Lin Ke sighed softly. Ignoring the two men's questions, he looked instead at Mei and Lan.
"What happened? What's going on?"
Mei spoke quickly in a low voice. "Young Master Lin, the three of us got separated from the princess. When we found this place and sent out a Voice-Transmitting Talisman, these two suddenly attacked us."
"They trapped all three of us in a formation. We couldn't draw on spiritual qi."
"Then they made... made those filthy demands. Zhu refused, so they..."
At this point, Mei was sobbing too hard to speak.
The cultivator holding the dagger immediately kicked Mei. "Shut your filthy mouth!"
Then he pointed the dagger at Lin Ke again. "I asked you a question! Are you deaf?"
The other man said, "I reckon you shameless lovers came up this mountain late at night for a tryst. Why pretend to be so pure?"
"If you refuse, I'll kill your man!"
Lin Ke looked at Zhu on the ground and listened to the cultivator's words, his anger mounting.
But he saw that, at the very back of the cavern, there was actually a tunnel leading straight up toward the mountaintop.
Though it had yet to be dug all the way through, it made the two cultivators' intentions abundantly clear.
"You're trying to steal the treasures in the Empty Storehouse, aren't you?"
"How do you think the Grand Consort, the Second Consort, or Supreme Elder Qinghe would feel if I told them about this?"
Veins immediately bulged on the two sharp-faced, monkey-cheeked cultivators, and the dagger pressed a little deeper into Mei's neck.
Because Mei was under the effects of the Peril Formation, the dagger easily sliced open her neck.
Blood immediately gushed out.
"If you tell the Grand Consort and the Second Consort, we'll kill your woman!"
"We'll