Jiang Yanchuan walked in the middle of the search party, his expression grim.
The lit oil lamps came to an abrupt end halfway down the corridor. Fortunately, he had always kept a sachet on the little one's person. After Changshun released the Scent-Seeking Butterflies, they fluttered about in midair for two circles before flying straight off in the same direction.
The Scent-Seeking Butterflies were rather slow, and he grew restless.
A while later.
Someone at the rear of the party hurried past several others toward Jiang Yanchuan. "Your Majesty!"
Jiang Yanchuan did not stop walking. He merely turned his head slightly, his voice low. "Speak."
The man had run the entire way and was still short of breath, yet dared not delay for even a moment. Unconcealable terror colored his voice. "A-according to the man in black we just captured, there are countless forks here, most of them dead ends. Only one leads straight outside the palace, but, but..."
Seeing the storm about to break across Jiang Yanchuan's face, the messenger squeezed his eyes shut. "But they left men guarding the exit..."
The moment those words left his mouth, he felt the air around him turn eerily strange, like an undercurrent harboring countless dangers, waiting for the moment to erupt.
The oppressive aura surrounding Emperor Mingze was almost solid enough to touch.
Listening more carefully, he could clearly tell that everyone around him had instinctively held their breath and edged farther to either side, whether consciously or not.
Tears of resignation flowed in his heart.
Forget it.
So be it.
His next life would be better.
Suddenly, a figure rounded the corner at the end of a branching passage-
"We found the exit!!"
Jiang Yanchuan paused, then pushed off with his toes and vanished from the spot in an instant.