Xiao Fenghua's Shock

"What? Elder sister, I..." Xiao Sheng was dumbstruck and hurried to explain.

"What sort of standing did President Du Jun have?"

Xiao Fenghua's tone turned cold.

"He was an extraordinary figure whom even Father King had to treat with deference. He lived in seclusion year-round, rarely showing his face.

Why would he personally come to this filthy Heaven's Prison to visit a criminal serving a fifty-year sentence—the Discarded Son of a Marquis Estate?

And why would he treat him as an equal, calling him brother?"

She shook her head slightly, the disappointment in her eyes deepening.

"Xiao Sheng, if you're going to make up a lie, at least make it believable.

You think Father King and I are so easily fooled that we'd swallow such an obvious lie?

You've been locked up in Heaven's Prison so long you've lost all sense of propriety and started dreaming up ridiculous fantasies."

Xiao Fenghua didn't believe him at all.

In her eyes, this was nothing but an outlandish "adventure" fabricated by her good-for-nothing younger brother, Xiao Sheng, either to escape sooner or to make the estate pay attention to him.

President Du, a mysterious prisoner—none of it was anything but a ploy to dodge punishment and draw attention.

And the claim that the prisoner could produce something like a Bodhi Pill was even more absurd. Xiao Sheng had probably embellished the story to make his "lie" more convincing.

Her elder sister's fierce scolding left Xiao Sheng dumbfounded. His face flushed with urgency. "Elder sister, I really wasn't lying. If you don't believe me, ask Lüyi, Fendai, and everyone who was there. They saw it too."

"Enough."

Xiao Fenghua shouted, the natural authority of someone long accustomed to command bearing down on him until his next words caught in his throat.

"...The maids at your side would naturally take your part.

Besides, who in Heaven's Prison wouldn't fear the authority of the royal family? If you told them to help you lie, would they dare refuse?"

Xiao Fenghua spoke with absolute certainty, convinced the whole thing was a farce staged by Xiao Sheng, with Zhang Yu nothing more than an insignificant "prop" forced to play along.

She couldn't even be bothered to look at Zhang Yu again. Even one glance felt like a waste.

Zhang Yu, for his part, looked entirely unbothered. He closed his eyes and rested, sticking to his principle of keeping his head down and avoiding the spotlight. Xiao Fenghua's accusations and contempt meant nothing to him.

The prisoners watching nearby, swayed by Xiao Fenghua's imposing presence and "reasonable" explanation, began to doubt the story too.

"Right. It's only natural the Heir Apparent would make up a story to get out..."

"What sort of person is President Du? Why would he come to a place like this?"

"Maybe it really was a setup..."

But just as the murmurs of doubt began to rise, and Xiao Fenghua was about to turn away again while Xiao Sheng stamped his feet in desperation, powerless to stop her—

Humm...

A faint, strange vibration suddenly rippled through the entire Heaven's Prison.

It was so subtle that only the most delicate ripple could be felt; anyone who wasn't an expert in formations would never have noticed it.

The cells remained as they were. The lamps still burned. Even the air seemed not to stir.

Yet Xiao Fenghua, a heaven-blessed prodigy who had cultivated the Jing Prince's Estate's secret Bright Phoenix Heart Sutra and also studied formations, caught the anomaly at once.

More importantly, she wore a treasure of the Jing Prince's Estate: the Eye of Delusion, which could see through maze formations and illusions to a certain extent.

She stopped abruptly. A glint flashed in her phoenix eyes as she fixed her gaze on the source of the disturbance—the cell where Zhang Yu was held.

Zhang Yu sat cross-legged, eyes still closed and expression calm.

But the air in front of him began to twist and ripple like water, in a way too subtle for the naked eye to catch, yet undeniably real.

Then, under Xiao Fenghua's horrified gaze, a disheveled old man walked brazenly into Heaven's Prison and approached Zhang Yu.

He was slightly hunched, dressed in a drab old robe stained with grease. His hair was a tangled mess of gray, and he seemed to be carrying... a wine gourd.

Strangely, no one present but Xiao Fenghua noticed him. In fact, no one else could even see him.

If Xiao Fenghua hadn't studied formations so diligently and worn the Eye of Delusion, she wouldn't have been able to see him either.

The old man had somehow slipped an exceptionally ingenious illusion formation into the gaps in Heaven's Prison's defensive array, hiding himself perfectly and evading everyone's senses and sight.

Such a feat was simply appalling.

But what shook Xiao Fenghua even more was that Zhang Yu seemed unsurprised by the old man's arrival.

When the old man reached him, Zhang Yu slowly opened his eyes.

The disheveled old man was none other than Chen Dongpeng.

He took a swig from his wine gourd, smacked his lips, and grumbled, "As expected of Heaven's Prison. This shell's harder than a turtle's. It took me almost a quarter of an hour to slip the illusion formation in without a sound. I'm exhausted."

His tone was casual, as if he were commenting on the weather, but his words made Xiao Fenghua's heart pound.

A quarter of an hour?

He'd infiltrated Heaven's Prison's defensive array without a sound?

And without triggering an alarm?

Was... was that even humanly possible?

Zhang Yu showed no surprise at Chen Dongpeng's arrival, as if he'd expected it all along. "Stop showing off. You came to say goodbye, didn't you?"