148 Imprisonment

To say Luan Yi wasn't nervous during the morning imperial court confrontation would be a lie. That atmosphere was vastly more intense than a thesis defense; after all, failing a thesis defense at worst resulted in not graduating, but a misstep during a court confrontation would cost him and his entire family their lives.

Therefore, every single word had to be meticulously weighed and deliberated, draining him both physically and mentally. Now that the dust had settled, exhaustion washed over him in a wave. Returning to his cell, he hit the bed and fell fast asleep.

After dozing fitfully for a while, a loud rumbling from his stomach shook him awake. Only then did he remember he hadn't eaten anything since morning. He sat up on the bed and shouted toward the corridor, "Jailer! Jailer, bring me some food!"

"Coming right up!" Moments later, a man accompanied by two servants unlocked the cell door and walked in, respectfully taking various dishes of wine and food from a food box and placing them on the table. "Lord Vice-Tutor, it has been prepared for you for a while."

"Hmm!" Luan Yi nodded. He glanced at the man before him and asked, "You look unfamiliar to me. Where is the previous Jailer Sun?"

The man respectfully replied, "Jailer Sun had a family emergency today and took a day off. My surname is Sha, and I am temporarily standing in for him."

"Oh!" Luan Yi didn't think much of it and waved his hand to signal them to leave.

The man then picked up the food box and walked out.

Luan Yi looked at the food and wine before him, picked up the bamboo chopsticks, took a piece of braised meat, and tasted it in his mouth. After chewing a couple of times, he glanced out at the corridor and sure enough, saw someone poking their head around the corner to spy on him. Seeing that Luan Yi had spotted him, the man hurriedly ducked his head back to the other side of the corner.

Taking advantage of the moment the opponent stepped into his blind spot, Luan Yi quickly spat the meat out of his mouth and hid it in his sleeve. He was secretly shocked: Zhang Rang was truly so unhinged to come up with such a scheme. At the same time, he felt immensely fortunate that he had been observant enough to grow suspicious when this jailer surnamed Sha addressed him as Vice-Tutor earlier.

One had to realize that the decision to appoint Luan Yi as the Crown Prince's Vice-Tutor had only been discussed and finalized during the grand morning assembly earlier that day. Less than half a day had passed, and many officials unqualified to attend the morning court were still unaware of the news. How, then, could a mere gatekeeper know of it? Clearly, someone had deliberately informed him. Furthermore, that person was none other than the mastermind behind the plot.

Maintaining an impassive expression, Luan Yi kept the corner of the corridor in his peripheral vision while putting on a display of eating with gusto. In reality, the food he consumed was all spat into his sleeves. He drank the wine as well, but instead of swallowing it, it flowed straight down his neck and into his robes.

After eating and drinking for a while, he clutched his stomach with a miserable expression. "Someone! Come quickly! My stomach is in agony, fetch a physician immediately."

No one paid him any attention.

"Come quickly!" To make the act more convincing, Luan Yi gritted his teeth, stomped his foot, and enduring the pain, bit the tip of his tongue. Filling his mouth with blood, he spat it out with a loud *spooft*. "Ah..." he shrieked and collapsed onto the floor.

The jailer surnamed Sha hurried over at the sound, followed by six burly men wearing guard uniforms. The group opened the cell door, glanced around, and upon confirming that Luan Yi was completely incapacitated, stepped across the threshold and approached him.

The jailer surnamed Sha gave Luan Yi a kick, and seeing that Luan Yi showed no reaction, he finally felt at ease.

"Is he dead?" someone behind him asked.

He nodded. "Dead!"

Upon hearing that Luan Yi was dead, Wei Ning, locked in a nearby cell, was overcome with excitement. Grabbing the iron bars facing the corridor, he shouted triumphantly, "Heaven has eyes! Luan Yi, you wretched dog, your day has finally come. Quick, let me out!"

"Don't be impatient. Wait!" It turned out that the jailer surnamed Sha had another mission on this trip—to rescue Wei Ning. He walked over to Wei Ning's cell, unlocked the door, and set Wei Ning free.

With a ferocious grin, Wei Ning strode over to Luan Yi's side. The moment he saw Luan Yi's mouth covered in blood, his face twisted into a mask of mixed rage and joy. With a swift motion, he yanked the precious sword from the waist of the jailer surnamed Sha. "Luan Ziqi, I will make sure you don't even have a complete corpse!" He brought the blade down fiercely toward Luan Yi.

Luan Yi had originally planned to feign death to muddle through, but he hadn't expected Wei Ning to spare no mercy even for a "dead man." In a flash of panic, he rolled on the ground, dodging the cleaving broadsword that cut through the air, and kicked out with his leg to strike a nearby stool. With a loud *bang*, the stool struck squarely at Wei Ning's lower stance.

With the immense force of Luan Yi's kick, the impact lifted Wei Ning's feet right off the ground, causing him to crash face-first into the dirt in a classic face-plant! "Ugh..."

"You... you're not dead?" The jailer surnamed Sha turned pale with fright, asking in a trembling voice.

Luan Yi executed a textbook carp kip-up, flipping himself back to his feet. "I've charged through enemy lines of tens of thousands multiple times, what can scum like you do to me?"

A ferocious look crossed the jailer surnamed Sha's face as he forced himself to stay calm. "You may have escaped thousands of troops, but you cannot escape this prison. Brothers, he is unarmed! Kill him!"

The disguised guards knew all too well that if Luan Yi survived, they would certainly face death. Driven by desperation, a surge of ferocity washed over them as they drew their sabers and swarmed into the cell.

Luan Yi let out a cold snort, single-handedly grabbed the table, and hurled it toward the entrance. It struck one of the fierce guards squarely, shattering into pieces and leaving the man with a bloody head as he fell to the ground, groaning. Another guard sidestepped the fallen man, lunged forward, and unleashed a ferocious downward slash with his saber.

"Hmph..." Luan Yi sidestepped the blade's edge, grabbed the man's wrist, and twisted hard. With a sickening *crack*, the thick wrist snapped and bent into a grotesque angle. Luan Yi casually flung the man away, smashing him ruthlessly against the corner of the wall. The sheer force of the impact caused the man's eyeballs to bulge out of their sockets.

Just as Luan Yi bent down to pick up a dropped saber, a flash of cold steel caught his peripheral vision. He hastily leaned backward and rolled, barely managing to stand firm on his feet as another whistling strike sliced through the air. He used the momentum to spin and press his back against the wooden bars to dodge it.

Looking up, he saw that the jailer surnamed Sha and all the remaining guards had now crowded into the cell. Two severely wounded guards lay twisted on the floor, wailing miserably, while the rest surrounded him in a tight circle. Because of the sheer number of people, the cell grew increasingly cramped, leaving him with less and less room to maneuver.

Knowing there was no place left to dodge, Luan Yi realized he had to fight for his life. He stretched out both arms, grabbing two wooden bars of the cell door with his hands. His muscles bulged fiercely, and the veins on his neck stood out like thick cords. "Get down here!" With a thunderous roar accompanied by a loud *crunch*, the sturdy wooden pillars of the cell door—strong enough to confine a tiger—were snapped off by his bare hands and turned into wooden clubs held in both his grips.

With a casual swing, his club met the downward slash of an incoming saber. The blade embedded itself deeply into the arm-thick wooden club without cutting through it, and the massive counterforce vibrated violently, bursting the guard's webbed fingers and covering his hands in blood. Dropping his weapon, the guard turned and fled in terror.

"Where do you think you're going?" Luan Yi aimed the jagged, broken end of the club straight at the fleeing man's back and hurled it like a spear with a piercing whistle. It entered the back and burst out through the chest, spraying blood everywhere. Hearts, livers, lungs, and shattered spinal vertebrae spilled across the floor, terrifying everyone present to the point where their legs turned to jelly.

Good grief... was this even human?!

Every single guard was trembling with fear, but Luan Yi grew only fiercer the more he killed. He swung his heavy club with a roaring wind, slashing left and right to cut down two more men. Grabbing a fleeing guard by the back of the neck, he yanked him backward, slammed him to the ground, and stomped his foot straight into the man's lower abdomen.

With a sickening smell, the man was beaten so hard he involuntarily soiled himself. Having eliminated this adversary, Luan Yi gazed forward. By now, the jailer surnamed Sha had been left completely isolated.

Trembling, the jailer retreated step by step facing Luan Yi, until he tripped over the threshold and tumbled backward onto his bottom. Using both hands and feet to scramble away, he cried out in terror, "Don't come any closer..."

Luan Yi couldn't be bothered with him and approached, dragging his blood-stained club. "Speak! Who sent you here?" Even without asking, Luan Yi could guess who had ordered this man to kill him, but to demand justice later, he still needed to extract some evidence.

"No one sent me. I wanted to kill you myself!"

"You?" Luan Yi knitted his brow tightly, his fierce eyes locking onto the man's eyes until the man grew deeply guilty and averted his gaze. "We have no recent grudges and no past enmity. Why would you want to kill me? You were clearly directed by someone."

"No grudge?" Mentioning this seemed to inject a shred of backbone into the jailer surnamed Sha, who snarled viciously, "Who says no grudge? My younger brother died by your hand!"

"Huh?" Luan Yi was momentarily stunned, but realization dawned on him. Presumably, this man's brother had participated in the Yellow Turban Rebellion. "I cannot be blamed for that; slaying enemies on the battlefield is a military officer's duty. If anyone is to be blamed, blame your brother for following the wrong master!"

Hearing this, the man's pupils trembled slightly.

Pressing his advantage, Luan Yi continued to interrogate him, "Mere commoners like you, how did you manage to enter this heavenly prison? You must have been sent by someone who greased the palms of the officials in between. Speak, who sent you? If you tell me, I can spare your life!"

"Such a silver-tongued devil, Luan Ziqi. I won't believe you!"

Seeing that the man stubbornly refused to talk, Luan Yi grew furious. "If you don't confess right now, don't blame Luan Yi for being ruthless!"

"Come and get me then!"

Before Luan Yi could react, he saw the jailer surnamed Sha pull a packet of powder from his robes and shove the entire thing—paper and all—into his mouth. Luan Yi rushed forward and clamped his hands tightly around the man's jaw to prevent him from swallowing. Yet the poison he had ingested was terrifyingly potent, dissolving instantly upon contact. Within moments, the man's eyes rolled back, his legs kicked frantically, and he began foaming at the mouth, the white froth laced with thick streaks of blood. Soon, the foaming stopped as he coughed up dark purple blood. His body convulsed at increasingly slower intervals until he finally fell still and stopped breathing.

Confirming that the man was dead, Luan Yi felt a wave of despondency. "For a eunuch, is it really worth it?"

He returned to the cell and checked the pulses of the guards one by one, only to realize he had been too heavy-handed and wiped them all out completely, leaving not a single living tongue behind. Tracking down the mastermind from here on would be an uphill battle. Just as he was gathering the corpses, he heard a groan of "Ouch" nearby. Turning his head, he thought, *Heh*, Wei Ning was still alive.

Luan Yi paced over to Wei Ning, grabbed him by the collar to haul him close, and patted his cheek with a grin. "Young Master Wei, was my hospitality to your liking?"

"You... you're not dead?" Wei Ning asked, shivering with fright. He surveyed the cell and saw that Luan Yi was covered in blood yet bore no wounds, while the assassins who had come to kill Luan Yi were sprawled haphazardly everywhere. "This..."

"Haha..." Luan Yi burst into hearty laughter. "This is the fate of those who try to harm me! Will you die in this cell today, or be beheaded at the execution grounds tomorrow?"

"Harm you! Ha..." Wei Ning unexpectedly burst out laughing as well. "I wanted to kill you! With you dead, Zhaoji wouldn't have to weep bitterly day in and day out, suffering endlessly. You hypocritical phony, even if I die, I will expose your ugly face to the world!"

"What did you say?" Luan Yi flew into a rage, slamming Wei Ning against the wall. "What do you mean by Zhaoji weeping bitterly day in and day out and suffering endlessly? Make yourself clear!"