"Your Majesty! Can you still hear us, Your Majesty?!"
Pan Jifeng reached out and kept pounding on the stone wall that had dropped into place. The more he pounded, the darker his expression became.
There was no response.
Not even the slightest sound reached them from the other side.
The stone wall had ruthlessly split their party in two, giving them no time whatsoever to react.
Jiao Hongmiao, who held the information on the locations of the mechanisms, had been sealed on the same side as Emperor Mingze. Fortunately...
Everyone turned to look at Yue Henqing, who stood surrounded by the party with a grave expression.
Fortunately, Heaven never sealed off every path. Their current predicament was not utterly hopeless.
"We..."
In the deathly silence, someone spoke in a trembling voice. "What do we do now?"
Pan Jifeng turned and swept his gaze around them in the dim yellow firelight.
The faces of Noble Consort Rou and the Fourth Imperial Prince flashed before his eyes. Pan Jifeng gritted his teeth. "Keep going."
Jiao Hongmiao stepped back from the stone wall and approached Emperor Mingze with a somber expression. "Your Majesty, that side is completely sealed off."
Jiang Yanchuan did not speak immediately.
His gaze first swept over the faces of the officials trapped on this side with him, then settled squarely on Jiao Hongmiao, who stood before him. "Has anyone else seen the information you're carrying?"
"We gathered together to copy it down," Jiao Hongmiao said hurriedly. "And before recording it, we checked repeatedly with the people around us, for fear that a lapse in memory might jeopardize something important."
"We checked the contents of this paper several times at the very least. Lord Chu has an excellent memory. He should remember most of it."
With Yue Henqing helping