.”

“Didn’t he already go down?”

“Ever since that passage was discovered under my home, I realized that Father never truly trusted me and never told me his real intentions.”

Li Zhiyan’s expression was growing increasingly desolate.

“He always had his own plans, yet left me completely out of them. When he died, he left me to handle the mess alone. That day, when I was taken away by the police, I really thought I would go to prison in his place.”

“Think on the bright side, Ms. Li. Since you were able to come here, the police must not have made things too difficult for you.”

“Indeed.” Li Zhiyan smiled bitterly, “But I really loved Quan Huancheng. For him to treat me this way, it truly breaks my heart.”

To be honest, Lu Yunze had no interest in the love story between Li Zhiyan and Quan Huancheng. If she was only here to vent her own negative emotions, Lu Yunze would have rather she went to find someone else to moan to.

The others were still waiting for him to start the next round.

Lu Yunze scratched the hair by his temple, glancing at the thread of hair that had floated down in front of him, noticing that Li Zhiyan was also tugging at her hair.

She made the same gesture, but as she gently scratched her scalp, several strands of hair came loose, and one drifted right before Lu Yunze’s eyes.

Noticing his gesture, Li Zhiyan could only offer a bitter smile:

“Sorry, it’s the stress. My hair loss has gotten worse lately.”

“Ah, that’s tough.”

No, this didn’t seem like ordinary hair loss at all.

Li Zhiyan was still rubbing her head, and her long dark hair continued to shed, strands floating everywhere like dandelion fluff blown by the wind.

Something’s definitely wrong with this woman!

Not only did Lu Yunze sense it, but even Jiang Sui, standing around the corner in the hallway, also noticed this strange phenomenon after observing for a while.

She hadn’t realized it before, but thinking back to what she’d seen in the previous few encounters, Jiang Sui suddenly understood: The person Jin Huancheng or the Black Star Cult had collaborated with must be someone extremely close to him.

There weren’t that many people in the Jin Family, so narrowing it down wasn’t difficult.

Excluding the unrelated servants, there were only two close to Quan Huancheng: one was his son Jin Shun, the other was Li Zhiyan.

Quan Shun’s suspicions had already been ruled out; he was only roped in by the Black Star Cult in order to retrieve the Black Box from Quan Huancheng.

So, that person had to be Li Zhiyan. Her claim not to know about the underground passage was clearly a lie.

For her own personal goals, she used the excuse of advancing the Jin Family to lure Quan Huancheng into collaborating with the Black Star Cult.

Together, they built that passage under the Jin Family manor and began constructing a ritual chamber, manufacturing sacrificial items—the Black Box—to please the King of Robes.

Everything went smoothly until, just as the Black Box was completed, Quan Huancheng and the Black Star Cult fell out and each grabbed a box for themselves.

After that, the two sides definitely fought openly and in secret many times, each trying to retrieve the box.

The Black Star Cult even found Jin Shun, hoping to use Quan Huancheng’s son for help, but due to Jiang Sui and Lu Yunze’s intervention, not only did their plan fail, but their group was almost wiped out by the Ankang Town police and enforcement division. The box they were after ended up in Jiang Sui’s hands.

Then, Li Zhiyan made her move against Quan Huancheng, stealing the other Black Box, and now she still coveted the one Jiang Sui held.

The truth was clear, yet Jiang Sui still felt a heavy weight pressing on her heart.

So why had she come to this manor now? Was she really here to try to snatch the Black Box?

Jiang Sui instinctively reached for her wrist—the Black Box was in her own bracelet. Li Zhiyan probably still thought it was with Lu Yunze.

What would she do? Pretend to be checking, then suddenly launch an attack?

Or maybe she wouldn’t act herself, but had hidden an attacker or some other helper outside?

“Ms. Li, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time.”

Lu Yunze’s voice interrupted Jiang Sui’s thoughts.

“Go ahead, Mr. Lu.”

“Your stomach… what’s going on?”

“Stomach? I’m fine.”

Li Zhiyan didn’t seem to understand what Lu Yunze was referring to. She still wore a smile as she continued telling her story with Quan Huancheng.

But Lu Yunze’s expression was growing uglier by the second.

During their recent conversation, he’d seen Li Zhiyan’s belly slowly and steadily swell up. At first, he thought he was seeing things, but in the blink of an eye, her stomach was as big as if she were ten months pregnant.

Her clothes looked about to be torn apart by the bulging belly, but Li Zhiyan seemed not to notice, lost in her own world.

Too late!

With a sound of stretching fabric, Li Zhiyan’s abdomen suddenly bulged out. Bluish-purple veins spread across her lower stomach, and something inside seemed to move with a pulse of life.

Most frightening of all, beneath the surface of Li Zhiyan’s stomach, a rectangular shadow could be faintly seen, as if a fetus in its mother’s womb, constantly shifting and struggling, as if the next second it might burst out.

“Um, my stomach feels a bit bloated. My clothes must be too small. Please don’t mind it.” Li Zhiyan’s smile had already become completely bloodless.

“Ah, right, I don’t mind.”

Sweat beaded on Lu Yunze’s face, but he tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

He just felt that rectangular shadow was incredibly disturbing. For the moment, he couldn’t figure out what it was.

But when Jiang Sui saw this, she was so startled she staggered back against the wall, her breath catching.

She turned and ran straight back to her room, immediately telling everything she’d seen to Black Pig lying on the bed.

“What? You’re saying she’s got something stuffed in her stomach?”

Even Black Pig was shocked.

“Wu o—”

Jiang Sui wanted to take out the Black Box from her bracelet, but stopped herself.

She couldn’t take it out—if the two Black Boxes resonated with each other and forced Li Zhiyan to go berserk on the spot, things could get very ugly.

“That woman actually dared to carry such a dangerous thing in her belly!”

Black Pig jumped off the bed.

“That thing was made by piling up human lives. It’s truly disgusting.”

Even so, Jiang Sui could still see it squirming in Li Zhiyan’s belly, just like a monster fetus.

“Even if it really has turned into a fetus, would that really be so surprising?” Black Pig said. “That evil thing is meant to be offered to the King in Black Robes. Who knows—maybe Li Zhiyan finished the ritual early, and then the King in Black Robes imbued that thing with some bizarre power.”

“The King in Black Robes… really exists?”

At first, Jiang Sui had thought it was just something the cult members chanted about.

Black Pig was silent for a while, then said, “Records about gods are always rare. I can’t confirm whether gods actually exist, but I can at least tell you that there truly are things in this world beyond our imagination.”

Unknown beings with incomprehensible powers—those certainly fit the definition of a god.

Back then, even Hu Ming relied on the Black Box’s power to spread his Secret Arts, covering the whole of Ankang Town. And the one in Li Zhiyan’s hands had even been blessed by the King in Black Robes, making it the promax version, even stronger.

Maybe the King in Black Robes only lent her a bit of power to help hatch a Black Box, but Li Zhiyan chose the most extreme method of using that power.

In her belly, something evil was being bred.

“Anyone who gets involved with the King in Black Robes will never meet a good end. There’s nothing more we can do for this manor.”

Black Pig climbed onto the table, its golden eyes gazing at Jiang Sui.

“I can help you with a few things, like dealing with that evil thing if it comes to it. Jiang Sui, while there’s still time, you’d better make up your mind.”

“You mean, leave Lu Yunze behind and escape?”

“If you want to take him with you, that’s not impossible either.”

But, based on its years of experience, even with three Secret Arts Practitioners in the manor, they might not be enough to handle what was coming.

Still, as long as they cooperated and did their best, they could at least save Lu Yunze and take him away.

The manor could always be rebuilt, servants could always be rehired, and even if Zhi Chen died, it was just another obstacle in Jiang Sui’s plan.

“Maybe, we could even use this opportunity to cultivate Lu Yunze’s sense of hatred.” Black Pig spoke quietly. “You know, hatred is the most powerful motivation for a person.”

As long as there was still a will for revenge in the heart, even in the face of certain death, one could still grasp onto that last ray of hope for survival.

Surely Jiang Sui would understand that, since they had both become such people now.

“But even so, isn’t this just a reverse escape?”

From Black Pig’s golden eyes, Jiang Sui saw the reflection of her own determined expression.