Outside the secret chamber.
Ren Ye, Hundred-Flower Immortal, Poison Wine Flask, and even Ghost-Headed Saber stood dumbstruck when they saw the faces of the thirteen officers seated inside, their eyes filled with shock.
They were none other than the Twelve Generals who had "died" in the Main Hall, along with Niu Xi, who had been beheaded.
Yet now they sat alive and well in the secret chamber, without the slightest external injury.
Unlike the four stunned onlookers, Weng Sanren and Big Fat Dragon were much calmer, though their expressions differed.
After recovering his senses, the former looked at Wu Yuanjun's back with a trace of admiration in his eyes; the latter's eyes looked even more aged, as though he had seen the story's ending.
After a brief silence, Weng Sanren turned toward the steward and asked softly, "Were those... Pottery Figurines that died in their place?!"
"Yes. My lord sent you to retrieve the Pottery Figurines from the Spirit-Communicating Tunnel precisely so he could use them in the Main Hall." The steward nodded without denying it.
"What a move." Hearing this, Weng Sanren murmured inwardly, A great general of his generation. That maneuver... even I failed to see through it earlier.
He needed only to make a few connections before everything fell into place and he understood what had happened.
Likewise, after hearing the steward's answer, countless details surfaced in Ren Ye's mind and instantly linked together.
Thinking back, after the five of them entered the tunnel that day, they had encountered "False Bodies" identical to themselves in its outer reaches. Big Fat Dragon had nearly been extorted for a hefty sum by Ren Ye over that...
At the time, none of them had imagined those False Bodies had anything to do with the Pottery Figurines. They had simply assumed