Leaving After It's Done

The dust (mostly powder and grit) settled in the cell.

The young man leaned against the wall, his gasping breaths like a broken bellows. He glanced at the assassin, dead as dead could be with a knife in his brow, then at the leader of the black-clad men curled up beside him, occasionally twitching – temporarily dubbed Assassin B. Finally, his complex, unreadable gaze returned to the darkness of the auxiliary passage.

It remained utterly silent, as if the "flying stone" that had just turned the tide of battle was merely an illusion.

But he knew it wasn't.

The person hiding in the shadows had used insidious means, struck at a critical moment, and their motives were unclear. Friend? He had saved himself. Foe? Why hadn't he shown himself? Or was he merely a bystander unwilling to get involved in karma?

The young man's thoughts raced, but exhaustion and the numbness from his arm wound prevented deep contemplation. This place was not safe for long! If assassins could find their way in once, they could find their way in a second time!

He forced himself to stand, stumbling over to Assassin B, and began to search him nimbly. Soon, he found a few odds and ends: a small bottle of antidote (he sniffed it, confirmed, and swallowed it immediately), a few pieces of silver, a black token of special material (engraved with "Shadow Sha" on the front and a number on the back), and... a few crumpled banknotes.

Seeing the banknotes, the young man's eyes flickered. After a moment's hesitation, he finally pocketed them. A fallen Prince still needed to eat.

Having done all that, he lingered no longer. He didn't even bother with the broken-open cell door, but instead dragged his weakened body and quickly disappeared into the darkness at the other end of Block E. He clearly knew the structure of the Heavenly Prison well and had his own escape route.

The entire Block E fell into deathly silence once more. Only two corpses (one about to become a corpse), an open cell door, and the mess on the ground remained.

After a while, estimating that the Prince had already fled, a rustling sound came from the auxiliary passage.

Immediately after, a figure scrambled out, incredibly disheveled, none other than Xu Qian!

His hair was messy, his face smudged with dirt, his guard uniform torn in several places, and he clutched his side (where he had been cut by a sleeve dart, now deliberately pressed to ooze more blood, looking quite terrifying). His eyes were wide, his face a mask of terror as he surveyed the scene—the open cell door, the fallen bodies, the scattered weapons, and the lingering smell of blood mixed with a strange odor in the air.

"G-good heavens! W-what happened?!" His voice was choked with tears, his body trembling like a sieve, perfectly embodying a terrified, low-level guard.

He "panicked" and looked around wildly, then seemed to come to his senses. He scrambled towards the guard room, shouting with a tearful voice, "Help! Something's happened! Someone's been killed!! Brother Li... Brother Li he... sob sob..."

His piercing cries echoed far into the silent corridor.

Soon, the sound of hurried footsteps and shouts approached. Other guards from different areas, alerted by the commotion, along with a grim-faced Zhou Kang, quickly arrived at the scene.

When the torchlight illuminated the mess, everyone gasped.

Li Xi lay in a pool of blood, his throat slit. Cell E-98's door was wide open, and it was empty. On the ground lay a black-clad man with a dagger in his brow, and another unconscious black-clad man with his face smeared with some unknown sticky substance.

"Wh-what... what happened?!" one guard stammered.

All eyes turned to the only "witness" still standing (albeit trembling violently) – Xu Qian.

"I... I don't know..." Xu Qian's face was pale, his words jumbled, as if deeply traumatized. "I... I was on duty over there... suddenly I heard a commotion over here... it sounded like... like a fight broke out... and screams... I... I was scared, so I hid in that passage over there... Later... later, when it got quiet, I... I dared to come out... and then I saw... I saw this... Brother Li he... sob sob..."

As he spoke, he pointed in the direction of the auxiliary passage, then at the bodies on the ground, and finally looked at Li Xi's corpse, beginning to "mournfully" wipe his tears (secretly dabbing a bit of saliva).

His story was half-truth, half-lie, perfectly absolving himself. Hiding out of fear was reasonable, and coming out late was because he was too scared. He claimed "ignorance" of the black-clad men and the Prince's escape.

Zhou Kang's face was grim as he silently examined the scene. He first looked at the wound on Li Xi's neck, then at the drugged black-clad man. He picked up the "Shadow Sha" token from the ground and looked at it, his eyes growing deeper.

Finally, he walked up to Xu Qian, his gaze like a knife scraping across his face.

Xu Qian's heart skipped a beat, but he maintained his look of shock and near-tears, even swaying "weakly."

"You said you hid?" Zhou Kang's voice betrayed no emotion.